Proclamation of 9th Frimaire, An III

[Dave Monroe]

"But over the next century and a half the paranoia
recedes, as they come to discover the secular
Tristero.  Power, omnsicience, implacable malice,
attributes of what they'd thought to be a historical
principle, a Zeitgeist, are carried over to the now
human enemy.  So much that, by 1795, it is even
suggested that Tristero has staged the entire French
Revolution, just for an excuse to issue the
Proclamation of 9th Frimaire, An III, ratifying the
end of the Thurn and Taxis postal monopoly in France
and the Lowlands." (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 165)

That is, the Tristero enters The Age of Enlightenment.
 But from J. Kerry Grant, A Companion to The Crying of
Lot 49 (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1994), on the
"Proclamation of 9th Frimaire" ...

"The Bulletin des lois de la Republique Francaise
records only three laws issued on that date, none of
them regulating the postal service in any way." (p.
129)

So far, I'm going to have to take Grant's word for,
well, granted here.  But do note that, in the French
Revolutionary Calendar ...

9th Frimaire, An III = Novemeber 29th, 1795

Frimaire = mois des frimas = "month of hoar-frost"

http://www.francogene.com/search-fr/calrep.html

http://www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/revcalendar.cfm

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ludivine.hechelski/Cfrimaire.htm

http://www.gefrance.com/calrep/calen.htm

http://www.gefrance.com/calrep/cal2.htm

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here (quelle
surprise, I suppose, but ...) and ask, what about Nov.
29th, 1963, "An III" of the Kennedy Administration ...

Executive Orders Disposition Tables
Lyndon B. Johnson - 1963

11129  Designating certain facilities of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration and of the
Department of Defense, in the State of Florida, as the
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Signed: November 29, 1963
Federal Register page and date: 28 FR 12787; December
3, 1963

11130  Appointing a commission to report upon the 
assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Signed: November 29, 1963
Federal Register page and date: 28 FR 12789; December
3, 1963 

http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/eo1963j.html

Or, at any rate, a week after its demise, An I, then,
of the Johnson presidency.  See also ... 

http://a1016.g.akamai.net/f/1016/606/1d/image.pathfinder.com/Life/60th/classic/cv112963.jpg

http://database.library.northwestern.edu/hpol/master.asp?t=browse&offset=40

http://database.library.northwestern.edu/hpol/record.asp?id=34

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/park/1097/lbjeh.html

And, of course, from Charles Hollander, "Pynchon, JFK
and the CIA: Magic Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49,"
Pynchon Notes 40-41 (Spring-Fall 1997), pp. 61-106 ...

"So The Crying of Lot is about Oedipa, her life, her
loves, her mental states, and her curious quest to
decipher the estate of Pierce Inverarity.  And, by
allusin, it is also Pynchon's meditation on the state
of American affairs in the mid-sixties ....  And all
these meditations were triggered by th assassination
of President Kennedy." (pp. 100-1)

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/newsletters/newsletterspr01/pynchon2.html

But anyone have easy access to that Bulletin de lois? 
Let us know what was proclaimed that fateful 9th of
Frimaire, what else might have been pointed to here
...


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