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[yukizilla]

Account of Saint-Just at Charleroi

The northern armies, to which Saint-Just had been sent as a military commissioner, had been trying to capture the fortress of Charleroi for month, but the Austrian troops therein hold their ground.

When the French finally draw close to the castle's gates with their cannons, they learn that reinforcements are on their way to support the Austrians.

Therefore time is running out. If they cannot take the fortress, they will either have to fight the advancing troops with the enemy inside the castle at their backs, or they will have to withdraw across the river Sambre for the fifth time, abandoning all their progress to take Charleroi.

The austrians however do not know that the long awaited support is approaching.

Excerpt from Jörg Monar's "Saint-Just", Bouvier 1993. Translated by me:

"On the following day (Messidor 7th/June 25th) at about 7am the castle's commandant Oberst Reynac asked for negotiations, after he had been waiting for days in vain for his reinforcements. The start of those negotiations however was delayed for several hours, as Saint-Just had requested the castle's unconditional capitulation. Finally an Austrian Major appeared with a letter written by Reynac stating the Austrians’ terms of surrender. Marescot witnessed as the officer handed the letter to Saint-Just who was standing next to Jourdan and who had taken the lead of the proceedings. Saint-Just however declined to accept the paper, telling the Austrian officer:

"Ce n'est pas du papier, mais la place que je vous demande."

("I don't want a piece of paper from you, but the castle.")

(...) The very same afternoon the 2.800 Austrians laid down their weapons in an unconditional surrender. (...) Some of the French troops had just established themselves with 50 of their cannons inside the fortress, when remote gunfire announced the arrival of the enemy’s reinforcements.

Tighter Saint-Just's bluff could not have reached its target."

[yukizilla]

Excerpt of Saint-Just’s Speech of 9 Thermidor + Jacques-Louis David Paintings

Happy Thermidor! I erred on the side of poetic with some of the translation, mostly for my own enjoyment, so make sure to take it all with a grain of salt! 

Painting names + text (with actual punctuation!) under the cut

Keep reading

[yukizilla]

10 Thermidor

In memory of the citizens who have died or were executed during the Thermidorian Reaction.

10 Thermidor

M. Robespierre

G. Couthon

P. Le Bas (committed suicide)

L.-J.-B.-T. Lavalette

François Hanriot

L.-G.-F. Dumas

A. Saint-Just

C.-F. Payan

N.-J. Vivier

A.-N. Gobeau

J.-B.-E. Lescot-Fleuriot

A.-P.-J. Robespierre

J.-C. Bernard

A. Gency

A. Simon

D.-E. Laurent

J.-L.-F. Warmé

J.-E. Forestier

N. Guerin

J.-B.-M. de Hasard

C. Cochefer

C.-J.-M. Bougon

J.-M. Quenet

11 Thermidor

S.-B. Boulanger

P. Sijas

B. Arnaud

J.-B.-C. Talbot

P. Rémy

A. Deltroit

J.-G.-F. Vocanu

C. Bigand

J.-R.-C. Lesire

J.-B.-E. Legendre

J.-P.-V. Charlemagne

P.-N. Delacour

A.-G. Jobert

P.-L. Pâris

C. Janquois

R.-T. Daubancourt

J.-B. Vincent

Lelièvre

M. Wiltcheritz

P. Henry

J. Cazenave

J.-L. Gibert

P. Giraud

F. Pelletier

J.-B. Cochois

J.-E. Faro

R. Grenard

J. Lasnier

A. Mercier

J.-P. Bernard

J.-J. Beaurieux

A. Mercier

D. Mettot

E.-A. Souard

A. Jamptel

J.-M. Tambay 

J.-B. Bergot

J.-N.-I. Lumière

G. Tanchoux

F.-A. Paf

P.-C. Louvet 

P.-S.-J. Jault 

M.-L. Devieux

J. Lubin

P.-J. Legrand 

J.-B. Chavigny 

J.-P. Coru 

J. Pacotte

P.-L. Lamiral 

J.-P. Eudes 

J.-N. Langlois 

M.-F. Langlois 

J.-N. Blin

N. Naudin

J. Ravel 

P. Gamaury 

J. Moënne

A. Marcel 

P. Hœner 

J.-C. Girardin 

D. Dumontier 

P. Dumetz 

E.-M. Nauvin 

J. Morel 

C. Desboisseau

C. Bernard

J. Alavoine 

P.-F. Desvaux 

L. Chatelain 

J.-L. Cresson 

L.-F. Dorigny

12 Thermidor

C.-N. Leleu

L. Nicolas

J.-F. Léchenard

F. Teurlot

P.-F. Quegniard

P. Scietty

J.-E. Lahure

F.-R. Camus

J.-B. Grillet

P.-E. Marie Gillet

A. Friry

J.-J. Arthur

Françoise Duplay (found dead in her cell)

