The Seventh Function of Language

“Eat stones like Demosthenes! Long live Pericles! Long liveChurchill! Long live de Gaulle! Long live Jesus! Long live Danton and Robespierre! Why did they kill Jaurès?” At least Bayard knows those people. Well, apart from the first two.

Simon asks the old man about the rules of the game. The old man explains to them: all the matches are duels; they draw a subject; it is always a closed question to which the answer is either yes or no, or a “for or against” type of question, so that the two adversaries can defend their opposing positions.

“Tertullian! Augustine! Maximilian! Let’s go!” yells the voice.

The first part of the evening consists of friendly matches. The real matches come at the end. There is always one, sometimes two. Three is rare, but it does happen. Theoretically, there’s no limit to the number of official matches but, for reasons that the old man thinks obviously don’t need explaining, there is not exactly a long line of volunteers.

“Disputatio in utramque partem! Let the debate begin! And here are two smooth talkers, who will do battle over the lively question: Is Giscard a fascist?”

Shouting and whistling in the crowd. “May the gods of antithesis be with you!”

A man and a woman take their places on the stage, each behind a lectern, facing the audience, and start scribbling notes. The old man explains to Bayard and Herzog: “They have five minutes to prepare, then they make a presentation where they set out their point of view and the broad outlines of their argument. After that, the dispute begins. The duration of the contest varies and, like a boxing match, the judges can call a halt whenever they like. The person who speaks first has an advantage because he chooses the position he will defend. The other one is obliged to adapt and to defend the opposite position. For friendly matches featuring two opponents of the same rank, they draw lots to see who will begin. But in official matches between opponents of differing ranks, it is the lower-ranked player who goes first. You can tell from the kind of subject they get; this is a level-one meeting. Both of them are speakers. That is the lowest tier in the hierarchy of the Logos Club. Private soldiers, basically. Above that, there are the rhetoricians, and then the orators, the dialecticians, the peripateticians, the tribunes, and, at the very top, the sophists. But here, people rarely get past level three. I’ve heard there are very few sophists, only about ten, and they all have code names. Once you get to level five, it becomes very sealed off. I’ve even heard it said that the sophists don’t exist, that level seven has been invented to give people in the club a sort of unreachable goal, so they’ll fantasize about the idea of an unattainable perfection. Personally, I’m sure they exist. In fact, I reckon de Gaulle was one of them. He might even have been the Great Protagoras himself. That’s what president of the Logos Club is called, so they say. I’m a rhetorician. I made it to orator one year, but I couldn’t hold on to it.” He lifts up his mutilated hand. “And it cost me dear.”

The duel commences, everyone falls silent, and Simon is unable to ask the old man what he means by a “real match.” He observes the audience: mostly male, but all ages and types are represented. If the club is elitist, its criteria are apparently not financial.

The first duelist’s melodious voice rings out, explaining that in France, the prime minister is a puppet; that Article 49-3 castrated Parliament, which has no power; that de Gaulle was a benevolent monarch in comparison with Giscard, who is concentrating all the power in his own hands, including the press; that Brezhnev, Kim Il-Sung, Honecker, and Ceausescu were at least accountable to their parties; that the president of the United States possesses far less power than our own leader, and that while the president of Mexico cannot stand for reelection, the French president can.