"Think of the nobility as poisonous frogs"

[montagnarde1793]

My history professor said the above quote, which convinced me, despite the somewhat unusual context, that she is awesome. (She was explaining how the nobles came in as protection from Viking raids, but turned out to be a far worse problem in the longterm--like those poisonous frogs they imported to Australia to get rid of an insect problem.)

Which reminds me, I haven't even shared the classes I'm taking yet, have I? (And next week is midterms!) To remedy that, I have:

Pratiques de l'écrit, which is basically this awesome class in which I get credit for writing essays on literally whatever I want. My topic of choice will come as a surprise to no one. Also, I got to write the lyrics to the Marseillaise on the board today and everyone had to sing.* 'Twas amazing. ^__^

*Except I pretty much had to fake it, my voice being uncooperative at the moment. (See below.)

Medieval and Early Modern European History, a course which sadly only goes up to 1740. I figured I ought to brush up on that period, since I really know nothing about anything pre-late 16th century. (And my knowledge decreases generally going backward from the late 18th.)

As a side note, for the above class, I just finished reading the autobiography of a medieval monk... from l'Aisne, as it happens. A large part of it is devoted to discussion of the uprising of the commune of Laon--which he naturally condemns pretty unequivocally, though he does acknowledge the corruption of the local nobility and clergy (he can do this, being 20 miles away)--and it really makes me wonder what an observer who wasn't l'abbé de Nogent-sous-Coucy would have to say about it... Not that such a person probably exists; that’s the problem with the 11^th and 12^th centuries: the only people educated enough to say anything about anything were monks. -__-;

Utopian Thought, a class in which we read works of utopian and dystopian literature and compare and critique them. It's fun, despite the distressing lack of non-Anglo-American authors (the only one on the reading list is Plato). Oh well, you can't have everything. :/

Women's Chorale, which isn't too bad, though I can't say I'm too fond of the repertoire: too much German, Church Music, and Modern pieces for me, and not enough French and Early Music. *sighs* I suppose it's my own fault for not being good enough at site reading to get into the Collegium Musicum. One of these semesters...

I'm also continuing to take voice and harpsichord lessons. The first look promising in terms of repertoire and in terms of having been assigned a teacher who knows what she's doing, even if she is only a grad student. -_-; The second... well, again with the German. I've had to put aside my Couperin and take up Bach, which, while I've nothing against Bach (except that he's generally harder to play), irks me greatly. I miss my French composers. D:

In other news, I have a rather bad cold at present, and have since Tuesday. This is chiefly inconvient in that I can't do anything for more than a minute without having to blow my nose, I have this incredibly painful cough, and I can't sing.

Also, against my better judgment, I did decide to download Saint-Just et la force des choses, and though I've only seen a little over ten minutes more so far than what was offerred for free, I've had time to note several things (beyond maelicia's observations about the first ten minutes, which I strongly second). The first is that just about everything is wrong to the point of being farcical--Saint-Just sounds like he's having a temper-tantrum at the tribune, while his bizarre hairdo bounces like jello and he stares at the ceiling. I really wish I were making this up. We already knew Maxime's appearance and characterization were all wrong from the free clips, so I won't go into that too much, except he told Saint-Just in this episode (among other things) that he would be his political "godfather." I don't know about you, but that phrasing strikes me as weird. Especially in the context of the scene, which was just generally so OOC for both of them.

There were, however, a couple of good points: sisterly love between Éléonore and Élisabeth, which was very cute, and then a Danton and Desmoulins who actually resembled themselves (which needless to say, is not true at all of the rest of the cast). Also, Danton said Saint-Just had "the face of a girl," which, while it made me facepalm, is I suppose, appropriately dantonesque.

That's all for now, but perhaps I shall update again when I have more to say about the film.

Edit: I forgot to mention, during Saint-Just's speech, someone--perhaps a Girondin?--asked who he was and whoever was sitting next to him called him "Robespierre's creature." -__-;;

Edit 2: Worse and worse! Now Saint-Just is saying he wants to support the people who are protesting the high cost of living (in particular of bread), and their Robespierre is telling him they could be secret aristocrats and his desire to support him shows his "lack of experience." D: D: D:

Edit 3: And now Robespierre manages to get even more OOC, if possible. He starts yelling (yes, literally yelling) about how the people are anarchists because they "pillage stores" and how they can't support them because the Girondins would start calling them anarchists too. But then he seems to start agreeing with the Gironde and (again) yells that Saint-Just's line of reasoning could lead to an attack on property! When did Maxime become a rabid Girondin, I wonder? And when did he start to shout? My brain, it bleeds.

