#that adèle-robespierre story seriously haunts me

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Robespierre’s dubious girlfriends compilation

Marie Catherine Antoinette ”Anaïs” Deshorties   My brother’s amiability with women captivated their affection. Some of them, I believe, felt more than an ordinary sentiment for him. One among others, Mademoiselle Deshorties, loved him, and was loved in return. The father of this young person had taken for his second wife one of our aunts; from his first marriage he had two sons and three daughters. When my brother was elected deputy to the Estates-General, he had courted Mademoiselle Deshorties for two or three years. Many times already the question of marriage had come up, and very probably Maximilien would have married her, if the suffrage of his fellow citizens had not removed him from the sweetness of private life and thrown him into a career in politics. Mademoiselle Deshorties, who had sworn to him that she would ever belong only to him, took no account of this oath, and, during the session of the Constituent Assembly, gave her hand to another. My brother learned of this betrayal only upon his return to Arras, after the closing of the Assembly; he was very grievously affected.  Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères (1834) page 58-59. Anaïs got married to the lawyer Léandre Leducq on August 7 1792.

Unknown woman  As for [Robespierre’s] continence, I only knew of a woman of about twenty-six years, whom he treated rather badly, and who idolized him. Very often he refused her at his door; he gave her a quarter of his fees.  Souvernirs d’un déporté (1802) by Paul Villiers, who claimed to have served as Robespierre’s secretary for a few months 1790-1791.

Adélaïde ”Adèle” Duplessis (1774-1863)  Robespierre, if you still remember our evenings of intimacy, if you remember the caresses you lavished on little Horace, that you delighted to hold him upon your knee, and if you remember that you were to have been my son-in-law, spare an innocent victim!  Adèle’s mother Annette in letter to Robespierre, seemingly written April 13 1794, begging him to save Adèle’s sister Lucile Desmoulins. In Camille et Lucile Desmoulins — un rêve de république (2019), the authenticity of this letter gets questioned, considering its tone and content are so different compared to the one Annette wrote to Robespierre a few hours earlier. Annette also calls Robespierre ”a tiger with a human face” in it, an expression popularized after thermidor. However, if it’s true that it is apocryptical, it should be remembered that the documents among which the letter was published were in a private collection, resting under the authority of first Annette, who Adèle lived with until her death in 1835, and then Marcellin Matton, who was given the documents right before Annette’s death, promising to publish ”those that may present any historical interest,” and who Adèle then moved in with. It is in other words hard to see this letter getting forged and snuck in with the rest without Adèle being aware of it and giving her consent to being made into the would be wife of one of the people responsible for her sister’s death… Something I’m having a hard time understanding why either Annette, Matton or Adèle herself would want to pretend to be the case. I suppose it’s possible for Lucile to be the person the letter is alluding to as well, but that’s a bit too wild…

Éléonore ”Cornélie” Duplay (1768-1832) .  [Robespierre’s] host's daughter passed for his wife and had a sort of empire over him.  Causes secrètes de la révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794) by Joachim Vilate, page 16

It has been rumored that this daughter [Éléonore] had been Robespierre's mistress. I think I can affirm she was his wife; according to the testimony of one of my colleagues, Saint-Just had been informed of this secret marriage, which he had attended.  Mémoires d’un prêtre regicide (1829) by Simon-Edme Monnel, page 337-338

Madame Lebreton, a sweet and sensitive young woman, said, blushing: “Everyone assures that Eugénie [sic] Duplay was Robespierre’s mistress.” “Ah! My God! Is it possible that that good and generous creature should have so degraded herself?” I was aghast. “Listen,” cried Henriette, “don’t judge on appearances. The unhappy Eugénie was not the mistress, but the wife of the monster, whom her pure soul decorated with every virtue; they were united by a secret marriage of which Saint-Just was the witness.”  Souvernirs de 1793 et 1794 par madame Clément, Née Hémery (1832) by Albertine Clément-Hémery

Madame Duplay had three [sic] daughters: one married the conventionnel Le Bas; another married, I believe, an ex-constituent; the third, Éléonore, who preferred to be called Cornélie, and who was the eldest, was, according to what people pleased themselves to say, on the point of marrying my brother Maximilien when 9 Thermidor came. There are in regard to Éléonore Duplay two opinions: one, that that she was the mistress of Robespierre the elder; the other that she was his fiancée. I believe that these opinions are equally false; but what is certain is that Madame Duplay would have strongly desired to have my brother Maximilien for a son-in-law, and that she forget neither caresses nor seductions to make him marry her daughter. Éléonore too was very ambitious to call herself the Citizeness Robespierre, and she put into effect all that could touch Maximilien’s heart. But, overwhelmed with work and affairs as he was, entirely absorbed by his functions as a member of the Committee of Public Safety, could my older brother occupy himself with love and marriage? Was there a place in his heart for such futilities, when his heart was entirely filled with love for the patrie, when all his sentiments, all his thoughts were concentrated in a sole sentiment, in a sole thought, the happiness of the people; when, without cease fighting against the revolution’s enemies, without cease assailed by his personal enemies, his life was a perpetual combat? No, my older brother should not have, could not have amused himself to be a Celadon with Éléonore Duplay, and, I should add, such a role would not enter into his character. Besides, I can attest it, he told me twenty times that he felt nothing for Éléonore; her family’s obsessions, their importunities were more suited to make feel disgust for her than to make him love her. The Duplays could say what they wanted, but there is the exact truth. One can judge if he was disposed to unite himself to Madame Duplay’s eldest daughter by something I heard him say to Augustin:  “You should marry Éléonore.”  “My faith, no,” replied my younger brother.  Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères (1834) page 90-91

My older sister had been promised to Robespierre.  Memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas (written around 1844)

The eldest of the Duplay daughters, who Robespierre wanted to marry, was called Éléonore. Robespierre allowed himself to be cared for, but he was not in love.  Notes historiques sur la Convention nationale, le Directoire, l’Empire et l’exil des votants (1895) by Marc Antoine Baudot, page 41

All the historians assert that [Robespierre] carried out an intrigue with the daughter of Duplay, but as the family physician and constant guest of that house I am in a position to deny this on oath. They were devoted to each other, and their marriage was arranged; but nothing of the kind alleged ever sullied their love.   Recollections of a Parisian (docteur Poumiès de La Siboutie) under six sovereigns, two revolutions, and a republic (1789-1863) (1911)