# pro facie suâ



## busraucar1992

Hello,

I have trouble with the following sentence:

"The noisy people were at first taken aback by the unexpected fashion of this _pro facie suâ_ speech."

(I translated it from French).

What does it mean "pro facie suâ"?


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## Zapapaias

I would guess that it is Jules Verne's playing with the title of John Henry Newman's 1864 spiritual autobiography "_Apologia Pro Vita Sua_" - A Defense of My (one's) Life.

Therefore in the context of this passage of _Robur-le-Conquérant_ (1886), Robur gives a speech about his physical appearance and attributes, and Verne calls it a "discours pro facie suâ" - a speech about his appearance. 

« Citoyens des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, je me nomme Robur. Je suis digne de ce nom. J'ai quarante ans, bien que je paraisse n'en pas avoir trente, une constitution de fer, une santé à toute épreuve, une remarquable force musculaire, un estomac qui passerait pour excellent même dans le monde des autruches. Voilà pour le physique. »
 On l'écoutait. Oui ! Les bruyants furent tout d'abord interloqués par l'inattendu de ce _discours pro facie suâ_. Etait-ce un fou ou un mystificateur, ce personnage ? Quoi qu'il en soit, il imposait et s'imposait. Plus un souffle au milieu de cette assemblée, dans laquelle se déchaînait naguère l'ouragan. Le calme après la houle.
 Au surplus, Robur paraissait bien être l'homme qu'il disait être. "(ch. III)

(quotation taken from the paper of Yves Touchefeu, _Jules Verne latiniste, _
aplg.pagesperso-orange.fr/Jules%20Verne%20latiniste.doc


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## Scholiast

Greetings, and a warm welcome to the Latin Forum, busraucar1992.

The excellent reply by Zapapaias (# 2) has introduced me to aspects of Jules Verne's literary performance of which I was completely ignorant. Thanks therefore to both.

I have but one footnote-observation to add. Newman did not write his _Apologia..._ in a complete vacuum. Lurking deep behind it is the Greek philosopher Plato's _Apology of Socrates_, written in the early 4th century BC. Originally _apologia_ in Greek meant a 'reply' or 'speech in defence' against a prosecution in a judicial context.

Newman (who in the 1860s could expect every educated man, especially churchman, to know this) was specifically replying to the attacks on him, on theological and other grounds, emanating from people he had known in the Anglican Church, especially Charles Kingsley, a figure of some eminence in the 19th-century history of Christian Socialism, who regarded Newman's 'migration' to Roman Catholicism as a form of treacherous defection to a denomination that (then still) was regarded with deep suspicion, or downright hostility, in British 'civilised' society.

Σ


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## busraucar1992

Zapapaias said:


> I would guess that it is Jules Verne's playing with the title of John Henry Newman's 1864 spiritual autobiography "_Apologia Pro Vita Sua_" - A Defense of My (one's) Life.
> 
> Therefore in the context of this passage of _Robur-le-Conquérant_ (1886), Robur gives a speech about his physical appearance and attributes, and Verne calls it a "discours pro facie suâ" - a speech about his appearance.
> 
> « Citoyens des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, je me nomme Robur. Je suis digne de ce nom. J'ai quarante ans, bien que je paraisse n'en pas avoir trente, une constitution de fer, une santé à toute épreuve, une remarquable force musculaire, un estomac qui passerait pour excellent même dans le monde des autruches. Voilà pour le physique. »
> On l'écoutait. Oui ! Les bruyants furent tout d'abord interloqués par l'inattendu de ce _discours pro facie suâ_. Etait-ce un fou ou un mystificateur, ce personnage ? Quoi qu'il en soit, il imposait et s'imposait. Plus un souffle au milieu de cette assemblée, dans laquelle se déchaînait naguère l'ouragan. Le calme après la houle.
> Au surplus, Robur paraissait bien être l'homme qu'il disait être. "(ch. III)
> 
> (quotation taken from the paper of Yves Touchefeu, _Jules Verne latiniste, _
> aplg.pagesperso-orange.fr/Jules%20Verne%20latiniste.doc


Thank you very much for this information


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## Pietruzzo

I'm impressed with all those literary references. I couldn't have thought of anything better than the most commonplace phrase "Cicero pro domo sua"


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## exgerman

Pietruzzo said:


> I'm impressed with all those literary references. I couldn't have thought of anything better than the most commonplace phrase "Cicero pro domo sua"


I too think that it just means "introducing himself by describing himself". There doesn't seem to me any defense in his speech.


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