#camille duplessis

[duplessis-writes]

Then he shrugged and met Alastair’s dark eyes. Perhaps there wasn’t anything to say to a charming stranger asking to hide in your cellar but yes.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

I knew Madame Duplessis until her death in 1835. This woman, one of the most distinguished of her time for her mind, her education, her character and her beauty, raised her grandson Horace with extreme care. Horace adored his father, whose writings he constantly reread. He had such a cult for his memory that he challenged to a duel all those he heard slandering this great citizen. He thus had several affairs in which he always killed or injured his adversary. He sought solitude and rarely left his grandmother and his aunt, Lucile's sister. Horace was constantly in mourning of his father and mother, and had resolved to keep it that way for all his life. In 1814, this worthy son of Camille Desmoulins was so ashamed and saddened by the return of the Bourbons that he went into exile. He died in America of an epidemic in 1817. [sic]

Histoire de la Révolution française (1850) by Nicolas Villiaumé, volume 4, page 76-77.

OK, that image I had of Horace Desmoulins as just adorable kiddo #1 took a sudden turn…

[enlitment]

If you could spend a day with a historical figure, or book/movie character, who would it be and what would you do?

Thank you for the ask and sorry for taking so long to respond!

It's not an easy question, there are a lot of candidates. I'd have to go with Camille Desmoulins! He seemed like he'd be a great hang, especially if it's only for a day.

At first there would be a lot of subtle questioning on my part - obviously - probably over a bottle of Claret. (What was the deal with you and Maximilien? You and Annette? Plus a lot of 'what were you thinking?')

Then a visit to the Louvre, because:

I desperately want to revisit it anyway

It should be fun to go there with someone who's such a classics nerd! I'm sure he'd enjoy the vases and statues as much as I did...

Would love to hear his take on David's paintings and on Delacroix. (Different revolution, I know, but I'm sure he'd still enjoy it!)

I'd also consider making him watch La Révolution française - only the first part - and ask him what he thinks about his/Lucile's/Danton's/Maxime's etc portrayal. Watching the second part would likely be extremely traumatic for him, so I'd skip that.

And if there'd still be time, I'd put on the recording of the 2017 RSC Production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (and closely observe his reaction during some key Brutus' and Cassius' moments. For science!)

[nesiacha]

do you have some good sources about how women during the frev thought about universal male suffrage? (i've been uncomfortable with some claims about how the frev was not feminist enough because women got the rights to vote in the 20th century, but cannot back up this discomfort.)

"I am quite limited on certain subjects and this is one of them (I am currently researching the exact thoughts of women during the French Revolution on universal suffrage).

Unfortunately, it has been a great shame that the French Revolution was misogynistic despite the meager rights that were gradually taken away from them over time. Even the greatest progressives like Sylvain Maréchal, who was an important disciple of Babeuf, had as a project to ensure that women did not have a say in the learning of reading.

The fact that misogyny was already present during the Ancien Régime (Marie Antoinette is blamed for all evils when in reality she did not have much say during her husband's reign, to better absolve Louis XVI and the policy of France under this absolute regime) or that Napoleon made the condition of women worse than that of Italy or Spain (I mentioned this in my post 'Women's Rights Suppressed') while being a great hypocrite does not absolve the revolutionaries for what they did in their misogyny.

There was a habit of attacking the wives of their adversaries to better discredit them (like Manon Roland, Marie Françoise Goupil, wife of Hébert, Lucile Duplessis, wife of Desmoulins), which is an interesting parallel on this point with the attacks against Marie Antoinette.

Olympe de Gouges spoke about the rights of women and citizens. Pauline Léon, Claire Lacombe, who demanded the right to organize in the national army. Théroigne de Méricourt, Louis Reine Audu, and again Claire Lacombe fought in the Tuileries and yet, despite being rewarded with a civic crown, they would not have the right to speak on universal suffrage.

Chaumette was a great misogynist, Robespierre too (one could tell me that he supported Louise de Keralio's candidacy for her entry into the academy, but in political matters, it was another story), Danton, Sylvain Maréchal, Amar, etc. I am not here to blame Robespierre and I deplore that there is a black legend about him, but one can see a certain purely political gesture in my opinion for the action he will take towards Simone Evrard.

