Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy the Wilson. Somehow we
Speaker 1: have never talked about Syrano de Bergerac. Somehow I was
Speaker 1: not entirely clear that Serrano to Burserac was a real person.
Speaker 1: He was, uh, And he's often called a man of letters,
Speaker 1: or a philosopher, or a soldier, or a duellist, or
Speaker 1: a playwright or many other things. He was all of
Speaker 1: those things. But really what he may have been best
Speaker 1: at with self invention and his real story, because he
Speaker 1: was a real person, is pretty blurry to begin with,
Speaker 1: and he definitely contributed to that blur. But that story
Speaker 1: has been even more obscured over the centuries by the
Speaker 1: fictionalized versions of his life, or so obscured that you
Speaker 1: maybe didn't know he was a real person. So today
Speaker 1: we are going to take a and what we actually
Speaker 1: do know about the man who called himself ser um.
Speaker 1: You know, if you say Sira no with a really
Speaker 1: beautiful French accent, it sounds great, but for me it
Speaker 1: starts to sound spitty. So I'll probably do the more
Speaker 1: anglesh heads up. We do want to let you know
Speaker 1: there is a brief mention of harm to an animal
Speaker 1: in this one. It comes pretty late in the second segments,
Speaker 1: to just be aware of that. Going in seven year
Speaker 1: does Sereno de Bergerac was born on March six, sixteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: in Paris. We had an older brother named Denny, who
Speaker 1: had been born in sixteen fourteen, and then in the
Speaker 1: five years between those two there were two other sons
Speaker 1: who died in infancy, and then after Sarah no another
Speaker 1: son was born named a Belle in sixteen four He
Speaker 1: also had a sister named Catherine, but we're not really
Speaker 1: sure where in the birth order she was born. He
Speaker 1: may have had some other siblings as well. It's not certain.
Speaker 1: For a long time time, it was believed that he
Speaker 1: had been born in Gascony. Sereno himself is said to
Speaker 1: have cultivated this particular myth. We'll talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit more in a bit. And his father was Abell,
Speaker 1: the first Decipine Lord of Mauville, and his mother was
Speaker 1: Esperance Belan and Abell, whose family was considered kind of
Speaker 1: minor gentry, is estimated to have been roughly twenty years
Speaker 1: older than his wife Esperance. The Belang family was well
Speaker 1: connected and relatively powerful. One biographer summed up Syrano's family
Speaker 1: situation as quote richer entitles than in the States. The
Speaker 1: family lived in Paris until sixteen twenty two, and at
Speaker 1: that point they moved to the family lands at Maulviere
Speaker 1: that was southwest of Paris, and Abelle had inherited this
Speaker 1: after his mother had died, so that was Sarano's grandmother.
Speaker 1: The idea of inheriting a country manner might conjure up
Speaker 1: images of grandness, but this was especially the case here.
Speaker 1: This estate had a large house and a mill and
Speaker 1: some farm buildings, but it really wasn't especially big or
Speaker 1: fancy in comparison to a lot of other estates. No,
Speaker 1: it was they moved to the country, essentially in the
Speaker 1: way you might think of that phrase as being a
Speaker 1: little less grand At the age of seven, syra No
Speaker 1: was sent away to school, and it was here that
Speaker 1: he met his lifelong friend, al re Lebrette. This was
Speaker 1: not a boarding school situation. This was a curate run
Speaker 1: boarding house managed by, as Librette would later write, quote
Speaker 1: a good country priest who took in little borders. According
Speaker 1: to Lebrette's accounts, Syrano was both precocious and smart, and
Speaker 1: he thought from a pretty early age that the priest
Speaker 1: really didn't have anything he could teach him. As a
Speaker 1: side note, will be referencing the Brette's account of syra
Speaker 1: No's life a lot because he was the first one
Speaker 1: to write a biography of syra No. He did that
Speaker 1: not long after Syrano's death. It is through le Brett,
Speaker 1: who was his best friend, that we know what we
Speaker 1: do about Syrano, which is relatively little. That also comes
Speaker 1: with some question marks as to the accuracy and truthfulness
Speaker 1: of this biography because Labrette really had his own agenda
Speaker 1: and how he presented his friend. I mean there's there's
Speaker 1: a there's a perspective there when you're writing about your
Speaker 1: friend in the first place. Yes, But beyond that, we
Speaker 1: will get into some of this more later in the episode.
