Quite a while ago when I was trying to decide what to do for my final year dissertation, my flatmates and I put our heads together a compiled a list of possible titles:

"Robespierre: I wish he was my best friend."
"L'Ancien Régime: Fuck that Shit!"
"The Life and Disabilities of Lord Nelson."
"Pom-Poms and petticoats: The Sexual Life of the Duke Of Wellington"
"Ankles All the Way!"

The Wellington one sprang from this image caption from Foulkes' Dancing Into Battle: A Social History of the Battle of Waterloo:



As my flatmate stated, if I ever run out of money I can always write a biography called "The Potent Years of the Iron Duke."

Now, I haven't exactly been active here for the last year - but the thing is, I have just started watching a new costume drama for which the fanfiction literally writes itself, and this reminded me of the fandom fest that is livejournal.

Anno 1790 is produced by the Swedish SVT (kinda like BBC or ITV) and is a kind of a cross between Garrow's Law and City of Vice (or Bow Street Runner or whatever that show was called, I never watched it but wasted all my time - and still do from time to time I confess, playing the online game.) The series begins at the end of the Russo-Swedish war and centers around the protagonist, Johan Gustav Dåådh (yes, that is actually how his name is spelled), on his return to Stockholm. Dåådh is a beautiful gingerboy former army surgeon turned policeman who with his radical ideas and sympathy for the French Revolution sets out to battle the crime and oppression of late Gustavian society. Being a rather fervent admirer of the old parts of Stockholm I was very pleased to find that many scenes were (naturally) filmed in historic areas of the city.

I have just finished the third (of ten) episodes in which a scene took place which made me laugh out loud. The third episode is centered around the murder of a publisher of radical pamphlets, who has received a large number of love letters from female authors and poets whom he seduced after promising to print their works.

The main suspect is Pauline, a (rather amazing) French revolutionary and author of a pamphlet entitled Liberty, equality, sisterhood. She falls in love with/seduces/appreciates the radical tendencies of Dåådh (whatever you prefer, there's a scene in which Pauline states she believes women should do exactly what they want and forcefully initiates sex), who afterwards helps her evade capture by dressing her in men's clothes.




Personally I had my hopes pinnes on Dåådh and Pauline fleeing to Paris where they would raise an army of tiny, beautiful, pipe-smoking, feminist cross-dressers - but alas this was not to be. Pauline successfully escapes punishment (she is found innocent of the crime but is nonetheless a radical pamphleteer who will not be safe in royalist Stockholm), leaving Dåådh behind to pine for his One True Love, Magdalena Wahlstedt, who also happens to be the wife of his superior inspector. Except - Magdalena happens upon Dåådh and Pauline saying their goodbyes and making out...and Pauline is still dressed as a man. Oh dear!




Luckily Pauline does for some obscure reason decide she will be safe inside the carriage taking her away, and proceeds to take off her hat and shake her lustrous curls down just as she drives past Magdalena, who is mightily relieved to discover that Dåådh is in fact not gay. Why she is so relieved I confess I do not know, as this doesn't change the fact that she just witnessed his dodgy alleyway rendez-vouz with a cross-dressing revolutionary...

England expects that every man will do his duty.