Le Bon Temps Viendra

This post is kind of sort of a continuation of the one from a week ago. Ish. Mostly it's just random thoughts.


Off we go then.


Currently, I am reading (in fact, am very nearly finished with) a book called The Conqueror. It's by Georgette Heyer, who wrote These Old Shades, which I read (and loved) back in April. I'm not loving The Conqueror quite as much, but that's not actually relevant to this post.


The Conqueror is, as you might imagine, a book about William the Conqueror. However, the main character is really a young knight named Raoul de Harcourt. At the beginning of the book, Raoul is given his first sword. The sword is inscribed with Danish runes. Being the only member of his family interested in learning, Raoul is the only one who can read the runes. When asked what they mean, Raoul replies, "In our tongue, it reads thus: Le bon temps viendra."


Georgette Heyer evidently had a strange habit of including random French phrases in her works without bothering to provide translations. She did it a lot in These Old Shades (which also took place in France) as well. So in order to figure out what was written on Raoul's sword, I had to do a little web browsing.


The first thing I learned is that the House of Harcourt is a real Norman noble house. There are still Harcourts living in France and England today. And one of their house mottoes is Le bon temps viendra.


The second thing I learned is that "le bon temps viendra" means "the good times will come".


Go ahead and let that sink in.


The good times will come.


One thing's for sure; that's quite a house motto.


It'd make for quite a life motto, too.


Okay, sure, on the one hand it strikes one as vapidly optimistic. Everywhere, every day, we see people, making headlines and posting frustrated Facebook updates or just going through life, who are struggling. Sometimes we're the ones struggling.


Hold on a second - I just remembered that I hate first person plural pronoun usage.


Sometimes I'm the one struggling.


And I know that on some bad days, I don't necessarily want to hear someone tell me that the good times will come. For whatever reason, being caught in the throes of misery or irritation or stress can make me shut down and reject the kind intentions of others and believe that no, the good times will not come, you don't know anything. That's why, when I see someone else hurting, although my first instinct is usually to reach out and say, "Don't worry; the good times will come"... I don't always.


But the thing is... I think they will.


I might be starting to actually believe that. I'm not sure I can say why. I'm still just a directionless high school graduate who doesn't want to grow up because she's absolutely terrified of adulthood and passionately loathes change.


But the good times will come.


The world is still a fallen one, in which people let you down, and get older, and move away, and die, and are forgotten.


But the good times will come.


Everyone in the world has rough days and grief and uphill battles in their futures.


But that doesn't, and cannot, and never will change the fact that le bon temps viendra.   


I can't explain it, this weird certainty. Maybe it's just springing from excitement that I learned a neat French phrase. Maybe it'll be gone tomorrow. Maybe I should quit filling my head with such bookish nonsense.


I don't care.


For today, at the very least, I'm taking a cue from Raoul de Harcourt and making le bon temps viendra my motto.


The good times will come.


~Pearl Clayton