These are topics that either got cut from the video, or that I couldn’t find a place for, but I still found important enough to want to write down.

Cyrano the Pacifist

There’s a pretty big difference between the earliest illustrations for Cyrano’s Voyages and the illustrations that were published after the play. There’s a noticeable addition now.

Because Cyrano is presently celebrated as a legendary swordsman before he’s celebrated as a pioneer in science fiction, there’s now always a sword at Dyrcona’s hip, despite the fact that Cyrano never describes him having one.

This is also despite the fact that there’s even a section in Voyage to the Moon dedicated to discussing the absurdity of his culture’s worship of the sword - of things meant to destroy life. The moon people instead wear charms depicting genitals, things meant to create life.

I think Cyrano chilled out quite a bit in his 30s once he started studying philosophy and even came to be a bit ashamed of his hotheaded 20s. In his letter The Duelist, he doesn’t exactly sound repentant, but he does sound tired of always being asked to be a second in everyone’s duels.

Pair this with his anti-war discussion with the princess of the moon, I think Cyrano was much more of a pacifist than most people represent him as (I am also guilty of this).

Buddhism?

I have a hard time not interpreting Cyrano’s description of the afterlife of the sun as being similar in concept to some core beliefs of Buddhism. He writes that when anything dies in the solar system, their soul is pulled up towards the sun, and they are given life again, reincarnated so that they can continue to refine their soul. The philosophers of the sun are a late stage of this process, having refined their soul so much that they live on the sun to perfect their work.

Dyrcona also ultimately reaches the surface of the sun by essentially meditating.

I don’t know if Cyrano was ever exposed to Buddhism. Maybe this is the end result of his exploring alternative paths of thought about religion and the soul.

Molière

French playwright Molière is brought up in every Cyrano biography and every critique of Cyrano’s work. Apparently Molière lifted some lines from Cyrano’s play Le Pedant Joué (Molière’s English Wikipedia article doesn’t mention it, but the French one does). I don’t know, I haven’t read Le Pedant Joué (yet), nor have I experienced any of Molière’s work, so I can’t sincerely comment on it. After Cyrano’s death, when Molière was accused of plagiarism of Cyrano’s work, Molière replied with “I am allowed to take my property where I find it” thus uno-reversing the claim of plagiarism onto Cyrano who was too far underground at the time to be able to reply.

And so, much time and energy has been devoted simply to proving or disproving it. From what I’ve seen, it isn’t even certain the two knew each other (not that that’s needed for plagiarism).

I didn’t bring it up in the video because frankly I’m sick of this discussion and I don’t think it goes anywhere. Cyrano fans state it as fact, and Molière fans do the same uno reverse maneuver. People bring it up in their critiques of Cyrano’s work as if to say “You see? He’s actually a competent writer - even Molière stole from him!” I personally think Cyrano’s work stands on its own and doesn’t need to drag down Molière. The counterculturist shouldn’t need to attach himself like a remora onto the more mainstream playwright in order to be considered valid.

The Fronde and Mazarin

Around 1650 there was a civil war in Paris called The Fronde and Cyrano was undoubtedly affected by it.

There were 3 published political letters, first in opposition to the Cardinal Mazarin, then in support of him, that were originally attributed to Cyrano, but have since been if not disproven then considered highly doubtful by Dr. Alcover.

I don’t talk about it in the video because as I said at the beginning, I’m not a historian, and I don’t know much about 17th century Parisian government. It was probably very important to Cyrano and his friends at the time, but I don’t have much to say about it.

But I do think it’s important to mention that in the early days of translating Cyrano’s stories into English, British royalists latched onto the idea of him being a supporter of absolute monarchy because of these letters. So if you ever see anything about Cyrano having even an ounce of respect for royalty, blame the brits.

“Cyrano flirted with his cousin Madeleine”

I’ve seen claims of this, but I haven’t seen any proof, only people mentioning it without citing sources. Obviously Rostand got the idea from somewhere though so I probably haven’t looked in the right places.

This along with the fact that all of the recipients of his love letters have been replaced with “Madame” are why I allow the “maybe bisexual” theory.

Genderfluidity

Dr. Benkő mentions in her writeup of Cyrano that the main character of his Voyages, Dyrcona, shows signs of genderfluidity, as well as other nonconformist takes on gender and sexuality. Cyrano mentions pregnancy a lot more often than I think I’ve seen in the works of any other male scifi author. The word “hermaphrodite” gets used often in Voyage to the Sun, but this is because Cyrano is using it in Greek mythological context as he likely didn’t have much else. I use the word “intersex” in the video because I personally find it more palatable (I also recognize there’s a difference between hermaphroditism and being intersex).

My personal bias to all of this should be clear, being an enby. I like that my blorbo from history is exploring queer theory in the 17th century.

More D’Assoucy

After Cyrano’s death, when D’Assoucy returned to Paris, he wrote that on a night when the moon was full, he thought he saw Cyrano’s ghost come to revenge his rage upon him. And D’Assoucy threw himself into the nearby river to escape him.

I just thought this was funny. Good riddance.

The Huguenots & Personal Biases on Religion

In my first draft of the script, I had a lengthy section about my family history, but I didn’t want to introduce too much personal bias into the video. 400 years ago, my paternal ancestors were Huguenot - French protestants. They were peaceful farmers living in a village near the border of Germany. The local pastor wrote that my ancestors were “the best of us all”. But in the late 1600s, dragoons stormed the family home and murdered them for the crime of being protestant. The oldest son, who’d been studying away from home, was the last surviving family member, and fled France to the UK and eventually across the sea to the usa.

In the original script, I was much more harsh towards the pious LeBret and the entirety of the Catholic system that murdered Cyrano. You see, LeBret would later in his life, as a bishop, support the revocation of religious freedom in France that would eventually lead to the murder of my ancestors. My father was raised Catholic (my grandmother was Irish Catholic - her own mirrored family history, being murdered at the hands of English protestants!) but he was abused by his teachers and later converted to Lutheranism, which I was raised as. Today I’m areligious, with many friends that are “culturally Catholic” - raised Catholic but also areligious themselves. Religion is simply not a part of my life, nor the lives of most of my friends.

I ultimately decided to dial back the vitriol towards LeBret and Catholicism. My disdain for the later antihumanist opinions of LeBret do not change the fact that if he didn’t publish Cyrano’s works and didn’t leave breadcrumbs (as asterisks) and didn’t write his romanticized biography, none of us would have likely known Cyrano de Bergerac even existed. I wanted my video to have a positive message at the end, and to avoid turning my documentary on Cyrano into a denouncement of Catholicism.

On certain days though, a vengeful voice in my head still whispers that I didn’t go hard enough.

The Friend

As for the friend that I mention at the start of the video that gifted me the copy of the play, I haven’t spoken to them (gender neutral for the sake of total anonymity) in over a decade. At the time, they were very devoutly Catholic and strongly opposed gay marriage, birth control, and also harassed people seeking healthcare at family planning clinics. Today I would label the last point especially as an example of religious extremism. This provoked me greatly, but at the time I was a coward and didn’t have the words for it, so I simply stopped responding.

I think they’re an author now, with a family that they had often wished for in our conversations. I hope they’re well, and I hope they’ve become more tolerant and accepting.

In any case, thank you, old friend, for accidentally introducing me to the queer, areligious, nonconformist that is Cyrano de Bergerac.