As much as Simone Evrard is a very intelligent woman, with an extraordinary destiny very underestimated, capable of making very good political speeches (one of the people of the French Revolution that I admire the most), I wonder if the fact that Robespierre personally introduced her into the Assembly was just an opportunistic gesture because he would have had an additional reason to discredit Jacques Roux and Théophile Leclerc thanks to the speech she made while he was among the revolutionaries who approved the restriction of women's rights. Respect towards Simone Evrard regarding her dignity and intelligence (maybe even surely) opportunism, I would be tempted to answer on this by affirmative.

Risking repeating myself, Napoleon being a greater oppressor towards women by taking away the few rights they had, enacting oppressive and hypocritical laws, and even bloody ones concerning them, does not absolve the other revolutionaries of their sexism.

And there is no excuse that it was of their time (in fact, I noticed that this lie is used in my opinion to absolve Napoleon but not the revolutionaries, but forced to see that it fits into the same idea)... First of all, Charles Gilbert Romme was more progressive in women's rights, Marat and Charlier too, Camille Desmoulins thought that women could have the right to vote, Condorcet demanded gender equality, Carnot worked with him in women education with Pastoret and Guilloud , Guyomar opposed the exclusion of women from universal suffrage. Worse than anything, while the clubs and societies of women ended up being banned, which is a regression.

In 1795, for attempting to revolt against the Assembly which abolished the social policies of the Montagnards, they were prohibited from attending assemblies and even from gathering in the streets in groups of more than 5. Moreover, the term 'tricoteuse' to insult women was not invented during the Napoleonic era or the royalist era but in 1795.

What did women think about this? This is where I am quite limited because besides the answers I have given about these women and their actions, unfortunately, there is not much else I can say due to my limited knowledge.

In any case, I hope I have helped a bit to support the aforementioned statements.

In the meantime, I can provide some of my sources: the historian Mathilde Larrère, Antoine Resche who made very good summarized portraits of some revolutionary women on the website 'veni vidi sensi', I would also recommend reading the book by the writer Claude Guillon on Robespierre, women, and the Revolution (even though I completely disagree with some of his books that have been legally condemned, this one is rather good and he had a quite good blog on the French Revolution that I recommend checking out), and the historian Jean-Clément Martin, 'La révolte brisée'."

Reedit: Thank you to aedesluminis for inform me the role that Carnot Pastoret and Guilloud did with women's education.

[monimarat]

The Duplessis house in Bourg-la-Reine. From Claretie’s Camille Desmoulins: Ouvrage Illustré

A young Lucile negotiates a visit:

« Monsieur Duplessis, dans son cabinet, au coin du feu » : « Ma sœur et moi, nous savons que tu dois aller à la campagne un des jours de cette semaine. Te souviens-tu, qu'il y a plus de quinze jours que tu nous avais promis de nous y mener ? Tu m'as dit, qu'il t'en souvienne, que si j'apprenais Zaire [de Voltaire], tu me donnerais tout ce que je voudrais.

J'en sais déjà presque la moitié, papa, et je meurs d'envie de voir les petits cochons. Ma sœur se joint à moi pour te demander la même grâce et pour te présenter le respectueux attachement avec lequel nous sommes, mon cher papa, tes très humbles servantes. Lucile et Adèle? »

From Un Rêve de République

[bethanydelleman]

Do you know if in the 19th century and before, it was common to use "consumption" not just as a term for tuberculosis, but as a euphemism for "syphilis"? You yourself have written that in "Sense and Sensibility," even though Eliza Brandon allegedly died of consumption, she probably really died of syphilis. And Wikipedia suggests that Marie Duplessis, the famous French courtesan who inspired "Camille" and "La Traviata," may have actually died of syphilis, not TB, though I don't know if that's true or not. Was it common to hide cases of syphilis by claiming they were TB, much like the use of "cancer" or just "long illness" as euphemisms for AIDS?

I'm not totally sure, to be honest I don't have a great reason to think Eliza is dying of syphilis, I just think it's likely because we are told she fell into prostitution. According to my favourite word website, "consumption" means "wasting of the body by disease; wasting disease, progressive emaciation" and while it was most often TB, the term was also used for other diseases.

In Sense & Sensibility, Colonel Brandon says this:

I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin... That she was, to all appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was—yes, in such a situation it was my greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her last moments.

Which could totally mean it was tuberculosis, but she also could be wasting away from mercury poisoning which was the main treatment for syphilis. I think the timeline is too short for syphilis itself to be killing her.

