I have always loved certain pockets of history. For a time it was the American Civil War that I found fascinating, possibly due at least in part to my love for Honest Abe, and then it was the Greeks. I never got into the Romans or the Egyptians very much, or the Etruscans or all those others I was coerced into studying, but I really got into the Greeks. That passed. Next were the Vikings, and then the 100 Years War. More recently, and actually for a good long time now, I have been infatuated by the French Revolution. I know it was horrible and bloody but something about it intrigues me. I just love it!
Aside from the non-fiction that I am working on about the period, I have started a reading list of novels as well- so far it includes The Red Necklace, The Silver Blade, A Tale of Two Cities, and I am working currently on Les Miserables, which is quite an undertaking, I can assure you. But so far my favorite novel about the French Revolution is The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. If you haven’t read it, DO!! It was incredible! Next on my list are the sequels to it.
I also watched the 25th Anniversary Edition of the Les Mis musical on Broadway on Public Television, and I will be honest and say that I cried a couple of times. The cast is even better than the first, and it is not any great love for Nick Jonas (Marius) that makes me say so. I am obsessed with that music, now (and with the Liam Neeson movie version). Isn’t this a beautiful song? It’s my favorite from the play:
(Marius, recovering from his wounds, imagines he is back at the ABC cafe)
MARIUS
There’s a grief that can’t be spoken.
There’s a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about `tomorrow’
And tomorrow never came.
From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
(*The ghosts of those who died on the barricade appear*)
That I live and you are gone.
There’s a grief that can’t be spoken.
There’s a pain goes on and on.
Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.
(*The ghosts fade away*)
Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.