Done like a Frenchman

~or~
Henry VI Part One, part three

Before I begin, I would like to encourage all my regular reader(s) to sign up for my email services discussed in my previous entry on June 1rst, Are you an Over-Eager Bardblog Reader?. If you sign up, you will receive a brief, small email letting you know there is a new post to read at An Excellent Dumb Discourse. Just send me an email at Bardblog@writeme.com, with the subject "Ping Me!" Include your day and month of birth if you'd like to receive an e-card from the Bardblogger on your birthday.

And now Back to Business with Hank and the gang. Scene i of Act III finds us deep within Plot #2, Gloster versus Winchester, with Henry's Uncle Lord Protector vying with his Great-Uncle Bishop for sway over the young King. Everybody is meeting in Parliament, including King Henry VI. It is unclear how much time has passed since Act II, but at most it should be a year based on context clues. Thus, by rights, Henry should be two years old, max, but he isn't. Unless you know any two year olds who might declaim:

Uncles of Gloster and of Winchester,
The special watchmen of our English weal,
I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,
To join your hearts in love and amity.
O, what a scandal is it to our crown
That two such noble peers as ye should jar!
Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth

Yeah. I don't know any, either. I can't tell how old Henry is supposed to be, but I suppose the statist parasitic potty reference (viperous worm? Yuck!), could indicate an early adolescent.

Anyway, about three things happen in this scene: 1. Gloster and Winchester call each other a lot of names, and I mean A LOT of names. 2. King Henry VI demonstrates a lack of control over things, pleading with everybody to just get along, and getting very little respect for his troubles. 3. Richard Plantagenet is restored to his 'blood', i.e., the House of York, and his inheritance, i.e., the moolah and estates. Plantagenet vows obedience and humble service till the point of death to Henry VI. The good news is, this means Richard is now a Duke (the mighty Duke of York, in fact), so he can fit in with everybody else who is also a Duke. If he was an Uncle to the king he'd be practically indistinguishable from the rest of the English cast. (Don't worry, he and Henry ARE related distantly.) The bad news is Somerset (of Plot #4, The War of the Roses), is having none of it, so the civil war is still on track to explode at some point.

Naturally, you will be most eager for details about event #1, the name calling. In true Shakespearean style, they let some good ones fly. First Winchester starts things off by tearing to pieces a bill Gloster is trying to offer up, a move I am pretty sure is not in compliance with Robert's Rules. Then the really mature stuff begins. To whit, Gloster calls Winchester, in rapid succession, a:

Presumptuous priest,
Pernicious usurer,
Froward by nature,
Enemy to peace,
Bastard of my grandfather,
Saucy priest,
Lascivious, wanton, and audaciously wicked [guy],
[who is behind] lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks.

(And no, he doesn't mean any of that in a nice way.)

Winchester gets few words in edge-wise, and has to be satisfied with accusing Gloster of being "imperious in another's throne" and "unreverent". The two are just getting going when that stick in the mud baby Henry tells them to kiss and make up, which they do, although Winchester makes it clear that he's just biding his time in one of his secret asides to the audience in front of all the other actors that he seems to specialize in.

Then everybody leaves, ensconced in barely hidden mutual distrust and ill-will, for France to crown Henry king in Paris and thus inspire French people to love him as much as they do. So ends the least productive session of Parliament ever.

Scene ii takes us to Rouen, where the British are again holed up in the city and the French are outside trying to figure out how to kick the British out. Sort of EXACTLY like the entire Orleans situation in Acts I and II. In fact, all the action around Rouen is pretty much the same as Orleans, so if the sets aren't well differentiated, you might watch this scene at a theater convinced the players had decided re-do the Orleans battle just for kicks. Rest assured, Rouen and Orleans are totally different places, despite the identical action. I looked at a map and everything.

Here are a few easy ways to distinguish the two places, courtesy of the Bardblogger. Rouen is in Normandy (cold) and famous for its 100+ steeples. Orleans is in the Loire Valley (warm) and famous for being near lots of castles (and for being near the birthplace of La Pucelle, but let's not get tautological here). So you see they are COMPLETELY different places. Don't let Shakespeare fool you.*

Anyway, Joan pulls a peasants-come-to-market-cum-Trojan-Horse stunt, and the French take Rouen. During the battle, Sir John Fastolfe, England's weenie knight/general we heard of turning tail at Orleans in Act I, turns tail again, and Uncle Bedford is killed, which should make me sad, but instead makes me relieved to have one less crusty old Uncle/Duke to keep track of. Naturally, Lord Talbot is thoroughly pissed off, and pledges everybody's honor to taking back Rouen and avenging Uncle Bedford, just like he did with Salisbury at Orleans. And, like Salisbury, Bedford takes about 3 speeches and a filibuster before he finally breathes his last.

Naturally, Joan and Talbot parley a bit, and then Talbot and the English (and Burgundy) retake Rouen. Just like Orleans, only this time he manages it all in one scene. Talbot then leaves Burgundy to hold down the fortified city while England's #1 badass knight/general departs to meet King Henry VI (remember him?) in Paris.

Scene iii: Bad move, Talbot. Joan reassures everybody that the rapid victory-turned-loss in Rouen is just all part of her/God's brilliant strategy. As soon as Talbot has decamped to Paris, Joan sidles up to the walls of Rouen and exerts her saintly and/or witchy wiles (Query: Are Saints allowed to have wiles? Must ask JPII next time I drop by the Vatican) and wins over Burgundy. In one of my favorite lines of the play, Burgundy agrees to abandon Lord Talbot and join the cause of Charles the Dauphin. Happy, Joan exclaims:

Done like a Frenchman, - turn, and turn again!

I'm not sure which is sillier, the fact that Will has Joan of Arc, arguably one of the first French Proto-Nationalists, saying this, or the obviousness with which Will is pandering to audience sentiment.

Either way, what a missed opportunity! If only I had known about this line back in the heyday of "Freedom Fries" and "Liberty Roast" java! The Spouse works in the U.S. Senate; I could have bribed my jolly mate to eat in the Senate dining room, and demand a steak prepared "Done like a Frenchman!" in as loud a voice as possible, just to see what would happen. And if the wait staff asked what that meant, we could have just explained we wanted the steak very rare, just seared quickly on one side, then on the other (Thus "turn, and turn again!").

This is the sort of nonsense that could have gotten The Spouse another mention in Roll Call (that's the official newspaper of Congress, sort of like a college paper with marginally better grammar and fewer editorials on legalizing marijuana). Who knows, given the bizzaro, creepy political climate at that time (as opposed to now, when the political climate is equally bizzaro and creepy, just in a different way), the phrase might have caught on! Years later when someone scratched their head and asked why on earth we say "like a Frenchman" when we want a steak very rare, reasonable people would have speculated it was a variation on the term "bleu". How wrong they would have been. Ah well. Yet another chance gone to assure my place in surreal etymological history.

Right. Anyway, in the end (of scene iii at least), Joan is right: the Dauphin wins both Rouen and the Burgundian forces at the end of the day. All the French people are very excited and start talking about how much they'll homage Joan just as soon as she is dead.

Scene iv is a much ado about you know what. Talbot meets Henry VI in Paris and they each pat each other on the back. The scene and Act ends with a nod to Plot #4, as a Somerset supporter and a York (formerly known as Plantagenet) supporter mix it up and vow to take their spat to the king.

Well, that wraps up Act III. Not exactly the most scintillating, I realize. Unlike my next meal at the U.S. Senate...


*With a nod to historical accuracy, Will had to include the two separate locations of Orleans and Rouen, so it's not fair to tease him on this point.