Théophile Ferré was a leader of the Paris Commune who was executed by the French government on this day in 1871. Ferré personally authorized the execution of the archbishop of Paris and was the first of 25 Communards to be executed.

Little is known about Ferré's early life, before his participation in the Paris Commune. After Paris was seized by revolutionaries in March 1871, Ferré served on the Commune's Committee of Public Safety, a body given extensive powers to hunt down enemies of the Commune.

On April 5th, the Commune passed a decree that authorized the arrest of any person thought to be loyal to the French government in Versailles, to be held as hostages. Prominent figures arrested included a Catholic priest Georges Darboy and the archbishop of Paris. The Commune hoped to exchange their hostages for Louis-Auguste Blanqui, a revolutionary and honorary President of the Commune, imprisoned by the state.

Following the events of the "Bloody Week", in which the French government summarily executed many suspected Communards, Ferré authorized the execution of several hostages, including Darboy and the archbishop.

After the resistance of the Commune collapsed, Ferré was captured by the army, tried by a military court, and sentenced to death. On November 28th, 1871, he was shot at Satory, an army camp southwest of Versailles. He was the first of twenty-five Communards to be executed for their role in the Paris Commune.

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  • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    As both a chemist and a quality control veteran who frequently cooks and bakes new things, I will never get over how unhinged American recipes are.

    Using volume to measure solids is straight-up cursed. The density of even "identical" ingredients can vary dramatically, the only reason we kind of get away with it is that most of our sugar and flour is probably coming from the same few processing facilities that just happen to be using similar-sized mesh screens on their packaging lines. How do you measure a cup of blueberries? A cup of large blueberries is going to be like 1/2 to 2/3 the weight of a cup of small blueberries. You know what's always the same? 300 grams of blueberries. You can get a cheap food scale for pennies more than a set of measuring cups, there's no excuse for this bullshit anymore.

    Then you have ounces, which we have chosen to make a unit of measurement for both volume and mass, for some reason. A cup is 8 fluid ounces, we already have commonly available measuring cups down to 1/4 cup, and 1/8 cup is 2 tablespoons (lmao) so the fluid ounce has no reason to exist aside from intentional confusion.

    My brother in Christ, why would you name two precise units of volume, tablespoon and teaspoon, after things that already exist in everyone's silverware drawer that have not been standardized in size? Were people just not doing any critical thought when all of these "official" decisions were made?

    • Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      14 days ago

      Were people just not doing any critical thought when all of these "official" decisions were made?

      the only official decision in this dimension was the yankee congress passing a law to institute metrification, and then all the fucking cheapskates refused to spend a red cent actually making it happen

      • buckykat [none/use name]
        ·
        14 days ago

        Also the boat with the metric standards for the US on it was captured by British privateers in 1793.

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        I just wish recipes could standardize on grams as a unit of measure. What sadist decided that an irregular shape like a portion of solid butter should be measured using volume units? I have a good kitchen scale, just let me use that.

    • buckykat [none/use name]
      ·
      14 days ago

      Yesterday I made a old family recipe for pumpkin pie which included ingredient amounts such as "be brave, try more" and "Cora says use 1 teaspoon instead of 1/4 teaspoon" (I have no idea who Cora is)

      It also called for 1 oz brown sugar or karo, which could mean five different amounts of sugar: 1 fluid volume ounce of karo, 1 weight ounce of karo, 1 volume ounce of unpacked brown sugar, 1 volume ounce of packed brown sugar, or 1 weight ounce of brown sugar.

      Today I've got a green bean casserole recipe which calls for long green beans measured by the cup.

      • dustbunnies [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        13 days ago

        ingredient amounts such as "be brave, try more" and "Cora says use 1 teaspoon instead of 1/4 teaspoon" (I have no idea who Cora is)

        Cora sounds fun! I'm also a fan of quadrupling the flavor reqs in Amerikkkan recipes, because they're often so bland

        "be brave, try more"

        is something I should get tattooed on one of my arms, this is great advice

    • Acute_Engles [he/him, any]
      ·
      14 days ago

      If a recipe calls for a tablespoon I'm literally using the table spoon is that not what it means lol?

      • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
        ·
        14 days ago

        there's a tablespoon and there's a soup spoon and those are often both called tablespoons

        • Acute_Engles [he/him, any]
          ·
          edit-2
          14 days ago

          The first time I went to a big to-do at my wife's family's house i used the wrong plate and utensil combo and someone said something about it (far less snooty than it sounds and they were being very light-hearted about the plate thing)

          My response of "i literally grew up in a trailer" got a big laugh out of the whole room and I'm going to have to employ it here. That's what my mom did and that's just what i do too lol I'm going to buy a set of spoons and see the difference

          • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            14 days ago

            over here its a very non snooty thing. we don't really have the term tablespoon so both larger spoons are called soup-spoons. one is smaller and is what companies today sell as soup spoons. the bigger one is what your mom/grandma knows as a 'true soup spoon' and is what they use to make all the ancient recipes of ultimate secrecy.

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      You eyeball it and feel it and use your cooking intuition just like grandma and GOD intended

      Kitchen scales are kinda silly for cooking in general, but definitely preferable in baking. But even some baking, like bread, there are more variables than your hopeless puny human hands can control - the humidity, the altitude, if the yeast wanted to wake up, how much you can handle developing gluten, etc. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut and not quantify things that are unquantifiable. Season to taste and trust your intuition

      • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        14 days ago

        Cooking is much easier to eyeball it and through years of trial and error I have learned how much of each spice or seasoning is appropriate, but yeah, you mess up when baking even a little bit and it can be game over for the recipe.

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
      ·
      14 days ago

      I'm glad my science brain and cooking brain are mostly separate, but that's really just because I rarely use cookbooks.