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Jacques Belmont's Journal
1) Why does Jacques prefer the outdoors? He spent too much time indoors when he was younger. Jacques also follows Rousseau zealously, and follows the philosophy that society corrupts and everyone would be much happier if they were living a pastoral, bucolic existance out in the countryside, surrounded by books and sheep.
2) Is he enjoying his time in England? He'd enjoy it more if his father wasn't there. So far, he finds the people friendly and conversational and the country beautiful, if rather too rainy and thus inferior to France.
3) Does Jacques have a favourite flower? He likes lupins.
4) Does he believe in love-at-first-sight? Sort of. It's such a useful and overused plot device he feels it had to be true at some point in time.
5) Does he have any personal secrets? If so, please share one? He does. They're usually just things he's ashamed of having done and doesn't like to admit to. He got very drunk once, after he passed the bar. To this day he does not remember what he did while higher than a kite, and it's one of the reasons he doesn't drink now. The loss of control freaked him out a lot.
1.) Has he always disliked the taste of alcohol, or was it something that just developed over time? Always. He drinks wine with his meal when there isn't anything else, but he prefers to abstain.
2.) Excluding the Revolution, what does Jacques like to write about most? Philosophical politics. Barring that, the follies and foibles of human relationships. That's where the real comedy of any play lies.
3.) Has his views ever gotten him into trouble in England? Not yet. Granted, he only arrived a few weeks ago and has so far stayed in or around the Embassy.
4.) Say he wrote a play and it was preformed, becoming very popular and in turn it made him rather famous as a playwright. Would he enjoy his fame and why? He would feel extremely awkward about it. As long as he could ride such fame to a seat in the National Assembly, he'd be pretty pleased, but the idea of being everywhere known and celebrated puts him on edge and makes him deeply uneasy. So many unknown people, expecting so many unknown things....
5.) What sort of argument would Jacques make for the Revolution if he were trying to convince someone who was not yet sold on the idea? The Revolution is the culmination of the Enlightenment. France during the Ancien Regime was a terrible place to live. Society was extremely stratified into the Three Estates- the Clergy, the Nobility, and the other 98% of France. Though 2% of the French population controlled most of the nation's resources and wealth, everyone else had to pay taxes both to the church, the nobility who owned the land, and to the state. Peasants had it even worse. They had to work on the roads one day, and on their lord's land another day, and got put to death in horrifyingly brutal ways if they went hunting in their lord's forest, or dared to complain that their lord's pet pigeons had just eaten all the plants in the fields.
What you could be or what you had the opportunity to do relied entirely on who your parents and grandparents were. It didn't matter if you had the most brilliant mind of the century- if your parents were pig farmers, you were a pig farmer. Furthermore, France was millions of livres in debt and the harvests had been terrible. Centuries of frustration at a stupid, ineffective, corrupt form of government, combined with famine and starvation the likes of which had never been seen, and an inept monarchy that brought in troops to fire on rioting French citizens boiled over into the Revolution. The fall of the Bastille meant an end to the aristocratic privileges that kept 98% of France from power or the same sort of property. For perhaps the first time in Europe, you can be anything you have the talent to be. Women can now directly affect the government (fishwives especially- when not selling fish in the markets, they form roving gangs to start riots whenever they're unhappy), every man can vote instead of just those who own property, Jews and Protestants are considered citizens instead of outcasts, slavery's about to be abolished, and the convoluted tax system is amost at an end. The Revolution is not just a bunch of starving peasants destroying a prison; it is a restoration of a society to what it always had the potential to be.
1. What makes him uncomfortable? Lots of things- his father, the idea that he might be wrong about something, morally gray areas, frank discussions of feelings or sexuality, being around drunk people, receiving critiques or criticism, and people crying.
2. Has he ever been in love? Only with his country.
3. Does he have any remotely happy memories of his father at all? Nope. When he was very young, his father was attentive and kind, but all Jacques remembers of that was that, at some very vague, very early point in time, he had his father's approval and he lost it.
4. What would he do if his mother died? He'd be absolutely devestated.
5. What would he prefer, a peaceful life on the countryside, or living it large in a city? He feels he ought to say the countryside, with a small practice and enough time to write to his heart's content, but he would find himself extremely bored. Jacques would prefer the city, where there are more clients, more cases, and more chances to succeed. It's much busier, but Jacques would probably drive himself insane if he didn't have enough to do.