18 Thermidor

Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal

Rest in peace, citizens! 

May you rest in the Panthéon of history.

Keep reading

[yukizilla]

Citizens, here is Sanson’s account of the Thermidorian Reaction (in English).

Obvious warnings for death, injury etc.

[yukizilla]

9 Thermidor

Today is the anniversary of the Thermidorian Reaction, which caused the fall of Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Le Bas, Augustin Robespierre and many of their friends & supporters. In memory of this day, here is a list of posts & sources referring to Thermidor. 

Thermidor Project

The Thermidorians: Paul Barras

The Thermidorian Reaction (Françoise Brunel)

Robespierre’s speech of 1 Thermidor

Barère’s speech of 2 Thermidor

Augustin’s speech of 3 Thermidor

Session of the Jacobin Club on 3 Thermidor

Élisabeth & Philippe Le Bas (~4 Thermidor)

Joint session of the Committees (5 Thermidor)

Couthon’s Speech of 6 Thermidor

Barère’s report of 7 Thermidor

Robespierre & Barras (7 Thermidor)

Robespierre’s speech of 8 Thermidor

Aftermath of Robespierre’s speech of 8 Thermidor, Year II

Robespierre: Death is the beginning of immortality.

9 Thermidor (Françoise Brunel)

Robespierre’s Policies and the 9 Thermidor (Albert Mathiez)

Session of 9 Thermidor 

Robespierre in the Convention, 9 Thermidor

The 9 Thermidor (Jean Jaurès)

The Hôtel de Ville, Night of 9th Thermidor

Bulletin des Lois (#29): 9 Thermidor, Year II

Robespierre’s books on 9 Thermidor

Hanriot’s letter to the adjutant general of the 6th legion (9 Thermidor)

Proclamation of the National Convention (9 Thermidor)

Proclamation of the Commune to the French People (9 Thermidor)

Procès-verbal of the session held by the General Council of the Commune (9 / 10 Thermidor)

Letter from M. Robespierre, A. Robespierre & Saint-Just to Couthon

La réaction thermidorienne (Albert Mathiez)

Thermidor: Another Point of View

The famous letter to the Section des Piques

Table on which the injured Robespierre lay

Robespierre’s Fall (Ralph Korngold)

Augustin Robespierre’s last moments

Execution of Robespierre and his accomplices

Records & primary sources on Robespierre’s execution

Thermidor: In memory of the citizens who have died or were executed during the Thermidorian Reaction

Thermidor & revolutionary violence

Report of the Committees of Public Safety & General Security on the “conspiracy of Robespierre etc.” (10 Thermidor, Year II)

Le dix thermidor ou la mort de Robespierre

Fell free to add links of your own, citizens!

[yukizilla]

Saint-Just's speech on 9 thermidor, part 1

As promised-ish yesterday, I have started a rough English translation of the speech that Saint-Just wrote but never got to fully deliver on 9 thermidor. The French version can be found online in full here, and I really recommend you read it like that if you’re able because it’s about a hundred times better-written and more eloquent than my sad and sometimes slightly confused translation can manage.

So this is what I have so far. Unfortunately, I have to go to work now, so the rest will come later!

————

 I do not belong to any faction; I will fight them all. They will never die out except through institutions that produce securities, that lay down the limit of authority and forever place human arrogance under the yoke of public liberty.

 The course of things has meant that this tribune of harangues is perhaps the Tarpeian Rock for he who would come to tell you that certain members of the government have abandoned the route of wisdom. I believed that you were due the truth, offered with caution, and that one cannot break with delicacy the commitment undertaken with one’s conscience to dare everything for the salvation of the patrie.

