FinermanWorks

March 13, 1881 was a terrible day for Russia but a great day for show biz.  Neither was the intention of a group of radical students in St. Petersburg; these young revolutionaries simply expected to transform Russia into an instant democratic utopia by killing Tsar Alexander II.  Ironically, Alexander was the most progressive Tsar since Peter the Great (although Catherine the Great proclaimed her liberalism…but only in French, which the serfs did not understand).  Alexander had liberated the serfs in Russia in 1861, perhaps setting an example for Abraham Lincoln.   The Liberator Tsar also established community councils for local self-government, and he granted autonomy to the Finns–who evidently were more likable than the Poles.  In fact, the Tsar had commissioned plans to establish a parliament in Russia; he only had to sign the final authorization but that could wait until Monday.  March 13th was a Sunday and the Tsar had his weekend routine.  That included a carriage ride.

The conspirators knew the route and were waiting with bombs.  The first bomb killed a guard and wounded the carriage driver and bystanders, but the Tsar remained safe.  Stepping out of the carriage and its bullet-proof exterior, the Tsar wanted to console the casualties.  He became one himself.  The second bomb landed at his feet–and removed them.  Carried back to his carriage, the Tsar was rushed back to the palace where he bled to death in the sight of his son, the Tsarevich, as well his grandson Nicholas.

The death of Alexander II did not topple the monarchy, but it definitely killed any progressive tendencies in the government.  ( You can also imagine the life expectancy of the captured conspirators. )  The new  Tsar Alexander III had never agreed with his father’s liberal ideas, and now he felt vindicated in his reactionary views.  The radicals had murdered his father, so Alexander III was determined to suppress any and all challenges to his autocratic authority.  Although he could not reestablish serfdom (that would have been too awkward), he managed to undo many of his father’s reforms.  The local community councils were abolished, and you can imagine his reaction to the idea of a parliament.  He personally shredded the authorization plans.  Alexander’s idea of reform was any program that would make his tyranny more effective.  A sadist in need of an outlet now had a promising future in the Tsarist secret police.  Of course, the suppression created as many radicals as it executed, and the Siberian prison camps became finishing schools for revolutionaries. However Alexander III did not live to see the consequences; his kidneys failed before his policies did.  His ineffectual but equally narrow-minded son Nicholas would pay the reckoning.  The last Romanov brought upon the very Revolution that he hoped to crush; but at least Alexander III might have admired the tyranny of the Communists.

But how was the murder of Alexander II a great day for show biz?  The new Tsar had a hobby:  Anti-Semitism.  The Jews were his favorite phobia, and he made his hatred the government policy.  He initiated a series of Anti-Semitic laws that the Spanish Inquisition might have envied.  The Jews were restricted to what they could do, and where they could live.  They certainly were not welcome in St. Petersburg and Moscow; the expulsion order made that clear.  Russia’s Jews were confined to Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.  Of course, there were exceptions.  Even Anti-Semites like music.  So a violin prodigy would be allowed to study in St. Petersburg, but his parents could not visit him there.  Jews did have the distinction of being the official scapegoat for any and everything that went wrong in Russia.  Every Jew evidently was both a Rothschild and a Communist.  Of course, if any mob felt like attacking Jews, the Tsar cheerfully conferred that uncivil liberty.

Tsar Alexander III did grant the Jews one right:  emigration, and the sooner the better.  The restrictive laws and the pogroms were the Tsar’s idea of a bon voyage party.  Two millon Russian Jews took the hint, moving to a land where the Irish cops were more humane than the Cossacks.  And although America did not offer imperial scholarships to the talented, it still provided opportunities.  But for Alexander III, Hollywood might yet be an orange grove.

March 11th

On this day in 1851, Guiseppe Verdi presented what would be one of his most popular works: “Music to Make Pizza.”   Underestimating his importance to Italian cuisine, however, Verdi merely called the opera “Rigoletto.”  By my conservative estimate, at least 43 billion pizzas have been flipped to the musical accompaniment of “La Donna E Mobile.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3zetSuYRg

(It is physically impossible to hear this and just order plain cheese.)

Rigoletto is the story of a warped, malevolent jester who lives for vengeance.  (Perhaps I do identify with the title character although I have yet to plot the murder of any of my clients–but I am an underachiever.)  Bringing it to the stage, Verdi had to contend with the warped, malevolent jesters in the Austrian civil service.  At the time, Northern Italy was still Hapsburg property and the Austrian administrators were a bunch of suppressive prudes.  To those Austrian bluenoses, the original story was both pornographic and revolutionary.

