#<- i need to get better at tagging frev stuff

[fructidors]

shout out to the waterstones employee who came up to me when i was looking at the french revolution shelf and proceeded to tell me about almost every single book on the shelf i’ll think about you forever

[saint-jussy]

Navigational Guide to My Blog

Hello! Just realized I never made a pinned post for this blog and I probably should.

This is a sideblog dedicated to the French Revolution. I’m still relatively new to studying it, so I am in no way an authority and the stuff I say should not be taken for certain. It’s always better to read academic books instead of trying to learn history from Tumblr. People much more well read than me have done reading list recommendations; you can find them in my #resources tag.

Also, I got into Frev via the Phantom of the Opera memes -> Les Mis memes -> Frev memes pipeline, so I didn’t start off very serious about it, but I’m trying to get better about consuming actual academic content.

What I enjoy doing is producing upscaled, English-subbed, and sometimes annotated versions of Frev media. My releases so far:

La Terreur et La Vertu Part 1 - Danton (1964)

Saint Just et La Forces des Choses (1974)

La Révolution française (1989), French version

La Révolution française (1989), English version

Nilaya Documentary, French original version

Nilaya Documentary, English dubbed version

BBC Documentary but only the parts where Saint-Just is being Robespierre’s emotional support shoulder devil

The RAWs for all of these should be in the video description! Ask me for them if they’re not. I’m a ho for HD and if you make edits it better be HD.

Many more productions are in the works, including La terreur et la vertu part 2 and that infamous history channel documentary (will heavily annotated, I swear!!)

Other projects indefinitely in the works:

The Frev mythbusters master doc

Frev master timeline (VERY incomplete, I’m only adding events whenever I see a date in the academic books I read)

Frev calendar project (on hold because I need to catch up with my day job stuff before continuing with the designing)

Tags for academic-leaning stuff:

Primary Sources

Excerpts from academic books

Frev artifacts

Tags for Specific Historical Figures:

Maximilien Robespierre

Augustin Robespierre (#BONBON LA TERREUR)

Saint-Just

Camille Desmoulins

Danton

Marat

Fun Stuff:

Memes

Amazing Art

Art I commissioned myself (mostly cute Robespierre & Saint-Just stuff NGL)

[frevandrest]

I posted 2,951 times in 2021

486 posts created (16%) 2465 posts reblogged (84%) For every post I created, I reblogged 5.1 posts.

I added 4,383 tags in 2021

#frev - 892 posts

#fun - 841 posts

#french revolution - 617 posts

#robespierre - 506 posts

#saint-just - 409 posts

#art - 346 posts

#ask - 291 posts

#anonymous - 238 posts

#history - 135 posts

#voltaire - 108 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#please understand we are just hyped because nobody expected that a toilet humor comedy would treat frev better than some serious stuff

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

When you leave for a Whitesnake concert, but you get sucked into a time vortex and end up in Frev:

93 notes  •  Posted 2021-05-18 08:22:23 GMT

#4

Are you guys OK, getting all horny for 1790s men fashion?fsdfsdaf Idk what to say, dear anon. Like we are not not ok, but alas, the fashion in question is no more, so that sucks. 

100 notes  •  Posted 2021-12-05 11:06:39 GMT

#3

Various Saint-Just writings and corrections

I find these interesting because they show the thought process and how he organized his writing.

103 notes  •  Posted 2021-04-29 18:01:25 GMT

#2

Dove kissing Robespierre from The Black Book (1949) 

(and Fouché being a bore)

103 notes  •  Posted 2021-01-12 18:43:42 GMT

#1 Everything Wrong with Saint-Just's Introductory Scene in La Révolution française (1989)

As promised, here is an analysis of Saint-Just’s first scene from La Révolution française (1989). You can watch the scene (with English subtitles) here. It sadly misses the dramatic entrance part, but everything else is there. SPOILER: This analysis will not, in fact, cover everything wrong because there’s so much trash you can’t adequately address it in only 1000 words. 

In the scene, we see a young man with that hair rushing down the steps of the Convention (in what will be his signature dramatic! style). He pushes people way without even looking at them. There is someone at the rostrum, and many people wait to address the Convention. Saint-Just doesn’t give a fuck. “I demand to speak.” Some deputies murmur a weak protest, but they are shit out of luck because it’s time to introduce a new character, and we need to know what a jerk he is. So of course he’s granted the word. 

At first, nobody pays attention, but “just like you, I would die for this Republic”, seems to work. He delivers the speech (which contains maybe two lines from the actual one), and by the end, Marat claps, the Convention claps, Danton and Girondins are suspicious; Robespierre is in love. Camille, oh Camille, does he know he’s just been replaced? Saint-Just pouts slightly (my interpretation) but doesn’t show much emotion. Next scene: Louis receives news that he’s being put on trial. Good job, new boy. 

As first scenes go, this is a good introduction to Saint-Just as depicted in the film. But it’s also very wrong for SJ as a historical personality (what we know of him). Which sucks, because it’s not like it’s impossible to make an unsympathetic yet historically accurate SJ, if one wants to go that route. See, Saint-Just in La Révolution française is a prop; he’s not a character with his own complexities, goals or motivations. He is just there to be pretty and evil, and to take Robespierre away from Camille.

So, why is this introduction wrong? 

Let us remember that this was Saint-Just’s very first speech at the Convention. He got elected days after his 25th birthday; he was the youngest out there. Also, even with Robespierre’s support (that some claim he already enjoyed), he was an unknown; a peasant provincial from Picardie barely out of his adolescence. He wanted to prove himself and demonstrate that he was a worthy representative. Being rude and pushing people away is not really a good way to achieve that. 

