TERROR, on YOUTUBE!

[missweirdness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i guess what i found on youtube?

That dreadful Terror! Robespierre and the french revolution..

here's the link -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcZxrb_L0_M

part 1 of 9, hahahah

enjoy =O

 

 and apparently the emo GUY is ST. JUST! GASP!

 

I'm watching now..=( 

now discuss!

 

 

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I believe so, but I'd have to check the reference...

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Yes, the original quote, in context, was: "Vous avez voulu une République ; si vous ne vouliez point en même temps ce qui la constitue, elle ensevelirait le peuple sous ses débris. Ce qui constitue une République, c'est la destruction totale de ce qui lui est opposé. On se plaint des mesures révolutionnaires ! Mais nous sommes des modérés, en comparaison de tous les autres gouvernements." (From his report of 8 Ventôse Year II, p. 659 of his Oeuvres complètes, edited by A. Kupiec and M. Abensour, and published by Gallimard in 2004.)

To compare both quotes in the same language, an English translation of the sentence in bold in the preceding paragraph:
"What constitutes a Republic is the total destruction of that which is opposed to it."
If Schama's version were translated into French, it would probably go something like this:
"Ce qui constitue la République, c'est l'extermination de tous ceux qui lui sont opposés."
...Which is really not the same thing at all.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

No, really not... Everybody knows what the use of "extermination" very unsubtly hints at. Also, I couldn't remember in what speech it was yesterday, so thanks. >_>

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Seriously: there's no way that "translation" is in any way a coincidence. (Although Schama's French probably isn't very good either...) Sure thing. I couldn't remember either, so I googled it and then checked the reference.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not. But then, they keep on making up quotes that Saint-Just never said in English (like that one with the liberty bedded on corpses... or, I don't want to remember it okay) and, like Sophie Wahnich said in her essay on terrorism, they even quoted (in French however) something from Büchner (in which he compares the revolution to the plague -- which is a quite Thermidorian image indeed -- LIKE ALL THE MACABRE IMAGES ANYWAY) and historically attributed it to him.

Also, I must rant, did you see the comment right after victoriavandal's on the first part on youtube? Some idiot calls it "an honest, thought-provoking progressive critique". Schama. Progressive? With all the sophisms and false representations constructed by our so very modern speech, we're not far from totalitarism, as someone said in the comments, indeed.

[(Anonymous)]

After all, Schama is openly defending cynism and corruption and condemning idealism as potentially totalitarian. So why not to manipulate a couple of quotes? If you point out to it, you are probably a fundamentalist who claims there is only one Truth and thus a potential Hitler :-D Sibylla

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

I've seen the defense of corruption already: last year (all those things are always so recent), there was an essay published in France by a psychanalyst, Marie-Laure Susini, who wrote an "éloge de la corruption" in which she copies Gallo's most ridiculous psycho-historical delirium to bash Robespierre as "the voice of the superego" and calls his incorruptibility (or all incorruptibility in general) a totalitarian trait, because obviously it aims at an impossible purity, of something ridiculous like that which echoes the so-called "fatal purity" once more. As for the defense of cynicism, that dates back to Wajda all right. I've never seen so much ideological manipulation of history used to denounce the totalitarian ideological manipulation of history! (Well, that is, until that BBC docudrama!) I don't know why the speakers of such destructive ideologies, which are directly responsible for the threat that is actually coming upon us -- and no, it's really not communism! -- are still given such a leading space. How long will that last still? And when will the generational overthrow happen?

[(Anonymous)]

And the consequence of this distrust of virtue and praise of the corruption is that we get the government we deserve, composed of those who become politicians in order to change laws so they don't get to prison, who use our taxes to pay prostitutes for themselves and their guests, who are convinced that using the politics to promote the interests of those who give big money for their electoral campagnes is perfectly legitimate, even if it means dragging a country to war etc.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I remember that. D:< They think people will buy anything they want to cram down their throats...

...which, it seems, they will. I gave that commenter a thumbs-down, for all the good it will do. >.>

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Also, I think I caught that EMO!NOT!Saint-Just called UGLY!NOT!Robespierre "Maxime". Oh dear. *eyerolls*

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

He did. I watched a couple of seconds of it with the sound on to see what everyone on the CSP was laughing about--as it turns out, it's just the kind of joke Schama and co. would imagine Revolutionaries would spend all their time making. *rolls eyes*

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

And what was that joke they were laughing about? (Coz they seem to be laughing a lot, really, and Hérault does say strange things about copper coming from between the legs of the Habsbourg emperor or something (?????????) and the place where I heard that pseudo-SJ calling that pseudo-Robespierre "Maxime" was at 0:18 at the beginning of the first vid, in the "Thermidor" sequence, if you can call it as such.)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Oh, well Saint-Just also called him Maxime in the scene where he joins the CSP--I think that was in the second video, but I could be misremembering. One of the members says "welcome to Antoinette's boudoir" and someone else says "where she used to powder her cheeks" and then another one says "all four of them" and they all laugh uncontrollably for about half a minute. *headdesk*

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

How refined and spiritual. *eyerolls*

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

See what I mean? It's the kind of joke Schama would imagine them making. Not pretty, is it? D:

[(Anonymous)]

I must admit, though, that if there is a thing I have appreciated in the BBC docudrama, it is the fact that the members of the CPS are joking a lot. Generally they are depicted a a bunch of superserious cold monsters with random attacks of bloodthirsty hysteria, and the only revolutionary who knows how to have fun is Danton. SO in this respect, this movie is a change.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I like the fact that they have a sense of humor, but it's the kind of joke one can just imagine someone like Schama imagining them making--and of course, it has to be a joke about one of the "victims of the Terror" for whose deaths they want us to believe the members of the CSP are personally responsible... And really, what could be more monstrous than making jokes at the expense of someone you've killed? Frankly, if that's the kind of sense of humor they want to show them with, I'd rather have them entirely serious.

[(Anonymous)]

Good point. However, they also make jokes about the revolutionary calendar :-)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

When do they do that? (I've been watching it on mute, and frankly, it's revolting enough that way; I just turned it on for a few seconds to see what they were laughing about.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think it is the part 2 or 3 when Herault brings them the engravings of the sexy girls who represent the revolutionary months. Robespierre and Collot make some very funny comments and they all get a good laugh. I think it's the best moment of the whole docudrama :-)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, that does sound pretty funny. So, +1, -1000000, it all, er, evens out. >.>

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right, that scene was good. But even that was inaccurate; the republican calendar was adopted before Fabre named the months, and, thus, for a while documents were dated like this, for example: "2nd day of the 4th month of the 1st year of the French Republic, one and indivisible." Not to mention how people would frequently, even before the adoption of the republican calendar, people would often date documents from the first year of liberty (1789) or the first of equality (1792), quite on their own initiative. But of course, nothing happened in the Revolution that wasn't forced on people by all-powerful governments or angry mobs, so we can't have that!