I do know that tuberculosis was considered a more Romantic disease, so given that Colonel Brandon's backstory is the height of Romanticism, Jane Austen was probably imagining TB. Elinor makes fun of Marianne about it earlier in the book:

“Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever?”

But I think it also fits with Colonel Brandon's protectionism of Eliza's memory to give her a more socially acceptable ending. He spends a lot of time during his speech trying to explain and excuse her behaviour (I'm totally on his side by the way, his father and brother were the real villains!), so I wouldn't be shocked if he pretended she had a more "innocent" disease.

Anyway, this is just my theory, but people in this era totally knew syphilis came from sex somehow. I have to imagine that just like people do today, if you could you would claim a less embarrassing illness.

If anyone knows of cases like this please let us know in the reblogs!

[princesssarisa]

Characters who are dying of tuberculosis seem to be constantly mistaken by audiences as being older than they really are, and cast older too.

@midnightcowboy1969 just posted the fact that in the original book of Midnight Cowboy, the title character Joe Buck is 28 and several years older than his TB-ridden friend and Muppet namesake Rico Rizzo, who is only in his early 20s. But in the movie version their actors were both in their early 30s, and I've read two or three reviews of the movie which all assumed that Rizzo was much older than Joe: calling him a "father figure" to him, describing him as "aging," etc.

That reminds me of how some people responded to Anne Hathaway's casting as Fantine in Les Misérables back in 2012. Fans of the stage version kept calling her "too young" for the role, and in an interview, she revealed that she was labeled "too young" when she first auditioned too. She was 30, and in Victor Hugo's novel, Fantine is about 25 when she dies.

And then there's possibly the most famous "death by TB" story of all time: Camille and its opera adaptation La Traviata. So often I've seen people describe Marguerite/Violetta as being older than her naïve lover Armand/Alfredo, as if it were a stated fact. It seems typical both on the opera stage and in straight Camille adaptations to cast women in their 30s or even early 40s as Marguerite/Violetta, alongside a 20-something Armand/Alfredo. I'm counting the Camille/Traviata knockoff Moulin Rouge! in this too: Nicole Kidman is four years Ewan McGregor's senior, while the stage version's Karen Olivo is seven years older than Aaron Tveit. But Marie Duplessis, the real courtesan who inspired the heroine? Died three weeks after her 23rd birthday. And Alexandre Dumas fils, who modeled Armand after himself? Exactly the same age as she was.

It's a strange trend. Apparently Victor Hugo was right when, after describing Fantine's haggard looks in Les Misérables, he wrote that illness "mimics old age."

[cocktailsfairytales]

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**

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[mysteriouslytransparentwombat]

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[robespapier]

Is there any evidence of Robespierre being nicknamed ”Maxime”?If not, any idea where that idea came from? Why do they call him that in LRF?

Good question!

To my knowledge, there's no contemporary evidence of Robespierre being nicknamed as such, but it's a plausible nickname (and we know nicknames were used: Elisabeth Duplay was Babet, Augustin Bon Joseph Robespierre was Bonbon,...): it's affectionate without being too informal ("Max" would feel too informal imo, and that's why it's so funny used by Fouché in The Black Book)

If I remember well, the only persons who call him Maxime in LRF are the Desmoulins-Duplessis (even the Duplays call him Robespierre or Maximilien). Camille does because they're painted as very close old-schoolmates (idk how close they truly were, it's possible they were in some classes together at Louis Le Grand, but Robespierre was 2y older and that's a lot for teenagers) and Lucile calls him Maxime too because Robespierre is portrayed to be as close as family for them: she calls him "uncle Maxime" to their son Horace. And when she begs him for Camille's life she starts with Maxime, then tries telling him "you're the godfather of our son!" (which is false), then calls after him "Maximilien!" when she realises he's abandonning them.

So I'd say the use of "Maxime" in LRF is an emotional device to make his relationship to the Desmoulins-Duplessis feel particularly strong...and thus his ultimate "betrayal" worst.

[frostcluster]

Another Hikarifurumichi after Danton(1983)

aka they all love Desmoulins series

[duplessis-writes]

I made this for one of my favourite characters, Paul Apollyon, introduced in Like Silk Breathing as a shadowy, bereaved, Miss Havisham figure.

