2 [Voice | Text]

[tables]

How can people be so idle when there is so much at stake at your inaction?

[It's quiet. The past jump has not been kind to Marius. In fact, he sounds positively unsettled, almost as if he needs to just go to sleep and not talk to the public at large, but he needs to do something and this is the only way he can make his heart less heavy.]

We are slaves here to the whim of individuals we cannot even see, to those we cannot even meet, and -- I cannot keep quiet about it any longer.

[He draws in a breath.]

I know there will be much discussion about why we are here and whether or not we can escape -- and I am interested in hearing all of that, but what I am more interested in is opinion. I want to hear what people feel about being here, be it anger or apathy, rather than the facts of our situation, for nothing has ever been changed with cruel numbers and statistics so much as heart.

[And he stills for a long moment before Marius shuts off the feed -- and, maybe twenty minutes later, he sends out a text.]

[Filtered Away from Enjolras]

What can be done about nightmares?

Comments

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

[Edgeworth's answer is immediate.]

Sir, when the law fails, then people must stand forth to support it, repair it, and bring it back to strength. You're a lawyer, trained to speak eloquently and well. Why would you turn to bloodshed, rather than forming cogent arguments to sway those around you to peaceful change? You're a well-spoken, intelligent man. Why would you not use that gift? Why would you do "terrible things" rather than find a peaceful solution that would not end with officers of your government dead alongside your friends?

[text]

[tables]

[And his is no less quick.]

With all due respect, monsieur, if you have truly studied what occurred during that time, then you should know very well why arguing eloquently in court was something that was tried, tested, and failed.

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

I see. So you gave into despair that things would change. Would you say that characterization is accurate?

[text]

[tables]

No.

I fought with words. I argued. I theorized. I educated myself and lived amongst the people, separating myself from the wealth in order to truly understand the pain and anguish that they go through. And no amount of education, of preaching, of protest -- no one cared to hear.

My friends and I faced Death and many of us lost. But their deaths will not be in vain. And France, and her sense of equality, and her judicial system, and her warfare amongst the rich and poor -- through their sacrifices, that will change.

So no, monsieur, I was not full of despair that night. I picked up a gun not out of sadness, but out of hope that if they would not pay mind to the laws crafted by our revolutionary predecessors, they would listen to the gunshots of the barricade. My despair has only come to me in the realization that Paris did not rise to our cries of help as quickly as I envisioned her to -- and in that my brothers are known to history not as the martyrs that they deserve to be.

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

But that is despair. That is despair in its purest form: deciding that your efforts to argue and theorize and educate will have no effect. You decide, instead of redoubling your efforts, to surrender. For the day you shed blood is the day you surrender. That is the day you are no better than any of those you fight.

[text]

[tables]

With all due respect, monsieur, until you have suffered through tyranny at the hands of a King that is supposed to serve and protect, until you have witnessed countless starve to death and perish, and until you alone are the last hope for a renewed blanket of peace around the country that you love, you have no right to lecture me on what is despair and what is not, because I am keenly aware of what caused me to pick up that gun, and it was not hopelessness. It was the opportunity to give the country back to the people that died for it -- for my father and for all of those who believed in France. I fought out of hope, not desolation.

The only despair that I have felt since the barricade fell is the sacrifices of my friends and brothers were for nothing. That, I will allow judgment on. But I will not be told that I am the Devil's incarnate for fighting back when we had guns pointed at our backs all along.

[text] Shit man I am so into this thread negl, can I just chinhands at your Marius please

[jurisimpudent]

Did you admire the French Revolution?

[text] IKR AAAH i love your edgeworth ;3;

[tables]

Many in France do.

I am what many consider to be a Bonapartist.

[text] /smooshes their idealistic faces against each other

[jurisimpudent]

So what did you think of what came after? What did you think of Robespierre and his leadership?

[text] creys

[tables]

The removal of the King from the throne and the subsequent Revolution was the shining light of hope for France. It was a country ruled by the People -- and Napoleon, when he took over, exemplified the ideals of our nation. Equality, liberty -- the legal system was completely reformed after he took power.

Unfortunately for France and for the movement, it was dismantled, and replaced with the same King that we once removed. The original Revolution of 1789 was a failure. This one was supposed to be different.

Obviously it was not.

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

But you're avoiding the topic - I don't speak of the king, but of the man who claimed to speak for the Revolution but claimed countless lives.

[text]

[tables]

[Hrgh.]

It is as Enjolras said.

The spirit, the belief, the faith of the Revolution -- it was implemented by the wrong man. Innocents died until Napoleon took control.

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

And innocents died after. You will not deny that Bonaparte was a warmonger.

[text]

[tables]

You also cannot deny that he unified a splintered France underneath one banner -- and ended the unnecessary bloodshed within our country to bring about a new age.

His dismissal from France sparked our current predicament.

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

No history book has called his France a utopia.

[text]

[tables]

Do you believe what you read so blindly?

[text]

[jurisimpudent]

Does that mean you claim it was? Do you claim that under his rule, no one starved? All men were equal, with none above any other? No one was killed through violence?

[text] I'M SORRY HE SAW ROBESPIERRE

[untamedantinous]

Robespierre's ideals were most admirable, as were those of the majority of the Jacobins. He simply implemented them in the wrong way.

[text] He has a google alert doesn't he

[jurisimpudent]

[Hello new debate partner how are you]

So what would have been the right way, sir?

[text] He would if he knew what that was

[untamedantinous]

[WHY HELLO FELLOW CRAVATTED GENTLEMAN.]

I do not disagree with the terror, it is what was needed at the time; there was no other way to move forward. However, moderation is what was lacking. I would rather Robespierre had listened to Danton and Desmoulins, perhaps, but that is not how it ended at the last.

[text] Oh Enjolras, let me show you the 21st century, we have so many more tools for fanboying

[jurisimpudent]

A moment, if I might ask that of you, to address an earlier point. How was the terror needed?

[text] Iiiii can show you the wooooorld

[untamedantinous]

Consider it from the viewpoint of the time. France was at war on all sides -- within herself and from outside -- Prussia, Austria, a good amount of the continent. We were desperate, and going to lose what we had so recently gained, a Republic shot down before it could barely begin to live. In order for it to thrive, those who dissented needed to be quieted. Royalists, spies, those who would turn the works of those great men into chaos and disorder.

I do not agree with the lengths it was taken to. But in theory, in moderation? Certainly.

[text] shiiining shimmering full of revoluuutions

[jurisimpudent]

All right: let me ask you something, in that case. When your King killed and imprisoned those who advocated for revolution, did you not spit upon his name and call him a tyrant?

[text] over sideways and under?

[untamedantinous]

Personally, I did not. I would have had I been alive, however.

[text] I'm out of song lyrics :(

[jurisimpudent]

Quite. So why was violent tyranny all right when you agreed with the tyrant's ideals, but not when you disagreed with them?