This can either be read as a supplement to "The Author of a Crime Hid in Darkness" or as a standalone account of what would have happened had a certain insurgent survived and stood trial alongside Charles Jeanne - i.e. as more gratuitous nerdfic. I'm actually more fond of it than of the original work. I hope the style isn't too distracting.
Jeanne, you ask? Well…when the insurgents who survived the June 5-6 uprising were brought to court, most of them showed themselves to be miserable little cowards; some even claimed that they had been trapped behind the barricade and told that, if they didn't fight, the genuine rebels (now conveniently dead) would shoot them. Jeanne, the leader of the St. Merry barricade, caused a bit of a stir because he didn't deny his actions. He was sentenced to death but had his sentence commuted to life in prison, where he died of tuberculosis after five years. His defiance in the face of the court made him the first real martyr-hero of the growing radical republican movement.
So my question: what would've happened if everyone's favorite apollonian barricade boy had been tried beside him? I'd like to think that, given such a soapbox, the two of them would have been such a sensation that they would have threatened the government all over again.
And the Transnonain affair? I'll leave that one up to you, but enter "Rue Transnonain" on Google image search and you'll get the idea. Even though it happened in 1834, it's a good thing to know about if you're going to be hating on the July Monarchy.
I think a disclaimer is unnecessary for several reasons, but they're fun to write. All info about Jeanne comes from Harsin's Barricades. Heaven help you if you can't guess who the mysteriously unnamed golden, beautiful, fanatical student is and to whom he belongs. The idea of people selling portraits of cute defendants comes straight from The Red and the Black, but don't tell Stendhal. All errors and stupidity are my own, as is the nameless OC who first appears in "Crime Hid in Darkness."
With a shudder, the man exited the prison and breathed a sigh of relief. After that hell-hole, Paris's foul air seemed positively wholesome. What a disgrace it was to the government – indeed, to the entire nation – that such a place still existed! The evil feel of the cells seemed to be clinging to him, and little wonder: he noticed with a start that the sleeves of his frock coat were splattered with the blood that had been choking the poor consumptive whom he had just left.
As he quickly shed the coat (better to be seen in his waistcoat than to look like a madman or murderer) and tried to allow the sun's warmth to bring him back to a kinder reality, he reflected on the prisoner he had unexpectedly encountered during his inspection of the jail. Not many years ago, his name had been on the lips of everyone in Paris, but now it resolutely evaded him.
Lamarque's funeral, the prisoner had said. The funeral, and then the uprising, and then the incredible trial of the two men who had, however briefly, mesmerized a nation. The trial of…
The riots had come first, of course, and the inevitable trials that followed were initially not given undue attention. Scattered, disinterested reports in the press: the defendants denying their involvement, blaming the dead for being the instigators. A few editorials mocking the spinelessness of the would-be revolutionaries. Mere scorn for men who were clearly not worth the effort of hating.
And yet, two bold voices rapidly rising above the apologetic mass. Fervent speeches to the court, public affirmations of their actions and ideals. Growing interest, for Paris loves nothing more than a spectacle.
Two young celebrities wildly different in background but now working in tandem. The poor workingman detailing the suffering of workers, chained beside a rich student espousing visions of a bright future. Growing legions of admirers pressing for a look at the heroes, portraits sold on the street outside the courthouse, young girls across the city crying at night over the fate of the beautiful, brave, golden student (and for the "spindly" workingman as well, naturally, but almost always as an afterthought). Impassioned pleas for mercy flooding the government's offices.
Dozens of impostors presenting themselves as the half-siblings, lovers, and confidants of the two men. Personal and political documents – both real and forged – reprinted in all the papers and journals. Speeches and court transcripts leaked to the press. Real and false information alike enthusiastically snapped up by the eager mob. Journalists flying about the city as thick as crows over a battlefield.
Disorder within the packed courtroom. Men and women thrown out for applauding and heckling the participants in the trial, fights between factions in the galleries. A growing ugly mood on the streets, threatening notes sent to the judge and allegedly biased jury. The government watching warily, realizing that the early-June riots may have only the beginning of its troubles.
Finally, amazingly, His Majesty Louis-Philippe, King of the French, appearing at the trial. An entreaty for reconciliation between the barricades of July and the barricades of June. A promise of forgiveness in return for a simple willingness to compromise: "I swear to you, fellow citizens, that reform is coming. Work with me, and you may be able to help guide it."