The more tolerant French government had the same reaction when Victor Hugo dramatized the story in 1832.  His play “Le Roi S’Amuse” depicted a shamelessly lecherous king whose innumerable seductions include the daughter of his court jester.  The murderous  jester then plots to avenge his defiled (but quite gratified) daughter; as you might guess in a melodrama, there are complications and the wrong person is murdered.    The French authorities considered the play to be a vilification of the reigning monarch Louis Philippe and an incitement to rebellion.  After one performance, “Le Roi S’ Amuse” was banned in France; and it would not be performed again there for fifty years.

The Austrian censors in Northern Italy were more zealous.  They first had to approve the storyline of the proposed opera before further work could be done on it.  Of course, Hugo’s original plot was rejected.  Kings were not to be depicted in an unflattering light, and there must never be any murderous plots against them.  Verdi and his librettist Francesco Piave had to continually negotiate a plot that would survive the censors. 

The Austrians did not mind the Italians depicting themselves in a sordid manner; so the setting was changed to Italia.  The role of the king could be changed to a noble; but that noble could not have any living descendants to complain to the Austrians.  Fortunately, Italian virility is overrated, and there were a number of extinct aristocratic titles and lineages.  So the King of France was demoted to the Duke of Mantua; but that was fine with the censors.

“Rigoletto” premiered in Venice  on March 11, 1851.  Given its notorious French origins, the opera was not presented in Paris until 1857.  The alterations, however, met with the approval of the French government.  Victor Hugo’s approbation was not so easily won.  He disapproved of the compromising changes perpetrated on his work.  Nonetheless, Hugo was curious enough to see “Rigoletto” and he was almost disappointed that he enjoyed it.  At least, he had a vicarious satisfaction in the opera’s success.

And he was to have another vindicating pleasure.  When, after a 50 year ban, “Le Roi S’Amuse” was again performed in Paris, Victor Hugo was there to see it.

On this day in 1795, France adopted the meter as the standard unit of length. Revolutionary France obviously needed a new system of measurement; it had just cut off the tops of its old rulers.

Napoleon, however, was not that crazy about the Metric system. Perhaps under the old system, he seemed taller. While his conquering armies acted like liberals on steroids, and abolished serfdom, the Inquisition and the other medieval relics that still enslaved Europe, they did not attempt to impose the metric system. There were limits to Napoleon’s audacity.

Yet, where liberty, equality and fraternity have yet to take hold, the Metric system has. Of the allegedly advanced countries of the world, only the United States adheres to a medieval system of weights and measures. The length of the yard was said to be determined by Henry I of England; it was the distance from his nose to his outstretched end of his arm. Since Henry sired 21 children (only two with his wife) you can just imagine what other appendage he might have set as a standard of measurement.

Perhaps we should be grateful that 12 inches is called a foot.

There were some advantages to being a Roman emperor. For instance, until the fifth century, the pay was excellent. You would rarely be turned down at an orgy. Furthermore, the job would never be outsourced to India, if only because the Romans had but a vague notion about India’s location.

Longevity, however, was another matter. From an actuarial perspective, an emperor would have regarded murder as a natural cause of death. In a period of five centuries, Rome had more than 80 emperors. The total is imprecise because the imperial reigns often were.

The Emperor Pertinax might have expected a longer reign. He certainly was an improvement over his predecessor, the depauched and incompetent Commodus. (You remember him from “Gladiator.”) Indeed, on his own merits, Pertinax had the makings of an excellent ruler. He was conscientious, honest and capable. You could add frugality to his virtues, but that actually was a flaw in Rome. The people wanted their bread and circuses, and the Praetorian Guard expected “donations”.

The Praetorians could overlook any vice in an emperor but stinginess. Pertinax had every virtue but generosity, so he did not survive his bodyguards. Today is that dubious anniversary.

The impulsive Praetorians seized the throne but had no one to occupy it. Then the extravagantly rich Didius Julianus,  the Steve Forbes of his day, simply decided to buy the position of emperor. He showed up at the Praetorians’ camp and proceeded to bid for their loyalty. Another patrician competed in the auction for the Empire, but Julianus outbid him. His purchased Praetorians then cowed the Senate into acclaiming him the emperor.

The Praetorians’ loyalty lasted two months. When an ambitious general marched on Rome, the imperial guard switched sides again. Julianus did not live to regret it. He now is remembered as a joke. (The same might be said of Steve Forbes.)

If embezzlers and MBAs had a Hall of Fame, Nicolas Fouquet would be shamelessly prominent. As the Minister of Finance during the early reign of Louis XIV, Fouquet maintained a bookkeeping system modeled after the Gordian Knot. It could be said that he would collect all the revenues but was willing to share some with the government, or at least the officials he liked.

