millwork: (09)

[personal profile] millwork 2023-10-19 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[ His answer, Jean Louis', is to quote her, something she said more than five years ago in a speech at a congress that should have secured her a ministry but didn't, because no matter what Claude would like to believe and no matter what he fights for, her darling son, the world is not fair. People don't always get what they're due, but if they don't do the work, they get even less. That is the only fairness there is. She looks at him silently for a long moment, her expression openly surprised, then she smiles, wide, like Claude sometimes smiles, it's the only feature he's inherited from her, minus his hair colour. That's hers as well.

And he is, of course. Little Claude. He sips his wine and comments that she's been immortalized, which is in his idea of liberalism the utmost honour. Camille thinks, looking from him to Jean Louis before taking a long sip of her own champagne, that it's because he refuses to understand. He isn't stupid, he could grasp the liberal values if he so chose.

I simply chose, Jean Louis said - then drawing attention back to Claude and the bill he's been fighting for months and months of hard work. And sometimes you do not get your due, but other times you do.

Still smiling, softer, she meets Claude's eyes. ]


Some things take priority, evidently, and when we set our minds to it, it will succeed if we want it enough. [ Liberal values through and through. She looks over at Jean Louis. ] I think Claude has simply chosen as well.

[ The bill, she means. And him. Claude has chosen him. ]