The particule question

[igenlode]

(Cross-posted from a comment on vicomte_de_chagny, since I know I'll never look for it there, and had enough trouble finding the reference to material that only existed in an untagged comment in my own blog...)

One interesting thing about Leroux's reference to the initials RC carved into the wall of the Communards' dungeon is how it relates to the particule question -- it implies that, to a Frenchman, Raoul's initials are self-evidently RC, not (as I've seen in fanfics where a handkerchief embroidered with Raoul's initials forms part of the plot) RdC, or even R.D.C.
(I wondered if I ought to drop the particule on typing up, but having now done five chapters -- 15,000 words/31 pages of manuscript/Plot Point Four -- I've stuck with having Lancard refer to him as 'de Chagny". Having him address Raoul as 'Chagny' just seemed rude and weird when I was typing it....)

Comments

[erimia]

It actually didn't occur to me that Raoul can be addressed as just "Chagny", even though I know it can be done with such names (after all, de Sade is often referred to as "Sade"). Probably it is an influence of fics - I remember seeing him addressed as "Chagny" mostly by characters who are being rude/negative towards him, or at least deliberately unceremonious. It's strange that I developed the habit of clinging to the particule so much when it comes to Raoul, considering that I try to de-emphasize aristocratic status when referring to people as much as possible (I even prefer to use "George Byron" and "Edward Dunsany" instead of "Lord Byron" and "Lord Dunsany").

[igenlode]

I actually thought 'Byron' was his title and not his name (as is often the case with English peerages) -- 'George Byron' looks all wrong to me -- but although he tends to get listed as "George Gordon, Lord Byron", apparently that's in the same vein as "Alfred, Lord Tennyson", who was Alfred Tennyson as well as being Lord Tennyson.

(An interesting example cropped up when Raoul and d'Artois introduce themselves with incongruous formality in the middle of the Arctic: Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, meets Gervais de Sessignes, Marquis d'Artois. I don't know if the usage is correct in French, but it's the distinction you make in English between someone whose title is the same as his surname and someone where it isn't. Leroux gives absolutely no indication whether "d'Artois" is a surname or title (or even a human being!), so I made a deliberate choice to make it a title distinct from his actual surname.)

For what it's worth, a quick glance through my "Collected Letters" shows that Byron signed himself "B." or "N.B." [Noel Byron] not "George", and sometimes "Byron" in full, even when writing to his wife or sister, and even as a child ("I hope you will excuse all blunders as this is the first letter I ever wrote" -- at the age of ten!).

So I'd assume that, like many young men of the era, he was known universally by his title rather than his [Christian] name. (I've seen this remarked on elsewhere, where in even in a domestic context the eldest sons of peers are referred to by their courtesy titles -- so if the Earl of Marylebone's eldest son Thomas held the title of Viscount Derry, his mother might well write to her married daughter that 'poor Derry had no luck in his application for leave' rather than 'poor Tom'.)

I wouldn't put too much effort into anachronistic egalitarianism -- I don't think anyone ever called Byron 'George', least of all his friends ;-p

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I wonder if I was in fact being influenced subconsciously by fics which use 'Chagny' in a derogatory way? ;-(
Lancard is being pretty derogatory at this stage of the plot ("Tell the surgeon de Chagny's finally gone clean off his head" when Raoul attempts to swim ashore from the middle of the fjord)...