Luliputins-149

Speaking about aplomb: nothing elevates your self-assurance more than a
a nice whiff of grapeshot ... "
Napoleon Bonaparte


Liliputins. What, the heck, is this ?
http://www.stihi.ru/2012/08/18/5368




 ***
aplomb 
 
noun : complete and confident composure or self-assurance : poise
   
On her first day as a teacher, June handled herself with aplomb, keeping the class engaged and focused. "The ample chamber orchestra under Boyagian played with zest and aplomb." — From a concert review by Zachary Lewis in The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), March 31, 2014
 
In the 19th century, English speakers borrowed "aplomb," meaning "composure," from French. "Aplomb" can also mean "perpendicularity" in French and comes from the phrase "a plomb," meaning "perpendicularly" or literally "according to the plummet." A plummet is a lead weight that is attached to a line and used to determine vertical alignment. Not surprisingly, "aplomb" and English words like "plumber" and the verb "plumb" ("to measure depth" and "to explore critically and minutely") ultimately trace back to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum."

***

Апломб

Материал из Википедии — свободной энциклопедии
 
У этого термина существуют и другие значения, см. Апломб (значения).
Апломб (фр. aplomb — в буквальном смысле — «отвесно», «прямо», «вертикально», «равновесие») — характерное поведение отдельного индивидуума, группы лиц организации (в диапазоне от семьи до государства) в отношении себе подобных.

В своём первоначальном значении слово «апломб» употреблённое в характеристике человека как личности несло в себе сугубо положительную нагрузку. В конце XIX — начале XX века, согласно «Энциклопедическому словарю Брокгауза и Ефрона», апломбом называли «уверенность в действиях и находчивость в речи и в обращении с людьми»[1]. Такое же определение (слово в слово) дано и в Словаре иностранных слов, вошедших в состав русского языка под редакцией А. Н. Чудинова (1910 год). Так, например, говоря «британский апломб», подразумевали врожденное британское спокойствие и умение «держать удар».

Однако, в XX веке, употребление слова «апломб» применительно к персоне или организации приобрело негативную окраску. К.ф.н., доцент филфака МГУ Н.Г. Комлев[2] в своём «Словаре новых иностранных слов» описывает апломб следующими словами: «чрезмерная самоуверенность в поведении, в обращении с кем-либо»[3]. Апломб употребляется в одном ряду со словами «высокомерие», «заносчивость», «амбиция», «гонор» и т. п[4][5].

В настоящее время отсутствие «апломба» несёт чаще позитивную окраску. Так, в своих мемуарах, доктор И. К. Мельников, описывает своего коллегу Николая Михайловича Амосова следующими словами:

"Был Амосов очень простым человеком — без какого-либо апломба и высокомерия. Когда я работал врачом и не знал ещё в лицо Амосова, однажды, выйдя из корпуса с медицинскими журналами, приказал ему, скромно стоявшему возле корпуса, отнести эти журналы в администрацию санатория. Амосов молча взял эти журналы и так же молча отнес их по назначению. На следующий день на совещании у главврача, где присутствовал и я, и Амосов, Николай Михайлович, как бы между прочим, заметил: «А меня, профессора, здесь уже сделал курьером…»[6].

В хореографии искусное удерживание равновесия также носит название «апломб».

Примечания

В Викисловаре есть статья «апломб»; Апломб // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона: В 86 томах (82 т. и 4 доп.). — СПб., 1890—1907.
; Кандидат филологических наук, доцент филологического факультета МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова Комлев Николай Григорьевич
; Словарь иностранных слов.- Комлев Н. Г., 2006.
; Апломб // Толковый словарь Ушакова
; Апломб Толковый словарь Сергея Ивановича Ожегова
; Николай Михайлович Амосов. Автобиография.
Ссылки
APLOMB // Балет. Энциклопедия, СЭ, 1981
Источник —
Категория: Личность

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Словарь иностранных слов русского языка

АПЛОМБ Перевод
 
АПЛОМБ
(франц. aplomb, от a plomb - по свинцу). 1) уверенность в себе, в своих действиях и находчивость в речи и в обращении с людьми. 2) линия, отвесная к плоскости горизонта.
Словарь иностранных слов, вошедших в состав русского языка.- Чудинов А.Н., 1910.

