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Trianon is a concentration camp that the Windrip government builds on the site of a former girls’ school near Fort Beulah. It is named for the Grand Trianon, an extravagant palace built for Louis XIV in 17th-century France.
Trianon Quotes in It Can’t Happen Here
The It Can’t Happen Here quotes below are all either spoken by Trianon or refer to Trianon. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 32
Quotes
At exercise hour, the discipline of the men marching out to the quadrangle was broken when one prisoner stumbled, with a cry, knocked over another man, and loudly apologized—just at the barred entrance of Shad Ledue’s cell. The accident made a knot collect before the cell. Doremus, on the edge of it, saw Shad looking out, his wide face blank with fear.
Someone, somehow, had lighted and thrown into Shad’s cell a large wad of waste, soaked with gasoline. It caught the thin wallboard which divided Shad’s cell from the next. The whole room looked presently like the fire box of a furnace. Shad was screaming, as he beat at his sleeves, his shoulders. Doremus remembered the scream of a horse clawed by wolves in the Far North.
When they got Shad out, he was dead. He had no face at all.
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Chapter 33
Quotes
“Wouldn’t it be awful if somebody took a shot at Mr. Swan and the Chief? Might change all history,” Mary shouted down.
“No chance of that! See those guards of his? Say, they could stand off a whole regiment—they could lick Walt Trowbridge and all the other Communists put together!”
“I guess that’s so. Nothing but God shooting down from heaven could reach Mr. Swan.”
“Ha, ha! That’s good! But couple days ago I heard where a fellow was saying he figured out God had gone to sleep.”
“Maybe it’s time for Him to wake up!” said Mary, and raised her hand.
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Chapter 34
Quotes
She was very sick about his being killed. She was very sick about all killing. She found no heroism but only barbaric bestiality in having to kill so that one might so far live as to be halfway honest and kind and secure. But she knew that she would be willing to do it again.
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Chapter 36
Quotes
[Doremus Jessup] saw now that he must remain alone, a “Liberal,” scorned by all the noisier prophets for refusing to be a willing cat for the busy monkeys of either side. But at worst, the Liberals, the Tolerant, might in the long run preserve some of the arts of civilization, no matter which brand of tyranny should finally dominate the world.
“More and more, as I think about history,” he pondered, “I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.”
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Trianon Term Timeline in It Can’t Happen Here
The timeline below shows where the term Trianon appears in It Can’t Happen Here. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 22
...regime’s new concentration camps. John Sullivan Reek and Shad Ledue open a concentration camp at Trianon, an old girls’ school near Fort Beulah.
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...Pascal turns up and demands his books back, and Shad Ledue sends Pascal to the Trianon concentration camp. He’s the second Fort Beulah resident to go, after an electrician who has...
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Chapter 23
...questioning him about his connections to Walt Trowbridge. Jessup realizes that he’s probably going to Trianon soon. The local fruit vendor and a homeless man also approach him to ask strange...
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Chapter 25
...Jessup learns that the Corpos have sent Rotenstern and the hardware seller Raymond Pridewell to Trianon. Jessup realizes that he’s next, and he decides that he should quit the Informer before...
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...Windrip, he drags them to the courthouse to be tortured, then sends them to the Trianon concentration camp. Lorinda Pike helps Mrs. Loveland and her children get back on their feet....
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...let him. In fact, Ledue says that the only reason he hasn’t sent Jessup to Trianon is that he loves seeing Jessup work as Staubmeyer’s lackey, especially since he was Jessup’s...
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...the boldest resisters around. Falck agrees to talk with Karl Pascal next time he visits Trianon with Dr. Olmsted. Two days later, Falck tells Jessup about the concentration camp. It stinks...
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Chapter 31
The prison van takes Doremus Jessup to the Trianon concentration camp, which occupies the filthy, derelict buildings of an old girls’ school nine miles...
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...they actually treat him well and bring him gifts. When Aras Dilley gets transferred to Trianon, even he starts bowing down to Karl Pascal.
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...Veeder’s body. Worse still, Julian Falck and his grandfather, the Rev. Mr. Falck, arrive at Trianon. The guards repeatedly torture Julian, the first Minute Men spy captured in the area. Jessup...
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The next month, John Pollikop gets arrested and dragged to Trianon. He and Karl Pascal instantly start bickering about socialism and communism—and Doremus Jessup feels relieved....
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Chapter 32
...proper accent and tuxedo, so he arrests Adams on the spot and sends him to Trianon. Ensign Stoyt throws Adams in Doremus Jessup and Karl Pascal’s cell—until Adams gets too friendly...
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In late November, Shad Ledue gets locked up in Trianon. The other prisoners are surprised—they speculate that Ledue wasn’t sharing enough graft money with Francis...
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Chapter 33
Most of the Fort Beulah New Underground has either gone to Trianon or quit out of fear. Mary Greenhill now leads it, and just Sissy, Father Perefixe,...
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Chapter 34
...him a traitor, and arrested him. Sissy hasn’t even been allowed to visit him at Trianon.
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...tells Sissy that she will be bribing Aras Dilley to help get Doremus out of Trianon and into Canada. A few days later, Lorinda and Sissy receive shocking news from the...
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Chapter 36
After Dewey Haik takes power, the inmates at Trianon finally get news of the outside world. Doremus Jessup learns about Mary’s death and the...
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Chapter 38
...spends that night at a rebel couple’s rural cabin. He has his recurring dream about Trianon. In the dream, a soldier lets all the prisoners out of their cells. They assemble...
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