sanna

Soviet child prisoners of the 6th Finnish concentration camp in Petrozavodsk. During the occupation of Soviet Karelia by the Finns, six concentration camps were created in Petrozavodsk to contain local Russian-speaking residents. Camp No. 6 was located in the area of ​​the Transshipment Exchange, it held 7,000 people. The photo was taken after the liberation of Petrozavodsk by Soviet troops on June 28, 1944.

This picture was presented as part of the evidence at the Nuremberg trials of war criminals.

The girl who is second from the column on the right in the photo - Klavdia Nyuppieva - many years later published her memoirs:

Source: Lucile’s diary from 1788 and 1789

1788 

Friday 27 — I want to finish my story, I cannot finish it! I pick up the pen, I want to write, but nothing comes…

Monday 30 — […] I had fun breaking dead wood, then I found a snail. I examined it a little, I broke its shell, but having fallen onto my stomach it made me cry out loud, because this ugly beast was crawling on my stomach!

Sunday 5 — […] After dinner, I went upstairs to read a few passages from Grandisson, but I had to go back down to go for a walk with everyone, which annoyed me quite a bit, because I would have liked to read forever.

Monday 6 — I didn’t go out all morning, I did nothing but read.

Monday 21 — […] Maman made me tremble last night: she came to fetch the inkwell, I was in bed, she opened my drawer to take a pen, I was afraid she would take my notebook…

Thursday 24 — […]  I love only one person on earth, her alone! Yes, Maman alone makes all my happiness, everything else is indifferent to me. She’s the only friend I want to have.

Saturday 26 — […] I spent the morning, as well as the Friday afternoon, without being able to do anything, starting everything and finishing nothing.

Monday 28 — […] I went and threw myself on a haystack, I stayed there a long time. I found a few hours of happiness there. […] This lack of spirit does not leave me. I dare not talk about it because I cannot explain what I feel, not understanding it. They would laugh at me.

1789 (undated entries)

How upset I am! Everything I see only serves to despair me! Scourge of the earth, you whom heaven made to punish us… How tired I am of living, and I fear to die… Alas, why am I?… What am I useful for on earth? If I didn’t exist… I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. My mind is absent, I go to bed without thinking about where I am… What am I? Very little…

[…] What, men… Oh, what a lot to say! Be quiet, Lucile, let the men do what they want, close your eyes to their actions, you have nothing to do with them…

Lucile Desmoulins' unsent and unfinished letter to Robespierre:

"Camille a vu naître ton orgueuil, il a pressenti la marche que tu voulois suivre; mais il s'est rappelé votre ancienne amitié, et aussi loin de l'insensibilité de ton Saint-Just que de ses basses jalousies, il a reculé devant l'idée d'accuser un ami de collège, un compagnon de ses travaux."

Translation:

"Camille saw the birth of your pride, he predicted the road you would take, but he remembered your friendship, and far from the insensitivity of your Saint-Just and his base jealousies, he renounced the idea to accuse a school friend, a work companion."

Lucile didn't write "your colleague Saint-Just"; she wrote "your Saint-Just". You might say: she's just saying it this way to call him his creature or lackey. True, but look at what she says next: she talks of his base jealousies - not envy, jealousy. She implicitly compares Camille's friendship to Saint-Just's. Is that the motivation of a mere lackey?

Let's analyze another one: Jacques-Maurice Duplay's testimony when interrogated by the Thermidorians on 12 nivose Year III.

D. - N'as-tu pas connoissance que, quelques jours avant le 9 thermidor et peut-être même le 8, Barère, Collot, Billaud-Varenne et plusieurs autres membres des anciens Comités de Salut public et de Sûreté générale ont diné chez Robespierre ainé ?

R. - Non, il y avoit près de trois mois qu'ils n'y étoient venus, autant que je puis m'en rappeller.

D. - N'est-il pas vrai qu'environ à la meme époque Saint-Just et Lebas dinèrent chez ton père avec Robespierre ainé?

R. - Lebas y dinoit souvent comme ayant épousé une de mes soeurs. Saint-Just y dinoit rarement; mais il venoit fréquemment chez Robespierre et montoit dans son cabinet sans communiquer avec personne.

