Consider this a small part of my response to the people who complain about there being women at the barricade in the musical (specifically about how anachronistic it supposedly is).
Porte Saint-Martin, eight o’clock. They seized the two gates, Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, which they kept despite the arrival of a regiment of lancers, one of the infantry and some companies of the National Guard. The insurgents abandoned the first and made false resistance at the second until ten o’clock to give time for brave friends to meet again at the cloister of Saint-Méry. They saw a platoon fire at inoffensive people after having told them: “Messieurs, go past quickly, there’s no danger;” and immediately a discharge from their side, which was the one opposite to where they were themselves being harassed by some skirmishing shots. The route from Porte Saint-Martin to the Cloister was for many of the brave men such an extraordinary thing that it’s inconceivable that they would have made it there. A woman, rue…….. took a shot herself to avenge a man killed in front of her by bayonet strikes, joining a handful of brave men who forced the post to let them pass. [x]
So if you ever need a primary source to point to which mentions a woman not only participating but actually fighting in the June Uprising, here you go, here’s your quote.
I swear I’m gonna make a post about the women of Saint-Merry at some point… If it seems like I’ve forgotten, remind me. It’s not even gonna be a huge post or anything because I didn’t find that much material (part of why I haven’t done it yet: waiting to see if I can find more) but yeah, that’s a thing I want to do.
Not a comic this year! Due to Work, Life, and Other Weird Stuff, I had all of five days instead of the usual two weeks or so to get this year’s Thing done, which sort of limited my options. The script I’ve been working on for the last two years got shelved, Feuilly and Gavroche got spared…. and Courfeyrac won the Barricade Lottery. Umm.
My profound thanks to @ellie-valsin for her comprehensive guide to 1830s men’s fashion, which I consulted extensively while cooking this up. Any mistakes/inaccuracies/ anachronisms/typos lurking in this piece are deeply regretted (they are to be blamed upon excessive sleep deprivation). Any distress caused by this post…. not so much. ;)
[Yes, I realise I didn’t include every last item in a gentleman’s wardrobe, but there’s only so much I could complete in five days. LOL. Besides, (1) that would’ve been bordering on pedantry, and (2) I doubt if anyone wants to see me dragging this horror for longer than it already is….]
[If Courfeyrac’s Scarlett O’Hara impersonation looks a little familiar…. then you probably (1) follow me on Dreamwidth, or (2) used to lurk at Abaisse – in which case, hello!]
[Re: Shirt (Section 6) – I realise that one likely does not carry off a body in such a fashion, but I doubted that anyone would appreciate Bahorel getting hauled off like a sack of potatoes…]
I love when Victor hugo describes the character of Enjolras and likens him to many characters , here are some of them :
[ “There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo.” ]
Vol.V – Book.I – Ch.XXIII
[ “He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous.” ]
Vol.III – Book.IV – Ch.I
[ “Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman’s face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis.” ]
Vol.IV – Book.XII – Ch.VIII
[ “The bare throat of Evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved Aristogeiton; he, like Harmodius, thought flowers good for nothing except to conceal the sword.” ]
Vol.III – Book.IV – Ch.I
[ “In the Con- vention, he would have been Saint-Just.” ]
Vol.III – Book.IV – Ch.I
[ “He had but one passion— the right; but one thought—to overthrow the obstacle. On Mount Aventine, he would have been Gracchus.” ]
Vol.III – Book.IV – Ch.I
[ “Enjolras, as the reader knows, had something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with Cromwell.” ]