Also, I don't know whether he said this historically, but Danton just said about the dumbest thing ever: "Respect poverty and poverty will respect opulence." >___< But a few things I liked about his speech: one, I recognized at least a few historical phrases in there, which was nice; two, Robespierre made a historical comment about Danton (though it doesn't date to that era--that is, to the formation of the Revolutionary Tribunal); three, the expression on Robespierre's face when he and Danton embraced afterward was priceless. You would have had to see it.

Edit 4: There's also a Girondin (I don't know which), who looks very similar to historical!Maxime. If they had only made a casting switch there!...

Edit 5: The Fall of the Gironde as here depicted has also made my brain bleed. For some unfathomable reason, it's clear the scene is trying to frame Vergniaud as some kind of hero. Meanwhile, Couthon only speaks after Robespierre whispers something in his ear--I guess we're supposed to gather that all Robespierre's friends are really just his puppets--and, of course, we've already established that Fred Personne unfortunately looks nothing like Couthon.

Edit 6: Okay, whoah. Whoah. Danton, in leaving the CSP, has just warned Barère that Robespierre just wants power and is using Couthon and Saint-Just as pawns to get it. (He refers to them as the "Holy Trinity: a cripple, a child, and Maximilien.") According to Danton he's incapable of anything but political intrigue, but at that he's "unbeatable". Remember, first, that we're still talking about summer 1793 here... If Danton ever thought that, which it's quite possible he did, or at least professed to by spring of 1794, it wouldn't have been directly after leaving the CSP. That doesn't make any sense. This movie's logic is, however, *special* in general, so I don't know why I'm surprised. The real problem though, is that the whole scene seems to be designed to portray Danton as the voice of reason... Which has so many problems I'm not even going to start. He does, however call Éléonore Cornélie Copeau, which, while I can't say it's a detail I *like*, per se, is at least accurate.

Edit 7: There's some guy following Couthon around carrying a pug. Just thought you all should know. XD;

Edit 8: So Marat just got stabbed... Without any context whatsoever. It just sort of happened. What I mind more though, is that it happened after Robespierre joined the CSP. WTF. D:

Edit 9: I would just like to point out that Carnot looks nothing like himself. Then again, neither do 90% of them, so I don't know why it really matters at this point.

Edit 10: Finally, something I liked: they included Robespierre's defence of the 73 Girondins. Though then they have Barère say that they've "put Terror on order of the day"... Except that, as Jean-Clément Martin's work Violence et Révolution so eloquently points out, Terror was never officially put on the order of the day, and therefore it's a bit absurd to have Barère referring to it as if it were. And then there was the extremely disconcerting way in which Billaud stares straight at the camera right after Barère says that. I have no idea why. O.o;

Edit 11: A bunch of soldiers, who have decided they are tired of being asked to fight on an empty stomach, just changed the words of the Marseillaise to go like this: "Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de soupe est arrivé." XD;;

Edit 12: This is just not okay. Saint-Just and Le Bas have just gone on mission together and we still haven't been introduced to Le Bas as a personage. We only see him from the back, and the other reason we know it's even him is because his signature is on a decree that's read along with Saint-Just's. >:(

Edit 13: On the other hand, Saint-Just does seem to know Élisabeth. And he just completely pwned Desmoulins, so they get points for that, assuredly. And he just hugged Robespierre, which would have been cute if they weren't so otherwise OOC. What, however, do you think is the likelihood that Robespierre would have the anonymous portrait of himself from the Carnavalet, the one by Labille-Guyard, the sketch by Gérard and one of Deseine's busts all in his room? Extremely small even if you believe the (Thermidorian) story that he had his portraits everywhere, you say? Well, the filmmakers here don't seem to think so. Though they just hugged a second time, and that was rather cute.

Edit 14: Schneider's Fête de la Raison just literally degenerated into an orgy. It was, um, special. Saint-Just (and presumably Le Bas, since he was there, though he still hasn't been introduced) picked that moment to arrest him. It was priceless, truly.

Edit 15: By the way, I forgot to mention that while Saint-Just is pwning Desmoulins, the girl I've been assuming was Élisabeth was flirting with the guy I assume was Le Bas in the background. So that at least was a good detail.