Brick Club 3.2.4 - 3.2.5
Gillenormand does not enjoy politics, but he love love LOVES aristocrats. Give him a duke or a king over a minister or chairman any day. He quickly disparages a string of names, all of whom were politicians around the time of the July Monarchy, but notably of varying political orientations, so he isn’t singling out liberals or conservatives. This is actually a really interesting disconnect and not all that uncommon or unsurprising. Why does Gillenormand hate the power but love the symbol? There’s a very complicated answer involving national/personal identity, class consciousness, and systems of power.
But to put this question a different way: why are people so obsessed with the British royal family today? We know Gillenormand loves French aristocratic culture, he still dresses like an incroyable for heaven’s sake, and there’s something about having a glorified figure with tons of power representing a nationality/culture that you strongly identify with that is appealing. But he also holds a position of steadily decreasing societal power and hates the idea of a government dictating what he can and can’t do. A toothless monarchal figure is right up his alley.
There’s a fascinating video about this phenomenon, specifically focusing on Britain, by Philosophy Tube, in which he compares the obsession with royal figures to waifuism and ultimately empty prestige which I highly recommend.
Gillenormand also has an essentialist view on the nature of power, social standing, nationality, etc, which we see played out more in chapter 5 in a weird way.
I don’t know much anything about finances, but it seems like Gillenormand’s second wife did pretty well for him, considering his philosophy amounts to “sit back and let women do everything they want and accept your own ruin.” You may have no money, but at least you’ll have a ton of mistresses...? Not entirely certain what Gillenormand’s goals are with this. Regardless, he ends up living exceedingly comfortably. I don’t know anything about annuities, but fifteen thousand francs is what Bienvenu was receiving as a bishop salary and that seemed like a good wage.
Back to essentialism, he gives all his male servants the name of their province of origin, which is weird and interesting. I guess when your ninety (four twenties and ten) and change, they let you get away with that sort of thing. Even his willingness to offer a woman more than her asking price of wages feels more self-aggrandizing than charitable in any way. Especially because he immediately renames her, christ. Old men really be like that, huh.