Speaker 1: Syrah No made the case to his father repeatedly that
Speaker 1: he was not learning anything from the priest until he
Speaker 1: was finally allowed to move to Paris on his own
Speaker 1: and his father quote left him to his own devices
Speaker 1: until the age of nineteen per Librett's account. Now it
Speaker 1: is a little unclear what age Serrano was when this happened,
Speaker 1: and it is certainly unlikely that he was actually just
Speaker 1: kind of turned loose in Paris to fly solo as
Speaker 1: a kid or even a teenager. It is more likely
Speaker 1: that he moved in with one of his relatives. He
Speaker 1: allegedly went to some school in Paris, although which one
Speaker 1: is once again a mystery. There is some evidence in
Speaker 1: his writing through references to people in places, that points
Speaker 1: to College de beaus One of those references is the
Speaker 1: name of a character in his first play, Le Penanjue
Speaker 1: or the Pennant duped the head of the school, and
Speaker 1: the play is named gar And right around the time
Speaker 1: that Serena would have been college aged, the head of
Speaker 1: the College de Beauvis was a man named Graa, whose
Speaker 1: tenure in that role including some scandal involving who he
Speaker 1: had decided to marry, as well as allegations of misappropriating funds.
Speaker 1: The grang of the play is the main character, but
Speaker 1: really not a hero. This plot involves him losing out
Speaker 1: on the woman that he loves to his son and
Speaker 1: then being left alone and unhappy. This play is the
Speaker 1: first instance of something that would become an integral part
Speaker 1: of the Serrano legend, and that is nose jokes. So
Speaker 1: in the play the character of Grange is insulted for
Speaker 1: a wide range of failings, but in regards to his nose,
Speaker 1: the ingenieux of the piece says, quote, as for his nose, well,
Speaker 1: it's just asking for us to have a dig. This
Speaker 1: wonderful nose arrives everywhere a quarter of an hour before
Speaker 1: its master. Ten reasonably fat cobblers could take shelter from
Speaker 1: the rain underneath it to do their work. So that,
Speaker 1: of course brings us to the question did Sarah no
Speaker 1: have a large nose? And according to engravings that were
Speaker 1: made during his lifetime, there are really only a few
Speaker 1: of them. Yes, absolutely he had a large nose, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to have been particularly troubled by it.
Speaker 1: The way the fictionalized Seran No is he made jokes
Speaker 1: about this is a true sign of superiority and his
Speaker 1: fiction writing, having a big nose is a positive for
Speaker 1: his main character. There's so nos talk aside. After finishing
Speaker 1: up with his schooling, Serrano, who was headstrong as well
Speaker 1: as whip smart, was a little bit of a cat
Speaker 1: in the specific details of his misbehavior are not clear,
Speaker 1: although whatever it was, absolutely caused friction between Syrano and
Speaker 1: his father. There was also another issue in play between
Speaker 1: Serrano and his father, one that stemmed from above, selling
Speaker 1: off the family estates at Mauviller and Bergerac and moving
Speaker 1: the family back to Paris. As an aside, the Bergerac
Speaker 1: here appears to have not been the town of Bergerac,
Speaker 1: which is a real place in a place where uh
Speaker 1: some of Syrano's relatives may have fought in a battle,
Speaker 1: but in fact an estate named Bergerac after that place.
Speaker 1: But the sale of these family lands meant that the
Speaker 1: family had no basis to claim any kind of nobility
Speaker 1: any longer, and they would not be able to use
Speaker 1: the names de Bergerac or de Mauviller, and they could
Speaker 1: not use the crests associated with those places. So to Syrano,
Speaker 1: this really kind of cut the legs out from under
Speaker 1: the identity that he seemed to be building for himself
Speaker 1: that was one of a rogue and rakish young noble
Speaker 1: who lived as he wished. Additionally, Syra No felt that
Speaker 1: he would have done a fine job running those estates,
Speaker 1: and that had been taken away from him. He also
Speaker 1: was losing what had really been his childhood home and
Speaker 1: his ties to the countryside, which, based on his writings,
Speaker 1: he had clearly loved. At this point in Syrano's life,
Speaker 1: he became, by most accounts, deeply debaucherous. Le Brett later
Speaker 1: wrote of his friend, quote, the age at which human
Speaker 1: nature is more easily corrupted, and the great freedom he
Speaker 1: had to do whatever he pleased led him to a
Speaker 1: dangerous tendency. Lebrette went on to say, quote, I dare
Speaker 1: to boast that I stopped him by compelling him to
Speaker 1: enter the company of the guards with me. But we
Speaker 1: don't get any additional specificity regarding the nature of Syrano's behavior.
