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The Consequences of Flight (9622 words) by Tournevis
Chapters: 9/?
Fandom: Murdoch Mysteries
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: William Murdoch/James Pendrick
Characters: William Murdoch, James Pendrick, Julia Ogden, Inspector Brackenreid, Georges Crabtree, James Gillies, Dr. Roberts (Murdoch Mysteries), Thomas Edison, Auguste Lumière, Gustave Eiffel, Marcel Guillaume, Antoine Lumière, Alphonse Bertillon
Additional Tags: A host of OCs - Freeform, A host of historical figures, Diary/Journal, Fake Academic Essay, Historically Accurate, Bycicles
Series: Part 2 of The Dancing Suite
Summary:

The following is taken from a recently defended Master’s cognate in History entitled « The Consequences of Flight : The Rediscovered Diary of a Canadian Homosexual in the Late-Victorian Era. »

The Murdoch Diary, part 2:

Paris

21, undated, and 24 April, 1900

21 April, Saturday.

Famine in India is worse than initially reported. The war against the Boers continues and there is war in Tchad^1^, and the Boxer Rebellion^2^ is deadlier with each report. Mme M tells me that not only did she lose her beloved Fernand in 1848, she lost her one and only son in the Commune^3^, at a barricade just a few streets from here. Man is a vicious creature.

We took two cinematographic shows today. The Lumière Bros^4^ projected on the biggest screen ever devised, 21 meters! James asked how they had managed to project at this size without incinerating the celluloid. August Lumière was answered vaguely and only stated it had to do with the refraction index of the lens. It is obviously only part of their solution and makes little sense on its own, but we posit he does not want their accomplishments to be reproduced by 'some Americans', by which he means Edison^5^ no doubt. I can understand why he suspected James: he does sound like an American when he speaks French. They were also said to be presenting examples of film in colour, but not today.

The other show was at the Photo-cinéma-théâtre^6^ at the other end of the Exposition grounds. Mr. Gaumont presented scenes featuring many celebrities, the only one of which we knew of was Sarah Bernhardt^7^. If the normal screen size did not impress us, the electric phonograph which was coupled to the projector certainly did. Cinema with sound! The technology is yet cumbersome, but I can easily imagine all theaters using sound technology in the coming few years. James tells me Edison is working on a similar system and he cannot tell whom of Gaumont or Edison stole the idea from whom. As I write this, late into the evening, he is jotting down ideas from ameliorating sound delivery. We agreed that the sound is Gaumont's system is only well heard by those nearest the photograph and that large theaters could not use such technology effectively as of yet.

Undated

Our bakery has been opened since the 18^th^ century^8^. Incredible.

24 April, Tuesday.

I learned something interesting today. I was commenting on the odd impression I had that there were always more children in the streets on Thursdays when they should be in school and all my floor colleagues burst laughing for the better part of five minutes. There are indeed more children in the streets on Thursdays because they do not have school on Thursdays. Rather, they go to school on the Saturday, instead. Not having children ourselves and there being no children in our building, only bachelors, we could not have known. When I informed my co-workers that in Canada children stay home on the Saturday and Sunday consecutively, they groaned in horror. Paul ___ called Canadians uncivilized and unusually cruel, blamed the English for it, for forcing our children to go to school for 5 days straight without rest.^9^

At the time, France had been engaged in a colonial war in Tchad against native forces. Resistance forces were crushed and Tchad was annexed as French territory in September 1900.
The Boxer Rebellion is a complex and multi-fronted, anti-foreign, anti-colonial and anti-Christian uprising taking place in China between 1899 and 1901. "Boxers" refers to the practitioners of Chinese martial arts who composed the resistance forces. The latter resented foreign commercial and political interference and corruption, notably foreign involvement in the opium trade. By the end of the conflict, colonial forces composed of British Empire troops, among others, and with American aid, crushed the "rebels" and marked the end of the Qing Dynasty.
The Paris Commune was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871 in the aftermath of the end of the Second French Empire in September 1870. For the better part of Spring 1871, Paris was under siege and the streets were mired by popular barricades, notably in the La Chapelle neighbourhood. The Commune forces were crushed by the French Regular Army in the later week of May 1871, known as the Bloody Week. Between ten and twenty thousand individuals were killed in the conflict.
August (1864-1848) and Louis Lumière (1862-1954) were among the world's first film makers, coined the word "cinematograph" and are credited for many notable advances in cinematic technology. During the 1900 Exhibition, they innovated with one of the biggest screens used to date, 21 by 6 meters, as well as with colour, using a subtractive colour process known as the 'bichromated glue' process.
Léon Gaumont (1864-1946) was among the world's first film makers and is credited with many advances in cinematic technology, including some of the first narrative movies. At the 1900 Exhibit, he presented an early version of his Chronophone system (patented in 1902) that synchronized a cinematograph projector to a phonograph using an early form of switchboards.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was a world renown entrepreneur and serial inventor who, among dozens of other inventions, was also among the world's first film makers.
Sarah Bernhardt (1864-1923) was a world-famous French stage actress, known for playing both male and female parts. She went of several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.
This may be the Boulangerie Chamat, situated one door down from Saint-Denys-de-la-Chapelle church, the façade of which in contemporary photographs boasts having been founded in 1779.
Indeed, from the 19^th^ century to 1972, primary schooling in France took place on Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday. From 1969, primary schooling on Saturday afternoons was abolished. In 1972, the school rest day moved to Wednesday. Today, there is no primary schooling on Saturdays.