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biblionerd07 · 1 month

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I actually had more sympathy for Jesse’s parents on this rewatch. Like overall they’re not some abusive monsters who never cared about him. They very obviously DO care about him. Their house felt safe enough to Jesse that he went there when the meth had him feeling paranoid and strung out. When Jesse calls his dad after being questioned by the DEA he mentions getting a job “in data entry, like we talked about”, and Jesse’s mom says “I can’t do this again”, and Jake says Jesse’s all they ever talk about, so they’re obviously in a cycle of trying to help Jesse and seeing him go back to drugs. It’s easy for us to kind of forget the ramifications, because of the scope of the show and because we love Jesse and are seeing his POV and definitely because Aaron Paul’s teeth and skin are nice lol, but Jesse is addicted to crystal meth. And he’s SELLING crystal meth! This is not just weed. It’s a pretty big fucking deal. And his parents talk about getting him help, and they let him come inside and sleep and eat a few meals and wash his clothes. Maybe you could consider that the bare minimum, but it is something. When Hank is talking to Jesse’s mom, she’s not dismissive of Jesse or uncaring. She’s obviously very sad about the state of Jesse’s life, and when she starts to clock that Hank’s investigating Jesse, she gets protective and makes Hank leave. They evicted Jesse from his aunt’s house, but to give them a bit of grace, his mom did find his literal meth lab in the basement lmao. Which they threatened to tell the DEA about but never actually did. They seem to be in that place with an addict where you’re trying to balance giving support without enabling; his dad even says they need to try tough love. (Personally I think it shows they don’t really know Jesse all that well because tough love is not the right method for him, but they probably feel like they’ve tried everything else.) When Jesse’s talking about that perfect box he made in shop, his initial lie is that he gave it to his mom, and when he tells the truth it’s clear he really regrets that he didn’t actually do that. In El Camino, I really think they want him to turn himself in because they think he’ll be safer and maybe they think he’ll get some leeway if he turns himself in rather than getting caught. It doesn’t seem like they call the cops when he calls and asks them to come get him; they rush out right away and all the police are in regular, unmarked cars.

But….

I can never give them grace or forgive them for that car decal that was Mom, Dad, and Jake but no Jesse. Like what the hell is that?? And it seems absolutely outrageous to me that his parents, with everything that happened between them and everything they’re seeing on the news, took the opportunity to talk to him and only said “turn yourself in.” No “I love you.” No “be safe.” His dad saying they hadn’t talked to him in a long time, since “way before all this” really rankled, too. They purposefully distanced themselves from him. They made sure to say on the news that they’re not involved in this because they’re not in his life. I really do think they cared and were scared for him. But at every turn it just seemed like they didn’t care enough to actually understand what he needed or how to get through to him.

#brba #jesse pinkman #el Camino #he really tries to keep Jake from following his path and oh my heart #I’ve always read Jesse as probably having undiagnosed or at least untreated ADHD #we know he’s so much smarter than anyone gives him credit for but he kept getting ‘apply yourself’#he has to care about things to do them well #anyway my tragic baby boy #i love him with my whole heart #and I’ve always hated his parents but as I get older and rewatch I have more sympathy for them #I doubt he ever went to rehab before but they certainly couldn’t have afforded a place like he goes to ever Jane dies #plus he wouldn’t ever go before #he really only went after Jane bc he was so catatonic with drugs and grief that I imagine Walt literally just dropped him at the door #his dad sounds happy when he says ‘you look good’ when he sees Jesse after rehab but he’s still cautious #god I wish he would’ve just said yes Jesse come over for dinner tonight #I hope someday Jesse was able to find a way to get word to them that he’s okay #nothing they can trace to find him #but just to let them know #it always seemed like his mom cared more despite that slap #his dad wanted to be tough but I don’t think his mom did #and I’m not saying Jesse turning to drugs or any of this is their fault obviously #it’s just very sad

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anotherhumaninthisworld · 5 months

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How was Danton responsible for the 10th of August insurrection?

According to L’école révolutionnaire des Cordeliers (published both here and as chapter three of Danton: le mythe et l’histoire (2016)) by Raymonde Monnier, ”on August 10, Danton is a key person of the situation created through the insurrection.” As evidence for this, Monnier first and foremost lifts the following decree from the section of Théâtre−Français, signed by Danton on July 30:

The section of Théâtre-Français declares […] that the fatherland being in danger, all French men are called upon to defend it; that there no longer exists what the aristocrats called passive citizens, that those who carried this unjust title are called as much to the service of the national guard as to the sections and the primary assemblies to deliberate there. Signed: Danton, president. Anaxagoras Chaumette, vice-president. Momoro, secretary.

According to the memoirs of Chaumette, Danton was still in Paris on August 5. One day later, we do however find him in Arcis, signing a decree granting his mother a house, seemingly so she had something to fall back on was he to perish during the insurrection.

