ăEMILE CORNETă
          24  ⹠ PUBLIC  ⹠ TAKEN BY RITA
Readers are advised to steer clear of the 19th arrondissement tonight, lest they be forced to overhear the ravenous diatribe of dearest Emile Cornet as he attempts to galvanize the abattoir workers into yet another strike. To the few who find a thrill in listening to the young radical share his vision of a lawless world in which they and their loved ones would be decapitated, we wish a pleasant evening and perhaps a modicum of sense.
It was a good thing, Madame Cornet would sigh as her son grew out of his brotherâs clothes, that Emile had inherited the sturdy constitution of a man who could take a punch. He sure did spend his every waking breath inviting one.
He didnât always seem destined to. His father was yet another obedient Parisian printer. His mother was a kleptomaniac maid who kept her hands deft and her mouth shut. They were poor, but rarely went hungry. Emile had not even been the most problematic of the five Cornet children, at first. Always sullen and more than a little off-putting, he had nonetheless served as a welcomed relief between middle sister Marie Louiseâs malevolent energy and young Marcelâs hysterics. But the silence would not last. Soon enough Emile went off to school, to the priests, and took to it as no Cornet ever had. He was intelligent, his mother would say, first proudly, then bitterly.
âNow, father,â he would ask PĂ©re Philippe, âwhy does the flesh of Christ taste like flour? And why do we need to be absolved of our sins before eating? Is cannibalism itself not the gravest sin involved?â
He had arrived insolent. Yet, punishing and smacking him for it didnât make things better. On the contrary, it backfired. For why would Emile care to pose a question politely when he was just going to be smacked in the head anyway? Why refrain from biting a chunk of flesh off of another boyâs arm in a fight if he was going to be beaten or punished just as badly if he didnât? His intelligence allowed him to get away with a lot, but there was another reason it took him so long to get himself expelled. You see, after a while, Emileâs bluntness ceased to shock. It became his identity. He was not the class clown, but the class arsonist.
In the summer of his thirteenth birthday, Bakuninâs âGod and The Stateâ became the first can of gasoline, as well as the very last drop that got him sent back home and enrolled in an apprenticeship as a printer. He had borrowed it from one of his older brother Michelâs friends, a loudmouth for whom holding the book had been more of a thrill than actually reading it, and took to the poetic, disjointed French translation with ironically religious fervor. He would never give it back.
âIf God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist.â Even afterwards, once he had attended meetings and moved on to other books and authors and acquainted himself with the much more pragmatic historical materialism, he would always hold a special warmth for that first refusal of universal authority.
When the war came, Emile was still too young to be drafted, but not too young to stay quiet. He couldnât stomach waiting at home while his older brother Michel was progressively dismembered by German land mines. All under the orders of old men who would never know the scent of their own blood. All while he read articles that relished in the revolutionary potential of such a bloodbath. He was pointed towards the antimilitarist movement by a few disgruntled colleagues, and so began Emileâs affair with politics. His parents were devastated.
In 1920, he supported the railway strikes. Later that year, he left the socialists to join the French Section of the Communist International. The newly formed Confédération générale du travail unitaire turned out to be the perfect stage in which to make an entrance, and Emile soon emerged as one of its most passionate young organizers.
A ruthless and wry public speaker, he makes up for his unfinished education and overly ambitious ideas with a mesmerizing fire. Emile unites people through a shared sense of injustice, entertaining them by intellectually and verbally demolishing his adversaries. It is no small feat. The streets of Paris may be cobbled with the corpses of idealistic firebrands, but no one should underestimate the damage such men can do when their time comes.
The Fugitive:Theyâve escaped from a life you canât comprehend - and you thrive in an environment theyâre clearly not cut out for. Perhaps they can be shockingly naive, but⊠know your enemy, as the saying goes. If you can handle their ignorance, you might be able to pick up a few things that could help you shatter the system.
The Nymph: You go back, and fondly. But theyâve always been more cynical (you say), more practical (they insist), and your idealistic devotion to the cause is beginning to create a terrible rift between you. Donât they see that this matters? That it matters more than anything? Even your friendship, if it comes to thatâŠ
The Scourge: They have it in for you and those who think the way you do - maybe out of sheer, vicious malice, or because theyâre on the payroll of your many, many enemies. Either way, when they show up, you know thereâs going to be trouble.
Faceclaim & Pronouns: Finn Cole, he/him
The Unionist is taken by Rita, she/her.
