DrabbleWriMo 29: Surprise
29 November 2021 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeA last-minute (surprise!) change of plan; in order to reduce the 'disjointed' effect, we omit the entire episode of the fake escort which turns out to be a real one, and cut to the aftermath. Which means that Gaston only gets a single PoV chapter overall, I think (Absent). Again, probably symptomatic of the shifted focus throughout -- the vast majority of the chapters are either de Brencourt or Valentine.
It does work well with my expressed desire to do more of de Brencourt's PoV for the bits the author only implies in retrospect and in passing, though. I'm pretty pleased with how much of the latter I've managed to cover, as things have turned out; it brings the result closer to actual fan-fiction rather than an exercise in summary/retelling.
I'm sorry to have left out so much of Roland; from a genuine fan-fiction point of view, I can't help wondering where he did go on that final morning, when we learn only that he is out and fails to return before the end of the novel, and more importantly what on earth his reactions must have been when he did arrive back to discover that his world has fallen about his ears in his absence (and to learn it at the hands of the Comte de Brencourt, when there has never been much liking lost between them)...
Also, I coincidentally caught out Broster in a historical blooper, which that meticulous author would probably have been horrified to learn: I was looking up Hyde de Neuville in an attempt to find out what was meant by having the character refer to "my compatriot Bourgoing" (p393) -- I thought they might perhaps be fellow-Belgians or Alsatians, as both names are un-French in appearance -- and discovered that while Hyde de Neuville *was*, indeed, an active counter-revolutionary agent from a remarkably young age, he did not become a Baron until 1821, under the restored régime of Louis XVIII. (I note that Wikipedia doesn't mention this detail, and presumably neither did the reference books Broster had to hand!)
So the passing allusion to "the Baron Hyde de Neuville" as a chief contributor to the escape plan is an anachronism for a scene set during the winter of 1799 ;-p
Fortunately he is simply plain "Hyde de Neuville" at every other reference (Hyde was his *surname*, apparently as the result of descent from a family of English Stuart exiles -- a collateral relative of Edward Hyde, whose daughter married James II, possibly!)
It does work well with my expressed desire to do more of de Brencourt's PoV for the bits the author only implies in retrospect and in passing, though. I'm pretty pleased with how much of the latter I've managed to cover, as things have turned out; it brings the result closer to actual fan-fiction rather than an exercise in summary/retelling.
The Duc was gone. Dead. Had been taken away at seven o'clock this morning to Mirabel and shot.
Stunned, he could not believe it -- could not face Valentine with the news. But she must not hear it from a stranger...
He would see her white face above the grey fur collar to the end of his days. Stumbling to find words, he felt his throat close; saw her anticipation turn to sick horror, and forced out the revelation at last.
He had stabbed her to the heart with this same message once before. Only this time it was no lie.
I'm sorry to have left out so much of Roland; from a genuine fan-fiction point of view, I can't help wondering where he did go on that final morning, when we learn only that he is out and fails to return before the end of the novel, and more importantly what on earth his reactions must have been when he did arrive back to discover that his world has fallen about his ears in his absence (and to learn it at the hands of the Comte de Brencourt, when there has never been much liking lost between them)...
Also, I coincidentally caught out Broster in a historical blooper, which that meticulous author would probably have been horrified to learn: I was looking up Hyde de Neuville in an attempt to find out what was meant by having the character refer to "my compatriot Bourgoing" (p393) -- I thought they might perhaps be fellow-Belgians or Alsatians, as both names are un-French in appearance -- and discovered that while Hyde de Neuville *was*, indeed, an active counter-revolutionary agent from a remarkably young age, he did not become a Baron until 1821, under the restored régime of Louis XVIII. (I note that Wikipedia doesn't mention this detail, and presumably neither did the reference books Broster had to hand!)
So the passing allusion to "the Baron Hyde de Neuville" as a chief contributor to the escape plan is an anachronism for a scene set during the winter of 1799 ;-p
Fortunately he is simply plain "Hyde de Neuville" at every other reference (Hyde was his *surname*, apparently as the result of descent from a family of English Stuart exiles -- a collateral relative of Edward Hyde, whose daughter married James II, possibly!)