As for Danton’s role in the insurrection itself, he had the following to say about it during his trial held one and a half year later:

I am accused of having retired to Arcis-sur-Aube at the time when the journée of August 10 was being planned. To this accusation, I respond that I declared at that time that either the French people would be victorious or I would be dead. I ask to bring forward as witness to this fact citizen Payen. […] Pétion, leaving the Commune, came to the Cordelier Club. He told us that the tocsin would ring at midnight and that the next day must be the tomb of tyranny; he told us that the attack on the royalists was planned for the night, but that he had arranged things in such a way that everything would be done in broad daylight and would be over by noon and that victory was assured for the patriots. As for me, I only left my section after recommending to notify me would anything new happen. I stayed in my section for twelve hours straight, and returned there the next day at nine o'clock. This is the shameful rest in which I indulged, according to the report. Danton before the tribunal on April 3 1794, as reported in Bulletin du Tribunal Révolutionnaire

I had prepared August 10 and I went to Arcis, because Danton is a good son, to spend three days, say goodbye to my mother and settle my affairs, there are witnesses to it. After that, I was very much in evidence. I didn't go to bed. Although I was an official at the Commune I went to the Cordeliers. I told Minister Clavières, who came from the Commune, that we were going to start an insurrection. After having arranged all the operations and the moment of the attack, I lay down on the bed like a soldier, with orders to warn me. I left at one o'clock and went to the Commune which had become revolutionary. I issued the death warrant against Mandat who was in possession of an order to fire on the people. The mayor was arrested and I remained at the Commune following the advice of the patriots. Notes de Topino Lebrun, juré au Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, sur le procès de Danton et sur Fouquier-Tinville (1875)

On December 12 1793, Lucile Desmoulins wrote a long description over what she had experienced during the night of the insurrection four months earlier, a description where Danton gets mentioned multiple times:

After dinner [on August 9] we all went to D(anton’s). Her mother was crying, she was sad, her father looked dazed. D(anton) was resolute. [Lucile then goes out with Danton’s wife and mother-in-law for a while]. When I returned to D(anton’s), I found madame R(obert) and many others there. D(anton) was restless. I ran to madame Robert, I said to her “will they ring the tocsin?” “Yes,” she told me, ”but tonight.” I listened to everything and did not say a word. Soon I saw everyone arming themselves. C(amille), my C(amille), arrived with a gun!… O God! I sank into the ground, hid myself with both my hands and started to cry. However, not wanting to show so much weakness and say aloud to C(amille) that I did not want him to get involved in all this, I waited for a moment when I could speak to him alone, and I told him all my fears. He reassured me by telling me he would not leave D(anton’s) side. I have since found out that he exposed himself. […] No one in the street, everyone had gone home. Our patriots left. I sat down near a bed, overwhelmed, devastated, sometimes dozing off, and when I wanted to talk, I was nonsense. Madame D(anton) and R(obert) reasoned. D(anton) went to bed, he did not seem to be in a hurry. He hardly went out. Midnight was approaching. One came to search for him several times. Finally he left for the Commune. The toscin of the Cordeliers rang, it rang for a long time! Alone, bathed in tears, on my knees by the window, hidden in my handkerchief, I listened to the sound of that fatal bell. In vain they came to console me, this fatal night seemed to me to be the last! D(anton) came back. Madame Robert, who was very worried about her husband, who had gone to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine as a deputy through his section, ran to D(anton), who only gave her a very vague answer. He threw himself on his bed. One came several times to give us good and bad news. I thought I noticed that their plan was to go to the Tuileries, Sobbing, I told them I thought I was going to faint… In vain did madame Robert ask for news of her husband, no one gave her any. She thought he was marching with the faubourg. “Yes,” she said to me, “if he perishes I will not survive him! But this D(anton) who remains in his bed, he, the rallying point, if my husband perishes I will be the woman to stab him!” Her eyes were rolling. From that moment on I never left her side. What did I know what could happen? To know what she was capable of… We thus passed the night in cruel agitations. C(amille) came back at 1 o’clock, he fell asleep on my shoulder. Mde R(obert) who was next to me seemed to be preparing to learn of her husband’s death. “No,” she told me, “I can’t stay here any longer! Madame D(anton) is unbearable to me, she seems to be calm, her husband does not want to expose himself!” […]

Another diarist who mentioned Danton’s role in the insurrection was Scottish physician and travel author John Moore:

It is not to be imagiened however that [the insurrection] originated in an instantaneous resolution of the various sections of Paris: all had been arranged by a junto of men, of which Danton was supposed to be a leading member, and of whom the electors of the sections were the tools. A journal during a residence in France, from the beginning of August to the middle of December 1792 (1793) by John Moore. Diary entry August 22 1792.