If this wee moodboard strikes your fancy, I’d check it all out. 💜

https://linktr.ee/camilleduplessis

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

I’ve seen on Tumblr that Camille wanted to marry Lucile’s mother, Annette Bosdeveix. Do you know what the source is for that and is there anything else we know about Camille and Annette’s relationship? Thank you!

We actually know quite a bit about the relationship between Camille and Annette. Not long ago, eight letters from the former to the latter written between the years 1784 - 1790 were published for everyone to read. I won’t translate them in their entirety here though, both because I think this would get way too long if I did, and because I sometimes honestly can’t fully make out what Camille is trying to say.

Camille and Annette’s first meeting dates back to the spring 1783, when the former is a 23 year old law student and the latter a 32 year old mother of two, married since 15 years back. Camille first spots Annette walking in the Luxembourg garden with her daughters, Lucile (13 years old) and Adèle (9 years old). He describes this meeting in the following verse, dedicated to ”Mme D, who always goes for a walk with her two demoiselles” and published in the l’Almanach littéraire in 1784 and the Affiches du Beauvaisis in 1785:

Everyone stops and says: ”how beautiful she is!” As for me, I’ve never seen her. But that doesn’t stop me from asking: ”is she a goddess or a mortal?” How can I hold myself back, seeing so many attractions, And two doves following her.

(Chacun s’arrête, et se dit, ”qu’elle est belle!” Pour moi, je ne la vis jamais . Sans demander: est-elle ou déesse ou mortelle? Pouvais-je m’y réprendre, en voyant tant d’attraits, Et deux colombes auprès d’elle.)

Camille eventually approaches Annette and the two start talking about poetry and Camille’s literary projets. Annette consults him to meet one M. Neveu, and even fixes and interview between the two. From a letter Camille writes her on July 10 1784 (the first of those recently published) we do however learn that he wants their relationship to go deeper than that:

It was doing you justice to believe that a musician presented to me by your hand could not fail to be preferred to all the ini [sic]. […]My job was to get acquainted with Madame Duplessis, and instead of taking me into her apartment, I was taken to the house of a musician. You will agree, Madame, that this is perfidy. Besides, it is up to you that tomorrow my work will be in the hands of Mr. Neveu, and since it costs you so little to procure it for him, if this little costs you still too much, I will see that you want me to renounce for ever sweeter hopes, and I will confine myself to admiring you from afar in the alleys of the Luxembourg.

The letter does however also make it clear that Camille only sees their relationship as platonic:

That among the authors, you choose the one whose poetry dates only from your walks in the Luxembourg and the day he saw you there, it is a very natural thing and I do not understand your excessive delicacy towards a young man who, for fifteen months, has given you such multiplied proofs that platonic love is not a chimera.

So no, the idea that Camille sought to marry Lucile’s mother would appear to be false. It can also be added that Annette wasn’t the only woman he wrote love verses to around this period, evidently a big interest of his. To a lady present for the divorce trial of one Maître Gerbier, Camille adressed the following verse:

De milles qualités nature te dota; Sexe charmante, sexe si tendre; Par un seul don le ciel nous consola. Il nous fit les plus forts; ce bien ce qu’il nous laissa, C’est le plaisir de te défendre.

In July 1783 he also assured one demoiselles de Compiègne that ”I owe the majority of verses I’ve written this year to you, it’s you who have inspired me.” The same year, the Journal de Paris published a poem he wrote for one Mme de Courve, and the year after that Camille published a similar verse adressed to Mme de La Lande in l’Almanach littéraire.

In 1786 Camille, sad over Annette having parted for her country house at Bourg-la-Reine for the summer, wrote her the following verse:

