*sporfle*

[montagnarde1793]

All of you really need to read Le Chevalier de Saint-Just, if only for passages like this:

—Ainsi, vous vous appelez Louis Léon Antoine Florelle… Vous voyez, je me souviens. Et moi Maximilien Marie Isidore. Mais mes proches m’appellent Maximilien. Et vous, quel est celui de vos prénoms que vous préférez ?

Saint-Just parut un peu décontenancé.

—Que vous dire… Mes parents m’appellent Antoine, mais moi je préfère Léon.

—Et moi, Florelle. Voilà un prénom charmant, et peu ordinaire ! N’évoque-t-il pas Flore, la déesse des fleurs ? L’épanouissement des qualités physiques et spirituelles de l’homme ? Comme il vous va bien ! Vous permettez que je vous appelle Florelle ?

Saint-Just, maîtrisant sa confusion, répondit simplement :

—Avec plaisir. Ce qui vous plaît ne peut me déplaire.

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Truly, it is adorable.
..They've got lots of scenes like that.

And aside from the author's putting in a non-existent Duplay, it's pretty accurate too.

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

Wait, so you've read it? Aack! Lucky!

Tell me about the other scenes!

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Calm, calm....I haven't read the whole thing; just bits and pieces. I mean, it's a 400-page book and I just got it today!

You really want me to give that much away?

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

Where'd you get it? Don't say AbeBooks, 'cause then you've taken MY copy! *pouts*

*nodnodnod*

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Okay, don't get upset. Remain calm. Yes, I did get it from AbeBooks. *winces* Sorry!

Well the rest of that scene is pretty cute...

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

Crap. Oh well, they had more than one copy. I'm going to presume you took the cheapest one, though. Ah well. I'll live.

Go oooon....what about the bed scene?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I have absolutely no idea; I ordered it a really long time ago.

So, the rest of that scene:

Il s’apercevait seulement maintenant qu’il commençait à avoir des difficultés à parler : une fatigue insurmontable, résultat du branle-bas de ces derniers jours, le submergea soudain ; il bâilla.
Robespierre comprit tout.
—A propos, Florelle, dit-il sans avoir l’air d’y toucher, vous devez être fatigué du voyage. Débarrassez-vous donc de votre redingote et allongez-vous.
—Quoi, dit Saint-Just en sursautant, que dites-vous là…
—Mais qu’y a-t-il là de si extraordinaire ? Nous partageons bien les mêmes idées tous les deux, et j’espère que nous deviendrons des amis. A quoi bon faire des façons ?
—Mais vraiment, ce n’est pas convenable.
—Mais si, c’est convenable. Puisque vous n’avez pas craint de venir me voir à une heure si tardive, sourit Robespierre, cela veut dire que tout est convenable. J’ai justement du travail. Il fit celui s’absorbait dans la lecture.
Saint-Just ne put résister à la tentation et s’allongea. Il s’endormit sur-le-champ. Robespierre, sur une feuille de papier vierge, écrivait : « grandes capacités, intègre, dévoué ». L’Incorruptible avait l’habitude de partager ses idées avec le papier. Saint-Just devait voir cette feuille un an et demi après sa première conversation avec Robespierre.

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhhh! Great! Then the one I saw is probably still there! *bounces*

HAHAHAHA. They share ideas so why not share a bed? It's pretty much the same thing, right? *snickers* C'mon, Maxime, you're not even TRYING to be subtle.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Well, good then; it really does have some ingenious scenes!

...Like that one;) That scene just wins at life. And no, Maxime can't seem to be subtle about that: of course it's the same thing! What do you mean?

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

What other ingenious scenes are there?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

*laughs* You really do want me to give the whole book away, don't you?

...I really would, but I don't remember exact scenes. Just what I happened to come across seemed well-done, is all.
...And yes, it would seem that Maxime does call him Florelle all through the book. XD

[daughtermestizo.livejournal.com]

Just the slashy bits... *wibbles*

Oh? And what does Florelle call him?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it takes some sifting to find them...

Most of the time, he doesn't actually call him anything, but when he does he calls him Maximilien.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

...but isn't Elise the non-existent Duplay Elisabeth? I might be wrong, of course, I barely skimmed through the pages of the book weeks ago.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

You would think that, but no; Elisabeth, Eléonore, and Victoire are all in it.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

o.O

Maybe it's Maurice's nephew (don't remember his name) who decided to get a sex change...

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

...Considering that she has a baby...

She's just non-existent.

And his name is Simon, by the way; he was the one who got his leg blown off at Valmy--something else which would tend to discourage the view that she's him, since she can walk normally from what I can tell.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, Simon was his name...

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

...He was also the one who burned all of Maxime's manuscripts that had been saved in 1815 so he could get some administrative government job. Bastard.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

o.O

Oh, so if there's one bastard to blame if Saint-Just's love letters were burned, that's him! Though I suspected a lot more Éléonore of burning any love letter that would not be from her :P

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

...If there were any love letters from Saint-Just that got burned, it probably was Eléonore who did it; the papers Simon burned were ones she had been keeping, after all.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

May you allow me to silently curse Éléonore?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

*sighs* If you must. But do remember that since this probably wasn't the sort of thing Maxime would want on record either, he might have burned them himself as soon as he received (and read) them. And this is of course, assuming that there were such letters to begin with.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. Like in that fic I should normally write... but it'd be the third fic in which I'd get them burning something. Pyromaniac Maelicia!

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Pyromania can be...(well, I was going to say good, but perhaps not)...useful, in the right circumstances...