D. - Dans le dîner dont je te parle, n'as-tu pas entendu Saint-Just proposer à Robespierre de se réconcilicr avec quelques membres de la Convention et des Comités qui paroissoient lui étre opposés?

R. - Non. Je sais seulement qu'ils paroissoient très divisés.

Translation:

Question: Are you not aware that a few days before the 9th Thermidor, perhaps even on the 8th, Barère, Collot, Billaud-Varenne, and several other members of the former Committees of Public Safety and of General Security dined with Robespierre the elder?

Answer: No; they had not been for nearly three months, so far as I can remember.

Question: Is it not true that, about the same time, Saint-Just and Lebas dined at your father's house with Robespierre the elder?

Answer: Lebas often dined there, for he had married one of my sisters. Saint-Just rarely dined there: but he frequentlv came to see Robespierre, and used to go up to his study without speaking to anybody.

Question: At the dinner of which I am speaking, did not you hear Saint-Just propose to Robespierre that he should become reconciled with some members of the Convention and the Committees who appeared to be opposed to him?

Answer: No; I only know that they seemed greatly divided.

Here we see a clear distinction between the coworkers of the Committee and the intimates of the Duplay house. Jacques-Maurice doesn't deny it, but he tries to mitigate it. Keep in mind that he was being interrogated while his entire family was imprisoned. His house was basically the inner sanctum and headquarters of the Robespierristes. Of course he has every interest in minimizing how often they dined with them, or say Le Bas was only there because he had married one of his sisters.

We know there was a stronger connection between them because Élisabeth Duplay Le Bas later tells us Saint-Just was part of their inner circle and always attended their intimate gatherings, correcting Lamartine's passage in the Histoire des Girondins:

Un très petit nombre d’amis de Robespierre et de Duplay étaient admis tour à tour dans cette intimité : les Lameth quelquefois ; Le Bas, Saint-Just, toujours ; Panis, Sergent, Coffinhal, Fouché, qu’aimait la sœur de Robespierre et que Robespierre n’aimait pas ; Taschereau, Legendre, Le Boucher, Merlin de Thionville, Couthon, Péthion (sic), Camille Desmoulins, Buonarotti (sic), patriote romain, émule du tribun Rienzi, un nommé Nicolas, imprimeur du journal et des discours de l’orateur ; un serrurier nommé Didier (sic), ami de Duplay ; quelques ouvriers assidus aux Jacobins, enfin Mme de Chalabre, femme noble et riche, enthousiaste de Robespierre, se dévouant à lui comme les veuves de Corinthe ou de Rome aux apôtres du culte nouveau, lui offrant sa fortune pour servir à la popularisation de ses idées, et captant l’amitié de la femme et des filles de Duplay pour mériter un regard de Robespierre. »

Sur le placard corrigé par la veuve et le fils de Le Bas, tous les mots en italique sont effacés et remplacés par ceux-ci : « …Les Lameth et Péthion (sic) dans les premiers temps ; assez rarement Legendre, Merlin de Thionville, Fouché, qu’aimait la sœur de Robespierre, mais que Robespierre n’aimait pas ; souvent Taschereau, Camille Desmoulins, Piault ; toujours Le Bas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon, Buonarotti (sic). »

Translation:

A very small number of friends of Robespierre and Duplay were admitted in turn into this intimacy: the Lameth sometimes; Le Bas, Saint-Just, always; Panis, Sergent, Coffinhal, Fouché, whom Robespierre's sister liked and whom Robespierre did not like; Taschereau, Legendre, Le Boucher, Merlin de Thionville, Couthon, Péthion (sic), Camille Desmoulins, Buonarotti (sic), Roman patriot, emulator of the tribune Rienzi, a man named Nicolas, printer of the newspaper and of the orator's speeches; a locksmith named Didier (sic), friend of Duplay; a few workers who were regulars at the Jacobins, and finally Madame de Chalabre, a noble and wealthy woman, an enthusiast of Robespierre, devoting herself to him like the widows of Corinth or Rome to the apostles of the new cult, offering him her fortune to help popularize his ideas, and cultivating the friendship of Duplay's wife and daughters to gain Robespierre's favor.