Me voilà donc après trois ans Toujours à la premiere page Du plus ennuyeux des romans; On m’eût fait languir moins longtemps Si j’avais été plus volage. Je le disais, et cependant, Pour vous voir encore un instant Je volais sur votre passage; Et quand vous fuyiez de ces lieux  Les pleurs qui coulaient de mes yeux Soutanient bien mal ce langage  Ce n’est point cette majesté Et cette taille de déesse Et cette grâce enchanteresse Et ces beaux yeux, quand la tendresse En adohcissait la fierté Que je vais regretter sans cesse. Mais que j’aime à vous voir sur le déclin du jour, Sous un ombrage solitaire À vos enfants souriant tour à tour  Insensible au charme de plaire, Insensible aux plaisirs qu’offre l’amour, Ne goûter que ceux d’être mère Ah! Lorsque l’encens le plus duox  Sur la terrasse vous appelle, Pourquoi vous éloigner de vingt cercles jaloux? D[uplessis], est-ce, dites-nous, Crainte d’alarmer un époux? Est-ce honte d’être la plus belle ? C’était ces regards si touchants,  Ce son de voux si doux, cette mélancolie, Ces fleurs que vous jetait Julie; C’était ces deux boutons naissants  Près d’une rose épanouie, Qui m’ont conduit à vos genoux Et m’auraient fait trouver si doux  De passer près de vous ma vie. Il vous eût peu coûté de captiver mon cœur Vous voir est plus que posséder une autre, Et je pensais que faire mon bonheur Ce serait ajouter au vôtre.

One year later he asked Annette and her husband Claude if one day, when his financial situation had improved, he could marry their oldest daughter, a request that was rejected. Camille did however not give up so easily, in March the same year he wrote a letter to Claude refuting all of his charges as to why the idea was a bad one. When that didn’t bear any fruit he instead tried to influence Annette, which gives us the following letter from December 5 1787:

[…] Judge if the noise of this carriage pleases me, when it warns me that you are driving your daughter into the world where she is going to find so many admirers. Thus will all my dreams vanish. Do I dare, however, Madame, to remind you of what you told me, that you would put no ambition in the choice of son-in-law, and that my profession seemed to you quite honest and quite noble. This is what inspired me with some confidence. Must you take away from me today a hope so dear to the attachment that I have nurtured for so many years to come out of my heart with hope! […] I beg you, Madame, do not read this letter to your husband, with whom I would still pass for a madman, it is to you that I am writing it, to you who do not return my letters to me and that I I never left, without leaving your presence, if not full of contentment, at least full of patience. Shall I not have the pleasure of conversing with you at least sometimes? […] I found verses printed and maimed in provincial notices which I had addressed to you; I take the liberty of sending them to you and of renewing my homage to you. Will you do nothing for your poet?

On March 4 1788 he once again writes to Annette to inform her about his first real success as a lawyer, hoping that might persuade her to hand over her daugther:

[…] Once you have read my memoir, and compared it with the feeble consultation of Me Fournel who nevertheless enjoys such a great reputation, I dare to imagiene, Madame, that you will forgive me for having also hoped for some consideration; and that you will forgive me for having nourished another much more cherished hope, remembering that M. Duplessis, a year before yesterday, did not even demand that I should become a famous lawyer in order to obtain Mademoiselle Duplessis. Now this hope is weakening every day, I see that everyone has the same eyes for your daughter as I do, it seems to that in every moment someone comes to ask for her hand. I am waiting for my justificatory memorandum which will finally fix my fate and make access to you either open or closed forever. The encouragement that has sustained me most in this work to which I have sacrificed all my business has been the hope of presenting it to you. Is it possible, Madame, that when the image of happiness that I find with you detaches me from all societies and makes them bland and unbearable, you never tire of pushing me away from yours, which would take the place of the whole universe?

But twelve days later we find another letter from Camille, where we learn that Annette had once again responded with disapproval and even asked him to stop vistiting her house:

What harm have I done you for you to treat me so harshly? And how could a letter which I wrote only to persuade you offend you and draw such a bitter response from me? I don't want it to be your fault if I conceived a mad passion, but don't we owe anything to those who are made to suffer even without our fault? Could you not make me understand in a less mortifying way, that there was madness in my pursuit, that the disproportion of fortunes (which I only knew about yesterday) was an insurmountable obstacle; you would have seemed to pity me, and I could not have complained of you, on the contrary, I would have thanked you for the care you took to prevent a disastrous passion, I would have believed myself well treated; for you know better than anyone that it takes very little to make me believe it. Sometimes you have really put my self-esteem to severe trials! One does not die of spite, if so I would have already have died a thousand times. But all it would take is a glance, half a smile, to bring me back. Even today, at this moment, all my self-love is incurable! I am trying to reconcile the harshness of what you have just written to me, with the very different speech that you gave me, and I am trying to interpret it favorably. It seems to me that the remedy you employ is either too violent or too little. It's up to you to make yourself lovable anywhere other than at my place. Is it just a defence? Or is it not also a permission? Forbidden to make myself friendly in your eyes at your place, permission to make myself friendly, if possible, in the Luxembourg. This is what it means to be a lawyer. […] This leads me to believe that your answer does not carry a permanent banishment, that was what you repeated for me in the Luxembourg, not at the moment, and besides, it's still a letter that I received from you, which is something. You see Madame that I am laughing and crying at the same time. Thank you, one more word from you. Or, treat me so harshly that you force me to hate you and even your demoiselles; or, if your feelings have not changed since the conversation I had the honor of obtaining from you in the Luxembourg, refuse me permission to come to your house now, so as to give me the hope of one day obtaining it.

