Pensées montagnardes

Drapeau du bataillon de Saint-Méry de la garde nationale parisienne (1790) : “Force, liberté, paix”.

Drapeau du bataillon de Saint-Marcel de la garde nationale parisienne (1790) : “Mort ou liberté”.

needsmoreresearch:

montagnarde1793:

needsmoreresearch:

bunniesandbeheadings:

Illustrations of Maximilien Robespierre by Évariste Gamelin for the 1925 edition of Anatole France’s The Gods Are Athirst.

This is on the long, long list of things I need to get around to reading.

You’ll see for yourself, of course, but I found it a bit frustrating, if only because the author clearly wants the characters and their actions to be read in a very specific fashion, which I refused to do. (Though to be fair it’s not quite as one dimensional as that awful article I read recently that praised it for creating a portrait of a “type” in Gamelin - one that apparently prefigures the Nazis - would have one believe.)

Good to know.  It’s not all that high on the verylonglist but I do at some point want to at least take a look.

I know the feeling - I have far too many books I’ve been meaning to read for years.

needsmoreresearch:

bunniesandbeheadings:

Illustrations of Maximilien Robespierre by Évariste Gamelin for the 1925 edition of Anatole France’s The Gods Are Athirst.

This is on the long, long list of things I need to get around to reading.

You’ll see for yourself, of course, but I found it a bit frustrating, if only because the author clearly wants the characters and their actions to be read in a very specific fashion, which I refused to do. (Though to be fair it’s not quite as one dimensional as that awful article I read recently that praised it for creating a portrait of a “type” in Gamelin - one that apparently prefigures the Nazis - would have one believe.)

Drapeau du bataillon de Saint-Laurent de la garde nationale parisienne (1790) : “Ex Virtute Libertas”.

(3000 billets. Déjà !)

frenchrepublicancalendar:

montagnarde1793:

frenchrepublicancalendar:

montagnarde1793:

frenchrepublicancalendar:

25 Floréal: Carpe (carp, koi, Cyprinus carpio and other species in the Cyprinidae family)

Carp culture—humans raising carp, that is, not the carps’ intellectual millieu, which is unknowable—goes far back in history.  An early aquaculture manual from China dates from 473 BCE; the Romans are usually credited with spreading carp into Europe. 

Why carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  For people with small farms, a carp pond can be a low-cost and low-maintenance way to supplement their meals and their income.  For people with a little more time on their hands, carp lend themselves to breeding as colorful pets: in Japan, Cyprinus carpio was domesticated as the koi, and in China Carassius auratus was bred into the goldfish.  (For people with even more time on their hands, the mmorpg.)

Why not carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  This makes them a highly successful competitor with native species, when they come into a new ecosystem.  Several carp species are considered “injurious wildlife” in the US under the Lacey Act.  Not only do they compete with native species, they’re messy: their feeding behavior uproots pond plants and muddies the water and they excrete phosphorus that encourages heavy algae growth.  Carp can tolerate that mess better than the pond’s original inhabitants, leading to more carp, leading to more mess…

I’m a little surprised they decided to give carp a day, considering they were all supposed to be part of the “conspiracy against carp” (you can’t make these things up): http://www.franceculture.fr/oeuvre-la-conjuration-contre-les-carpes-enqu%C3%AAte-sur-les-origines-du-d%C3%A9cret-de-dess%C3%A8chement-des-%C3%A9tang.

Oh my god, I had no idea.  Offering a different link that might work better and giving some excerpts:

“On 14 frimaire, year II, the Convention ordered the drainage and conversion into farmland of nearly all the wetlands in France.  The decree, presented as a new weapon in the service of a Republic at war, was adopted after a stormy session, in the course of which Danton cried out to overcome resistance in the Assembly ‘We are all in the coalition against carp!’* …How, in the eyes of the legislature, could the carp become a counter-revolutionary animal and aquaculture a symbol of the Ancien Régime?”

I am not altogether up on my carp wars.  However, the convenience of growing carp in small ponds relies on two things: the ownership of land with a pond on it (as opposed to, say, wheat), and the right to catch and sell the fish in said pond.  I’m assuming the carp issues come from this?

Man, how could I miss this!

