NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Transcription

1 NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY WALDEN: It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to place one s self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society. He declared that a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a foot-pad, that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and firm resolve. This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found himself often enough in formal opposition to what are deemed the most sacred laws of society, through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such. PEOPLE OF WALDEN MIRABEAU Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Étienne Dumont

2 1759 July 18, Wednesday: Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont was born at Geneva, Switzerland, of which his family had been citizens of good repute from the days of the Reverend John Calvin. He would be educated for the ministry at the college of Geneva. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Étienne Dumont Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project

3 1781 The Swiss teacher Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi s four-volume novel LEONARD AND GERTRUDE, OR, ABOOK FOR THE PEOPLE, about the ordinary lives of German people, with the author s ideas as to moral, social, and political reform developing out of the inspirational example set by the devoted and self-sacrificing mother, would be appearing part by part from this year into Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont was ordained as a minister of the Protestant church of the city of Geneva. This was, however, not to be, for through the interference of the courts of France and Sardinia, the aristocratic party in Geneva was becoming dominant and the Dumonts were liberals or democrats. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Étienne Dumont Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project

4 1783 A Swiss chemist, Genevois Aimé Argand, presented George III with a lamp. (Shouldn t he have offered the man something he needed, like a last name?) The king introduced him to somebody who introduced him to somebody who introduced him to Matthew Boulton, who happened to be the partner of James Watt, and the lamp was patented and a factory was set up. The key improvement in this lamp design, the Argand lamp, was an even and adequate supply of air to the flame but sometimes it s little things like that which make all the difference. Although the Reverend Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont s name was not on the list of those proscribed by Geneva s aristocratic party, he chose to follow the example of his townsman Pierre Lefort, the first tutor, minister, and general of the tsar. He departed from Geneva, joining his mother and sisters at St Petersburg, Russia, where his father had formerly been court jeweller. There he would become, for a period of 18 months, the pastor of the French Reformed church. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? NO, THAT S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN S STORIES. LIFE ISN T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Étienne Dumont

5 1785 When the Earl of Shelburne, William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, then a minister of state, invited Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont to voyage from Russia to England to undertake the tutoring of his 5-year-old 2d son, 1 the Reverend removed from his pastorate in St. Petersburg to London. Lord Shelburne had meanwhile been made 1st marquess of Lansdowne. In that aristocratic home the Reverend Dumont would make the acquaintance of such Whig personages as Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Henry Richard Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and especially Sir Samuel Romilly, with whom he would form a close and enduring companionship. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Étienne Dumont 1. This lad would become Lord Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, who would have a long public career including service as Home Secretary, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, three times, as Lord President of the Council.

6 1788 The Reverend Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont visited Paris with Sir Samuel Romilly. They stayed only a couple of months, but during that period Dumont interacted on almost a daily basis with Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau. On their return from Paris Dumont made the acquaintance of Jeremy Bentham. Becoming enthusiastic over the writings of Bentham, he schemed to bring them out in a truncated French version suitable for the general public. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

7 1789 Summer: At the request of the Genevan exiles in London, Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont formed an intent to return to Paris, in the company of M. Duroverai, ex-attorney of the republic of Geneva, and obtain, through their countryman Necker, who had just returned to office, an unrestricted restoration of Genevese liberty, by cancelling the treaty of guarantee between France and Switzerland which prevented the republic from enacting new laws without the consent of the parties to this treaty, and journeyed again to Paris. There he necessarily came into connection with most of the leading men in the Constituent Assembly, and enjoyed (?) a front-row seat in the events of the French Revolution. He was able to renew his acquaintance with Mirabeau, finding him now occupied both with his duties as a deputy and with writing for his journal, the Courier de Provence. Dumont would begin to actively supply this journal with reports and with original articles, and also would begin to ghost-write speeches for Mirabeau to read in the assembly (we can view this activity in the posthumous edition SOUVENIRS SUR MIRABEAU, of 1832). WHAT I M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Étienne Dumont Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project

8 1791 March: Discouraged by recent French political developments and by the poor financial situation of the Courier de Provence, and stung by an accusation that he not only ghosted speeches for Mirabeau but also personally endorsed his policies, Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont returned to England. For a couple of years he would oscillate back and forth between London and Paris. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Étienne Dumont

9 1792 Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont accompanied Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Prince de Bénévente s (Talleyrand s) embassy to England and then would no longer be making trips to Paris.

10 1801 Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont toured the continent of Europe in the company of his protégé or former pupil Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, then 21 years of age and a recent masters graduate of Trinity College of Cambridge University (but not yet the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne or the 4th Earl of Kerry).

11 1802 Under the close editorship of the Reverend Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, Jeremy Bentham s TRAITÉ DE LEGISLATION CIVILE ET PÉNALE (Paris, three volumes). At about this point, Dumont was writing his SOUVENIRS SUR MIRABEAU, which would be published only posthumously, and would be read by Henry Thoreau. SOUVENIRS SUR MIRABEAU

12 WALDEN: It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to place one s self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society. He declared that a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a foot-pad, that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and firm resolve. This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found himself often enough in formal opposition to what are deemed the most sacred laws of society, through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such. PEOPLE OF WALDEN MIRABEAU

13 1806 As Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont s former pupil Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice became the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the sinecure clerkship with which he had been favored was superceded by the grant of a straightforward pension of 500 per annum. Here in this cartoon you can see that the mouth of this new Chancellor of the Exchequer is spewing forth a fountain of taxpayer-funded benefits for his Tory cronies:

14 Here s a close-up of the new chancellor: And here in this political cartoon, we may fancy, might be his former tutor Étienne Dumont, recipient of this munificent 500-per-annum state pension: (Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice might have practiced the virtue of taking too good care of his friends but he wasn t all bad: as leader of the opposition in the House of Lords, he would be supporting the abolition of the slave trade, and also he would be supporting elimination of the disabilities acts that were currently marginalizing in England the Roman Catholics and the Jews.)

