"Yesterday, February 22, I went to the Chamber of Peers. The weather was fine and very cold, in spite of the noonday sun. In the Rue de Tournon I met a man in the custody of two soldiers. The man was fair, pale, thin, haggard; about thirty years old; he wore coarse linen trousers; his bare and lacerated feet were visible in his sabots, and blood-stained bandages round his ankles took the place of stockings; his short blouse was soiled with mud in the back, which indicated that he habitually slept on the ground; his head was bare, his hair dishevelled. Under his arm was a loaf. The people who surrounded him said that he had stolen the loaf, and it was for this that he had been arrested.
When they reached the gendarmerie barracks one of the soldiers entered, and the man stayed at the door guarded by the other soldier.
A carriage was standing at the door of the barracks. It was decorated with a coat of arms; on the lanterns was a ducal coronet; two grey horses were harnessed to it; behind it were two lackeys. The windows were raised, but the interior, upholstered in yellow damask, was visible. The gaze of the man fixed upon this carriage, attracted mine. In the carriage was a woman in a pink bonnet and costume of black velvet, fresh, white, beautiful, dazzling, who was laughing and playing with a charming child of sixteen months, buried in ribbons, lace and furs.
This woman did not see the terrible man who was gazing at her.
I became pensive.
This man was no longer a man for me; he was the spectre of misery, the brusque, deformed, lugubrious apparition in full daylight, in full sunlight, of a revolution that is still plunged in darkness, but which is approaching. In former times the poor jostled the rich, this spectre encountered the rich man in all his glory; but they did not look at each other, they passed on. This condition of things could thus last for some time. The moment this man perceives that this woman exists, while this woman does not see that this man is there, the catastrophe is inevitable.
"
SpiritOfDawn wrote:Oh my god you're reading Fernau?
One of the most hilarious history writers... intentionally biased, often, but brilliant in his rambligns.
For those of you who are not too weak of stomach when it comes to American History, I would recommend "Halleluja" by him as well - but I'm warning you. he's no fan of the US.
deHavilland wrote:Tumblr recently brought up the fact that Blondeau is mentioned twice in Les Mis; once as the asshole who struck Bossuet from the ledger and then of course, once before when Tholomyes' friends Listolier and Fameuil explain him to Fantine as one of their professors.
But that's not cool, so forget that business. What's cool is that Jean Baptiste Antoine Hyacinthe Blondeau, law professor in Paris from 1808 to 1830 (when he was made dean, and then would have continued with the school after that, eventually dying in 1854) wrote a couple books.
Institutes De L'Empereur Justinien, Volume 1
Institutes De L'Empereur Justinien, Volume 2
and Essais Sur Quelques Points de Legislation Ou de Jurisprudence
Wow. It's like reading the same textbooks as Bahorel, Bossuet, Courfeyrac, Marius and (probably) Enjolras! Except not Bahorel! Because he probably never read them.
And also not because they were all published after they'd been shot and killed.
En conséquence, vous avez sous votre puissance non seulement l'enfant qui naît de vous et de votre épouse, mais encore celui qui naît de votre fils et de son épouse , c'est-à-dire votre petit-fils et votre petite-fille, et votre arrière-petit- fils et votre arrière-petitc-fille, et ainsi des autres (qui descendent de vous par mâle.O ; en effet, les enfants qui naissent de votre fille ne sont pas sous votre puissance , mais bien sous celle de leur père.
Consequently, you have under your power not only the child who was born to you and your spouse, but also that which was born of your son and his wife; that is to say your grandson and your granddaughter, and your great-grandson and great-granddaughter, and therefore others (who descended to you from a male; indeed, the children who are born of your daughter are not in your power, but in that of their father.
Where a guardian has not been chosen for a minor by his father or mother who died last, the guardianship belongs of right to his paternal grandfather; and in default of such to his maternal grandfather, and so ascending, in such manner as that the paternal ancestor shall, in all cases, be preferred to the maternal ancestor in the same degree.
deHavilland wrote: The Napoleonic Code provides guardianship to the maternal grandfather in the event that a paternal grandfather is no longer living.Where a guardian has not been chosen for a minor by his father or mother who died last, the guardianship belongs of right to his paternal grandfather; and in default of such to his maternal grandfather, and so ascending, in such manner as that the paternal ancestor shall, in all cases, be preferred to the maternal ancestor in the same degree.
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