Chapter 3 Author's Notes
How to make yourself cry, and sashes anyone?
Short and sweet, Chapter 3 didn’t need much historical research but wasn’t bereft of interesting research topics.
For example, Louisa is disparaged by a last-year student named Defoy. Students in their final year at St. Denis carry the title of terminale and are allowed to wear a sash with all of the colors of sashes used by the different grades. Sashes starting in sixth grade are colored in order: green, violet, orange, blue, red, white, and finish with the multi-colored sash. The Legion d’Honneur School Wikipedia page is a great resource.
A girl’s sash carries with it a sense of pride of accomplishment, a list of privileges allowed to the girl, and represents a ticket to belong to her class. Thus, when the headmistress threatens to take Louisa’s sash, our hero is close to receiving the ultimate mark of shame.
While discussing different punishments, the real Eugénie Savant’s diary spoke of a pair of girls being punished by being forced to wear a gray sash. Every privilege was stripped from the two, and they were required to stand separately from the others at meal times so all the students could see their punishment. An interesting point made by Eugénie was that the faculty never let the girls’ transgression slip. Every student knew who was being punished but had no idea why.
A lighter punishment mentioned in the diary was for a student to have her sash taken and replaced by the sash of the year lower. While wearing the new sash, the student was forced to attend classes, eat, and bunk with younger girls.
Another interesting topic covered in Chapter 2 and carried over to Chapter 3 was how to make yourself cry. The stoic Louisa tries to make herself cry to garner the headmistress’s sympathy. Never having had to cry on demand, I set out to see how all my favorite K-Drama actors and actresses can do it so well. Luckily, finding some excellent links in the Google heap didn’t take long. Here is a good one.
Besides reliving her most painful moment and getting slapped by her friend, Louisa used two techniques from the link. She forced herself to yawn and held her eyelids open to get those eyes lubed.
Next up is Chapter 4 - A Pyrrhic Victory.