First Draft of the Revolution

First Draft of the
Revolution

written by

Emily Short

developed by

Liza Daly

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First Draft of the Revolution

It is dangerous to deceive a husband of magic-using rank.

Juliette has been banished for the summer to a village above Grenoble: a few Alpine houses, a deep lake, blue sky, and no society.

Now she writes daily to her husband. She tells how she went for a walk and ended thigh-deep in mud, how the draft comes in around the window, how extravagantly she has spent on new gloves, how she misses Paris.

She plans her letters on ordinary pages, but when they are ready, she copies them on paper whose enchanted double is hundreds of miles off. The words form themselves on the matching sheaf in her husband's study. No time is wasted on couriers.

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First Draft of the Revolution

The sheets of paper are not the only linked thing in her house. Since Juliette married, she has grown used to mirrors that reflect rooms in another province, to clocks that regulate the feeding of the chickens, to models of the moon that glow in phase.

Who knows what else Henri might have hidden in her household, or even on her person? There might be some ear sending back to Paris every word spoken in her presence.

So Juliette sits at her desk with a branch of candles, fretful and guilty as people feel when they have not yet done anything wrong.

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

In his townhouse, an austere man of late middle age reads this letter. His expression is sour, as though he has bitten a damson.

Another letter writes itself, almost at the same moment...

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First Draft of the Revolution

Alise – Paris, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri gets out a pen that belonged to his grandfather, and begins to write.

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri – Paris, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri – Paris, France – July 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri – Paris, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri reads this, then reads its enclosure. The August sunlight comes through the window and lights up both pages with hot and glaring light, as though the words were going to catch fire.

It is an old trick to link two pages together, tightly, so that the meanings of the texts blend together. It conceals the meaning written there, and ordinarily can be untangled only by another magic user. The friar must write to someone who has magical ability.

Henri spreads the paper on his desk and scowls at it. Is it possible to take apart the meaning by hand?

The shape of the words is like poetry, the lines doubled like a psalm. Henri tries one psalm after another against the original text. It takes patience and the most delicate magic to separate the layer that is King David's from the layer written by the friar.

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First Draft of the Revolution

Enclosed – Dauphiné, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Henri – Paris, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette receives, on the same day but by a much slower conveyance, the answer to her letter to the Mother Superior of her old convent. It was many pages long, crossed and recrossed. The Mother Superior had learned letters in Alsace and her penmanship bore Germanic quirks.

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First Draft of the Revolution

Mother Superior – France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Alise – Paris, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette sits down at her table to write. A stack of Henri's letters are in front of her. And here is the task: to make a message that might seem to come from him, that the friar and Bernadette might believe, and that will carry the young man safely out of the friar's hands.

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – August 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Dauphiné, France – September 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Alise – Paris, France – December 1788

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First Draft of the Revolution

Juliette – Paris, France – January 1789

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First Draft of the Revolution

The End

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