Yuletide + Paris + Revolutionary fervour
I've been terminally rubbish at Yuletide this year. I've barely read anything. Trouble is, I tend to read fanfic when I get seized by the fannish need for a particular character or pairing, and then I go out and devour everything I can about her/him/etc/them. But I don't tend to read through archives on spec, so when the Yuletide archive goes live
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(Have you read the Claretie biography, btw? So. Awesome. And fanboyish. I believe M. Claretie owned a pair of Lucile's socks. I made entirely too much use of that book while fic-writing :D)
We did our damnedest to find exciting places, but Paris seemed to do its damnedest to keep them from us. Lafayette's grave, in particular, completely eluded us by hiding in the middle of a block, behind a hospital, inside a convent. Bloody Lafayette probably did it on purpose. We did find Louis-le-Grand (not particularly difficult as it's still there), and the Expiatory Chapel, and Max's house, but otherwise it was lots of Places Where Things Aren't - for example, The Place Where The Bastille Isn't (the most Isn't place in Paris), The Place Where The Cordeliers Isn't, The Place Where Camille's House Isn't, The Place Where Danton's House Isn't, etc etc etc. On the other hand, Danton's statue appeared to be stalking us, as we ended up finding it at least four times, twice when we really weren't expecting it. But if you go back to Paris and want directions to several Places Where Things Aren't (or Where Danton's Statue Is), we're the people to ask :D
^____^ I'll say again - I'm so, so very happy you liked the fic. You have seriously been the best recipient *ever*. Your request just had so much *love* in it, I was awfully worried about letting you down ^_^;; (And also about Max taking over. I love Camille an awful lot, but Max tends to eat my brain. Thankfully T is an enormous Camille fangirl and kept me on the straight and narrow :D)
I'd be very happy for you to friend me - may I do so in return? I was going to ask, but I tend to come over a bit LJ-shy ^_^;; (I must say, I was *deeply amused* when I saw you were my recipient and recognised you from sebastienne's and potatofiend's blogs - a reminder that some corners of the internet are really *astonishingly* small places.)
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I've read Certain Chunks of Claretie, but not all of it - sounds like an excellent project for After Finals, I think. ;) I've heard that thing about Lucile's socks before, and I find it terribly, terribly cute! Surely all biographers and historians need to be sekritly fannish...
I am definitely planning to go back to Paris during my forthcoming gap year, so I will have to call on you for directions to hidden revolutionary awesomeness when I do. The companion with whom I was travelling fortunately, displayed great tolerance for my desire to go to places where Camille once walked around. It was GREAT.
It's lovely to think there are other Camille fangirls out there in the ether! I do love Mantel's Max very much too, of course (not so much the historical Robespierre, but as written by Mantel he... well, simply breaks my heart), and the Max section is absolutely superb. I'm really glad that the request wasn't too hideously scary; I was a bit worried about potentially putting the writer off with too much Epic Glee.
I would be delighted if you would like to friend me. :D I had exactly the same amused response when the reveal happened: I thought, Let's see who my fabulous writer is, then -- looked up your name on lj -- and there it was, we had mutual friends. Oh, internets - never never change in your serendipitous awesome!
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Bonus Necker teaservice:
Want.
I love the Claretie book for how *nice* it is :D Nineteenth century biography at its best. His Camille is distinctly less spiky than Mantel's; he's so adamant that Camille was zomg never unfaithful to Lucile EVER and loved his dad and was, like, nice to kittens and things. And every time Camille writes something really nasty he's all 'oh, well, he didn't *mean* it, and he totally regretted it later!' Oh, Camille. You bring all the fangirls to the yard.
(Of course, it's also got an *amazing* amount of research, dedication, collation of primary sources, interviews with people who knew Camille, etc etc, but what really sticks in my mind is the bit where Claretie went to Guise and just fanboyed around for a while. 'I pictured to myself Camille Desmoulins, going to and from the Picard town, following the course of the little river, book in hand, reading, dreaming, exhaling his youthful enthusiasm. Methought I came upon him once more at the corners of the narrow streets, or in one of those quiet old houses, full of books and the talk of old times, or on the road to the chateau, climbing the steep ascent to the citadel, stopping on his way to listen, smilingly, to the music chanted in the church; reciting cerses from Voltaire before the chapel, and quoting Tacitus in front of the fortress.' JULES CLARETIE, YOU BIG SOFTY. <3 <3 <3.)
Re: Hilary Mantel's Robespierre: there's that glorious article Mantel wrote in the LRB where she talks about how she is only really prepared to concede the preeminent position of Robespierre's #1 Fangirl to Stanislawa Przybyszewska. I hope she gets round to writing that book on The Woman Who Died Of Robespierre one day, it'd be *epic*.
And re: the Epic Glee of your request - it was exactly what I needed :D I tend to approach my fandoms with absurd levels of enthusiasm; the thing that can scare me in Yuletide (as has happened to me a couple of times) is requesters who don't give me any hint as to why they like a show or a character D: A couple of years ago I was assigned to write for Neverwhere, for which I was given the prompt 'Neverwhere, Richard Mayhew, the Marquis de Carabas', no Dear Yulegoat letter, and no journal address to look at. I nearly died D: I'd so much rather get a request where the requester clearly loves the material and is willing to tell me why. So the glee was wonderful ^__^
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I also totally recommend this link if you're planning to go a-Robespierre stalking, this is how we found half the sights. Having done the Paris trip, we're now working on Arras and Guise ^_^ (disclaimer: Guise appears from my painstaking research to be about the size of a digestive biscuit, so Revolution Geekery Trip II is basically going to be **ARRAS** and Guise) Poor Camille, never gets enough tourist love. He has an ace statue in Guise though. It's got a water feature. Take that, Max.
T.
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And when do we get to go to the MUSEUM OF AWESOME near Grenoble??
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Aaaand another vote here for the undeniable shiny if Mantel does manage to write The Woman Who Died Of Robespierre!
(p.s. I want to drink coffee out of that china, srsly.)
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