Fouquet had the finest home in France. It seems unlikely that he afforded it just by brownbagging his lunches. The thought certainly occurred to Louis XIV, who evidently resented being the social inferior of his minister. The King ordered Fouquet arrested for embezzlement. There was a public trial, and the verdict could hardly be in doubt, but the judges proved unusally sympathetic to the accused. (Had they been past recipients of Fouquet’s generosity?) They sentenced him to banishment; you might well suspect that Fouquet planned a comfortable exile. The King, however, overruled that lenient sentence and condemned Fouquet to life imprisonment. The disgraced minister spent the last fifteen years of his life in a less than luxurious cell. He died this day in 1680.

His second career began in the 1930s. Someone in Hollywood had been reading Alexandre Dumas. The 19th century French novelist apparently had screenplays in mind. “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo” had been box office hits, and the studios wanted more. While Dumas himself was no longer available, he had been prolific and his works included a sequel to The Three Musketeers. Based on a legend about a prisoner in the Bastille, the story was known as “The Man in the Iron Mask.”

Dumas had imagined that the title character was Philippe the twin brother of Louis XIV, hidden from birth but now the center of a plot to substitute him on the throne. In the novel, the younger brother was the unknowing pawn of ambitious men. Their attempted coup fails, however, due to the heroism of D’Artagnan and the shrewdness of a government minister named Fouquet. The real king is saved (even if France isn’t) and Philippe is condemned to the Bastille where his royal features are covered by an iron mask.

It seemed like another swashbuckler perfect for Hollywood…except for one problem: the villains. In Dumas’ novel the conspirators were the Jesuits, led by the renegade musketeer Aramis. Hollywood was not prepared to vilify the Catholic Church (although the Church never has been shy about vilifying Hollywood). So, a new villain had to be created.

Poor Fouquet already had a criminal record. Since he was an embezzler, why not make him a traitor, too? So, from helping to foil the plot, Fouquet became the mastermind of it.

But then Hollywood came up with yet another improvement on the plot. Instead of making poor Philippe a malleable cipher, portray him as a noble alternative to his wicked older brother Louis–and have the plot succeed. Good Philippe would secretly replaced Louis, who then would become The Man in the Iron Mask. Of course, Fouquet would still have to be a villain, but he would prove his intrinsic evil by being loyal to the legitimate King.

The logic of the plot was very similar to Fouquet’s Gordian bookkeeping. Dumas would have been dismayed; he actually seemed to like the wily minister. In fact, Dumas even gives Fouquet one of the novel’s few jokes.

Fouquet has heard rumors of the twin prince. He asks a trusted henchman, “Do you recall some mystery surrounding the birth of Louis XIV?”

The aide replies, “Do you mean that Louis XIII was not the father?”

Fouquet corrects him, “I said a mystery.”

Imagine yourself a tourist in ancient Rome and you wanted to buy 15 postcards (the ones using mosaics were impressive but the postage was exorbitant). Of course, you would tell the shopkeeper, I’d like Ides, please. If he were obliging, he would lift his tunic. Otherwise, he would think you a babbling idiot.

You see, Ides does not mean 15. It rather refers to the full moon by which the old Roman calendar divided the month. The similarity between month and moon is not a coincidence.

Ancient Rome was built on seven hills and an absurd lunar calendar. The Roman year had ten months as well another sixty days in winter that didn’t count. Be fair: if you were stuck using Roman numerals, you’d resort to any short cut, too. Such a slovenly, lackadaisical calendar might suit a small Tiber village or modern Italy, but not a growing empire. The government decided to organize the dead time into two new months: Ianuarius and Februarius.

That improved the bookkeeping but not the accuracy of the calendar. The Roman year was 355 days. As Rome expanded, it was coming into contact with more sophisticated systems. The Greeks had realized that a sun-based calendar was more accurate. Yet, out of self-reverence, for six centuries Rome adhered to its ridiculous calendar.

But that outdated calendar was just one tradition that Julius Caesar intended to end. While in Alexandria, Caesar was seduced by more than just Cleopatra. The city was the think tank of the ancient world. Greek science and Babylonian mathematics had produced a calendar of unequaled precision. Caesar was so impressed that he decided to impose it on the Roman world. And for some reason, people called it the Julian calendar.

(Alexandria’s scientific community also successfully promoted a chronological concept called the “week.” The seven-day period once had been dismissed as just another Jewish idiosyncrasy. But when Alexandria adopted the idea, everyone loved it.)

The Julian calendar went into effect on January 1, 45 B.C. If the Roman traditionalists had any objections, they certainly expressed them on March 15, 44 B.C.