Speaker 1: It is generally assumed that that auchery included things like
Speaker 1: heavy drinking and gambling and dueling. There has also been
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation over the years that Serrano may
Speaker 1: have been homosexual, which may have been a concern to Librette,
Speaker 1: But truthfully, we don't know what he was up to,
Speaker 1: just that people found it troubling. It was just as
Speaker 1: likely that the real heart of Syrano's friends concern was
Speaker 1: his status as a libertine, and we mean that in
Speaker 1: the definition of the word that indicates a rejection of religion.
Speaker 1: Some of the murkiness in terms of Librett's account, which
Speaker 1: seems to have been deliberately done to leave out any
Speaker 1: potentially damning or unsavory information, has made it really easy
Speaker 1: for later writers to embellish the Serranos story, even when
Speaker 1: they're writing a biography versus a fiction based on speculation,
Speaker 1: thus contributing to the disparity between the real person and
Speaker 1: the fictional character that most of us are more familiar with.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we'll talk about Syrano's time in the military,
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, we are going to
Speaker 1: take a quick sponsor break. In his military service, syran No,
Speaker 1: along with his friend Lebrette, was a member of a
Speaker 1: company that served under Commander Carbon de Castel Jalou and
Speaker 1: was made up largely of Gascon's This is the source
Speaker 1: of the incorrect information often repeated over the centuries that
Speaker 1: syran No was from Gascony, something he himself had put
Speaker 1: forth as a sort of personal reinvention. Gascony was the
Speaker 1: home of Charles Dubas d'Artagnan fictionalized by Alexander Dumont and
Speaker 1: the Three Musketeers, as well as Already the Third of Navarre,
Speaker 1: who became Henry the fourth of France. So over the years,
Speaker 1: the Serrano legend has thus aligned him with other notables
Speaker 1: by aligning with their birthplace. Syran No and d'Artagnan incidentally
Speaker 1: were both present at battles during the Franco Spanish War,
Speaker 1: so they may have even crossed paths, but it does
Speaker 1: not appear that they were ever friends. But syran No
Speaker 1: also started using the name Syrano de Bergeract during this time,
Speaker 1: which was less accurate considering the sale of the family
Speaker 1: land than the name seven yeend syran No would have been.
Speaker 1: According to Serrano biographer ishbel Adaman quote, Syrano's decision to
Speaker 1: join the cadets may have been partly prompted by a
Speaker 1: pragmatic desire to improve his lot in life, but it
Speaker 1: was above all a decision to seek death or glory.
Speaker 1: This was, as we said, a time for reinvention for
Speaker 1: syra No. He was relying entirely on his wits and
Speaker 1: bravado as he entered the Guard. He didn't have money
Speaker 1: and he had no social standing. Yeah, this was at
Speaker 1: a time when like, if you didn't have those things,
Speaker 1: a military career could elevate you. But even though he
Speaker 1: started with nothing in the Guard, Serrano found a degree
Speaker 1: of success and a great deal of admiration, and that
Speaker 1: is because he did raise his social standing among his
Speaker 1: fellow soldiers. But he did it through dueling. He had
Speaker 1: had fencing training as part of his education, and he
Speaker 1: put this to you so allegedly in the Guard, by
Speaker 1: fighting a duel every single day, according to Lebrette quote, duels,
Speaker 1: which at the time seemed the unique and most rapid
Speaker 1: means of becoming known in a few days, rendered him
Speaker 1: so famous that the gascons, who composed nearly the whole company,
Speaker 1: considered him the demon of courage and credited him with
Speaker 1: as many duels as he had been with them days.
