Re: "The End of The Story" is misdated
Posted by:
Platypus (IP Logged)
Date: 19 November, 2019 09:54AM
It would perhaps have been better if CAS had chosen a different date, or if he had made references, for the sake of versimilitude, to the upheavals of that decade. That he did not may suggest that he picked a date more-or-less at random.
But I think the OP overstates his case. France is a big place, and national assemblies are small places. The edicts of national assemblies are not self-executing, especially in sleepy, remote and out-of-the-way rural areas. By 1798 there was already significant backlash against radical efforts at de-Christianization in some quarters.
Averoigne seems to be the kind of place that time passes by. And if we are to allow for a fictional French province, I don't know why would blink at the idea that certain monasteries in that province managed to escape state attention. Especially when we are talking a monastery in the middle of a haunted forest that borders no traveled path. What possible use would the State have for such a building, that seizing it would be a priority? If a building is potentially valuable, and if one has no immediate use for it, does it really make sense to kick out the people who are taking good care of it? (I am aware, of course, that the State policies often did have precisely this destructive effect).
I do not know whether any monasteries escaped State attention elsewhere in France. Maybe they did not, but if so, this would require more proof than merely that some edict said so. But even if they escaped attention no-where else, I am happy to conclude that some managed to escape in the fictional province of Averoigne.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 19 Nov 19 | 10:42AM by Platypus.