Citoyenne la traductrice jacobine

 

( ...Memeage! )Sorry, I just couldn't resist. ^^;

In another news, something amusing happened to me in Latin class today. We were playing one of those stupid games where you have to divide into teams, in order to see how well we had learned our participles. Now, in that class, a lot of the passages we translate are in fact just Cicero denouncing Catiline. You know, like he does. So, just to be contrary, my team decided they wanted to be called "Catiline's Supporters." Given this, I attempted to sit out the game, but unfortunately, our instructor, Alice (who, by the way, is only a Classics major in her last year--though lest it sound like I'm disparaging her, I really think quite well of her) was making everyone take a turn.

So the following exchange took place:

Me: "I refuse to conspire against the Republic." (I really did say exactly that, as I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn. XD;)
The Class: (Something along the lines of "...", "What?", and "Can she do that?")
Alice: (To paraphrase:) Um, well, I'll make up a separate sub-team. *writes "Catiline non-supporters" on the board* Pause. "Cicero would be proud." (She really did say that last bit.)

So the point - which I did get - did not go to Catiline's supporters. Admittedly, the whole thing was rather ridiculous and petty, but it was greatly amusing as well.

...I promise I'll get back to Serious Business in the next post. XD;

Yes, well. Here I am again. I don't know why I keep doing it, but:



I am officially ashamed.

In other news, I have dropped Living Skills, for *cough* certain teachers are EVIL.

And, I have a rant:

On Saint-Just:

I'm starting to see Saint-Just as a guy who was a bit crazy and who like Sparta a bit too much, but one who was not really "evil." He was well-meaning, and he was certainly brave--and if one is willing to look, like the other Robespierristes who went en mission (Couthon for example), he completed a very difficult task (that of getting Alsace in line with the rest of France) with almost no executions. (Compare that track record to those of Fouche, Collot d'Herbois, Carrier, and even some Dantonistes.) If his ideas were at times unworkable and naive, it's because he was young.

In short, Saint-Just was a victim of Thermidorean propaganda as much as Robespierre (and Couthon) were. Read: Saint-Just wasn't some crazy guy who burned down his boarding school and randomly sentenced people to death any more than Robespierre was a bloodless reptile or Couthon got his deformity by hiding in peat bogs chasing other men's wives, and was from then on consequentially crazy.

And if you believe either of those two things by now, we have a lot of work to do.

--S