АПЛОМБ
[фр. aplomb] - чрезмерная самоуверенность в поведении, в обращении с кем-л. Ср. АМБИЦИЯ.
Словарь иностранных слов.- Комлев Н.Г., 2006.

АПЛОМБ
самоуверенная, решит. манера обращения.
Словарь иностранных слов, вошедших в состав русского языка.- Павленков Ф., 1907.

АПЛОМБ
самоуверенность, и особого рода резкость в обращении.
Полный словарь иностранных слов, вошедших в употребление в русском языке.- Попов М., 1907.

АПЛОМБ
франц. aplomb, от а plomb, по свинцу. а) В архитектуре: вертикальная линия к плоскости горизонта. b) Уверенность в себе.
Объяснение 25000 иностранных слов, вошедших в употребление в русский язык, с означением их корней.- Михельсон А.Д., 1865.

апло;мб
1)(фр. aplomb) излишняя самоуверенность (в поведении, в речи).
2)(фр. aplomb букв. равновесие; вертикаль) в хореографии -
а) умение исполнителя сохранить в танце устойчивость, достигаемую за счет спообности удерживать центр тяжести над площадью опоры;
б) подчеркнуто уверенное исполнение танца.
Новый словарь иностранных слов.- by EdwART, , 2009.

апломб

апломба, мн. нет, м. [фр. aplomb]. Самоуверенность, смелость в манерах, разговоре и действиях. Большой апломб. Говорить с апломбом. Держаться с апломбом. У него не хватает апломба.
Большой словарь иностранных слов.- Издательство «ИДДК», 2007.

апломб

а, мн. нет, ж. (фр. aplomb букв. равновесие).

1. Излишняя самоуверенность в поведении, в речи. Говорить с апломбом.
|| Ср. гонор, фанаберия.

а, мн. нет, м. (< фр. aplomb равновесие; вертикаль).

2. хор. Умение исполнителя сохранить в танце устойчивость, а также подчеркнуто уверенное исполнение танца.
Толковый словарь иностранных слов Л. П. Крысина.- М: Русский язык, 1998.
 

Синонимы: амбиция, отвес, самонадеянность, самоуверенность, устойчивость, шапкозакидательство

***
самомнение
такой весь из себя
в белом фраке
белый и пушистый
понт
понтяра
дешевые понты
с понтом под зонтом
(Y.S.)

***


См. также в других словарях:

апломб — а м. aplomb m. 1. Вес, положение. Дурная репутация Селивана давала мне большой апломб между пансионскими товарищами. Лесков .

Получив такой прочный апломб на сцене и за кулисами, юная дочь Терпсихоры, конечно, не могла иметь соперниц.… …   Исторический словарь галлицизмов русского языка

апломб — См. достоинство с апломбом... Словарь русских синонимов и сходных по смыслу выражений. под. ред. Н. Абрамова, М.: Русские словари, 1999. апломб достоинство, самонадеянность, самоуверенность, шапкозакидательство, устойчивость, отвес Словарь… …   Словарь синонимов

АПЛОМБ — АПЛОМБ, апломба, мн. нет, муж. (франц. aplomb). Самоуверенность, смелость в манерах, разговоре и действиях. Большой апломб. Говорить с апломбом. Держаться с апломбом. У него не хватает апломба. Толковый словарь Ушакова. Д.Н. Ушаков. 1935 1940 …   Толковый словарь Ушакова

АПЛОМБ — (франц. aplomb) излишняя самоуверенность в поведении, в речи …   Большой Энциклопедический словарь

АПЛОМБ — АПЛОМБ, а, муж. (книжн.). Излишняя самоуверенность в поведении, в речи. Говорить с апломбом. Толковый словарь Ожегова. С.И. Ожегов, Н.Ю. Шведова. 1949 1992 …   Толковый словарь Ожегова

Апломб — У этого термина существуют и другие значения, см. Апломб (значения). Апломб (фр. aplomb  в буквальном смысле  «отвесно», «прямо», «вертикально», «равновесие»)  характерное поведение отдельного индивидуума, группы лиц… …   Википедия

