Hello people!
I have been reading a surprising book, of an author that I have always liked. I think that many of us are excited about reading little ones with the books of Jules Verne, and many also, we can remember many of his most famous titles. But Verne wrote a lot, and there are some of his novels that have not become popular, nor have adaptations been made, not all were of travel, adventures and fantasy ... He also wrote historical novels, in some case, focused on his own country France, and precisely about one of them wanted to comment and write this post.
This is the novel "The Count of Chanteleine". And why do I say in the title that is anti-revolutionary? Well, it could undoubtedly be revolutionary since it tells us a different version of history, of a story that we know and have studied, the French Revolution. But what do we know? Which was a revolution of the people against the monarchy, to end the old absolutist regime and give way to another "more democratic" system. But was that simply? Why do we only know an idealized version?
Jules Verne shows us in his work that not everyone, not all the people, was in favor of this change, and in that way because we will also heard that an era of terror among the population was established. So, did the civilian population really improve in their lives?
As some also know, they simply wanted to establish a liberal and very masonic ideology, those are their principles, for those who understand Masonry, especially the French one. And they simply snatched the power from each other, because those who sat in that place of the ball, in the French assembly, right and left (political labels that have since divided society to the extreme), were they really the people, or other social class that ascended and wanted more power? And how did they do it?
They possibly started with a campaign that we would now call "viral", there were no social networks but newspapers and pasquines, so the rich and intellectuals owners of printing press began to disseminate information, first bulls to polarize and cross a population that always use their convenience.
And as I saw years ago in a historic documentary on Spanish Television (National), the goal was Marie Antoniette, to which everything was blamed. But they have sold us an image of it that many say it was not true, it was simple, and repeated costumes, and preferred to be in the summer house quietly, but the official version and many films show it as extravagant and capricious, always women in history have accompanied them the fame that men have wanted to put, and it was almost never positive. Thus they increased the hatred between the people, taking advantage of the economic crisis that the usual ones caused, those who organize the wars and make benefits of them, and those same simply also wanted to power, a reset and change of system that in the end always benefits the usual ones.
Interestingly, we are never shown what the rest of the population that lived quietly from their fields and crops in other areas of the country, and it turns out that reading this novel, we realize that a part of the population did not agree with all those changes so abrupt and bloody. In addition, passing the Girondinos to the most radical Jacobins, everything went control, and the dictatorship of terror was imposed at all levels. We just got a very romantic and idealized version of what happened then, spread by interested people, as usually...
Guillotine was used against all, not against the king or queen only, but also against the people. Simply to comment differently, simply by having relatives who were not involved as he wanted with that new regime, simply because any resentment would denounce another. Because terror was legitimized by laws that were creating, are all fair laws? Sometimes to be fair you have to disobey unfair laws...
Thus, some fought for what they thought were fair, for another model that was not that intolerant and too fast imposition that they wanted to impose in all areas of France, other voices were not heard. But Julio Verne did want many years later to give prominence to that other silenced and forgotten side, eclipsed for that they say "freedom, equality and fraternity". However some people were never all free, or the same, the poor remained poor, the monks and nobles were confiscated all the wealth, who was it? Then nor fraternity either, because a fanatical part decided to kill "fraternally" the people, peasant families, and any other citizen.
So we reflect thanks to Verne about the story, and about that they always say: "The story is written by the winners", and we always lack the other version, we never have the complete vision of what happened, but it is good to start having the mind more open and stop judging with few ideas that we have heard.
And in that, in this case Jules Verne decided to challenge the official version of the story, and in fact, for what I have read there, his editor (with other ideals imagined) refused to publish this work, which only saw the light many years later, but that thanks to an user of X (Former Twitter) who has commented on a thread I could know of it and even find it on the Internet and read it.
And I appreciate the bravery of Jules Verne who has always fascinated me with his stories, but also this time, telling us the life of that count of Chanteleine who suffered the murder of his wife and had to rescue the daughter while faced those changes of his country, France, not focusing this time on Paris, but on other areas, he even mentions the homeland of his, that of Verne, Nantes, and others ... At the same time, it allows us this time not to dream of adventure trips, but through a fictional character to hear the voice of victims who were executed for thinking differently and having other opinions on what we consider the beginning of "modern democracy", paradoxical.
Who wants to have another different vision of the hunched history that we know I recommend you to learn it in an entertaining way, through a novel, different, because it not only tells a fictional story but also part of that other real history. Thanks Verne.
Thanks for reading! Have a cool and nice day.
The text is totally mine by ©Duvinca and the banners and lead image are made by me using Canva.com. The second image is from Amazon and the last one created with the AI tool of PeakD frontend.