On the proofs corrected by Le Bas's widow and son, all the words in italics were erased and replaced with these: "...The Lameth and Péthion families (sic) in the early days; rather rarely Legendre, Merlin de Thionville, Fouché, whom Robespierre's sister liked, but whom Robespierre did not; often Taschereau, Camille Desmoulins, Piault; always Le Bas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon, Buonarotti (sic)."

However, Jacques-Maurice does slip up and accidentally provides us with a very specific detail: Saint-Just went straight to Robespierre's study. He didn't have to be announced. He didn't have to greet the family or wait for permission. He moved through that house like a member of the family. He knew the way; he knew he was welcome. And let's talk of that study: it's an extremely small place to begin with, and it's basically part of Robespierre's bedroom, which is also very small. Please note that all the bedrooms are connected too, like in a shotgun house. There's no hallway: to get to the back rooms, you have to walk through the front ones. (That's also why they made a staircase to access Robespierre's room directly, otherwise people would have needed to walk through Simon's and Jacques-Maurice's.)

Photos from this blog.

It's a study in name only. There's no professional distance here. That's also why access to his room was so fiercely guarded. There's no way that what was labeled as "cabinet" (study) on the plan was actually where he worked: it wouldn't even fit a desk! Antechamber is more accurate. (And we are told some of Augustin's friends from Arras reportedly slept there temporarily waiting to find their own lodgings!) Even the art piece that was used to reconstruct his room in La Terreur et la Vertu makes it look larger than it actually was:

They could be meeting only at the Pavillion de Flore, where Barère tells us they reportedly had a private office. That would be much less cramped. But, no, this is where they chose to hang out to discuss their dreams on the future Republic. In a small room with low ceilings and a bed in the corner. No wonder Barère comments on their secret intimacy, or how a writer talks of them living in familiarity. (More on that in a different post.)

He should not be multiple inches taller than Danton, but on the scale of LRF accuracy, I suppose this point isn't the worst offender.

I’m not sure how many of you remember that translated piece of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just’s writing floating around a while back. It was a short romantic scene, unlike anything else found in his papers after 9 Thermidor. It seemed to be a jotted down memory, or the scene from a self-insert story. (We know he did self-inserts, see his “epic” poem Organt, where the first hero’s name is “Antoine”. At first glance, I had difficulty believing this was a real piece, but I cross checked it with Albert Soboul’s full copy of Les Institutions républicaines de Saint-Just d'après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale. It’s the last piece in that collection.

It’s a short scene about a woman coming to his apartment, and full of melodrama. As it was all written as two paragraphs, it’s quite difficult to figure out who’s saying what. I’ve even come across a historian who had the dialogue flipped. Speculation is that it’s a scene between him and his childhood sweetheart Thérèse Gellé, who ended up in Paris after leaving her husband.

Below is a link to the original post, my translation (broken apart to make it understandable), and further discussion. I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible.

I’m not sure how many of you remember that translated piece of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just’s writing floating around a while back. It was a short romantic scene, unlike anything else found in his papers after 9 Thermidor. It seemed to be a jotted down memory, or the scene from a self-insert story. (We know he did self-inserts, see his “epic” poem Organt, where the first hero’s name is “Antoine”. At first glance, I had difficulty believing this was a real piece, but I cross checked it with Albert Soboul’s full copy of Les Institutions républicaines de Saint-Just d'après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale. It’s the last piece in that collection.

It’s a short scene about a woman coming to his apartment, and full of melodrama. As it was all written as two paragraphs, it’s quite difficult to figure out who’s saying what. I’ve even come across a historian who had the dialogue flipped. Speculation is that it’s a scene between him and his childhood sweetheart Thérèse Gellé, who ended up in Paris after leaving her husband.

Below is a link to the original post, my translation (broken apart to make it understandable), and further discussion. I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible.