Lady Oscar and the Revolution: dreams and Nightmares.

Reflections on the Side: History is Now.

I love the French Revolution. 

I love its first, incandescent years, when anything seemed possible, when the light of Reason seemed destined to shine for everyone, including women. It is the period when the will of the people, for the first time, appeared capable of overturning custom, the pretext of divine right, and the obsolete vision of the three estates. I believe it wrote fundamental pages of European history, cradling the hearts of countless dreamers.

Oscar François de Jarjayes, born into opulence but with a rebellious spirit and a profound sense of ethics, is our guide through this turmoil. We see her struggle with her conscience, question her role, and, with André by her side, progressively embrace the ideals of equality and justice that will push her to choose a side. Let's think of her dialogues, her growing awareness of the people's conditions, her gazes filled with hope for a different future.

A thirst for freedom. A desire to be considered human beings, not labels of one social class or another. A burning desire to illuminate society with new and splendid ideals that had nothing to do with privilege. Oscar's story is intrinsically linked to this whirlwind of events, and it is precisely through her eyes that we can grasp the most intense nuances of that time.

But, alas, as all too often happens, the dream carries within it the seed of tragedy. A man Oscar knew inflamed the spirits. His name was Robespierre. Dazzled by a dream, he bathed the blade of justice in blood. The state of siege, the terror of seeing everything vanish, swallowed once more by the past, led him to extreme, debatable, atrocious decisions.

Was it right? Wrong? Excessive? History still wonders. Oscar and André never knew the complexity of the First Republic, nor the horrors of the Jacobin Terror. Their sacrifice is consumed right in the pulsating heart of those days, between July 13th and 14th, 1789. André dies on the 13th, Oscar on the 14th, as the seething crowd storms the Bastille.

They die while the Revolution is still in its most idealistic and desperate phase, a spark of hope ignited at the cost of their lives. Their death is the emblem of that "dream that leads to sacrifice," of that initial fervor that demanded everything. The disillusionment we feel, seeing the pure ideals later corrupted, is projected from our knowledge of the future, but for them, it was an act of absolute faith. The Revolution, from a promise of liberation, became a cycle of violence and power in subsequent eras, a warning of how fragile the balance is between a noble cause and its degeneration. The man of destiny became an executioner, only to be replaced by farcical forms of government that ultimately paved the way for the furious Bonaparte.

And yet, there is a universal lesson to be learned from all this. Because the case of the Revolution, of Robespierre, the Directory, and Napoleon, is a human paradigm that, in different names and forms, tends to repeat itself.

It is the eternal conflict, already outlined by Manzoni, between the powerful and the humble, where the former always seem to be supported by some Providence, as if God were always on the side of the strongest...

In this, Lady Oscar is a beacon. Born among the "powerful" by lineage, but with a heart that beat for the "humble," she made the most difficult choice: to betray her own class for a greater ideal. Hers was not an easy battle, and she paid a high price with the sacrifice of her own life, but her gesture still whispers to us today that things can be changed, routes can be charted, naval blockades can be broken, and peoples can be freed.

The world is always on fire. Just like in Paris in July 1789. Perhaps it may not seem so, perhaps we don't feel the smoke burning our eyes and scratching our throats, but if we truly want to see the reality around us, we will find one war after another, one conspiracy after another. The scale certainly changes, but there is not a single decade in our history that is not blackened by the acrid, dense smoke of war, by the stench of the dead, by the fear of violence. Even today, in October 2025, it is so. The France of 1789 is our benchmark because it is not the centuries that determine the distance, but the presence of iniquity, oppression, and violence.

This is why the Revolution is always active. It changes its name, country, century. It can be the Resistance, the end of Apartheid, the fight against genocide, Women's rights, gender equality—but it is always Revolution. These are battles we know well, because we experience some of them on our own skin every day, or because we have known and lived them through the eyes of Oscar and André. Their eyes, fixed on the ideals of freedom and justice, yet aware of the very high price to be paid, remind us that the courage to fight, to take a side, to sacrifice for a better world, is a fire that never goes out.

History is not a closed chapter in a book. History is now. It is we, with our choices, our passions, and our thirst for justice, who write it every day. And that is why Lady Oscar, her struggle, and her reflections on the Revolution continue to resonate so strongly in our souls. She inspires us, she spurs us on. Because everyone has their own "Bastille" to storm.

And you, what do you think? How much does the figure of Lady Oscar, with her choices and sacrifices, still speak to us today about freedom, justice, and the power to "make a difference"? Do you believe that History is truly "now"? Share your thoughts in the comments!