Comment on A Cabal of Paris

  1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:48PM UTC

    It's entirely possible he has been abandoned young - even if only orphaned at a young age

    Well, I talked about it before, and I am still convinced that Aramis didn't have any family (or Family), because he would otherwise have used his brothers, sisters and cousins for social advancement, i.e. by placing (younger) siblings in the households of his ladyfriends etc. The only other alternative is that his family was so embarrassing that he abandoned them and lived under an assumed name until they all died, sadly and tragically and sometimes quite suddenly, and it was safe to admit to the family name d'Herblay again. I know we discussed this option at some point too!

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    1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 07:27PM UTC

      The only other alternative is that his family was so embarrassing that he abandoned them and lived under an assumed name

      Oh my gosh, wouldn't that be hilarious? We're inventing all these Tragic Backstories for the flittermouse, and the truth is that he's the youngest of a strapping family of twelve, and his parents are hale and hearty and irredemably common; his brothers are all big bluff huntin' and shootin' types with mud on their boots from trudging around the fields after the plough and his sisters are all plump and married young and popping out squalling babies of their own, and everyone is happy and loves everyone else, and they're so proud of their Smart Talented Baby Brother all the way up there in Big City Paris mingling with all the fancy folks and getting on successfully.

      Mother writes letters all the time worrying about his delicate health and sending him scratchy knitted woollens so he'll wrap up well and keep warm and wondering when he's finally going to get ordained, and Father adds in good advice of his own about avoiding the kind of people that Aramis is going out of his way to meet and make influential friends of, and he gets pots of home-made jams and pickles from his sisters and whatever carcasses his brothers shot or trapped, and he is so embarrassed about his plebian coarse uneducated lower-class family and how they don't at all fit with his image of himself as this delicate-sensibility natural aristocrat :-D

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      1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 07:53PM UTC

        Oh yes, this is a backstory worthy of the Bishop of Vain! He so wants to be an Elf but was born into a family of Hobbits.

        When he "disappeared" mysteriously after 3M, he just went back home, and mummy gave him hugs every day and baked his favourite pie, and his sisters made him hold their babies (at least three of them are named after Uncle René), and his brothers took him fishing. Even the local curate likes him, because he was the first one who instilled a love for the Church into little René and taught him how to read in an old book of hours. He once painted his room black, but when he came back from school, the walls were whitewashed again.

        There's just too much peace and harmony there, and poor "René" goes mad and wants to stab something very much.

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        1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 08:00PM UTC

          *tries to start drama while rusticating in the bosom of domestic harmony*

          Mother: Darling, you're so pale and you've hardly eaten anything! Is anything the matter?

          René: Oh, nothing, it's nothing *wan smile* I mean... I would hate to disappoint you and Father, you've both so set your hearts on it - no, never mind, it's nothing at all!

          Mother: But sweetheart, if anything is bothering you, tell us!

          René: *staring off into distance distractedly* I think - no, well, perhaps, oh dear I shouldn't say this... I think I might not have a vocation after all! Thre is this - but it's absurd, no no, I'm being foolish, ignore me!

          Father: *who has been listening quietly in the background all the while* Is it a girl, lad? Just tell us yes or no!

          René: *smiles, blushes, remains silent*

          Mother and Father: *look at one another, in some dismay, then silent communication of twenty-five years of marriage takes place*

          Mother and Father more or less in unison: Darling, we only want you to be happy. Is she a nice girl? Does she like you back? Have you spoken to her family yet?

          Mother: You know, it may be old-fashioned but June is such a lovely month for weddings, four of your sisters were June brides and so beautiful, and three of your brothers had June weddings as well!

          Father: You can always come back home and settle down, you know that, I can have a word with old Herbert about that cottage and bit of land if you like?

          René: *argh! no! why are they always like this! internal seething*

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          1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 08:18PM UTC

            *tries to stand dramatically and windsweptly and gaze across the moors at dusk*

            Father: *hearty slap on the shoulder*: See those vast tracks of land over there, son? These could be yours.

            René, woefully: Alas, I have given myself to the Church, my father.

            Father: I could have a word with young Michel, he'd have to send his cows to pasture across the stream, it'd be no bother.

            René: ... cows

            Father: Young Michel's cows give the best milk and the best manure in the county. He married a dairy maid, very nimble at milking.

            René, through gritted teeth: I remember. They made me godfather to their firstborn.

            Father: Little René-Etienne, a strapping lad! And so proud of his uncle. Says he wants to be a monk too.

            René: I'm a Jesuit, father.

            Father: Yes, yes, and a very fine one, I'm sure. Here, m'boy, your mother told me to bring you this woolly shawl, the night chill is something awful this time of year.

