Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 September 21

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September 21

French microhistorian?

I can't for the life of me put my finger on it—and I'm hoping that I'll recognise the name when I see it!—but can anyone remind me of the French historian (contemporary, or near so) who wrote the history of (I think) Paris in the 19th-c. through an examination of one ordinary man's life? (Apologies for a somewhat convoluted question!) Cheers, 94.11.107.111 (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

is it a quite recent best seller? If so, Lorànt Deutsch comes to mind. If not, you may check https://www.decitre.fr/rechercher/result?q=la+vie+quotidienne+paris and https://www.decitre.fr/rechercher/result?q=histoire+de+paris Gem fr (talk) 20:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Lemonnier

Who is Lemonnier in this picture from 1873 at the French Consulate at Honolulu? Sourcing organization told me they don’t know. KAVEBEAR (talk) 15:14, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Not notable enough to have a WP article (neither on fr:) . Gem fr (talk) 20:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Can you give us a clue which Lemonnier? Presumably he had a forename? Alansplodge (talk) 20:50, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

If he had an article on English wiki or French wiki, I wouldn’t be asking here. If I knew his first name or any other information, I would have provided it. The request is for sources outside of Wikipedia about a man named Lemonnier associated with the French Consulate of Honolulu during the 1870s. Finding his first name is part of the question. KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Okay, just asking. The most famous French Lemonnier at that time was the crown jeweller to Napoleon III, Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier, but he fell from grace after the Franco-Prussian War according to this article and the photograph of him (near the bottom) doesn't look much like either of them.

We have a portrait of Anton Ritter von Lemonnier in 1873, an Austrian policeman, but it's not him either. Alansplodge (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Another candidate might be French lawyer and pacifist Charles Lemonnier (1808-1891), who was instrumental in founding Congress of Peace in Geneva and much later, the International Peace Bureau in Berne. However, this article describes him as "elderly" in 1878. Alansplodge (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

As I said, the guy is NOT notable enough to be easily found. He has a not uncommon name and a uniform (not sure if it is civil servant or a soldier), and looks middle age. Only some french administrative/military archive would be of help. Gem fr (talk) 00:47, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Cryptogram in Rewards and Fairies

In Something of Myself Rudyard Kipling wrote that he "even slipped in a cryptogram, whose key I regret I must have utterly forgotten" into Rewards and Fairies. Has anyone found the cryptogram and solved it? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 18:51, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

You are not alone Duncan. Mallett, Phillip, (2003) Rudyard Kipling: A Literary Life (p. 150) says: "On their return, Kipling sent off Rewards and Fairies to the publishers. Writing it had satisfied him as a craftsman, and he had filled it with 'all manner of allusions and references and crossreferences' and, so he said, 'anagrams and cryptograms', though if these are present they have remained undetected". Alansplodge (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

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