 What language am I going to speak to you? How to describe for you errors that you have no idea of, and how to make understandable the evil that one word can reveal, that one word can correct?

 Your Committees of General Security and Public Safety charged me with delivering to you a report on the causes of the considerable commotion in the public opinion lately. The confidence of the two committees honored me; but someone this night has pierced my heart, and I do not want to speak except to you. I appeal to you the obligation that several men seemed to impose on me to express myself contrary to my true ideas.

 They wanted to spread the word that the government was divided; it is not. There has only been a political deterioration, which I am going to describe to you.

They are not past, all of the days of glory! And I warn Europe that its plots against vigor of the government are worthless.

I am going to speak about several men who, in jealousy, appear to me to have been inclined to increase their own influence and to concentrate authority in their hands by way of the debasement or the dispersal of that which got in the way of their plans, and moreover by putting the citizen militia of Paris at their disposal, by removing the magistrates to give themselves the credit for their functions; they seem to me to have planned to overpower the revolutionary government and schemed the ruin of good people in order to dominate more easily.

These members worked together to charge me with this report. I had not opened my eyes about all of them; I could not accuse them in their own name; they must have discussed the problem of their undertaking for a long time; they believed that, charged by them to speak to you, I was constrained by human respect to conciliate everything, or to adopt their views and speak their language.

[yukizilla]

Source: Lucy Worsley’s Royal Myths and Secrets, Marie Antoinette: The Doomed Queen (2020)

[yukizilla]

napoléon: by the powers invested in me, by me; you’re now a Duke. what do you want on your coat of arms

fouché: a snake

napoléon: of course you do

[yukizilla]

If people are going to pretend that Olympe de Gouges was killed in the French Revolution for being a feminist, can I say that Saint-Just’s execution was anti-goth discrimination?

[yukizilla]

[yukizilla]

“I had never seen [Danton]; but great God! How ugly he was!”

—

Élisabeth Le Bas in her memoirs

(via rbzpr)

I feel it prudent to place this quote in context. Because, as it stands, it’s almost just a casual “Ha ha, Danton was ugly” joke, and I don’t think that’s fair to the author of the disturbing account it was lifted from: 

      One day, among others, she [Mme Panis] took me to Sèvres, to a country house inhabited by Danton. I had never seen him; but great God! How ugly he was! We found him with a lot of people, walking in a very beautiful garden. He came to us and asked Mme Panis who I was; she replied that I was one of Robespierre’s host’s daughters.                He told her I appeared to be suffering, that I needed a good [boy]friend, that this would return me to health. He had the sort of repulsive features that frighten one. He came up to me, wanted to take my waist and kiss me. I repulsed him forcefully, though I was still quite weak.                I was very young; but his face scared me so much that I pleaded insistently with Mme Panis not to bring me back to that house; I told her that this man had said horrible things to me, such as I had never heard. He had no respect for women, and still less for young people.                Mme Panis seemed to regret having taken me to that house and told me that she did not know that man under that report; she assured me that we would not return to his house and then told me that he was Danton; she urged me not to speak to my mother of what had happened, because it could cause her pain, and she would no longer want to let me come to see her. I admit that this recommendation was not pleasing to me, for our good mother had raised us in the habit of never hiding anything from her.

[Lazy scum I am, I just copied and pasted this translation by montagnarde1793 from here. Credit credit]

We would recognize this today as a pretty Class-A instance of harassment/assault. All very well and fine, but it makes the Hilary Mantel’s characterization of Elisabeth in her novel A Place of Greater Safety, particularly obscene. 

For those of you who haven’t read that novel, it paints Elisabeth as a sexual predator who preys on helpless Dantonists like Camille Desmoulins. Later, the narrative implies that she invents a story about Danton raping her in order to goad Robespierre into signing the arrest warrant for the Dantonist party, because we all know historically that Robespierre Never Did Anything Hilary Mantel Disagreed With Unless He Was Misled and also that Women Crying Rape is the most Dangerous of social problems. 

Yes, Hilary Mantel took a woman’s description of her sexual assault in order to characterize her fictional counterpart as a sexual predator who blames innocent men for rape. 