Two other contemporaries who attributed a leading role to Danton, albait much longer after the fact than Louise Robert and John Moore, are Billaud-Varennes and Garat:

After June 20, everyone was making small hassles at the castle, whose power was growing visibly: Danton arranged August 10, and the castle was struck by lightning. Mémoires sur la révolution ou exposé de ma conduite dans les affaires et dans les fonctions publiques (1795) by Dominique-Joseph Garat

Danton, one of the condemned in Germinal, as a member of the Convention, was admirable in his courage and resources in 1792 and 1793. He had made August 10. Note written by Billaud-Varennes in the 1830s

Finally, Villain d’Aubigny also left a more detailed description of Danton’s handling of Antoine Mandat, the commander in chief of the national guards who started disobeying orders during the insurrection, in his Principaux évènemens, pour et contre la Révolution, dont les details ont été ignorésjusqu’à présent: et prédiction de Danton au Tribunal révolutionnaire, accomplie (1794):

I go down into the courtyard, I find citizen Dufresse there, who pulls me aside and says to me: I come from Danton, who, at this moment (around two o'clock in the morning), is at the Commune, to inform you that we have just discovered an infernal conspiracy against the people in favor of the court; that this conspiracy is about to break out; that Mandat, general commander of the national guard, is at the head of this conspiracy […], that during the agitation and confusion that such a discovery had necessarily thrown into the Council, Danton, fearing everything for the people in such terrible circumstances, had hastened to transport himself, with several members of the Commune, notably Rossignol , to the general staff, where Mandat was; that he had summoned him, in the name of the people, to follow him immediately to the General Council, to give an account of his conduct; that this traitor, believing himself certain of the success of his dreadful projects, and still unaware that his treason had been discovered, had had the audacity to reply to him that he did not recognize this so-called Commune, made up of factions and rebels; that he had no orders to receive from it, and that he only held his conduct accountable to that of honest people; that Danton, throwing himself upon him and seizing him by the collar in the middle of his staff, said to him: “Traitor, it will force you to obey it, this Commune, which will save the people that you betray and against which you conspire with the tyrant... Tremble! your crime is discovered, and soon you and your infamous accomplices will receive the price!..." Danton and Rossignol take him to the General Council; he is questioned and shown the order signed and given by him to Carle to massacre the people. He turns pale!... he is forced to recognize it, to confess it... he is questioned about his connections with the tyrant and his court, about their projects, about the number of the conspirators... He declares that the Tuileries castle is filled with Swiss guards and all the supporters of the court; that everyone is armed, as are all La Fayette's friends; that the castle also contains a considerable quantity of munitions of all kinds; that, according to these confessions, Mandat had been placed in the custody of Rossignol and several other members of the Commune; but that Danton, who did not lose sight of the salvation of the people and the liberty of his fatherland for a single moment, had at that very moment given orders to all places where armed and insurgent people were to be found, to inform them of the treason plotted against them, and invite them to remain calm until daylight, in order to avoid falling into the traps that were set for them from all sides.

Within 24 hours of the successful insurrection, August 11, Danton also took serment as the new minister of justice (getting 222 out of 284 votes) which, in his biographer’s Norman Hampson’s (1978) words, ”suggests people believed he had taken a leading role.” Hampson does however also remain hesitant to state we actually know anything more concrete about Danton’s role in the insurrection — ”Nothing is known of what he actually did on the tenth, which has not stopped admirers from giving him a leading role or Mathiez to suggest he stayed out of the way.”

I’ve found an example of the first group Hampson’s is talking about in Danton: l’homme d’État. Centenaire de 1789 (1873). There, the historian Jean-François Robinet, besides bringing up the things already mentioned above, also includes the following part, but without including any sources… :

As soon as the possibility of overthrowing the throne and proclaiming the Republic had been demonstrated to him, Danton worked hard to assemble the military force which was to deliver the death blow to the monarchy. For this, he had put the Cordeliers battalion, which he had wrapped around his finger, into increasingly close contact with that of Saint-Marceau, commanded by Alexandre, and that of the Enfants-Rouges, Faubourg Saint-Antoine, commanded by Santerre. Moreover, he was their deputy, when the time arrived and through the ascendancy that he quickly gained over them, the body of the Marseille and Brest Federates, brought from the barracks of the rue Blanche in Cordeliers and placed, for the fight, under the command of Westermann, with the battalion of the Enfants-Rouges. At the same time, he chose the grievance which was to motivate the insurrection and which had to be high enough to legitimize it in the eyes of the greatest number, namely: the refusal, by the Legislative Assembly, to pronounce the forfeiture of the king which was voted on August 6. Finally, when the time for the fight came, that is to say in the night between the 9th and the 10th, "after having settled all the operations and the moment of the attack", Danton proposed in all sections, through his friends, most of whom were municipal administrators, the appointment and immediate sending to l'Hôtel de ville of commissioners with a mandate to “save public affairs”. He arranged the substitution of this new Council, or of the insurrectional group formed by all these delegates, for the old General Council, whose retreat was obtained by the intelligence he had in this assembly and by the direct action of Deforgues, one of his men, who served as master of ceremonies there.