* The word is conjuration, which could be translated as conspiracy.  Coalition seems closer to the connotations in English, though.  I am reminded of the time my step-grandfather (not an un-Dantonish person, come to think of it) announced that he and my grandmother had “DECLARED WAR ON VIOLETS.”

I used the word conspiracy because “conjuration” didn’t really have positive connotations in the 18th century as a whole (the dictionary of the Académie française gives “Conspiration, complot contre l’État, contre le Prince” in both 1762 and 1798). . It’s one of those cases of revolutionaries trying to reclaim certain words and concepts, it seems to me. Like Desmoulins’ elaborate historico-linguistic defense of “la délation”, both the term and the practice behind it.

As for the issues with carp, I think it had less to do with the poor fish themselves than with the draining of swampland in order to get rid of insalubrious conditions (one of a number of things the movie Ridicule really gets right) and create more room for agriculture. Rich people using land that could be used to grow wheat to raise carp was, therefore, a large part of the issue, but not the whole story.

Oops—I definitely didn’t mean coalition vs conspiracy as a critique of your translation.  Just, as you point out, it seems that in this case they’re trying to present this conjuration as a case of positive revolutionary forces coming together against the repressive enemy.  (When I started this daily-calendar thing I had no idea how many of the entries would end up with mental wrangling over linguistics.  If a revolutionary says “conspiracy” is it the same word as when a disgruntled pond-owner says “conspiracy?”  Is “conjuration” in the Montagne, 14 frimaire an II, the same as “conjuration” in the Académie française in 1798?  Then again—the whole calendar deals with renaming months and days, so I should have seen this coming.)

I missed out on Ridicule when it came out—the trailers looked kind of meh—but it looks like it’s streaming on Netflix.  Excellent!

The question of linguistics is not a simple one, it’s true. But I do think it’s telling that, unlike many of the entries, the one for “conjuration” doesn’t change in the dictionary of the Académie française between 1762 and 1798. Besides, Danton could well have said “coalition” (although he probably wouldn’t, given the coalition powers) or “alliance” or even have declared war on carpe. I think there is some significance to his choice to say “conjuration”… And the use of “conjuration” in the 18th century is actually closer to “révolution” that one might think, which becomes particularly apparent in the titles of histories (the terms aren’t equivalent, but there is a notion that they both can both apply to a transformation in government and which term you choose is a matter of interpretation, one suggesting individual initiative, the other more profound forces). The term also always puts me in mind of Desmoulins wishing there had been a “professeur de conjurations” at Louis-le-Grand to teach him and Robespierre how to free their country (RFB, n° 15) (which, now that I think of it, actually makes for some hilarious mental images).

But I acknowledge that there is also the question of how it sounds in the language you’re translating into. I don’t imagine anyone would proudly declare themselves part of a conspiracy in English. At least not in modern English. I don’t know, perhaps someone who knows something about the Radicals would tell me otherwise for the 18th century. But that’s the sticky part: the point isn’t to translate into 18th century English, since filtering 18th century France through 18th century England only muddles things more, as far as I’m concerned (I’m looking at you, Robert “Grub Street” Darnton), but translating 18th century mentalities into modern English isn’t necessarily simple either.

In any case, speaking of 18th century mentalities, Ridicule really captures them well, which is extremely rare for any film. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in acquainting themselves with (at least some aspects of) end-of-the-Ancien-régime culture.

frenchrepublicancalendar:

montagnarde1793:

frenchrepublicancalendar:

25 Floréal: Carpe (carp, koi, Cyprinus carpio and other species in the Cyprinidae family)

Carp culture—humans raising carp, that is, not the carps’ intellectual millieu, which is unknowable—goes far back in history.  An early aquaculture manual from China dates from 473 BCE; the Romans are usually credited with spreading carp into Europe. 

Why carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  For people with small farms, a carp pond can be a low-cost and low-maintenance way to supplement their meals and their income.  For people with a little more time on their hands, carp lend themselves to breeding as colorful pets: in Japan, Cyprinus carpio was domesticated as the koi, and in China Carassius auratus was bred into the goldfish.  (For people with even more time on their hands, the mmorpg.)