Speaker 1: Labrette did not include details of who Serrano dueled with
Speaker 1: or what kinds of conflicts led to these duels. There
Speaker 1: is no mention of injuries or fatalities. What he does
Speaker 1: mention is that Serrano always fought as a second. This
Speaker 1: was never over any personal beef, and he claimed that
Speaker 1: Serrano fought as a second and dozens and dozens of duels.
Speaker 1: Syrano has been described in various accounts as having scars
Speaker 1: all over his person from dueling. And while we don't
Speaker 1: have a way to verify that he was doing that
Speaker 1: much dueling, sure seems possible. So to contextualize what was
Speaker 1: going on in France in the two years that syran
Speaker 1: No was in the military. When syran No and Lebrette
Speaker 1: joined the King's Guard in sixty eight, France was in
Speaker 1: the midst of both optimism and upheaval. Louis finally had
Speaker 1: a male heir in September of that year, who would
Speaker 1: become Louis, and that had been the source of much
Speaker 1: celebration because they had been without an air for a while. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: France was also socially unstable. The rise of the bourgeoisie
Speaker 1: had blurred the lines between classes, and while that blurry
Speaker 1: nous allowed men like syran No to kind of create
Speaker 1: their own mystique and chart their own rise through society,
Speaker 1: it also meant that there was a lot of suspicion
Speaker 1: and discord and ill will in the very circles that
Speaker 1: he was trying to rise into. The Thirty Years of
Speaker 1: War had begun the year before sarah No was born,
Speaker 1: although France didn't officially join until sixteen thirty five. That's
Speaker 1: when France declared war against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: That also marked the beginning of the first phase of
Speaker 1: the Franco Spanish War, which was sort of a conflict
Speaker 1: within a conflict of the Thirty Years War. The first
Speaker 1: engagement that Serrano was part of was the Siege of Musan,
Speaker 1: which took place in sixteen thirty nine. Germany had attacked
Speaker 1: Muson as it sought to expand its border, and the
Speaker 1: citizens of the town and the soldiers sent there all
Speaker 1: ran low on food. This is something Serrano compared to
Speaker 1: fasting for lent when he wrote for a Musan in
Speaker 1: a letter, he wrote sarcastically, quote, we have no reason
Speaker 1: at all to complain. We are in another sort of heaven,
Speaker 1: since we neither drink nor eat. They want to bring
Speaker 1: us to paradise through starvation and for fear that we
Speaker 1: may take nourishment in at the ears. They even forbiddest
Speaker 1: words in bad taste. So, despite the poor conditions, the
Speaker 1: lack of sustenance, and no permission to bolster morale with
Speaker 1: vulgarity or slang, the French were able to fend off
Speaker 1: the German effort to take Muzan, but syran No was wounded.
Speaker 1: He was hit with a musket ball in the side
Speaker 1: and that passed through his body and exited out the back.
Speaker 1: But the battle that Syrano disc is most famously associated
Speaker 1: with is the Siege of Arras, which began on June
Speaker 1: twenty sixty. Just to avoid confusion, there was also a
Speaker 1: Battle of Arras in sixteen fifty four and another Battle
Speaker 1: of Arras during World War One, so if you go
Speaker 1: looking for more info on this particular incident, keep an
Speaker 1: eye on those dates. Very easy to get confused. At
Speaker 1: the time of the conflict that syran No was involved in,
Speaker 1: Arras was held by Spain. It was considered part of
Speaker 1: the Spanish Netherlands, which included the surrounding area of Artois.
Speaker 1: This was, to be clear an awful situation. Immediately after
Speaker 1: or the French had established their encampment, which was something
Speaker 1: that had required a diversionary attack on another nearby city.
Speaker 1: Too clear, some of the Spanish troops out of Arras,
Speaker 1: which was really heavily fortified. The Spanish army had surrounded
Speaker 1: the camp and this cut off all the supply lines.
Speaker 1: The men went hungry for two weeks. They weren't able
Speaker 1: to leave the encampment to carry away any wastes, so
Speaker 1: sanitation grew worse and worse. Men got sick and died,
Speaker 1: but their bodies couldn't be carried out for fear that
Speaker 1: anybody trying to do that would be killed. Supplies did
Speaker 1: manage to finally break through the Spanish line on August two,
Speaker 1: and that offered some help to the French troops. Within
Speaker 1: a week, the siege was over, and surprisingly the French
Speaker 1: were victorious, able to take the city. The day before
Speaker 1: the siege of Arris ended, Syrao had his second significant
Speaker 1: battle injury, when a sword hit him in the neck.