апломб — а, только ед., м. Чрезмерная самоуверенность в поведении, в речи. Говорить (спорить) с апломбом. Только теперь его нужно лучше судить, заметил Хома с апломбом опытного юриста (Гончар). Этимология: Из западноевропейских языков (фр. aplomb… …   Популярный словарь русского языка

Апломб — (франц. aplomb)         чрезмерная, подчёркнутая самоуверенность (в поведении человека, в разговоре, в манере держаться и т. п.) …   Большая советская энциклопедия

Апломб — (Aplomb) так называют уверенность в действиях и находчивость в речи и в обращении с людьми; слово это целиком взято из французского языка и совершенно вошло в употребление в разговорной речи. В хореографии апломбом называют искусное удерживание в …   Энциклопедический словарь Ф.А. Брокгауза и И.А. Ефрона


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poise

poise
1  /p;;z/ Show Spelled [poiz] Show IPA
noun
1. a state of balance or equilibrium, as from equality or equal distribution of weight; equipoise.
2. a dignified, self-confident manner or bearing; composure; self-possession: to show poise in company. 
3. steadiness; stability: intellectual poise. 
4. suspense or wavering, as between rest and motion or two phases of motion: the poise of the tides. 
5. the way of being poised, held, or carried.
6. the state or position of hovering: the poise of a bird in the air. 
Relevant Questions
How To Learn Poise What Is Poised? How To Develop Poise Which Athletes Are Poised To Be The Biggest Surprises At The London Olympics? What Is A Sentence For The Word Poised? What Is Poise? How To Learn Poise What Is A Sentence For The Word Poised? How To Develop Poise What Is Poised?
verb (used with object), poised, pois·ing. 
7. to adjust, hold, or carry in equilibrium; balance evenly.
8. to hold supported or raised, as in position for casting, using, etc.: to poise a spear. 
9. to hold or carry in a particular manner: She walked, carefully poising a water jug on her head. 
10. Obsolete . to weigh.
verb (used without object), poised, pois·ing. 
11. to rest in equilibrium; be balanced.
12. to hover, as a bird in the air.

Origin:
1350–1400;  (noun) Middle English  pois ( e ) weight < Old French  ( French  poids ) < Late Latin  p;nsum,  noun use of neuter past participle of Latin  pendere  to weigh; (v.) Middle English  poisen  to weigh < Old French  poiser,  variant, based on tonic stem, of peser  < Latin  p;ns;re,  frequentative of pendere 


Synonyms
2. self-assurance; polish, grace, refinement.


Antonyms:
 
1, 3. instability.
Dictionary.com Unabridgedpoise2  /pw;z/ Show Spelled [pwahz] Show IPA
noun Physics. 
a centimeter-gram-second unit of viscosity, equal to the viscosity of a fluid in which a stress of one dyne per square centimeter is required to maintain a difference of velocity of one centimeter per second between two parallel planes in the fluid that lie in the direction of flow and are separated by a distance of one centimeter. Symbol:  P

Origin:
1910–15;  < French;  namedafter Jean Louis Marie Poiseuille  (1799–1869), French physician


Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2014.
Cite This Source |Link To poise
CollinsWorld English Dictionary
poise 1  (p;;z) 
 
— n   
1.  composure or dignity of manner 
2.  physical balance or assurance in movement or bearing 
3.  the state of being balanced or stable; equilibrium; stability 
4.  the position of hovering 
5.  suspense or indecision 
 
— vb   
6.  to be or cause to be balanced or suspended 
7.  ( tr ) to hold, as in readiness: to poise a lance   
8.  ( tr ) a rare word for weigh 
 
[C16: from Old French pois  weight, from Latin p;nsum,  from pendere  to weigh] 


***
Aplomb

aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopaedie
 
Das (oder der) Aplomb (vom lateinischen plumbum 'Blei, Senkblei', im Franzoesischen aplomb oder auch ; plomp 'senkrecht') ist ein praegnanter Ausdruck f;r eine gerade, sichere Haltung, ein selbstsicheres Auftreten, Nachdruecklichkeit in der Rede, Gelassenheit bis hin zur Dreistigkeit.