And meanwhile, yeah, while this doesn’t really alter my opinions on Danton’s politics or abilities as a governor, I do think it is something that historians should discuss more. They speculate pretty liberally about Robespierre’s sexual deviancy (or lack of sexual drive) all pointing to an internal malevolence, but between Danton’s marrying an underage girl and this little episode, I think we could probably fill a few pages with Danton’s “unnatural deviancy” as well. ((Although I will allow for a degree of historical relativism regarding the marriage. Still).

[yukizilla]

Error must never be confounded with crime, and you have no pleasure in undue severity. The hour has come for the people to permit themselves a hope of happiness, and for Liberty to reveal herself as something other than party strife. You were not sent to this place to trouble the earth, but to console men for the immemorial miseries of their serfdom.

––Louis Antoine Saint-Just, Report on Behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, 8 July 1793 

[yukizilla]

The old story of Robespierre as the man to blame is still accepted without question by most non-specialists. It is unusual, though, for an expert on the French Revolution to still be making this kind of claim. [Historian Donald] Sutherland’s perspective comes across as somewhat old-fashioned. By loading the blame on to Robespierre, making him ‘take the rap for the Terror,’ we avoid looking at more profound reasons, more troubling reasons, why terror developed. We can say it was all the fault of that unpleasant Robespierre—that Rousseauist, that paranoid man, that power-hungry dictator, that puritan obsessed with virtue—and forget that terror was in great part the consequence of a set of collective choices. So much of the image of Robespierre as the man behind ‘the Terror’ is invention and myth, begun by men who wanted to divert attention from their own involvement in terror and elaborated, deepened, and reified over the years into layer upon layer of myth; even to the latest, ridiculous story of the ‘death mask’ and its supposedly scientific revelations.

Marisa Linton in her latest contribution to the H-France forum

Here, Linton is defending/explaining her work Choosing Terror, which has its fair share of critics within our community and academia. Although Linton herself admits to not holding Robespierre in the highest esteem, I think this portion of her response essay is truly fantastic. 

(via viverobespierre)

[yukizilla]

fittonia albivenis (nerve plant) will ‘faint’ when they need something – to be watered, to be removed from the sun, when they are too cold – however, they almost always recover quickly once their needs are met.

crazyplantguy on ig

[yukizilla]

Saint-Just’s house as of June, 2019. The Association decided to have a wisteria and some roses around it. A few master gardeners who usually work for the gardens of various chateaus contributed their work voluntarily.

A plaque from the “Houses of the Illustrious” was placed here last year, recognizing the importance of Saint-Just and of the house for the French patrimony. The label is given to a house where a famous French man or woman lived and in which cultural activities related to the memory of that person still take place. This attests to the passionate efforts of the Association for the Preservation of Saint-Just’s home.

[yukizilla]

Saint Just overseeing the army on horseback

[yukizilla]

Yes, I was the friend of Saint-Just! But Saint-Just was not a conspirator; if he had been, he would still be in power and you would exist no more. Ah! His crime, if he committed one, was his failure to form a sacred conspiracy against those who plotted liberty’s ruin! 

…O day of Fleurus! You must blend your laurels, which nothing can wither, with the funeral cypress that shades my friend’s tomb. And you, Pichegru, Jourdan, companions of his exploits and glory, you will do him justice. You are warriors, you should be frank. Good faith has always been the virtue of heroes. You will tell what the fatherland owes his virtues and his courage. You will not betray the truth, you will not serve envy, for one day you would be victims of the crime whose accomplices you had become. You will tell what he did against traitors and how he exercised the national authority with needful severity; how he gave an example of frugality and courage to the troops, of activity and prudence to the generals  of humanity and equality to all those who approached him…Pliant and sociable in private matters, he was sometimes irascible, severe, and inexorable when the country was involved. Then he became a lion, listening no longer, breaking down all barriers, trampling all considerations under foot, and his austerity imparted fear to his friends and gave him a somber, ferocious air with manners despotic and terrible, forcing him afterward to reflect on the immense dangers involved in the exercise of absolute power, when it is entrusted to men whose heads are not as well organized as their hearts as pure.

Such was the man who, hardly twenty-seven, was cut down by a Revolution to which he has consecrated his existence and who has left long regrets to his country and to friendship.

 When Gateau wrote to the authorities asking why he had been arrested, he received a single sentence as reply: ‘Friend of the Conspirator Saint Just.’ Gateu responded with the above eulogy.