Here’s the thing about Saint-Just: despite all stereotypes of the contrary, he respected authority. However, he only respected authority that he felt deserved to be respected. In 1792, “monarchy” was not it. But National Convention? Revolutionary government? Of course he respected it. He fought so much to get there, and he respected the place he was given. 

Throwing his weight around, pushing people away, demanding to speak when someone else is at the rostrum, disobeying order... It was really not Saint-Just. He hated commotion and fights that happened so often at the Jacobin club. Even on 9 Thermidor, when   Tallien   interrupted him and shit hit the fan, he continued to attempt to deliver the speech. They pushed him, and he kept trying to speak, without, I don’t know, punching someone in the face (La  Révolution française   Saint-Just totally would, which is, admittedly, one of the many, many many reasons why it sucks that they shortened and condensed Thermidor). 

The film uses “blame Saint-Just for Robespierre’s turn to darkness” approach. SJ is there to encourage Robespierre into cruelty and cold violence, and, if Robespierre starts to doubt even for a moment, to reassure him that yes, this is how things should be done, you are right Max, let’s kill them all, but particularly Camille; I can’t stand that guy for  having you first  ridiculing my poetry (wait... SJ’s poetry wasn’t in the film. Why does he hate Camille, again?) Who knows. The only explanation the film provides is that Camille is Good and Saint-Just is Evil, so of course he’d want to get rid of him. 

Now, let us see about the speech itself.  

The Speech

The speech Saint-Just delivers in the film contains maybe a few lines from the actual speech (notably: “this man should reign, or die”). I don’t have a problem with them not replicating the speech word for word because it followed on what other deputies talked about (which we didn’t hear)*, and because nobody has time for Antoine’s ramblings about antiquity. (And it would take around 10 minutes to act, which would probably provide us with more glorious shots of Robespierre falling in love being impressed, but it would take too much of the running time. I get that.)

So, in theory, I am fine with shortening the speech and paraphrasing, as long as the meaning and content is there. Which... it did on a surface level while also missing the point substantially.  

*Not showing SJ addressing what others said before him was understandable (condensing runtime), but it’s another thing that made it seem like he didn’t listen nor paid attention what others were doing. Also, it’s a missed opportunity to characterize him as a jerk full of himself, since his real speech basically opened with: “all that the previous guy said is bullshit, and here’s why”. 

Speech in the film: I would die for the Republic and I would fight the enemies of the Republic. We all know the name of the enemy, and I, like none here, am ready to fight against this enemy. Louis is a symbol of traitors among us. We should not hesitate; the king is an usurper. 

In short, speech in the film is, kind of, less about Louis and more about what SJ will be important later: his own sense of revolutionary righteousness and for weeding out “traitors” from the Convention. 

Another issue with the speech is that it wasn’t just about the speech - it was part of Saint-Just’s introductory scene, so we had to learn about his character through the speech. In the film, SJ is rude, cruel and cares only about... well, we are not sure, because there are no motivations whatsoever, but he is there to push Max when something bad needs to be done. I feel that his rudeness during the introductory scene and the way the speech was delivered fulfil this purpose nicely. However, I am not sure that we actually understand what Saint-Just’s speech was about, except vague “we must kill the king” vibe.

The Aftermath

The scene following Saint-Just’s speech is that of Louis, a doting father, reading a book to his son. Men come and rudely tell him to send the child away. He is to be put on trial. The implication? Saint-Just’s speech won the crowd over and they decided to kill Louis, or at least put him on trial. 

In reality, while Saint-Just’s speech was highly noticed (his real-life dramatic entrance into Convention), the deputies did NOT listen to him. The whole point of the speech was that Louis should not be put on trial - trials are for the citizens, which he is not. Louis’ crime is not treason - the monarchy is a crime in itself. Saint-Just argued against the trial. Yes, his speech was highly influential but presenting it in this way puts way too much weight on this newcomer’s words and implies he was the key factor behind the trial.  

Other Observations

- There is a long debate among historians whether Robespierre was present for Saint-Just’s first speech on 13 November 1792. (I think the conclusion is “probably not”.) But I don’t mind this change, if nothing else, for those glorious shots of Robespierre’s heart eyes and Camille’s “wtf did this guy come from and why is Max looking at him like that?” 

- Marat. It is true that he generally praised Saint-Just as an orator, but he disagreed with this speech (Marat was for trial).

- The reason why this post is dedicated to SJ’s first scene is because I was asked/challenged to write about it. It doesn’t mean that his other scenes were any better (I’d say they were worse). In fact, the entire SJ’s character was a Thermidorized mess. 

- That being said, I don’t hate this SJ. I cannot; LRF was my introduction to the whole Frev thing and will always have a special place.   Christopher Thompson  was ok, particularly in some aspects of SJ. However, the whole thing was a mess and it should be criticized. 

- Hair. I promised to dedicate one full paragraph to SJ’s hair, but I... can’t. I simply cannot. I am sorry. I tried, but the words failed me. 

- This was more fun that it should have been and there are so many things I didn’t get to say (the entire performance and what this scene means for SJ as a character in the film, a more detailed analysis of the speech and comparison with the real one, etc.) But it did show that I can still vomit write 1000+ words about anything that I have any interest in, which is... good to know, I guess? (Let’s just say that I won’t be winning any SJ contest prizes for laconicism).

113 notes  •  Posted 2021-02-11 19:01:00 GMT

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