Speaker 1: This injury never really healed completely, but his convalescence gave
Speaker 1: his modern myth one of its key figures. While he
Speaker 1: was recovering in Paris, his cousin Madeline Robino, the Baroness
Speaker 1: de Nuvillette, supported him financially, and she would later become
Speaker 1: famously fictionalized as the character of Roxanne. There's no evidence
Speaker 1: that the real serran No ever pined for her. They
Speaker 1: seemed to be friends in Ste Sira, No officially turned
Speaker 1: away from his military career to pursue a life of
Speaker 1: the mind. He enrolled at the College de Lisieux. He
Speaker 1: also started taking both fencing and dancing lessons, and this
Speaker 1: shift is described in all real Lebrette's writings as having
Speaker 1: been the result of the injury that Serano had suffered,
Speaker 1: and that was surely a contributing factor, but sira No
Speaker 1: had also been really hardened by his time in battle.
Speaker 1: There's some irony here that Lebrette had likely encouraged Serano
Speaker 1: to enlist because he had fallen in with a crowd that,
Speaker 1: among other things, was known to be atheist. But military
Speaker 1: life only made Syrano more convinced that there was no God,
Speaker 1: and he grappled with his memories of his military experiences
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. And it is in
Speaker 1: this period of Syrano's life, when he had left the army,
Speaker 1: that Labrette described another significant part of the Syrano mythos,
Speaker 1: and that is fighting a duel with one hundred men
Speaker 1: at once. We do, not, as usual, know all of
Speaker 1: the details here, and it is not even clear whether
Speaker 1: Syriano himself was the target of an attack, or whether
Speaker 1: one of his friends, who like him, were all Libertines,
Speaker 1: was the intended target. One version goes that a friend
Speaker 1: of his named Linnier had insulted a man who sent
Speaker 1: the one d men after him and syran No, knowing
Speaker 1: and Ambush was waiting, walked his friend home that night,
Speaker 1: vanquishing the Ruffians as they went. The Labrette version is
Speaker 1: actually pretty similar to that, but it all takes place
Speaker 1: during broad daylight. This sounds ludicrous, and Labrette says so himself,
Speaker 1: but he also insists that it's true. He names a
Speaker 1: three other witnesses to it. There's Monsieur de Bourgeon, Monsieur
Speaker 1: de Cavay, and Monsieur de Cuigy. All of them were
Speaker 1: honorable men. There's been some speculation by various historians that
Speaker 1: this was really a publicity stunt that syran No orchestrated
Speaker 1: to kind of boost his post military image, but we'll
Speaker 1: never really know the truth on that one. Syran No,
Speaker 1: of course emerged the victor in the version of this
Speaker 1: that we have. It definitely sounds like an over the
Speaker 1: top movie sequence. It does, which is part of why
Speaker 1: people have been like, we know, he was trying to
Speaker 1: improve his social standing, so it is entirely possible he
Speaker 1: would do something like this. He definitely had a flair
Speaker 1: for the dramatic um. Another one of syran Nos exploits
Speaker 1: during this period involved dueling with an ape by which
Speaker 1: we literally mean an animal. Uh. This was in a
Speaker 1: real duel. But this ape was trained as a performer
Speaker 1: by a man named Briosh who had a puppet theater
Speaker 1: near pont Neuf, And one day Brioche dressed the ape
Speaker 1: as syran No as a joke, and so syran No
Speaker 1: deeply insulted, drew his sword and ran the animal through
Speaker 1: with it and killed it. Brioche actually sued Syrano for damages,
Speaker 1: but Syrano got out of this whole thing by promising
Speaker 1: to memorialize the animal in verse. We're going to pause
Speaker 1: here to hear from some of the sponsors that keep
Speaker 1: Stuffy miss in History class going, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we will talk more about syran No the writer. During
Speaker 1: the period of his life when he focused on his
Speaker 1: studies post military, Syrano became the pupil of philosopher Pierre
Speaker 1: gus in d possibly by simply forcing himself into the
Speaker 1: man's lectures, depending on what account you read. Gus Indee
Speaker 1: is known for a number of things in astronomy. He
Speaker 1: was the first person to identify Mercury's parahelian that's the
Speaker 1: point in its orbit where it's nearest the sun. That
Speaker 1: was significant because it supported the work of Copernicus. He
Speaker 1: also wrote a famous critique of Descartes in St. One,
Speaker 1: which was included in the second edition of Descartes Meditations.
