Since the dawn of humankind’s ability to speak and form intellectual thoughts into spoken words, people have gossiped. The French call it les potin, les commerages, or les ragots. Such exchanges of inflamed information, over the backyard fence tittle-tattle has in more recent times been exploited beyond our ability to comprehend – consider modern news outlets. But the result, whether in ancient times or modern sound bites, is the same: Gossip shapes perception.
This notion became quite clear when author and Professor Robert Darnton presented his book “Revolutionary Temper” during an engagement hosted by the Sippican Historical Society on December 6. Darnton is a highly respected authority on 18th century France, educated at the University of Oxford, and has been nominated for Prix Medicis essai, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, National Book Award for History, and was the director of the library at Harvard University for a decade.
The depth of knowledge he imparted on this evening cannot be boiled down into a few simple sentences. Suffice to say Darnton was an informative and entertaining lecturer. A beau speaker.
During his hour-long talk, Darnton plumbed not only French history, focusing on the years that the Kings Louie (yes, there were several) reigned but the everyday comings and goings of the people, the common folk whose habits of daily living were oftentimes impacted by gossip.
Darnton described places where people would gather to exchange “news,” noting that the printed word was not allowed and, if at all possible to create, might bring the wrath of the king down on one’s neck, literally. He said that a Tree of Krakow in Paris was a popular location for such exchanges.
News mongers would listen to what was being discussed, then verbally spread the word. Ambassadors from other countries would send spies to these known locations, collecting that latest information being bantered about the people. Thus, these nerve centers were used not only to collect news but to pass along information as well. Long before the internet spread information, correct or otherwise, there were gossips.
Darnton shared that much of what was being repeated in the dusty lanes of the gathering spots was being written down by scribes into registers. He said today such registers are archived, providing some not-so-first-hand transcripts of what people were thinking about and sharing. These documents had to be printed outside of France. Today there remain some 36 volumes that span a 25-year period.
And it wasn’t just the spoken word that moved among the masses. Events either perceived or real were used as lyrics put to tunes familiar to the populous. One such ditty told the story of kidnapped children.
The King and Queen plus mistresses were always a popular topic. Just like today. One story Darnton noted said that King Louie 15th was suffering from venereal disease, therefore he could not take Holy Communion, rendering him an inferior ruler due to “being steeped in sin.”
With each war, conflict or regal misdeed Darnton spoke of, there was this line being drawn, how we mortals still cling to gossip, passing it along, but we call it fake news. The power of the media, either by spoken word under a tree or modern news outlet, or text, email, Facebook, X (Twitter) and the like, can and does shape perception.
King Louie and Marie might have had a better chance of living to ripe old ages if they could have protected their images against the gossip being spread about them in today’s nano-second, microchip society, but then again, maybe not.
Sippican Historical Society
By Marilou Newell