After this, it would appear the two cut contacts for a while. In a letter dated October 27 1788 to his best friend from school Pierre Jean André Grasset, Camille spoke disapprovingly of the whole family, even accusing Annette of wanting to seduce him:

I always continued to chase the same hare, the mother lured me into the house, the father promised me his daughter, gave me his word of honour; the girl made me think she wanted me; a few days later came a terrible storm which threw me far from the door, farther than ever. […] I could not imagine that by courting the girl I had pleased the mother, and that she wanted to take a chance on me; I could not trust the rascal of a servant who went home to me to invite me to take lodgings in the apartment next to theirs, that the girl was flirtatious, that it was was the mother who liked me, that I would succeed. Today the scales have fallen from my eyes; but then I thought they wanted to test me, a new promise to give her to me, a new rupture.

Camille and Annette picked up contacts again in 1790, with Camille sometimes even being invited into the apartment again. Camille was once again hoping to be able to marry Lucile, and this time he started using the contacts he’d gained as a journalist to impress her parents. On April 15 he writes ”It was M. Linguet I showed you this morning through my window,” and two weeks later he told her that Mirabeau and Emmery were coming to visit their country house at Bourg-la-Reine together with him. Annette was however still hesitant, causing Camille to grow desperate:

(April 14 1790) If you knew what trap has been laid for me, you would have compassion for me. I can clearly see that I am no happier in friendships than I am with love… It is not that I believed for a moment in calumnies; it is thus so, I said to myself, that they slandered me to Madame Duplessis, it is by these artifices that they closed their door to me. However, I was only asked to suspend my judgment, I was to have some clarification this morning for which I would be grateful. I went to look for it and saw only a gross conspiracy against my happiness. I don't know who to trust in the world anymore. Madame, you have sometimes shown interest in me, have pity on my situation; I no longer dare to come to your house, three times I have been refused entry, but deign to give me a moment's interview to unravel this riddle for you, and don't think that I could ever believe that Mademoiselle Lucile and M. Duplessis deceived me so cruelly. Virtue and sensibility have a physiognomy that art does not counterfeit. I distrust all men now, but something tells me that my trust would not be betrayed if I place it in you without reserve. […]This number which belonged to you, since you had it made for me in such a short time, you had the cruelty to send it back to me without wanting to read it.

(April 15 1790) Your note would be an answer to my letter, if it was to alarm you that I had asked you for an interview. I read there this answer: of such kind as the calumnies of which you speak, they are so devoid of verisimilitude that it is impossible for them to shake my security, and yet it is useless to grant you the interview that you ask for. But, Madame, it was for me that I requested this interview. It is for me alone that I beg you to have compassion. After seven years of the most constant and most unfortunate passion, at least leave me the sweetness of thinking that the beauty I loved was worthy of being so idolized, that I only have myself to blame, and not nature, which has not made me the one who was to touch her heart. I can no longer be happy, but to be less miserable I need someone to convince me that I was not used as a toy... […] Madame, you have given me marks of interest which I oppose in the bottom of my heart to all these thoughts which sometimes arise there, according to which you amuse yourself by tormenting my life. Add this new brand of benevolence. Grant me an interview, I beg you. Despite all the harm you have done me, I believe that Mademoiselle Lucile's heart is modeled after yours; I think they are both excellent. You don't want to remember that day when you promised me the hand of your dear daughter, or when you assured me that you could dispose of her heart. Why did you promise me what was not in your power? For what? […] What have I done that could have made me be refused three times at your door? If only you knew how much these refusals humiliate me, drive me to despair. I felt terrible last Saturday night. I implore you, Madame, to at least grant me an extraordinary interview today.