15 1811 Under the close editorship of Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, Jeremy Bentham s THÉORIE DES PEINES ET DES RECOMPENSES (London, two volumes; two editions would appear at Paris).

16 1814 Geneva recovered her liberties and Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont was finally able to go home, bringing with him a small fortune. He would marry, become a member of the city s sovereign representative council, become even at some point its leader and there at his home town would spend most of the remainder of his life.

17 1815 Under the close editorship of Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, Jeremy Bentham s TACTIQUE DES ASSEMBLÉES LEGISLATIVES (Geneva). William Smith s geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland identified the strata of the earth largely on the basis of the fossils they contained (before long Smith would be in debtors prison). THE SCIENCE OF 1815 Jean-Pierre Perraudin explained the erratic boulders of the Val de Bagnes in the Swiss canton of Valais as due to the glaciers in the area, which had once upon a time been longer. OUR MOST RECENT GLACIATION

18 1817 Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont laid before the magistrates of Geneva a draft of an Everything-Bentham-All- The-Time-Bentham-Bentham penal code. This would be referred to a commission of which he was a member, where its fate would be pointless, endless, and fruitless discussion (Dumont would obtain, however, the construction of a panopticon in which to incarcerate the region s potentially penitent prisoners).

19 1823 Under the close editorship of Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, Jeremy Bentham s TRAITÉ DES PREUVES JUDICIAIRES (Paris, two volumes).

20 1828 Under the close editorship of Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, Jeremy Bentham s DE L ORGANIZATION JUDICIAIRE ET DE LA CODIFICATION. Also, in this year, the entire series of Bentham-in-French volumes was being reissued, by a publisher in Brussels.

21 1829 September 29, Tuesday: The Greater London Metropolitan Police, remodeled by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel and an Act of Parliament in June, began duty think of the people we have now come to term Bobbies, think Scotland Yard (their headquarters were established in Scotland Yard near Charing Cross). Constable had been an ancient post of authority in the local parishes of England, and the incumbent had often been recognized by the staff of office which he carried. Each year the justice of the peace would choose a man from the parish to carry this staff, apprehend wrongdoers, and keep the peace. As of this year, however, in London town, these constables were being converted into full-time, salaried employees (by 1856 this would be the situation in all the country towns of England). Nicolò Paganini visited Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at Weimar. On this day or the following one, Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont died at Milan while on an autumn tour.

22 1832 Posthumous publication of Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont s SOUVENIRS SUR MIRABEAU, which had been written in about In 1835 college student David Henry Thoreau would check out from the Harvard College library the English edition, RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU, AND OF THE TWO FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES OF FRANCE. BY ETIENNE DUMONT, OF GENEVA (London: Edward Bull, Holles Street). SOUVENIRS SUR MIRABEAU

23 1835 January 13, Tuesday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont s RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU, AND OF THE TWO FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES OF FRANCE (London: Edward Bull, 1832). RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU

24 WALDEN: It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to place one s self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society. He declared that a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a foot-pad, that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and firm resolve. This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found himself often enough in formal opposition to what are deemed the most sacred laws of society, through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such. PEOPLE OF WALDEN MIRABEAU Thoreau also checked out John Ranking s HISTORICAL RESEARCHES ON THE CONQUEST OF PERU, MEXICO, BOGOTA, NATCHEZ, AND TALOMECO, IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, BY THE MONGOLS, ACCOMPANIED WITH ELEPHANTS; AND THE LOCAL AGREEMENT OF HISTORY AND TRADITION, WITH THE REMAINS OF ELEPHANTS AND MASTODONTES, FOUND IN THE NEW WORLD (London: Longman & Company, 1827). 2 There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Emily Dickinson According to the records of the Institute of 1770 at Harvard College, there was a brief business meeting. 2. According to Ranking, in the 13th Century Mongols came over to America from Asia and, relying upon the American mammoth, not yet extinct, as their engine of war, conquered the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Uh, prof, would that be the 13th Century AD, or BC? The historian Hubert H. Bancroft has attempted an explanation of Ranking s fantasy: In the thirteenth century the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan sent a formidable armament against Japan. The expedition failed, and the fleet was scattered by a violent tempest. Some of the ships, it is said, were cast upon the coast of Peru, and their crews are supposed to have founded the mighty empire of the Incas, conquered three centuries later by Pizarro. Mr. John Ranking, who leads the van of theorists in this direction, has written a goodly volume upon this subject, which certainly, if read by itself, ought to convince the reader as satisfactorily that America was settled by Mongols, as Kingsborough's work that it was reached by the Jews, or Jones's argument that the Tyrians had a hand in its civilization. That a Mongol fleet was sent against Japan, and that it was dispersed by a storm, is matter of history; but that any of the distressed ships were driven upon the coast of Peru can be but mere conjecture, since no news of such an arrival ever reached Asia.

25 MAGISTERIAL HISTORY IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this read-only computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace resulting in navigation problems allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC Please contact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. It s all now you see. Yesterday won t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. Remark by character Garin Stevens in William Faulkner s INTRUDER IN THE DUST Prepared: September 13, 2014 Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Étienne Dumont

26 ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot Laura (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

27 Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary writerly process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world. First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.