That Night in Varennes (1982)

Jean-Louis Barrault: Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne

Photos 

Quotes 

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : A German traveler wrote of the politeness of the French. He must not have met you during his travels.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : You, the wealthy, don't be harsh and haughty. Beware, judges. A deadly revolution is in the making. The nobility hasn't understood the people. The clergy has lost contact with them. Soon the people will fight social injustice. Everyone will be a citizen. Hear the voice of a plebeian who lives with the people.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I won't discuss Mr. Casanova's literary talents, but as for his exploits in love, I have some reservations. First, he's too big. I told him: the best lovers are always of small stature. That's been proven.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Proven by whom?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : The influx of blood, which gives the virile member its power is all the greater and fiercer if the area to be irrigated is smaller.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Feast for the eyes, ecstasy for the soul! Undeniable proof of God's existence! To have loved others is like having thrust one's sword into water a hundred times. Oh, to fondle those tiny sparrow feet! Those slim doe-like ankles.

• Madame Faustine : Come on up. I could introduce someone to you.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : No, it's too late. Tonight I've got printing to do.

  Madame Faustine : Must be urgent if you don't have time to sing a lullaby to a lovely young thing whose tiny feet are encased in green satin mules with pink heels.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I often think the most unpardonable of all my mistakes was to not accept your marriage proposal.

  Madame Faustine : You still remember? We were both so young. My business was starting to boom. I could have provided you with money and you would have always had new girls.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I have always preferred you to your girls. You know that.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : My poor girl. Fate dealt you such a lousy father.

  [kisses Agnès cheek, then leans down to suck on her breast] 

• Madame Adélaïde Gagnon : You've spent time at the court in France?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Mr. Casanova has been the toast of every court in Europe.

  Casanova : It wasn't a great privilege. Courts aren't the gardens full of rare blossoms people imagine. I mostly met wrinkled old countesses and princesses.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I haven't introduced myself: Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne.

  Casanova : Who wrote "Fanchette's Foot", "The Bastard Daughter", "Parisian Couples", "New Abelard", "Contemporary Women"?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : At your service. Thank you for not mentioning, "The Perverted Peasant".

  Casanova : I've read and enjoyed that too. But it's obviously not your favorite.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Some fathers prefer their least gifted children.

• De Wendel : In Strasbourg, he was known as a gambler, as a man who ran lotteries, designed textiles, directed plays, dabbled in the occult.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : As a seer too!

  De Wendel : But mostly for his boudoir escapades.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : When I used to go to Paris, I even heard Madame de Pompadour was mad for him. It seems no woman could resist your compatriot.

  Virginia Capacelli : Thank you, Madame!

  [to Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne] 

  Virginia Capacelli : Did you really travel with him?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But, I assure you I resisted him.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Damned bladder! To get this old and have to pee constantly. And with such pain.

  Casanova : You always get punished in the places where you sinned.

• Casanova : Making love in a carriage, which we may have done anyway, or in the most secret alcove, is all the same. What matters is - that there should be - is that, in lovemaking, there should be - should be...

  Madame Adélaïde Gagnon : There should be - what?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Mystery.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : A while ago, in the street, I watched the faces of those peasants. They weren't moved. They weren't children happy to have found a "long lost father." Those faces betrayed centuries of famine, of destitution, and humiliation and the fear that today may not be the end of such injustices.

  Thomas Paine : For that they'll have to wait for a future occasion.

• Casanova : I'll head for Verdun. I don't enjoy attending a king's funeral.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : The French people don't want his death.

  Casanova : My dear Restif, when a king is captured, not by another king, but by a postmaster, he's as good as dead.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Idiocy is the worst betrayal of all.

  Thomas Paine : And no revolution can succeed without it.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I don't write tragedies. I just record what I see.

• Thomas Paine : It must be exhausting to play king.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : The greater the task, the greater the honors.