Speaker 1: But Gussin Dye also tried to reconcile atomism, breaking down
Speaker 1: scientific concepts into smaller components for analysis with the concepts
Speaker 1: of Christianity, and noted that the way that we perceived
Speaker 1: the natural world is just inherently limited by our senses.
Speaker 1: Syrano's time with gas Indie deeply influenced his writing, and
Speaker 1: writing was something Serrano had done throughout his life. Labrette
Speaker 1: wrote about watching Serrano casually composing verse with great skill,
Speaker 1: even in the guard room, and his work expanned everything
Speaker 1: from first plays to political pamphlets to novels. He wrote
Speaker 1: lemnisl di staph Lambi, the Minister of the Burning State
Speaker 1: in sixteen forty nine, which he signed just with the
Speaker 1: initials d B. In this and other political pamphlets, he
Speaker 1: makes a critique of Louis the fourteenth Chief Minister Cardinal
Speaker 1: Jules Mazzarine, writing that he was quote a man soiled
Speaker 1: by murders, poisonings and sacrileges. But Syrano was actually not
Speaker 1: consistent in that messaging, as he later defended Mazzarine in
Speaker 1: writing starting in sixteen fifty one. That actually led the
Speaker 1: speculation that Mazarin had bought Syra nos change of heart.
Speaker 1: In sixteen fifty two, Sira No entered the patronage of
Speaker 1: the Duke Darpagent. This offered him a chance to publish
Speaker 1: his work with the stability of a patron behind him
Speaker 1: and a bit of his own money. This is when
Speaker 1: he published his plays. We mentioned the satirical play The
Speaker 1: Pedant Joue earlier that's believed to have been written about
Speaker 1: sixteen forty five or sixteen forty six, although Syrano didn't
Speaker 1: publish it until he was under the Duke's protection. This
Speaker 1: play's influence lives on in the work of Moliere, who
Speaker 1: borrowed from, or in some opinions, even plagiarized it for
Speaker 1: his play The Cheets of Chopin. Muliere, of course, is
Speaker 1: also tied to Syrano in a fictional way, as he
Speaker 1: appears as a character in the Syrano de Bergerac play
Speaker 1: by Edmund Rosten. We'll talk about that play a bit
Speaker 1: more in a little bit. He also published a tragic
Speaker 1: play in the sixteen fifties titled The Death of Agrippine.
Speaker 1: This play is a fictionalized version of a revolt against
Speaker 1: Tiberius Caesar Augustus mounted by the widow of Germanicus Agrippine,
Speaker 1: and this work was considered blasphemous by many people at
Speaker 1: the time because it used some double entendre and the
Speaker 1: Romans setting to make cleverly cloaked jabs at religion. During performances,
Speaker 1: some lines were said to produce outcry from the audience
Speaker 1: at Syrano's anti religion in u window. The end of
Speaker 1: Serrano's life is actually a bit of a mystery, and
Speaker 1: there are several different causes mentioned for his death. This
Speaker 1: really depends on what source you look at, as well
Speaker 1: as there being some speculation. One of the popular versions
Speaker 1: is that while he was entering the home of his patron,
Speaker 1: the Duke Darpegel, a beam or a plank from the
Speaker 1: ceiling fell on him, which struck him in the head.
Speaker 1: In this version, he didn't die there on the spot,
Speaker 1: but the injury may have been serious enough to have
Speaker 1: impacted his behavior. Another commonly discussed possibility that also includes
Speaker 1: the detail of a behavior change, is that syran No
Speaker 1: may have had untreated syphilis. This version of the end
Speaker 1: of his life includes the sad detail that his brother
Speaker 1: had him confined to an asylum. And the third and
Speaker 1: simplest version of Syrano's death story is that he was
Speaker 1: in a street fight and he died from the injuries
Speaker 1: that he received. And and yet another theory, which is
Speaker 1: supported by historical die documents, he may have been injured
Speaker 1: during an assassination attempt on the life of the Duke Darpegel.