Im Balletttanz bezeichnet der Begriff Aplomb die Faehigkeit zum Abfangen einer Bewegung, entspricht also der Balance. Im 18. Jahrhundert, als das taegliche Verhalten in den hoeheren Gesellschaftsschichten stark von Tanzbewegungen gepraegt war, wurde der Ausdruck Aplomb generell fuer ein souveraenes bis stuermisches Verhalten verwendet, aehnlich der Bravour. Der Zusammenhang des Ausdrucks mit der Hoffaehigkeit scheint auch im 19./20. Jahrhundert noch auf: „Ich habe noch nicht den Aplomb, der mir wachsen wird, weil er noetig ist, wenn man […] mit den Herren der Welt verkehren will.“ (Theodor Herzl: Tagebucheintrag 1895).

Weblinks Wiktionary: Aplomb – Bedeutungserkl;rungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme,

mit Aplomb

***

self-confidence  definition of self-confidence =   self assurance

Common words appear frequently in written and spoken language across many genres from radio to academic journals.  Informal Informal words should be reserved for casual, colloquial communication. noun self assurance Synonyms for self-confidence
noun self assurance
self-assurance, aplomb,  inner strength,  positive self-image, 

Antonyms for self-confidence: diffidence unsureness

Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source

More words related to self-confidence

self-confidence
noun. self assurance
aplomb
inner strength
positive self-image
self-assurance
assurance
noun. confidence
aggressiveness
aplomb
arrogance
assuredness
audacity
boldness
bravery
certainty
certitude
conviction
coolness
courage
effrontery
faith
firmness
impudence
nerve
poise
positiveness
presumption
security
self-confidence
self-reliance
sureness
surety
temerity
trust
determination
noun. perseverance
assurance
backbone
boldness
bravery
certainty
certitude
constancy
conviction
courage
dauntlessness
decision
dedication
doggedness
dogmatism
drive
energy
fearlessness
firm-ness
fortitude
grit
guts
hardihood
heart
independence
indomitability
intrepidity
nerve
obstinacy
persistence
pluck
purpose
purposefulness
resoluteness
resolution
resolve
self-confidence
single-mindedness
spine
spunk
steadfastness
stiff upper lip
stubbornness
tenacity
valor
willpower
effrontery
noun. nerve, boldness
arrogance
assurance
audacity
backtalk
brashness
brass
brazenness
cheek
cheekiness
chutzpah
crust
disrespect
face
gall
guff
hardihood
impertinence
impudence
incivility
insolence
lip
presumption
rudeness
sass
sauce
self-assurance
self-confidence
shamelessness
smart talk
temerity
egoism/egotism
noun. self-centeredness
arrogance
assurance
boastfulness
boasting
bragging
conceit
conceitedness
egocentricity
egomania
gasconade
haughtiness
insolence
megalomania
narcissism
ostentation
overconfidence
preoccupation with self
presumption
pride
self-absorption
self-admiration
self-confidence
self-importance
self-interest
self-love
self-possession
self-regard
self-worship
selfishness
superiority
swellheadedness
vainglory
vanity
vaunting
morale
noun. confidence, self-esteem
assurance
attitude
disposition
drive
esprit
esprit de corps
heart
humor
mettle
mood
outlook
resolve
self-confidence
self-possession
spirit
temper
temperament
turn
vigor



***

What did Napoleon mean when he said a "whiff of grapeshot"?
LordNeuf answered 5 years ago

Grapeshot is a type of ammunition used in cannons. Instead of a solid round ball, or exploding shell, they put a canister in that is full of small iron or lead balls. When fired, the canister splits apart and all the iron balls fly out, converting the cannon to a giant shotgun.

the reason it's called grapeshot is because the small iron( lead) balls in the canister look like and are about the size of large grapes.

To give them a taste of grapeshot means "shoot the guys coming at us with the cannons"
Source:
http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/...

