A Melancholy Charm

… This poem from his 1st collection, is explicitly political and calls out the current “Liberal Monarchy” that took over after the July Revolution of 1830, the year of publication, and its suppression of multiple democratic uprisings in its wake. Four years later, in the Maupin Preface, he echoed the poem’s point: “What matters it whether ‘tis a sword, a holy-water sprinkler, or an [bourgeois-republican] umbrella that rules you? It’s a stick all the same… it would be far more progressive… to break it and throw away the pieces.” In experimental fashion, even his syntax fractures here, along with his faith in positivist revolution.

A new translation of Gautier’s Sonnet VII ! Rather than copy Olchar Lindsann’s work here, I’ll add the original French, for those who’d like to make the comparison:

Liberté de juillet ! femme au buste divin, Et dont le corps finit en queue, GÉRARD. E la lor cieca vita è tanto bassa Ch’ invidiosi son d’ogn’ altra sorte. Infemo, canto III.

Avec ce siècle infâme il est temps que l’on rompe ; Car à son front damné le doigt fatal a mis Comme aux portes d’enfer : Plus d’espérance ! – Amis, Ennemis, peuples, rois, tout nous joue et nous trompe. Un budget éléphant boit notre or par sa trompe. Dans leurs trônes d’hier encor mal affermis, De leurs aînés déchus ils gardent tout, – hormis La main prompte à s’ouvrir et la royale pompe. Cependant en juillet, sous le ciel indigo, Sur les pavés mouvants ils ont fait des promesses Autant que Charles dix avait ouï de messes ! –

A poem Nerval wrote a few months after the installation of Louis Philippe .  The dedication to Hugo was both in correspondence and in the published version. (translation under the cut).  

A couple shoelace-specifc notes:  I’ve had a hard tgime hunting down exactly when Gerard switched to “de Nerval”  instead of “Labrunie”; evidently he was using the name for his published work at least by late 1830. Also: am I wrong, or is he using tu  with Hugo here?    

A Victor Hugo.

Les Doctrinaires.

I

Oh ! le vingt-huit juillet, Quand les couleurs chéries, Joyeuses voltigeaient sur les toits endormis, Après que dans le Louvre et dans les Tuileries On eut traqué les ennemis ! Le plus fort était fait : que cette nuit fut belle ! Près du retranchement par nos mains élevé, Combien nous étions fiers de faire sentinelle En foulant le sol dépavé !

Oh ! nuit d'indépendance, et de gloire, et de fête ! Rien au-dessus de nous ! pas un gouvernement N'osait encor montrer la tête ! Comme on se sentait fort dans un pareil moment !… Que de gloire ! que d'espérance ! On était d'une taille immense, Et l'on respirait largement !

II

Ce n'est point la licence, hélas ! que je demande : Mais si quelqu'un alors nous eût dit que bientôt Cette liberté-là, qui naissait toute grande, On la remettrait au maillot ! Que des ministres rétrogrades, Habitant de palais encore mal lavés Du pur sang de nos camarades, Ne verraient dans les barricades Qu'un dérangement de pavés !

Ils n'étaient donc point là, ces hommes qui, peut-être Apôtres en secret d'un pouvoir détesté, Ont en vain renié leur maître Depuis que le coq a chanté !… Ils n'ont point vu sous la mitraille Marcher les rangs vengeurs d'un peuple désarmé… Au feu de l'ardente bataille Leur oeil ne s'est point allumé !

III

Quoi ! l'étranger, riant de tant de gloire vaine, De tant d'espoir anéanti, Quand nous lui parlerons de la grande semaine, Dirait : “Vous en avez menti !” Le tout à cause d'eux ! au point où nous en sommes, Du despotisme encore…oh non A bas ! à bas les petits hommes ! Nous avons vu Napoléon.

Petits ! - tu l'as bien dit, Victor, lorsque du Corse Ta voix leur évoquait le spectre redouté, Montrant qu'il n'est donné qu'aux hommes de sa force De violer la liberté : C'est le dernier ! on peut prédire Que jamais nul pouvoir humain Ne saura remuer ce globe de l'empire Qu'il emprisonnait dans sa main !

