My attendance in class following the mid year examination was less than stellar. It was not due to any fault of my own, but I fell ill to what was then a rather common sickness among university students. I hesitate to name the ailment, but let it me sufficient to say that it was not the kind of sickness one could acquire casually, or at least not coincidentally. Too many visits at too many houses of ill repute did not happen casually in any event, and I was certainly not slack in my attendance. Such fervent devotion to one pursuit did have the unfortunate consequence of increasing my time spent in hospital and with physicians and decreasing the amount of time I had in class.
I say all of this to say that my notes are rather incomplete, and much of what I write from this point is from memory. I would not put much stock in the accuracy of dates and names, but I do not want the reputation of my teacher to be in any way impugned because of the excesses of me, his student.
“The end of the Franco-Prussian war saw an incredible boom in French industry. Although the war had lasted only a short while, the economic stimulus of large scale war industry coupled with large scale government spending in support of the war effort broke the stranglehold of the liberal leaning government on imperial finances. Buoyed by war repayments, new markets and low taxes, industry expanded at a rapid pace. Access to the rich coal and iron mines of the recently annexed Rhineland were an additional boon to the economy and throughout the empire incomes rose rapidly, quieting the low level grumblings for political liberalization that had begun to appear.
Even within the Rhineland itself, agitation against the new government rapidly dissipated as these new subjects of the French Empire came to enjoy not only French liberty, but French prosperity as well. It was only the French national railroad network that still lagged behind that of other advanced European nations, but in every way France was at the forefront of cultural, economic & scientific progress.”
“M. le Professeur, if you please; a question.” The voice was unfamiliar to me, so I looked up and was surprised to see Lord Ling standing. He had never, to my knowledge, asked anything in class. None of us really knew much about him, except the rumors, as I’ve said before, of some noble lineage back in Asia. We were not even sure his name was Ling. Renault of course knew his name and called it, but I cannot now remember. Nicknames are more persistent than we know. I do remember his question though.
“Merci, Professeur. My question is this: is it not true that the imperial French government, if not fully complicit, then certainly acquiesced to a notorious trade in Asian women from French Indochina ostensibly imported to work as domestics but often made to serve as little better than concubines and that this trade began precisely during the post war period, and furthermore that many of the so called agitators against the imperial government ceased their agitation upon promise of estates in the far east completed furnished with house girls and in some cases even house boys?”
Ling’s words echoed through the classroom like a rock into an empty cave. The weight of the silence was unbearable; an eternity passed in those moments as we absorbed the impact and implications of his question. I looked at him as he stood, unblinking, unflappable, the epitome of reserve and discipline. He was neither subversive in his tone nor disrespectful in his disposition, yet his question, more like the statement of a prosecutor in a courtroom, could not have been more troubling.
I say all of this to say that my notes are rather incomplete, and much of what I write from this point is from memory. I would not put much stock in the accuracy of dates and names, but I do not want the reputation of my teacher to be in any way impugned because of the excesses of me, his student.
“The end of the Franco-Prussian war saw an incredible boom in French industry. Although the war had lasted only a short while, the economic stimulus of large scale war industry coupled with large scale government spending in support of the war effort broke the stranglehold of the liberal leaning government on imperial finances. Buoyed by war repayments, new markets and low taxes, industry expanded at a rapid pace. Access to the rich coal and iron mines of the recently annexed Rhineland were an additional boon to the economy and throughout the empire incomes rose rapidly, quieting the low level grumblings for political liberalization that had begun to appear.
Even within the Rhineland itself, agitation against the new government rapidly dissipated as these new subjects of the French Empire came to enjoy not only French liberty, but French prosperity as well. It was only the French national railroad network that still lagged behind that of other advanced European nations, but in every way France was at the forefront of cultural, economic & scientific progress.”
“M. le Professeur, if you please; a question.” The voice was unfamiliar to me, so I looked up and was surprised to see Lord Ling standing. He had never, to my knowledge, asked anything in class. None of us really knew much about him, except the rumors, as I’ve said before, of some noble lineage back in Asia. We were not even sure his name was Ling. Renault of course knew his name and called it, but I cannot now remember. Nicknames are more persistent than we know. I do remember his question though.
“Merci, Professeur. My question is this: is it not true that the imperial French government, if not fully complicit, then certainly acquiesced to a notorious trade in Asian women from French Indochina ostensibly imported to work as domestics but often made to serve as little better than concubines and that this trade began precisely during the post war period, and furthermore that many of the so called agitators against the imperial government ceased their agitation upon promise of estates in the far east completed furnished with house girls and in some cases even house boys?”
Ling’s words echoed through the classroom like a rock into an empty cave. The weight of the silence was unbearable; an eternity passed in those moments as we absorbed the impact and implications of his question. I looked at him as he stood, unblinking, unflappable, the epitome of reserve and discipline. He was neither subversive in his tone nor disrespectful in his disposition, yet his question, more like the statement of a prosecutor in a courtroom, could not have been more troubling.