Other Answers (1)
 
ammianus answered 5 years ago

Napoleon was a lieutenant of artillery, stationed in Paris.On 5 October 1795 a Royalist mob on the streets was dispersed by Napoleon's battery firing a few rounds into them, probably using grapeshot, a charge consisting of musketballs and scrap metal used for close range firing.
It was the 19th British historian Thomas Carlyle, writing some years later, that used the phrase "a whiff of grapeshot" to describe Napoleon's action - there is no record of Napoleon actually saying this himself.

***

Musket balls

The simplicity of the musket design allowed it to fire a variety of ammunition. The simplest ammunition for musket was the round ball, which was simply a round ball of lead. Round balls were intentionally loose fitting in the barrel so that they could quickly be loaded even after the barrel had been fouled by numerous previous shots. This loose fit, combined with the poor aerodynamics of the round ball led to the musket's inaccuracy beyond 50 to 75 yd (46 to 69 m) or so. Muskets could also fire smaller lead pellets called lead shot or buckshot, which struck a wider area but with less force than a single lead ball. Round balls could be combined with buckshot to produce buck and ball ammunition, which combined the wider area of attack of shot with the large mass of the round ball.

***

Napoleon’s Whiff of Grapeshot
---------------------------------

In the later phase of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte – then a mere Brigadier General (who had, in fact, recently been struck off by the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety and was therefore technically an ex-Brigadier General) famously said that he had used ‘a whiff of grapeshot’ when he repulsed a Royalist mob who, in 1795, took to the streets of Paris in an attempt to bring down the new republican government (The Directory) that had come to power after the execution of Robespierre and the end of the Reign of Terror.

Except that Napoleon didn’t actually say, ‘A whiff of grapeshot.’ The phrase does not, if you think about it, really even work in French.

Like a blast from an extremely large and powerful shotgun
The French word for grapeshot is ‘mitraille’, which means the pieces of metal that make up the actual grapeshot: slugs of metal packed into a bag or canister that, when fired from an eighteenth-century cannon, have the same effect as would be achieved by a very large and extremely powerful shotgun.  So the French might say, for example, that Napoloen ‘laisse la mitraille tirer pendant trois-quarts d’heure’  (‘let the grapeshot be fired for three quarters of an hour’) but they are unlikely to talk about ‘whiff’s’ of grapeshot.

 
Napoleon fait tirer а Mitraille sur les sectionnaires, print of a painting by Yan’ Dargent
The phrase ‘whiff of grapeshot’ has the very Anglo-Saxon merit of downplaying something that is, in fact, quite terrible. It was the Anglo-Saxons, after all, who chose ‘sword play’ as the most appropriate term to describe hand-to-and fighting with sharp weapons: Anglo-Saxons are strong on irony.

But it is not obvious what Napoleon himself would have said in French that would translate as ‘whiff of grapeshot.’ One translation might be ‘Une bouffйe de mitraille.’ ‘Bouffйe’ can mean something like ‘whiff’ or ‘puff’:  a breath of fresh air, for example, is une bouffйe d’air frais; une bouffйe d’honte is a flush of shame. Not really the same thing, is it? And ‘whiff’ in English has strong connotations of smell, as well as puff: ‘ a whiff of gunpowder’ is a perfectly sensible phrase in English. Un parfum de mitraille, perhaps? Une odeur de mitraille?? I really don’t think do.

Europe on the brink of revolution

In fact, the phrase ‘whiff of grapeshot’ was coined by the Scottish essayist and historian, Thomas Carlyle, in his book The French Revolution: A History. The work was published in 1837, sixteen years after Napoleon’s death in exile on St Helena.

Carlyle’s book, to the distress of most historiographers, is written in a highly dramatic and poetic style which for the modern reader (certainly for this modern reader) is utterly unreadable.

It was, however, extremely popular at the time, not least because Europe was once again on the brink of revolution – a series of revolutions was to sweep through Europe in 1848 – and because Carlyle’s account of the impulses behind the French Revolution of 1789 seemed highly relevant. Dickens used the book as the historical source for A Tale of Two Cities.

