Lady Laughs Alot

The blessed 14th July. Today.

I remember 11th grade, high school, I was about 15 or 16, studying English Lit: Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities". We were able to watch the black-and-white movie "A Tale of Two Cities".

I remember sitting next to a friend, Mary, crying as Madame Defarge knitted while the tumbrels crrying scores of aristocrats and dissidents rumbled by on their way to the guillotine.

The first stirrings inside me of a philosophical outlook was beginning, and perhaps attempts at solutions...to what? The depravities of mankind?
How could ochlocracy be checked? The fostering and use of independent thinking is one way. And THAT requires a self-sufficient ego.

Interestingly, Mary and I became best friends because we "shared tears" sitting next to each other during that movie. And later we were roommates at Colorado State University.

Also interestingly, Lafayette, a hero to Americans is a traitor in the eyes of France. He was a moderate Frenchman in a time of extreme fanaticism.

(By the by, it wasn't until last year that I discovered the great French chemist, Lavoisier, was guillotined in that bloody revolution---or should I say massacre?---because he was a tax collector.)

And this is the revolution the French glorify and was the basis for liberalism and modern Socialism? This most bloody of events?

There are ways and means to evoke change without total destruction.

bahmer

Amen and Amen

Marsinah

Thanks.

bahmer

How many names do you go by on here? KiraSeer, Marsinah, Lady laughs alot.

Marsinah

They are nom de guerres. I choose them to fit the situation. And to confuse certain others. It was Harry S (The buck stops here) Truman that said: "If you can't convince, them, confuse them!"

I started out as CarolSeer2016, and graduated.

bahmer

Many times it appears.

Marsinah

Yes.

Richard Rowland

Interesting topic, Lady Laughs. I've read a bit about that history. (even though, according to some, I'm not well read) I don't recall the title, but it covered that period. If I recall correctly, the book begins with the storming of the Bastille, a French prison, and continues from that point. I read up to the point where the King and Queen were about to suffer the fate of the guillotine. I could read no farther, I didn't want to read of that.

The Royal Family, having concluded their lives were in danger, made a desperate dash for safety. Unfortunately, while stopped at a village to have a carriage wheel repaired, due to an accident, they were recognized and taken back into custody.

Also, many of the upper class were disguising themselves as peasants when fleeing the country. One hapless soul (this may be a bit apocryphal) made the mistake, while stopped at a roadhouse, of ordering an omelet. This, of course, gave him away, for peasants would not be eating omelets.

If you're interested and would like to read the book, I'll attempt to find the title.

Marsinah

Apparently the majority of the people who left France, and there were hundreds of thousands of them, were the peasants.

I would be interested in the title, if you have the time.

I've said this before, perhaps we should study the psychology of a man who was needed to bring order out of chaos, then set out to conquer the world. Is it always so?