(May 10 1790) […] Did you notice how Mademoiselle Lucile sent me away cruelly yesterday? But you must always admire her more and more and she must be allowed to have a little pride. I really hope that now at least, I have no more new talents to discover in her, if she has any that I still don't know about, please hide them from me. I kiss your hands; for Mademoiselle Lucile there is no way to kiss hers even with gloves on. However, Madame, you are so much loved. What hurt you yesterday has hurt your celestial Lucile so much that if you wanted to take my interests to heart, I would hope for everything. Forget what she forbade you.

But on December 11 Annette and Claude finally agreed to let Camille marry Lucile (I’ve not been able to discover he exact reasons for their change of heart), and as can be seen through the following letterCamille sent his father the same day, Annette was happy with the decision:

This charming Lucile, whom I have talked to you so much about, whom I have loved for the past eight years, at last her parents give her to me and she does not refuse me. Her mother just came to tell me the news, crying of joy. […] When her mother told me a moment ago, she brought me to her room; I threw myself on Lucile’s lap; surprised at hearing her laugh I open my eyes, hers were in no better state than mine, she was all in tears, she was even crying profusely and yet she was still laughing. I have never seen such a delightful spectacle, and I would not have imagined that nature and sensibility could unite these two contrasts to such an extent.

Eightteen days later Annette and the rest of the family attended the couple’s wedding.

After Camille had gotten his Lucile, no more letters from him to Annette are conserved. We do however know through several other pieces that they remained close afterwards regardless. After their marriage, Camille and Lucile moved to 1 Rue de Théatre Francais (today 22 Rue de l’Odéon), just a two minute walk from Lucile’s childhood home on 22 Rue de Condé. From the diary Lucile kept 1792-1793 we see that Annette was a frequent visitor to the house. Annette also got to know some of Camille’s collegues, such as Danton, who Lucile asks her to give her news about in a letter dated February 16 1792, Fréron, who nicknamed her Melpomène and came to visit their country house, and Robespierre, who she might have planned to marry off her second daughter to. When Annette’s husband was arrested as suspect in January 1794, Camille protested against it both at the Convention and in the Vieux Cordelier.

Once Camille himself was arrested, Annette was reportedly in despair. In his third and final prison letterto Lucile, Camille reports the following:

Last evening my heart broke when I saw your mother in the garden. A mechanical movement threw me on my knees against the bars; I clasped my hands as if imploring her pity, she who moans, I am sure of it, in your bosom. Yesterday I saw her pain, in her handkerchief and her veil which she lowered, unable to bear this spectacle. When you come, let her sit a little closer with you, so that I can see you better.

Camille thought about Annette too, in the same letter he reports about this dream he’s just had:

Heaven took pity on me. Only a moment ago, I saw you in a dream, I embraced you in turn, you, Horace and Daronne (nickname for Annette) who was at our house. […] Farewell Lucile, my Lucile! My dear Lucile! Farewell Horace, Annette, Adèle, farewell my father!

After the death of Camille and Lucile, Annette worked together with Camille’s old friends and collegues Brune, Duplain, Panis and Fréron to get back Camille and Lucile’s confiscated effects and make sure their son Horace, who she adopted, got a good education. She evidently didn’t blame Camille for her daughter’s death, as she in 1800, when writing to Lucien Bonaparte to ask for the disbursement of the pension for Horace, voted through four years earlier by the Conseil de Cinq-Cents, said that his father was ”Camille-Desmoulins, this hero of republican humanity.”

That it was a glorified image of his father Annette provided her grandson with is also proven through a letter Horace wrote in 1822 to the editor Barrière, claiming that his father had never written anything called l’Histoire des Brissotins, in reality a pamphlet essential in the purge of the girondins…

Sources for everything that doesn’t have a link to it: Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république (2019)

[fanfeline]

so my brain decided to be conscious at 3am which never leads to good results per se but

“Satisfied” from Hamilton but it’s Annette and Lucile Duplessis about Camille Desmoulins

[nesiacha]

The most toxic relationship in frev or napoleonic era

I have a list of the worst couples (or worst relationships) of the French Revolution or the Napoleonic era. There is Billaud Varennes and Brigitte plus the fact that he met her as a child even if she was later his wife a little more and his former slave poses a very serious problem of consent even if he freed her. Big red flag. Turreau Louis Marie and Marie Angelique Lequesne widow of the revolutionary Ronsin. The treatment he inflicted on his wife shocked a lot of people in Washington. According to her great friend the future First Lady of the United States Madison Dolley, Turreau whipped her in front of his servants. It is sad to see such a talented, intelligent, diplomatic and kind woman according to everyone's description after having had a great misfortune of losing her first husband under the guillotine, to be trapped with such a horrible character (thanks to the Napoleonic laws Marie Angelique from 1804 is trapped and is condemned to stay with him even if she wants to leave). In fact it's horrible for anyone facing this kind of abuse. I hope she was able to enjoy some freedom and happiness after the death of her horrible and loser husband. Big red flag too.