Why not carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  This makes them a highly successful competitor with native species, when they come into a new ecosystem.  Several carp species are considered “injurious wildlife” in the US under the Lacey Act.  Not only do they compete with native species, they’re messy: their feeding behavior uproots pond plants and muddies the water and they excrete phosphorus that encourages heavy algae growth.  Carp can tolerate that mess better than the pond’s original inhabitants, leading to more carp, leading to more mess…

I’m a little surprised they decided to give carp a day, considering they were all supposed to be part of the “conspiracy against carp” (you can’t make these things up): http://www.franceculture.fr/oeuvre-la-conjuration-contre-les-carpes-enqu%C3%AAte-sur-les-origines-du-d%C3%A9cret-de-dess%C3%A8chement-des-%C3%A9tang.

Oh my god, I had no idea.  Offering a different link that might work better and giving some excerpts:

“On 14 frimaire, year II, the Convention ordered the drainage and conversion into farmland of nearly all the wetlands in France.  The decree, presented as a new weapon in the service of a Republic at war, was adopted after a stormy session, in the course of which Danton cried out to overcome resistance in the Assembly ‘We are all in the coalition against carp!’* …How, in the eyes of the legislature, could the carp become a counter-revolutionary animal and aquaculture a symbol of the Ancien Régime?”

I am not altogether up on my carp wars.  However, the convenience of growing carp in small ponds relies on two things: the ownership of land with a pond on it (as opposed to, say, wheat), and the right to catch and sell the fish in said pond.  I’m assuming the carp issues come from this?

Man, how could I miss this!

* The word is conjuration, which could be translated as conspiracy.  Coalition seems closer to the connotations in English, though.  I am reminded of the time my step-grandfather (not an un-Dantonish person, come to think of it) announced that he and my grandmother had “DECLARED WAR ON VIOLETS.”

I used the word conspiracy because “conjuration” didn’t really have positive connotations in the 18th century as a whole (the dictionary of the Académie française gives “Conspiration, complot contre l’État, contre le Prince” in both 1762 and 1798). . It’s one of those cases of revolutionaries trying to reclaim certain words and concepts, it seems to me. Like Desmoulins’ elaborate historico-linguistic defense of “la délation”, both the term and the practice behind it.

As for the issues with carp, I think it had less to do with the poor fish themselves than with the draining of swampland in order to get rid of insalubrious conditions (one of a number of things the movie Ridicule really gets right) and create more room for agriculture. Rich people using land that could be used to grow wheat to raise carp was, therefore, a large part of the issue, but not the whole story.

Drapeau du bataillon de Saint-André-des-Arcs de la garde nationale parisienne (1790) : “Union, force et vertu”.

frenchrepublicancalendar:

25 Floréal: Carpe (carp, koi, Cyprinus carpio and other species in the Cyprinidae family)

Carp culture—humans raising carp, that is, not the carps’ intellectual millieu, which is unknowable—goes far back in history.  An early aquaculture manual from China dates from 473 BCE; the Romans are usually credited with spreading carp into Europe. 

Why carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  For people with small farms, a carp pond can be a low-cost and low-maintenance way to supplement their meals and their income.  For people with a little more time on their hands, carp lend themselves to breeding as colorful pets: in Japan, Cyprinus carpio was domesticated as the koi, and in China Carassius auratus was bred into the goldfish.  (For people with even more time on their hands, the mmorpg.)

Why not carp?  They grow big, they eat a variety of foods, they breed easily, they tolerate wide ranges of temperature and pH, and their manure enriches pond mud that can fertilize gardens.  This makes them a highly successful competitor with native species, when they come into a new ecosystem.  Several carp species are considered “injurious wildlife” in the US under the Lacey Act.  Not only do they compete with native species, they’re messy: their feeding behavior uproots pond plants and muddies the water and they excrete phosphorus that encourages heavy algae growth.  Carp can tolerate that mess better than the pond’s original inhabitants, leading to more carp, leading to more mess…

I’m a little surprised they decided to give carp a day, considering they were all supposed to be part of the “conspiracy against carp” (you can’t make these things up): http://www.franceculture.fr/oeuvre-la-conjuration-contre-les-carpes-enqu%C3%AAte-sur-les-origines-du-d%C3%A9cret-de-dess%C3%A8chement-des-%C3%A9tang.