1) People who like cats are said to be suckers for doting on selfish animals who can never return the affection you show them. Is this somewhat representative of the kinds of people Jacques befriends? Is he selfless? Not particularly- Jacques likes cats because they don't look hurt when he ignores them to study or write. His friends tend to be people who share his ideals or his particularly strict brand of Jacobinism. He is selfless only when it comes to the republic and for perhaps three people (his mother, and his two closest friends). He would make any sacrifice demanded of him for his country or by said three, though his country before all.
2) Does Jacques enjoy music and if so, what is his favorite aria? He does like music and, in fact plays the cello very, very badly. His favorite aria is 'Se vuol ballare signor contino' from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which he considers the best contemporary opera yet written, based on the best contemporary play yet written.
3) Jacques's feelings about his father aren't the happiest. How does this affect his relationship with his mother? Does he resent her for putting up with an emotionally unavailable husband? This made him much, much closer with his mother. Jacques admires her for what he sees at trying to keep her marriage functional with so little encouragement from his father. His mother was extremely manipulative and he still believes her implictly, so any and all blame for his miserable childhood goes to his father, not his dear mother who kept trying and trying with so little encouragement, all because Jacques ought to know his father, but how could his mother know that his father was such a corrupt, emotionless enemy of liberty, etc.
4) If Jacques could be reborn as an animal, what would he be and why? Probably a horse, for the constant sense of purpose and drive.
5) Shamelessly because of the Hornblower, how is Jacques around boats and would he consider a voyage to India or the Americas, if he could? Yay Hornblower! Like Hornblower, Jacques gets violently sea-sick. Since his only experience on boats has been the Channel crossing and he was sick for all of it, he would probably balk at sea-voyage. Though he admires the United States, his admiration is not enough to get over what he thinks would be three months of constant illness.
1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your character's favourite colour, or what the relationship with their mother was like, their lap dancer name, whatever.
2. I respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know your character better.
3. You update your characters IJ with the answers to the questions, and comment to this post with a link to your answers.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else's character, or even players, in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions about either themselves or their characters.
Name: Jacques Belmont
Character journal name: jacques_belmont
Your photo-credit/PB: Ioan Gruffudd
Age: 23
Nationality: French
Allegiance and why: The Revolution. He has seen enough excesses to dislike the Ancien Regime, and read enough philosophy to adore the Revolution's principles. Oh, and his mother. Jacques knows she loves him, unlike with his father.
Social Status and/or Occupation: Bourgeoisie son of the French Ambassador to England. He just passed the bar, so he's technically a lawyer, but he considers himself a revolutionary and a playwright.
Brief physical description of your character: Jacques has dark, curly hair that he wears in a queue, and warm, dark eyes. He is of medium height, and well-built without being terribly muscular, since he spends more time wielding a pen than a sword. If he could get away with it, he would give up culottes for trousers and red-heeled shoes for wooden clogs. As is, he contents himself with his tricolor sash and the marked simplicity of his (still fashionable, since the Romantic movement's about to come into its own, and Jacques is a born Romantic) wardrobe.
Brief description of your characters history, including family: Jacques is the only son of Leon Belmont and a wife Leon despises. Mme Belmont raised Jacques while Léon worked as a lawyer, and then as a member of the Secret Police. Léon had always been busy (particularly after the Revolution hit), and when he did spend time with his family, he showed Jacques's adored mother a distant, almost frigid politeness and no affection what-so-ever. Madame Belmont naturally disliked this and taught her son, who almost idolized her, to hate his father. Being almost frighteningly conscientious, Jacques believed her and to this day thinks that his father despises him about as much as he despises his father. When he was younger, and before his mother started in on the reasoning behind 'your-father-never-loved-you-you-should-h
As a child, he had always been bright, faithful, eager-to-please, and intelligent, so he went to Louis-le-Grand, and then the Sourbonne to study law. Jacques has won several prizes for his essays, has had one of his tragedies performed by a provincial theatre troupe, and recently passed the bar. Though he had several close male friends at school, he was very alone throughout most of his life.
One or two plots which you would like to play out in the community: Jacques writing and then getting a play performed, Jacques confronting his father about politics and his neglectful childhood and adolesence, or Jacques falling in love with something (preferably someone) other than a philosophical treatise.
Are there any other characters you would like to see in the game? For instance, family, friends of your character?: Jacques's mother might be interesting. He also had one extremely close friend in school, who is likewise a lawyer and a revolutionary, though without Jacques's stauchness of character.