Some have expressed interest in what sources I use for references to the Royal Maréchausée or Nicolas’ political views or assignat inflation debates or les Amis de la Verité. Much of it is an accumulation of a lifetime of interest, but here are some good sources to get started:
Maria Linton, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution (2013)
How do a bunch of well-meaning dudes end up guillotining people who just look at them funny later?
Mark Darlow, Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789-1794 (2012)
Really amazing archival research showing how cultural discourse via performances were key to forming public opinion, even though the state had a super-monopoly on what got to be performed.
Remember how Lestat talks about how Renaud’s isn’t really legit and the Comédie Française is where all the legit actors perform? It’s because of the government, y’all.
William Doyle, Aristocracy and its Enemies in the Age of Revolution (2009)
Traces the beginning of the decline of nobility and the effects of naming a particular group “the aristocracy”.
He also wrote a very short history called Old Regime France that’s worth a read if you care about 1648-1788 France, back when Lestat’s dad would have been important.
William Doyle’s actually kind of the ultimate first word in French Revolution survey work. He wrote the Oxford History of the French Revolution and he wastes no time with presenting really accessible detailed information that will give you a good feel for the era.
Jeremy Jennings, Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France since the Eighteenth Century (2011)
Really huge survey of intellectual history, political theory, sociocultural history, and political economy.
Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (2009)
Really impressive analysis of how censorship during the French Revolution really messes up ancien regime and new republic troubles.
If you don’t have a lot of time, the Very Short Introductions series has great brief reads on aristocracy and the French Revolution.
Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
Super sassy and gossipy exploration of Paris from the very beginning. Great research but lots of in-jokes about Bourbons and Plantagenets and stuff and not enough teasing of the Carolingians but I’ll deal. Not great for a first-time history read, but good if you have some foundational knowledge of French history. Just a fun book.
Joan DeJean, How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City
I haven’t read this one! But it’s on my reading list.
Baroness Emma Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
A novel! But very good for the feel of an era. Also known as the further adventures of Lestat. Very fast read, guilty pleasure, dashing about France, and it even has mistaken identity comedy!
Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche
Another novel! Basically Nicolas tries to avenge a friend’s murder and fucks up really badly.
Books I haven’t read but mean to:
R.R. Palmer, The Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution
Yes, that Robert Roswell Palmer, the guy who wrote the Palmer & Colton European history textbook everybody lugs around in high school. He’s a fantastic and engaging writer with just the right amount of information to make you feel like a native in that time period. I can’t wait to read this book.
I think he wrote a book called Catholics and Unbelievers about the same period.
Simon Schama, Citizens
Apparently really comprehensive from pre-Revolution all the way through Thermidor.
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution
He wrote this huge 4-part history of the world and I hear it’s a great way to contextualize what was happening in France. So, probably use this for figuring out what Nicolas felt about Italy and England, and why Lestat sent Renaud’s troupe to good ‘ol Blighty.
This gifset is really gr9 but tumblr won’t let me align them like this so YOU GET A STILL ;A;
I had a few earlier posts where I suggest him for Nicolas or Louis, but Santino actually is a much better choice. Peter Steele could have been an amazing coven master.
“beloved sister, you are breaking my heart…with every step we take along the way…”
Photo by @brainbarbie Costume by @sigynsheart There will be more photos with Sigyn as Lucille, but I have to edit them first, so stay tuned for more!!!!
UPDATE: Del Toro retweeted and later liked this photo!
and here, omg omg!
update on the del Toro front, now he even went back, after 5 hours or more, to compliment us, as a team:
I can’t believe this. He is so important for me for so long, like when Hellboy came out in cinema.
Oh look, a wild Marius and Bianca appear! Messy eaters.
Idk if he’d be willing to play another vampire when he was one for so long, but I didn’t watch True Blood, maybe if the character is different enough he’d do it!
In canon, Louis doesn’t speak a lot in French (sometimes the narrative will indicate the characters have switched to another language but the writing will continue in English for the benefit of the reader). He does throw in a mon dieu! (my god!) here and there. He says it when Lestat first picks him up to show him he has the Cloud Gift in QOTD.
It’s fanon that Louis and Lestat still speak to each other in French, an older version of it that mortals usually aren’t all that familiar with. Lestat still remembers a few old French songs from his childhood.
Louis is actually French, his family moved to New Orleans from France before he took over the plantation from his father: “You see, we lived far better [in Louisiana] than we could have ever lived in France.” – IWTV. So French was most likely his native language.
He gives the interview in English because that’s the language Daniel speaks, and Louis must have learned it at some point, probably in his travels with Armand. But the languages he probably spoke in New Orleans during his ~70 years there were French and Creole, and then when he goes to Paris, he would have spoken the more classic French and he probably had a noticeably Americanized accent, yet another reason for them to dislike him bc TOURISTS.
You are in luck if you want Amel talking, bc he DOES.
When we first learn his name in QOTD, he’s already talking to Maharet and Mekare about how they might need his help:
“Except that several nights later, an evil spirit came to us, one which we called Amel. Enormous, powerful, and full of rancor, this thing danced about the clearing before our cave trying to get Mekare and me to take notice of him, and telling us that we might soon need his help…”
“This Amel, in particular, was maddened by our ‘neglect’ of him, as he called it. And he declared over and over again that he was ‘Amel, the powerful,’ and ‘Amel, the invincible,’ and we should show him some respect. For we might have great need of him in the future. We might need him more than we could imagine, for trouble was coming our way.” – Maharet, Queen of the Damned
We actually hear quite alot from him in that book! He is a major catalyst in the origin of the vampire species.
Tiny Prince Lestat spoiler ahead
And then we hear alot from him in Prince Lestat, too, in which he is AGAIN a catalyst in the next chapter for the