On September 25 1873, a review of Robinet’s work was published in the journal La République Française. The reviewer declared himself scaptical in regards to Robinet’s take on Danton’s role in the insurrection, but him too without citing sources for his version of the story:

Your (Robinet) dantonist view of August 10 is nothing but a plan de pièce. If we had to stage this great day, we would proceed no differently from you: Danton summons the sections, Danton sets up the day, Danton directs the armed citizens, and we would even go so far as to have him ring the toscin of the Cordeliers with his own hand. This is the drama. But history shows something else. We see there that it was the section of Marché des Innocents which particularly and insistently requested a meeting of commissioners to draw up an address to the armies: we see there that it was as a result of the declaration of the fatherland in danger that the convocation of the sections and the appointment of the commissioners took place; we see that the commissioners gathered by the address to the armies did not find their mission up to the circumstances, and we do not see Danton in any of this. It was new commissioners (which did not include Danton's friends either, except for one, Fabre d'Eglantine), who, on the proposal of their committee, composed of Collot d'Herbois, Xavier Audouin, Chénier, Joly, Tallien and Mathieu, decided that an address for the forfeiture would be brought to the Legislative Assembly; it was Marie-Joseph Chénier (and not Danton) who wrote this address; it was the same Assembly which fixed the day for the taking up of arms, after having heard from the faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau Huguenin and Lazouski (and not Danton); and if it was decided to march on the castle, it was the Brunswick manifesto which naturally gave birth to this idea in people's heads. Threatened with being decimated, the city wanted to have the king as a hostage. On the evening of August 9, it was decided in the sections that the tocsin would sound at midnight, but the commissioners who were sent to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to agree one last time, resolved that they would only march in the morning, that 'we would form a surrectional council at Ilôtel-de-Ville, and this double resolution was taken on the proposal, not of Danton, who was not there, but of Xavier Audouin, who represented the section of La Fontaine-Grenelle. This is why Clavières came to warn the leader of the Cordeliers and why he went to bed. As for Danton signing Mandat's death warrant, we don't know what you’re talking about. The cordelier did go to Hôtel-de-Ville for a moment during the night as a substitute for the Commune prosecutor, and not as an insurgent, but he did not have a death warrant to sign. The order to take Mandate to the Abbey (there was no other) was given by the commissioners themselves when they had settled in the place of the municipality, and it was in the morning. This is what history shows. So, you say, Danton did not play any role on August 10? Yes he did, but far from seeing him as having a manifold and absorbing role, we believe on the contrary that his action that day was very limited. After having previously taken part in some of the preparatory measures, such as the distribution of cartridges, the barracking of the Marseillais at Cordeliers, etc, he hardly left his section, where he presided, on the 10th. We would even say that Danton's complete inaction at that time would in no way have surprised or offended us. He was too prominent, and even too hindered by his official functions, to fully act.

Robinet responded to the review in a long article with the title Le dix août et la symbolique positiviste(1873)

…If we take into account the decisive intelligence that Danton had in the Insurrectionary Directory, through Santerre, Alexandre, Westermann, Desmoulins and Legendre at least, and if we accept, according to the historians we have cited, that he attended its meetings, if we remember that he had a higher rank within the Cordeliers battalion, which put up such a good show at the Tuileries under Swiss fire, and where so many of his friends were; if we especially remember that before July 14, at the Jacobins, he had provoked the Fédérés present in Paris, already numbering four or five thousand, to take an oath not to leave the capital until liberty had been established and the wish of all the departments expressed on the fate of the executive power, and that the Fédérés, consequently, had, from the 17th, asked the Legistative Assembly for the suspension of the King and the indictment of Lafayette, in a petition written, it seems, by Anthoine de Metz then president of the Jacobins, and by Robespierre, it becomes difficult to deny, like La République Française does, that he had a part (and a most considerable part in our book) in the formation and the leadership of the armed force which made August 10.

But again, I’m having a hard time actually checking up any of these facts…

#danton #georges danton #i swear studying danton in detail is always just #10% things danton himself actually said/did/wrote #60% contemporaries gossiping about danton #15% historians arguing whether danton was a Corrupt Bastard Spewed up from Hell or based actually #15% other historians saying ”actually we don’t know what the f danton was up to 95% of the time so let’s just move on with it”#i’d even say he’s a harder read than robespierre #frev #french revolution #ask #but can we at least appreciate louise actually said ”i’m stabbing the bastard if my husband dies”#and lucile’s reaction was ”i better keep an eye on this girl or else she might actually do it.”

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