#can’t believe brissot and robespierre still showed up for camille’s wedding after he’d written that about their beloved JJ

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

I notice in your translation of Lucile’s diary, on 9th June 92 she says “He's gone! If they would have ripped my soul out, they wouldn't have hurt me any more. What a wound has come to my heart!“ Is she referring to Horace here? I assumed so from the context (unless it was Camille) - and if so is she referring to the baby being taken to the wet nurse? I wondered why she would choose not to breastfeed it herself given the distress. Was it to do with the dangerous situation in Paris or Lucile being unwell (as she mentions?). I know you don’t have definite answers to all this but given you are a wizard I wanted your opinion! (The joys of trying to decipher the girl’s incredible crypticness for a novel .)

Yes, I think it is rather obvious it’s Horace being sent to a wet nurse Lucile is referring to in this diary entry. It’s also confirmed by a letter Camille wrote to his father three days later: ”I named [my son] Horace-Camille Desmoulins. He was immediately sent to a wet nurse in l'Ile-Adam (Seine-et-Oise) with the little Danton.”

As for why Lucile didn’t breastfeed Horace herself, I agree it can come off as a little strange given that mothers breastfeeding their own children was the new hot stuff. We know that both the Brissot, Roland and Lebas couple went through with it (in the latter case, Philippe even seems to have had the topic of breastfeeding your own child be some kind of ”ultimatum” to see if Élisabeth would be a suitable wife for him). We also know that Horace was one of the very first children to have a republican baptism instead of a religious one, a clear indicator his parents were open to other new ideas regarding babies. Camille does however not appear to have been as huge of a Rousseau stan as some other revolutionaries (in number 55 (December 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, he does for example write that he no longer idolizes Rousseau ”since he became an aristocrat in his old days,” and even tossed Confessions away in rage, ”in order to not hate the philosopher from Geneva”), the philosopher largely being the one who had advertised for mothers breatfeeding their own children. Also, according to Mette Harder’s Life in Revolutionary France (2020) — ”In practise, it seems that only a minority of parents followed this advice, given the prevalence of wet-nursing in France, particulary in larger cities.”

Finally, my only other speculation here is that since Horace, as shown by Camille’s letter, was sent to the same wet nurse as Danton’s youngest son, maybe it was Georges and Gabrielle who told Lucile and Camille: ”our wet nurse is great, you should send your child there too.” Then it’s also true Paris, like you say, wasn’t exactly the safest and healthiest place for an infant (or anyone!) in the summer of 1792, so it would make sense to want your child out of there for a while. But Lucile of course had a country house to run off to (which, as seen through the diary, she actually did shortly after Horace was sent away) and where we might imagiene she could have easily brought her son as well, so I don’t know if that explanation alone is sufficient enough.