Ten Little Chances to be Free

Guess what I just stumbled upon?

All the Classic Who. All of it. Yes, it is Rapidshare and thus a monumental pain in the ass to download, but it's all there in one place on a public site that can be linked to all and sundry.

Look at the shiny!

Map of Paris with the troop movements from the Revolution of 1830, and daguerreotypes of barricades in the Revolution of 1848.

*droooools*

Haha. My first French paper, a few weeks earlier in the semester, came back with an A and glowing comments about my writing style. Of course, the assignment for my first French paper involved making up a Belle Époque character and writing a one-to-two-page short story about them, and I learned most of my French from reading novels. Piece of cake. This latest assignment--the one I stayed up all night revising on Monday--was an essay, and I have read exactly zero formal academic works in French. So of course this one came back as one giant scribble of red pen, with comments to the effect that the style is as graceful as a one-legged blind baby elephant. (No, she didn't actually say that, but I had no idea you could fit the word 'maladroit' that many times onto two pages.)

Obviously this means I need to get my ass to Groupe Hugo and read some of the articles there. Dammit, you can't learn if you can't see how it's done.

[one hour later] I've read about half of this and it's utterly fascinating: all about Les Misérables as a work of history, about the changes between the 1848 draft and the final version in 1862. I can't say it's going to improve my formal writing, but god is it shiny.

I have a new crush, and her name is Vesselina Kasarova. Yes, I may possibly have a thing for mezzos in breeches, but come on, that's just hot.

And now I want this like burning.

(And by "you guys" I know I functionally mean mmebahorel, mmejavert, and the handful of other people with an unhealthy interest in researching their Frenchboys.)

http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/histmed/asclepiades/pdf/palluault2.pdf

Three hundred and fucking fifty pages of PDF entitled "Medical Students in England and France, 1815-1858." WIN.

From the Department of Really Damn Useful Links: international exchange rates in the 19th century. Fairly stable throughout the century because everyone was on the gold or silver standards.

The basics: 1 pound sterling = 5 dollars = 25 francs = 5 pesos = 4 rubles, and calculating any of the German and Austrian currencies is enough to give anyone a headache. (The site also has a note about Polish currency, for those interested.)

So. I have taken the plunge, and started to explore Google Books--prompted by a giant collaborative nerdy fanfic project over on Abaissé. (Yes, that is a plug. I know there are plenty of people on my flist who'd be interested in gleefully and self-indulgently geeky research fic, and we have ten Frenchboys and only four typists so far.) Since we're writing about Ami backstories and political activities, my forays into Google Books have been mostly focused on press and politics around the July Revolution, but even a topic that specific turns up a wealth of really damn shiny material. Observe:

France Under the Bourbon Restoration (Jess, is this the one you found?)
Press, Revolution, and Social Identities in France, 1830-1835 (Google has a limited preview, and what I saw was so awesome that I pranced off to Amazon and bought a copy.)
The journalists and the July revolution in France. The role of the political press in the overthrow of the Bourbon restoration 1827-1830. (No preview, but UMD has a copy.)
Au temps des sociétés secrètes; la propaganda républicaine au début de la monarchie de juillet (1830-1835). (Title speaks for itself, yes? Shockingly enough, UMD does not have it, but Goucher does. So does Amherst, which will be useful on the off-chance that I get into Smith.)
Paris and its environs, displayed in a series of two hundred picturesque views, from original drawings (1831. Not political, but definitely useful and cool, and also downloadable for free in PDF.)

I also ended up surfing and read large parts of a British royalist screed on the blackguards and conspirators responsible for the July Revolution, and a scathing 150-page review/rebuttal of Les Misérables from 1862, and--

You get the idea.

Google Books is really cool; it could've been a pretty basic service, but being Google they made it incredibly useful and multi-functional. You can search for keywords within the text of the books, not just searching for titles and general topics; every book has all its information listed, along with links to other editions and related books. And, most awesomely, it gives you links to places you might buy the book and to WorldCat, which will give you a list of libraries that have it, sorted by how close they are to you. I already love WorldCat to death and have it on my searchbar, but linking it to Google Books is like putting it on steroids. It's awesome and kind of scary.