Napoleon and Marie Walewska. No need to explain why. Big red flag too.

There are some mentions of weird couples: Danton who remarries with Louise Gely. Yes I know at that time marriages were made from a 16 year old girl, that we should not judge with our eyes of the 21st century but still very weird in my eyes. Some might say that it's weird that Camille Desmoulins fell platonically in love with the mother Annette Duplessis and then he marries her daughter Lucile but honestly with all the relationships mentioned above, it seems totally harmless next to it (the more their couple life did not seem toxic at all). It's still very strange for me .

Anyone got idea for other toxic couple relationships during these period?

We can't help but hope otherwise, it's already too much.

[yourhelenwolf]

Friendship with Desmoulins.

After the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, the friendship between Desmoulins and Robespierre was interrupted until the events of the revolution. When Robespierre moved to Versailles, and then to Paris, he did not try to restore friendship with Desmoulins: he did not look for him and did not write to him. Their acquaintance resumed only after June 7, 1790, after the provocation of Desmoulins, who deliberately distorted Robespierre’s speech in his article, to use a retraction as a pretext to renew the acquaintance. Confirmation of the close friendship between Desmoulins and Robespierre is considered to be that Robespierre was a bride's witness at the wedding of Desmoulins, but witnesses at the same wedding were Jérôme Pétion, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Jacques Pierre Brissot, Charles-Alexis Brûlart. The choice is due to the popularity of these people rather than friendship. For the same reason, in 1792, the godfather of Desmoulins’ child was chosen Robespierre. Lucile recalls Robespierre's school friendship in the letter with rude accusations and attempts to induce sentimentality by mentioning the wedding and the child. It was written after the arrest of Desmoulins. Describing the events of August 10, the same Lucile only in passing mentions the threat of the murder of Robespierre. It is an extraordinary indifference towards a close family friend. Lucile's mother calls Robespierre is the best friend of Desmoulins. After the arrest of Lucile in her letter to him, she also writes that Robespierre should recall his desire to marry Lucile's sister – Adèle. Nobody ever mentioned this desire again and did not call Robespierre like that. Robespierre himself called Desmoulins the Danton's friend. Adèle Duplessis was born in 1774 (died 1863). At the time of the events of 1790-1791 she was 16-17 years old. There is no information except a letter from Lucile's mother, which would confirm the desire of Robespierre to conclude this marriage. But probably, Desmoulins was hoping for a wedding. I would venture to guess that he tried to arrange this marriage during the period from between 1790 and the summer of 1791, to influence Robespierre through his future wife. The marriage did not take place. In the summer of 1791 Robespierre moved to Duplay and met Éléonore. Desmoulins and Danton disliked the Duplay family. Apart from the failed plans of Desmoulins I can not find the reason for this attitude. Throughout their acquaintance, Desmoulins tried to influence Robespierre’s political decisions through interpersonal relations, but to no avail. Robespierre knew Desmoulins and had no illusions. He characterized Camille as capricious, addicting, biased and vain. In this case, the fact of spiritual closeness and close friendship is very doubtful. The principles of Desmoulins contradicted the principles of Robespierre. Their communication is explained by the common goals at a separate stage of the revolution. When the goals became different, Desmoulins spoke out against Robespierre. He could not help but understand that an unlimited amnesty would lead to serious problems for the revolution. Desmoulins’ attacks on the revolutionary government in the “Le Vieux Cordelier” were attacks on Robespierre. This act can not be called friendly. There is a possibility that Desmoulins envied Robespierre, because Danton’s ministry, of which he was a part, became a laughing stock, and the Committee, which included Robespierre, was able to resolve a number of important issues. Desmoulins was an instrument in the hands of Danton's counter-revolutionary party. He overestimated the power of his influence on Robespierre, an influence that never existed, as never was a true friendship between these people.