Shockingly: His Majesty Louis-Philippe, King of the French, met with fury and cold, unequivocal refusal.
The golden student's words, which would find their way into every paper in the nation the next morning: "Show us only the mercy you show to the starving boy who is, as we speak, dying in the gutter. Why should society give us more relief than it deigns to give the girl, little more than a child, who will tonight be forced to sell herself for the very first time in order to feed her orphaned siblings? A laborer who toils day and night in the meanest job – who knows nothing of politics, who cannot through his efforts support even himself, let alone an entire family, who is splashed by mud from passing carriages – commits a crime to get food for his sick child; spare us only the pity you spare for him." His voice rising, filling the rafters of the awed courtroom. "Show us, sire, the mercy your National Guard showed as they formed illegal firing squads and executed our captured comrades in cold blood, in the middle of the street as we helplessly watched them die. No! The only clemency we will accept is that which you granted them! The only suitable recompense you can offer is to absolutely accept the principles for which they died and to immediately put those principles into action! We will not dishonor their sacrifice, nor the silent sacrifice of the countless innocents who are destroyed by our collective blindness, with cowardly concessions."
The workingman standing and spitting at His Majesty Louis-Philippe, King of the French.
The papers wrote that the spectators immediately burst into wild applause, forcing His Majesty Louis-Philippe, King of the French to retreat in humiliation. However, the general reception was not so kind.
Adulation from the masses and the radicals, of course, but a frightened Educated Public. Condemnation, almost, of the fools who refused the king's mercy and a chance for progress and reconciliation. Editorials: "If they are so eager to die, then so be it. Let all thinking men stand with those who would instead promote, improve, and celebrate life."
A death sentence, just as the two men had demanded. Angry protests, despairing tears from heartbroken girls, but no riots – a turning tide. The sentence commuted to life in prison. His Majesty Louis-Philippe, King of the French: "Heaven knows they've made enough noise while alive; imagine what trouble-makers they would be as martyrs. …And we don't need any more bloodshed. Not while I am king."
And so the two shining people's heroes had disappeared into the murk. Now, the Lamarque riots were virtually forgotten as a minor incident in France's rich insurrectionary tradition. St. Merry and Chanvrerie, no longer modern Thermopylaes, were again simply the names of streets. Instead, the Rue Transnonain was remembered as the July Monarchy's more horrific crime, or at least the one gifted with the more effective illustrator. The workingman, Charles Jeanne, had succumbed to consumption in prison a year ago, and the student was about to follow in his footsteps.
The man sighed as he pictured the pitiful, trembling figure he had encountered in the cell, his blazing rhetoric now almost as out of fashion as his wasted face. Disgraceful that there should be yet another such stain on the July Monarchy, giving the lie to the quiet, ongoing tragedy of the juste milieu.
And what is to be done? he wondered bleakly, even though he already knew the answer. The prisoner had almost reflexively preached revolution (revolution!) from his deathbed as though another uprising could cleanly slice the gordian knot of production, distribution, the rights of man, and simple human pettiness, but his visitor was of a rather different constitution. No, if Louis-Philippe had been right about anything, it was that France didn't need to see any more blood.
The only thing to be done now was to quietly help the student finish the job he began six years ago (surely God would forgive them both; the poor soul would be gone soon even without his help), and to remember – not the weak shadow of a man dying in the cell, nor the street fighter who had gunned down his own countrymen from the window of a café, but instead the shining prophet who had proudly stood before the court, where with words alone he had captivated and dared to defy a city.
I feel I owe you an explanation for the "spindly." Gisquet said of Jeanne that "under a spindly physique and suffering in appearance, he unveiled an inflexible character" (Harsin, 63). Clearly he didn't stand a chance when compared to a pretty, rich, eloquent student and therefore lacked in the fangirl department. (The student in question was, truth be told, rather envious. Especially once he heard about the nature of some of the "portraits" of him that the vendors were selling outside. But that's another story.)
If anyone is interested in further developing the idea of a historically-based trial, run with it. It probably deserves to be more filled out, but I don't see me doing it any time soon. I'll hold back the vitriol about post-insurrection trials involving an evil, heartless monarch and sweeping death sentences. Really, I will.