Also? The advanced search lets you filter by publication date. Which means... a multitude of things, really, but what springs immediately to mind is period medical literature. I did a few cursory searches to that effect and wandered over to WorldCat, which alerted me that the NIH library has an extensive history of medicine collection. Unfortunately, the NIH library also has closed stacks, which intimidates me a bit. Or at least makes me think it'd be a royal pain in the ass to use.

Anyway. Google Books = very, very bad for my health. And my time, and my bank account. Augh.

(Was going to post this earlier, but bah server downtime.)

Naming the things I have legitimate cause to freak out about makes the generalized anxiety over the trip subside.

1. I still have not succeeded in finding a 220v-110v outlet converter. They probably have them at the airport.
2. I might get detained at the immigration desk. Unlikely; I don't think I need a student visa, and even if I did, I won't be carrying anything to mark me as anything but a tourist.
3. Getting from the Bordeaux airport to my hotel might be tricky. I'm going to pore over the bus maps later tonight, and if all else fails a taxi will put me out about 20 euros.
4. The hotel doesn't appear to be very close to the school. If at all possible I'll walk the route beforehand so I know how to get from one to the other, or figure out the bus route.
5. My checked luggage could get lost. BFD, so I might end up wearing the same clothes for three days. My computer is what really matters, and I'll be backing it up before I go and keeping it in my carry-on.

The Montreuil/Paris trip is still fraught with uncertainty, but I have a month to smooth out the wrinkles there. Most of my other worries are about more abstract things like budgeting badly/running out of money, or having a bad allergic reaction, or utterly failing at all forms of spoken French. Or wasting away from malnutrition, haha.

And heeeey, if my luggage gets lost, it means I won't have to drag it halfway across the city while searching fruitlessly for my lodgings.

Oh who am I fooling, I'm nervous as hell.

At any rate, if this ends up being my last post before I leave, goodbye lovelies! I promise I'll post updates whenever I find wifi to leech from, and take plenty of pictures and such. Also, you lot can expect a friendslocked post with contact info as soon as I get a SIM card, in case you want to give me an exorbitantly expensive international call or send bomb threats to my hotel or something. (For the record, candy is much more appreciated than bomb threats.)

Also, if you're a Les Mis fan and you haven't done so yet, go join Abaissé. Because we're fun and nerdy and fangirly over there. ♥

Hmmm, if I do one of those immersion programs in France this summer I shall have to make a stop in Montreuil-sur-Mer and see this. I wonder if it's a coincidence that the performances start on the anniversaries of the Trois Glorieuses of 1830--probably not. (They also have a tour of all the LM-related spots in the town, which I most likely will not be able to resist either.)

General resource for Les Mis fic writers: wiki.fr has articles, by year, for notable (and occasionally trifling) events in French history; the ones for the 1820s are pretty sparse, but starting in 1830 they are chock full of what would have been current events for the characters, with a heavy focus on politics--particularly revolutionary politics--and secondary focus on the literary world, with plenty about what Hugo was up to at the time. Check it out. 1830 | 1831 | 1832. And, just for fun, In the year 1817.

Edit: Also, I found maps. Shiny, high-resolution maps.
Lots of them.
Searchable by street name!
Super-hi-res. (PDF)
And, partially related: Nomenclature des voies database main page.


And now the beginning of more transcriptions, which I can't even pretend are directly related to Les Mis anymore. To start things off, a publication from the Société des Amis du Peuple which followed directly on the heels of the émeutes of June 14-17, 1831. I'm also working on typing up the manifesto of the Amis du Peuple, which is significantly longer; I have the first two sections done, but the third and last is quite a bit longer. Visitors can't check out anything from the UMD library, so I'll have to hole myself up there this weekend, finish that, and maybe knock out part of the Procès des Quinze.

The language on this particular one is straightforward enough that I'll probably end up translating it soon, but just as a heads-up, I probably won't be translating everything from this series. The manifesto, for example, has far more convoluted prose, so unless some kind soul volunteers to translate it, it will probably remain en français because I am too lazy to wade through it.

Any typos that might pop up are mine, except a couple random quirks of orthography that belong to whatever anonymous Ami wrote this.

( À l'opinion publique... )