Speaker 1: Although the cause of his death still remains a little
Speaker 1: bit murky, it is known that he died in Paris
Speaker 1: on July fifty five, at the age of thirty six.
Speaker 1: It was not until after Syrao's death that two of
Speaker 1: the three books in a Histoire comique series are published.
Speaker 1: The first of these is The Comical History of the
Speaker 1: States and Empires of the Moon, and the second is
Speaker 1: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Sun.
Speaker 1: These together are known as The Other World. We don't
Speaker 1: know what happened to the third novel in these series.
Speaker 1: It's usually described as having been lost or destroyed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll sometimes just see all of this listed as one
Speaker 1: book called lautremond, which also which means the Other World,
Speaker 1: and it can be a little bit tricky to find
Speaker 1: both of them translated. These books are really significant because
Speaker 1: they hold the places early science fiction. They are what's
Speaker 1: sometimes called fantastic voyage fiction that tells stories of imaginary
Speaker 1: travels to you guessed it, the moon and the Sun.
Speaker 1: And this framework for the stories is wrapped around the
Speaker 1: hallmark of Syranos writing satirization and critique of both religion
Speaker 1: and science of the day. He included seven different ways
Speaker 1: that people could leave the Earth in these books, including
Speaker 1: one that describes a breathing engine very similar to the
Speaker 1: ramjet engine that was invented in nineteen thirteen, so long
Speaker 1: after his death. Another means of conveyance that the narrator
Speaker 1: of the books, who was also named syran No, leaves
Speaker 1: the Earth for space travel is by strapping bottles of
Speaker 1: dew to his person, writing quote, I planted myself in
Speaker 1: the middle of a great many glasses full of dew
Speaker 1: tied fast about me, upon which the sun so violently
Speaker 1: darted his rays, that the heat, which attracted them as
Speaker 1: it does the thickest clouds, carried me up high, that
Speaker 1: at length I found myself above the middle region of
Speaker 1: the air, not so grounded in science, but pretty fantastical
Speaker 1: and fun. When syr No visits the Moon, he finds
Speaker 1: a whole culture there. The inhabitants have four legs, and
Speaker 1: when they speak, it sounds like music. He also meets
Speaker 1: the demon of Socrates or the ghost of Socrates, depending
Speaker 1: on which translation you're reading, who tells him quote, if
Speaker 1: there is something you men cannot understand, you either imagine
Speaker 1: that it is spiritual or that it does not exist.
Speaker 1: Both conclusions are quite false. The proof of this is
Speaker 1: the fact that there are perhaps a million things in
Speaker 1: the universe which you would need a million quite different
Speaker 1: organs to know. In the second book, the Sun is
Speaker 1: similarly peopled. Syran No offers a sort of strange explanation
Speaker 1: for why people can live there, and it turns out,
Speaker 1: and his writing, we're wrong about the Sun. It's not
Speaker 1: made of flaming anything. It's just a regular planet. The
Speaker 1: narrator gets to the Sun by building a device that
Speaker 1: has lenses which focus the energy of the Sun. But
Speaker 1: it works a lot better than he intended. He was
Speaker 1: just trying to fly, but winds up being pulled all
Speaker 1: the way to the Sun, and the Sun, it turns out,
Speaker 1: in this book has a very petite monarch to rule it.
Speaker 1: The Syrano of the book is then taken to the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of the Birds, where he's put on trial for
Speaker 1: all the wrongs done to birds here on earth, and
Speaker 1: he is sentenced to death, but a parrot that he
Speaker 1: once helped on earth defends him, and he has eventually
Speaker 1: let go. That's just one section of what is a
Speaker 1: very long and meandering tale. Lebrette wrote that after the
Speaker 1: injury that was ultimately fatal for Serrano, he was different
Speaker 1: and a more moral man. Quote that at last the
Speaker 1: libertineage of which most young people are suspected came to
Speaker 1: seem monstrous to him, and I can attest that from
Speaker 1: then on he felt all the aversion toward it that
Speaker 1: anyone who wishes to lead a Christian should have. And
Speaker 1: this offers a hint at how one might want to
Speaker 1: approach these particular writings, particularly if you read one of
Speaker 1: these earlier versions. Labrette, syran Nos longtime friend, had at
Speaker 1: this point in his life become a Jesuit priest, and
Speaker 1: it was he who prepared Syranose novels for publication, with
Speaker 1: the biography that he wrote included in the text preceding
Speaker 1: the comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon.
