Talk:Belle/@comment-9548674-20180303193951/@comment-1672596-20180911140330

First of all, Belle was never born in that provincial village, she moved there (and based on her opening song where she basically dismisses the villagers as being beneath her, it's extremely unlikely she hailed from another provincial town even if she didn't necessarily hail from Paris.). Second of all, if we are to take Belle's Discovery as Canon (I personally wouldn't since the narrative implied that it was during the Revolution, even though Glen Keane made it clear that it if anything was during its prelude, but I digress...), she most likely DID hail from Paris. Third of all, use common sense: If the commoners were truly as illiterate as you claim they were, do you REALLY think Voltaire and Diderot's plan to subvert Christianity that led directly to the French Revolution would have even WORKED at all? Here are two of the six points in their plan:

"5. The fabrication of books of all kinds against Christianity, especially such as excite doubt and generate contempt and derision.

Of these they issued by themselves and their friends who early became numerous, an immense number; so printed as to be purchased for little or nothing, and so written as to catch the feelings, and steal upon the approbation, of every class of men.

6. The formation of a secret Academy, of which Voltaire was the standing president, and in which books were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation, and sent abroad with the weight of their names.

These were printed and circulated at the lowest price through all classes of men in an uninterrupted succession, and through every part of the kingdom."

"Every/All classes", that would have included the commoners as well. Not to mention the phrase every part would have accounted for even the females and children (can't be "every part" under the most literal sense if they didn't even take into account women and children). I know I wanted to do every part of the kingdom, I'd make sure to do LITERALLY every part, even include the kids and females. They would have failed to such an extent that they would have been laughed off, not to mention not even become influential in any way, if the commoners were truly illiterate. Plus, I might as well add, if the villagers truly had no use for books, that bookstore would have been shut down a LONG time ago due to lack of sales (and yes, it is a "bookstore", meaning a place that sells books.). Plus, someone once told me that a fourth of the population in France was literate, and that it actually had the highest literacy rate at the time (which is supported by the fact that the French Academy was the literacy center of the world at the time).

Fourth of all, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villneuve and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont contradicts your notion that women were rendered illiterate during that time (how can they write a book like Beauty and the Beast if they can't even read?), and besides, do you really think that Christianity, which for the record attempts to save ALL souls per doctrine, would have excluded women from reading the Bible ESPECIALLY considering how religious France was at the time (being the second-most religious part of Europe, with only Rome, Italy being more religious, at least regarding Catholicism)? If anything, reading the bible would have been mandatory for BOTH sexes during that time. Besides, there's a thing known as convents, where women become cloistered nuns for the Catholic Church, that would literally REQUIRE reading the bible. Heck, Marie Antoinette was literate as well, and she didn't exactly come from nobility (she was originally someone who made mud pies in Austria if Ann Coulter is to be believed.).

Fifth of all, the French Revolutionaries executed EVERYONE they could find out of a sheer kick. Even if that Gouges lady was male, it wouldn't have mattered since they'd find any excuse to execute her. They did in Citizen Phillipe, aka the Duke of Orleans, despite his being instrumental to the execution of Louis XVI. They even executed Marie Antoinette DESPITE her being a fan of Rousseau as well. And let's not forget they executed far more peasants than actual aristocrats, and that was DESPITE their PR of fighting for "the peasants". And make no mistake, women were very much involved in partaking in the atrocities of the French Revolution. Let's not forget that it was a bunch of women (and men in drag) who raided King Louis XVI's residence to try and arrest him and his family. Heck I think I've read somewhere that some of the women in the French Revolution actually took to wearing severed human body parts as trophies, and I definitely know that Joseph Lebon's wife was involved alongside Lebon himself in the executions at Arras that had inspiration from the Marquis de Sade's 120 Nights of Sodom, right down to how they posed the decapitated prisoners.

So no, Belle definitely wouldn't have been a victim of the Revolution. Actually, if anything, she'd be a Jacobin and thus a perpetrator due to her literacy, since as Timothy Dwight pointed out, it was BECAUSE of their literacy that they were even swayed by the likes of Voltaire and Diderot into committing murder against King Louis XVI. If ANYONE was to be a victim, it would have been the triplets. And quite frankly, in real life, she wouldn't have been ostracized (if anything, she would have been worshipped like Voltaire and Diderot were, not to mention Rousseau. Those guys weren't exactly ostracized for their literacy by any stretch.). Also, let's not forget that the French Philosphes were really big fans of Catharine the Great of Russia, and last I checked, "Catharine" isn't a boy's name. Heck, she didn't even come across as ostracized, really, despite the narrative (if she were truly ostracized, the villagers would have treated her like Quahog treated Meg Griffin from Family Guy).