There is also an excellent story associated with the writing of The French Revolution: A History. Carlyle sent the original, complete handwritten manuscript of Volume I of the book to his friend and mentor, the famous Utilitarian philosopher and Member of Parliament, John Stuart Mills, seeking his opinion on  the work in progress. Sometime after receiving the manuscript, Mills rushed round to Carlyle’s house in Great Cheyne Row, on the bank of the river Thames in London’s Chelsea, in a state of high excitement, to say that the entire manuscript had been, most unfortunately, destroyed by the Mill’s housemaid, who had used it to start a fire.

‘If you wanted to get rid of a manuscript . . .’
You may have read Bill Bryson’s book, At Home: A short history of private life, which considers this episode in more detail.

‘A servant, Mill explained,’ writes Bryson, ‘had seen [the manuscript] lying by the fender and had used it to light a fire. Now you don’t have to consider the matter too carefully,’ continues Bryson, ‘to realize that this explanation has some problems. First, a handwritten document, however disposed’ [that is to say, lying by the fender or wherever] ‘does not look inconsequential; any maid who worked in the Mill household would be used to seeing manuscripts and could not fail to have had impressed upon her their importance and value.

‘In any case, it hardly takes an entire manuscript to light a fire. Burning the whole would require patiently feeding the pages in a few at a time – the action you would take if you wanted to get rid of the manuscript, but not if all you wanted was to start a blaze. In short, it is impossible to conceive circumstances in which a maid, however dim and deficient, could accidentally but plausibly destroy such a piece of work in its entirety.

‘An alternative possibility was that Mill himself had burned the manuscript in a fit of jealousy or anger. Mill was an authority on the French Revolution and had told Carlyle that he had it in mind to write a book on the subject himself.’[1]

Well, one cannot possibly comment, but one does see Bryson’s point of view.

‘Its ragged Pythian Carmagnole-dance has transformed into a Pyrrhic . . .’  Well, we’ve all thought that
Carlyle, however, went on to rewrite the entire volume from memory – an impressive feat, which may also have helped him to develop his distinctive but idiosyncratic literary style.

Let me give you an example of this, which is on the topic of the ‘Sans Culottes’: a popular term for the rank and file of the French revolution, who chose not to wear the silk knee-breeches typical of the period (which were seen as being representative of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy) but who wore, instead, the honest trousers (pantalons – named after the Commedia del Arte character, Pantalone) of the working classes.

We British, of course, with our famous sense of humour, have often chosen to translate ‘sans-culottes’ as ‘without trousers’, thus causing much ribaldry and mirth at the expense of French revolutionaries.

 
Sans et avec cullotes
Anyway, here is what Carlyle has to say on the subject of ‘Sansculottism’, which he felt had been brought to an end by Napoleon’s ‘whiff of grapeshot’.

“So dies Sansculottism, the body of Sansculottism, or is changed. Its ragged Pythian Carmagnole-dance has transformed itself into a Pyrrhic, into a dance of Cabarus Balls. Sansculottism is dead; extinguished by new isms of that kind, which were its own natural progeny; and is buried, we may say, with such deafening jubilation and disharmony of funeral-knell on their part, that only after some half century or so does one begin to learn clearly why it ever was alive.”[2]

Uhhh – thank you, Mr Carlyle. Have you taken your medication today?  I started researching what Carlyle might have been be referring to with the phrase ‘a dance of Cabarus Balls’, but I began to lose the will to live. (If you have any idea, please do leave a comment on this blog.)

The Whiff of Grapeshot
A page or two later in the book, Carlyle moves on to refer to the famous ‘whiff of grapeshot’. You will see from the following extract that Carlyle is not ashamed to invent dialogue for Napoleon (as he did for other significant figures in the vast cast of characters portrayed in his book).

`It is false,` says Napoleon, `that we fired first with blank charge; it had been a waste of life to do that.`

Funnily enough, that sounds rather like the real Napoleon: to have fired a round of blank shot, he might have argued, would have been to waste more human lives (i.e. the lives of the soldiers on his side of the barricades). So far as I can tell, however, Napoleon never actually said that, either.

Carlyle continues.

