Talk:Jean-Baptiste Belley

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Silverwhistle in topic Portrait

Translation? edit

Can someone translate this phrase in the text of the article (perhaps in a parenthetical aside): "Le Bout d'oreille des colons ou le système de l’Hôtel Massiac mis à jour par Gouly." The best I can come up with is "The settler's ear-tips or the Hotel Massiac system maintained by Goly," which doesn't make any sense to me. :) Thanks! —mako 17:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Benjamin. A good question. I left this title in the French because it seemed to have hidden depths, and I didn't want to bungle it. The web site 'L'histoire par l'image' (www.histoire-image.org) says helpfully "...publié sous un titre à la saveur créole" - 'published under a title with a Creole flavour'. The système de l’Hôtel Massiac is clearly 'the Hotel Massiac system', referring to the group of colonists who met there, and it suggests they were pulling Gouly's strings, while mis à jour is 'updated'. Bout d'oreille des colons is literally 'settlers' ear-tip' or 'settlers' bit of ear' (plural settlers, singular ear-tip), which is what I'm struggling with. I think it may have something to do with La Fontaine's couplet
Un petit bout d'oreille, echappé par malheur,
Découvrit la fourbe et l'erreur...
which is from L'Ane vêtu d'une Peau de Lion (The Ass Dressed in a Lion Skin). It means "A small piece of ear, escaped by misfortune, uncovered the perfidy and the error..." (that is, a bit of the ass's ear escaped from the lion-skin). I hope this helps, but I'm afraid I may be missing some other allusion here! Xn4 (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
That's right for bout d'oreille, the revealing inadvertent slip-up in spite of every precaution, in a modern context a Freudian slip. I made a better translation, and put it in the footnote, rather than vice-versa. The club of planters meeting at the Hôtel Massiac, deserves an explanatory footnote.--Wetman (talk) 23:15, 13 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Just a note edit

This page is not listed in the list of people with the name "Jean-Baptiste". He needs to be added to the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.113.178 (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Jean-Baptiste Belley. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:26, 20 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Portrait edit

I'm a bit perplexed by the discussion of the, erm, emphasis created by the tightness of his pantalons in the portrait. It's actually no different from the effect seen in Kiprenskii's portrait of Evgraf Davydov, and is just a consequence of those kind of trousers! I don't see anything 'ideological' going on. There are no 'noble savage' overtones, just a depiction of a very elegant gentleman in fashionable political attire. Silverwhistle (talk) 11:20, 27 November 2017 (UTC)Reply