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            1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 08:26PM UTC

              *returns from the wildy windswept moors and sits by fire, delicately coughing into a cambric handkerchief*

              Mother: There! I knew you'd take a chill, you were always so delicate!

              *stirs up maids to boil water and makes René sit by blazing fire with three blankets around him and his feet in a basin of scalding hot water with various medicinal herbs which smell like the rotting bog infused through the water*

              Mother: Oh look at that, you're pouring with sweat! Tsk, tsk, you've taken a fever and I'm right out of Grand-Aunt Seraphine's nostrum! Here, Michel, Georges, Phillipe, run round to your sisters and see if they have any on hand!

              *Two of his older sisters show up and pour various home-brewed remedies down his throat, while Mother rubs his chest with goosefat mixed with garlic and stinging nettle - "Your father's mother swore by it, René, now stop making faces!" - and his brothers are dispatched to catch and skin rabbits so she can wrap the fresh furs round his little pink tootsies*

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              1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 08:38PM UTC

                *wakes in the morning wrapped in three woolly blankets, mustard plasters wrapped around his legs and three strapping lads bouncing up and down on his stomach to screeches of "Uncle Renée! Uncle Renéeee!!"*

                Aramis: I have gazed into the abyss of Hell.

                And this is how Aramis decides that he has to become Pope.

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                1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 08:46PM UTC

                  Aramis' Big Loving Family is immensely entertaining notion; I'm sure the flittermouse would love to be the Hero of a Tragic Backstory but sorry, you being the swan among all the geese is too much fun, dear chorytik!

                  *returns from country loaded down with new home-created waistcoats, shirts and undergarments, medicinal remedies from tinctures to ointments, several wicker baskets creaking full of game, preserves and home cooking, and Father slipped him a purse before departing since "Son, I know these Big City expenses are a lot to keep up, here's a little something to help out". Has to immediately get Bazin to arrange cold compresses for his wrists which have been sprained from all the handshaking by his brothers and the hugging of his sisters*

                  Bazin: Your Eminence, I was so worried when you departed and left me behind without a word! Where have you been?

                  Aramis: *darkly* Suffering penitential tortures whilst mortifying my body and soul, Bazin. You cannot imagine the hardships I have endured, nor would I drag you along to undergo such pains.

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                  1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Dec 2018 12:17AM UTC

                    Yes, this is all very good and made me cry happy tears (of the kind I'm sure Aramis shed when he had to say goodbye to his mum, dad, elven loving siblings and their respective spouses and a battalion of nieces and nephews, whose names he never remembers and whom he can't tell apart anyway).

                    Bazin: Your Excellency, there appears to be... something moving in this wicker basket here.

                    Aramis: Don't open it!

                    Bazin: Too late!

                    Aramis: You infernal fool! Now look what you've done!

                    *a very young, very lively and very floppy-eared puppy starts leaping up and down trying to lick Aramis' nose and pees on the carpet in his excitement*

                    Aramis, in tones of a funeral bell: It will be your duty to walk him every morning, Bazin. Nothing is to happen to him, I had to make a solemn vow to "take good care of the little fellow". His name is Abbé Frou-Frou.

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                    1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Dec 2018 01:21AM UTC

                      Well, Richelieu had his cats, Aramis has Abbé Frou-Frou :-)

                      Ah, all the fun of chewed slippers, pee everywhere, and the whining of a young puppy that wants to play, Aramis will have a constant reminder of the happy bucolic background from which he arose like a phoenix!

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                      1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Dec 2018 01:28AM UTC

                        Little Jean-René (or possibly René-Jean?), Charles, Jacques-Louis, Louis-Henri, and little Marie, Sophie, Louise, and Marie-Louise insisted that he writes them letters about how Abbé Frou-Frou is doing at least twice a week. They send him specimens in jars (frogs; Jacques-Louis is an aspiring naturalist) and pressed flowers in return.

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                        1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Dec 2018 01:35AM UTC

                          Both. Jean-René is his sister Mariette's third eldest (or fourth youngest, depending on from which end you're counting) and René-Jean is his brother Georges' third twin (twins run in Georges' wife's family and now in George's). René-Jean's twin sister is of course Marie-Louise-Sophie, after her aunts :-)

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                          1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Dec 2018 01:55AM UTC

                            The latest post brought an invitation to his brother Michel-Jean's wife Marguerite's cousin's wedding. The cousin is also called Marguerite, but her fiancé is Jean-Michel, and they would both wish so much for the abbé d'Herblay to marry them, and mother was saying he was about to be ordained very soon, could he possibly make it by November, because they really need to get married before advent, because it'll be too late in January, if you know what I mean, René, and they will name it after you.

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