Someone tell me this is a terrible idea.

[theprudeone]

Perhaps by going, I can right some wrongs...

You are being pessimistic, my scribe, in believing that I won't be able to.

Yours,
Marie-Louise de Savoy
Princesse de Lamballe

Comments

[antinouswild]

[Enjolras isn't often skeptical, but he is skeptical now. He eyes her sideways, his eyes hard.]

Are you sure you're not part of the probem?

[theprudeone]

There's much that hindsight can teach a person, monsieur.

I had little control over the matters as a whole regardless.

[antinouswild]

How convenient it must be for you.

The people who fought with me had one tenth the 'control' you had, Madame. At least they had the spirit to put fourth some kind of effort.

But, poor you, to sit back, comfortable, safe, and well fed, and lament your lack of control of the matters at hand.

[theprudeone]

The people who fought with you were brave and their sacrifice appreciated by future generations.

I am showing remorse for what had been done, but who are we to change the past? It is impossible, monsieur. You may lecture me all day on what went wrong, but what has been done cannot be changed.

[antinouswild]

That dose not absolve you from sitting idly by while the present became the past.

[theprudeone]

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, isn't it? Do not presume to know me, monsieur, or my intentions.

How easy it is for you to lecture me because of the knowledge you possess. You were raised with knowledge that I was not. And so you are able to, 40 years after my murder, make assumptions of the kind of woman I was, of the way I lived. What propaganda of my life, of my relationships, have you been subjected to? What propaganda is it that you believe?

[antinouswild]

Now who is the presumptous one? I was born to a wealthy family. My mother never saw me hungry, or sold herself to feed me. We were not cold or ill or dying.

I merely could not eat while I knew others starved. That is the difference between us. You can plead ignorance all you like, but it doesn't matter.

[theprudeone]

I never made any such presumptions. Nor do I wish to sit here and argue with you over things that cannot be undone. You believe me a monster, then I cannot change your mind. I am not and have never claimed to be perfect. Some of our mistakes, I fear, are greater than others.

[antinouswild]

Indeed you cannot. You plead ignorance, yet even for a woman isolated by privilege would have to admit to an astonishing amount of willful blindness and even stupidity to claim that she did not know that people were dying for want of food, warmth, and care.

Yet I am not without a mind to listen. Tell me then, what mistakes do you admit to?