Speaker 1: There were later editions based on Syranos manuscripts that are
Speaker 1: are truer to them, but the versions that Labrette edited
Speaker 1: were edited for content and removed any elements that Labrette
Speaker 1: thought might be perceived as heretical. Sarah No's life story
Speaker 1: has been retold in so many different versions over the years,
Speaker 1: particularly in the last two centuries, but the most famous
Speaker 1: version is, of course, the play by Edmund Roston, who
Speaker 1: wrote Serrano de Bergerac in that version has some did
Speaker 1: most of the ideas about sierr No the man that
Speaker 1: are really different from who he actually was. Yeah, definitely romanticized.
Speaker 1: The opening night of Raston's version of Syrano's life was December,
Speaker 1: and it was reportedly so successful that the ovation for
Speaker 1: it lasted over an hour, with dozens and dozens of
Speaker 1: curtain calls. Rosamund Rostand later wrote of her husband's accomplishment
Speaker 1: that it had moved members of the audience so deeply
Speaker 1: that even men who had been at odds for years
Speaker 1: put their grudges away and embraced. That sounds as likely
Speaker 1: as dueling a hundred people at once, But boy, I
Speaker 1: bet Syran No would have loved that description, for it
Speaker 1: caused peace among people who had been feuding. UM love
Speaker 1: it so much. UM for listener mail, I have a
Speaker 1: question about the Gear, which from our listener Juliana, who writes,
Speaker 1: I've been a huge fan of the podcast for years.
Speaker 1: I was so happy to listen to the episode on
Speaker 1: Louis de Gare. I've read before that he created the
Speaker 1: first picture of a person, the man cleaning shoes and
Speaker 1: the attached image. Until then, it was believed humans might
Speaker 1: not be able to be photographed. People moved too fast
Speaker 1: and weren't usually captured due to the longest exposure of
Speaker 1: the Gara type. So this guy seated for a long
Speaker 1: time got photographed by chance. My question is is this
Speaker 1: a true story. I haven't been able to fact check
Speaker 1: it and I'm dying to know so uh that is,
Speaker 1: if you do a quick search online for uh de
Speaker 1: gear first photo of a human, you will find this picture.
Speaker 1: It's a photograph of a street in France, and she's right,
Speaker 1: but it's not the person doing the shoeshine. It's the
Speaker 1: person getting his shoes shined that is visible. It's very
Speaker 1: far off in the distance. It's in the lower left
Speaker 1: quadrant of the picture. And because he was standing there,
Speaker 1: he's kind of standing. He looks kind of like he's
Speaker 1: in a jaunty pose, but really he's standing there with
Speaker 1: his foot up on the shoeshines block. And you can't
Speaker 1: actually see the person who's shining his shoes because he's
Speaker 1: moving a bit too much. You can kind of see
Speaker 1: a vague outline, but the man who was presumably standing
Speaker 1: there still getting his shoes done is the one that
Speaker 1: you see. So yes, that is that is uh the
Speaker 1: only version of that story I have ever heard, so
Speaker 1: I believe it to be true. Um. I also just
Speaker 1: wanted to give a quick shout out to our listener Katie,
Speaker 1: who has earned her pH d and stuff you in
Speaker 1: history class by listening to every episode and wrote us
Speaker 1: and she got the shirt from t Public that we
Speaker 1: have available and she's wearing it, so congratulations and thank
Speaker 1: you for being a listener. Uh. It means so much
Speaker 1: to us that people would spend that much time with us,
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you, Thank you, Katie, and congratulations
Speaker 1: and hopefully he'll stick with us as we continue on
Speaker 1: our merry way. Uh. If you would like to write
Speaker 1: to us, you can do so History podcast at i
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. You can also find us on
Speaker 1: social media as missed in History. You would like to
Speaker 1: subscribe and you haven't gotten around to it yet, couldn't
Speaker 1: be easier. You can just do that on the I
Speaker 1: heart radio app or wherever it is you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.