`It is false, ‘says Napoleon, `that we fired first with blank charge; it had been a waste of life to do that.’ Most false: the firing was with sharp and sharpest shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport; the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show splintered by it, to this hour. Singular: in old Broglie`s time, six years ago, this Whiff of Grapeshot was promised; but it could not be given then, could not have profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, and the man; and behold, you have it; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it, and become a thing that was!’

So, there we have it.

The reference to ‘old Broglie’ is presumably a reference to Victor Franзois, the 2nd Duke of Broglie, a marshal in the army of Louis XV and, subsequently, of Louis XVI. Carlyle’s reference to ‘six years’ before the Whiff of Grapeshot in 1795 places us in 1789, the year that saw the storming of the Bastille and the later storming of the Tuileries Palace, which forced King Louis and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, to flee from Paris and take refuge in Versailles (from which they were forcibly returned to Paris in October 1789), but I cannot find any reference that would put ‘old Broglie’ in a position where he might have fired a whiff of grapeshot of his own in a way that would have had an influence on the course of the revolution.

‘Sweep away for or five hundred of them with the cannon’
It is well-known, however, that Napoleon, though a supporter of the Revolution, was horrified by the actions of the mob that stormed the Tuileries, massacring and mutilating the Swiss Guards who were defending the  palace. According to one account, written by a man who had attended military college with Napoleon and who witnessed the storming of the Tuileries, Napoleon was horrified by the Royal Guard’s lack of decisive action.

‘What madness! How could they allow that rabble to enter? Why do they not sweep away four or five hundred of them with the cannon? The rest would take themselves off very quickly.’[3]

 
The massacre of the Swiss guard; Les Mise des Tuileries by Henri Motte
The gruesome massacre at the Tuileries may well have been on Napoleon’s mind when he gave the order to use grapeshot against the insurrectionaries in 1795.  The dramatic and long-lasting effect of this brutal action, as Carlyle implies, was to bring an end to the power of the Paris mob – a force that had driven so many of the key episodes of the French Revolution. With Napoleon’s ruthless action, the Revolution was, in many ways, at an end – though Napoleon would continue to argue that he was preserving and protecting the goals of the Revolution, even as he had himself crowned Emperor in 1804.

Carlyle is entirely right in saying that the walls of Saint Roch church in the Rue Saint-Honorй are still pock-marked by the effects of Napoleon’s ‘whiff of grapeshot.’

‘Wall’, however, was obviously far too prosaic a word for Carlyle to use when ‘rabbets and plinths’ was an available alternative. ‘Rabbet’ is a obscure term for a groove in a piece of wood that allows a joint to be made with a another piece of wood – what we might now call a ‘rebate’ (from the French rabattre) and the meaning of ‘plinth’ used by Carlyle in this context is presumably ‘continuous course of stones supporting a wall’.

‘It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grudge and a ray of sunshine’
I’m still not sure where the ‘rabbets’ come in, but Carlyle must have like the ring of the phrase, in the same way that he liked ‘whiff of grapeshot’, and, indeed, ‘a Dance of Cabarus Balls’.

Carlyle was a dour and irascible Scottish Calvinist who had lost his faith: an unnerving combination which might explain why few of Carlyle’s contemporaries found him to be congenial company: brilliant, certainly, but not necessarily the sort of chap one might hope to run into down at the coffee house.

I am reminded of one P. G. Wodehouse’s quietly perfect comic sentences: ‘It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grudge and a ray of sunshine.’

Maybe John Stuart Mills was not jealous of Carlyle’s history of the French Revolution after, all – perhaps he was just trying to save the world from Carlyle’s prose-poetry.

Napoleon Bonaparte features in History Lessons, ‘Doing the Planning’


 

[1] Biil Bryson, At Home: A short history of private life, Black Swan, 2011, p 110

[2] Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: a History, Book 3. VII Chapter 3.7.VI.
[3] M. de Bourienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, London, 1836, Vol 1 p 5, quoted in David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, Scribner, New York, 1966, p 14.

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About the Author

Jonathan Gifford: I write and blog about the human aspects of business and leadership, with an interest in the lessons that we can learn from history, including recent history. Please do leave a comment if anything occurs. You can sign up for my occasional newsletter, highlighting some recent blogs. I live in Oxfordshire, England