IV

Et quand tout sera fait, que la France indignée Aura bien secoué les toiles d'araignée Que des fous veulent tendre encor ; - Ne nous le chante plus, Victor, Lui, que nous aimons tant, hélas ! malgré ses crimes, Qui sont, par une vaine et froide majesté, D'avoir répudié deux épouses sublimes, Joséphine et la liberté !

Mais chante-nous un hymne universel, immense, Qui par France, Belgique et Castille commence… Hymne national pour toute nation ! Que seule à celui-là la liberté t'inspire !… Que chaque révolution Tende une corde de ta lyre !

 Gerard de Nerval,6 octobre 1830.

-Petrus Borel, 1830 

Rough translation, no attempt made to keep rhyme or meter here: (with assist from @kingedmundsroyalmurder, but all mistakes are mine)

So it’s true, France! O Paris, what scandal!  What! An affront already! Will you let a vandal hand veil  the scars of your brow?  July, so it’s true we begrudge you the luxury  of the blood flowing from your heart! Rotten painters! New iconoclasts! Respect the stigmata of the victor! 

Read More

Read More

Read More

Read More

Read More

blmchicago

goodkids madcity

bravespacealliance (also taking food/supply donations if you live in the city, their ig story has more information)

assata’s daughters

chicago freedom school

Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and shag a nun.

Around 1678 (she was like fourteen or fifteen), she was making a living in Marseilles by doing fencing exhibitions, dressed in male clothes, with her boyfriend who was on the run because he killed a guy in an illegal duel in Paris.

Then she joined an opera company and fell in love with a young woman, but the woman’s parents decided to put her in a convent to, you know, protect her honor and all that…

…so yeah, that’s when the whole “sneaking into a convent to help a nun sneak out and also putting the room on fire” thing happened.

She wounded a guy through the shoulder with a sword in a duel because he had made fun of her clothes. They became friends after she came back a few days later to ask if he was okay.

She beat a singer who was quite famous at the time because he was being a jerk to some women from her new opera troupe in Paris.

She kissed a young woman in front of everyone at a society ball, and that angered three noblemen who were there, so she beat them all in duel and fled to Brussels. Then she resumed her opera career there.

Then she returned to the Paris opera and had yet more problems with the law because she beat up her landlord.

She retired to a convent after the death of her love Madame la Marquise de Florensac, and died at only 33 years old.

pros:

it’s gender neutral

you get the chance to look like a cool jazz musician

you can compare all your friends to cats (always good)

cons:

The War of the Vendee (2012)

Bonus Round, given that Robespierre was a theist irl:

@stalinistqueens replied to your post “I feel like French people are allowed to duel you if you tell them…”

the lack of romanticism or meaningful symbolism in this recipe is apalling. this toast is not capturing the sublime and they should feel bad about it. :/

https://twistedfood.co.uk/twisted-night-in-with-britbox

@ghostplantss

mentioned you on a post

“smol fashionable courf!”

@pilferingapples​ aaa i’m sorry i told myself i wouldn’t bother you but??? i’m so curious?? what did the romantics have against high collars??

Well mostly I suspect that it was just really really not comfortable! Sharp-edged stiff collars cinched tight cutting right into the underside of the jaw are not everyone’s idea of a Fun Time:P   It was the very HEIGHT of Respectable Presentation to have a Proper High Collar and tightly-wound cravat, so, you know. CLEARLY just the Worst Thing XD. There are random attacks on the tall collar scattered all over Romantic lit.

Gautier’s History of Romanticism pretty well sums it up, with some self-awareness: 

The men of fifty of to-day, and even some who arc older, may remember the jokes directed against the shirt-collar as symbolical of the grocer, the bourgeois, the Philistine, who, with their ears scraped by the triangle of starched linen, seemed to be themselves bringing their decapitated heads like bouquets done up in paper.

what an absolutely amazing description of Ultimate Fates this article lists

“Nerval never managed to do everything he wanted, Nanteuil used up all his energy on commercial work, Borel yielded to lycanthropy” 

omg omg omg omg 

“Ever since his own day he (O’Neddy) has been not only a footnote in literary history, but a footnote to other footnotes such as Petrus Borel or Gérard de Nerval...”

omg omg omg omg