gay or european?

Is it possible that the larger population just doesn't understand how Plutarch and his tales of absolute heroic stoicism molded Saint-Just's mind and why he embraces death? That if faced with the horror of surviving in a diminished degraded corrupt state, he will always choose to let himself die? Liberty or death. His entire philosophy is basically a continuation of La Boétie and the inspiration for the future "better to die on your feet than live on your knees".

"Ô Dieu ! faut-il que Brutus languisse oublié loin de Rome ! Mon parti est pris cependant : si Brutus ne tue point les autres, il se tuera lui-même." - letter to Daubigny, 1791

If he cannot act, if he cannot deliver Rome from tyranny, he will choose total self-annihilation over compromise or obscurity.

This is how you can summarize his philosophy: "As long as liberty triumphs, what does it matter if my name is tarnished or if I perish?" (ETA: That's not an actual quote. I made that confusing with the former editing. Should have found the exact quote in the I.R. instead as this was kinda like a placeholder in my draft. Oh well.)

He knows true heroes perish and are slandered, so he expects it (that's in the introduction to the Institutions républicaines), but all that matters to him is that he offered his life as a monument to the truth and that his name and example will live on as a myth regardless. That he's transcending humanity into becoming a myth:

"I despise the dust of which I am composed and that speaks to you; one may persecute it and make this dust die! But I defy anyone to rip from me this independent life I have given myself in the centuries and in the skies."

People might see a contradiction here: how can he live forever if he's dead? But to him it's totally logical. If he cannot live free, then he will not live at all, and death becomes his true form of existence. There is no contradiction to him because he separates existence into two distinct categories: the dust (the physical, biological body that can be chained, starved, or guillotined) and the independent life (the moral legacy, the virtue, the idea).

​For Saint-Just, the "dust" is merely a temporary vessel. If that vessel can no longer exist in absolute liberty, then keeping it alive through compromise or submission is the true death. To live on one's knees is to reduce oneself to nothing but dust. It's what he explains in the two paragraphs that precede the famous "centuries and skies" quote:

"Circumstances are only difficult for those who recoil before the tomb. I implore it, the tomb, as a blessing of Providence, so that I may no longer be a witness to the impunity of crimes plotted against my motherland and humanity.

Certainly, it is leaving very little behind to quit a miserable life, in which one is condemned to vegetate as either the accomplice or the impotent witness of crime…"

​Therefore, letting the dust die is not an act of destruction; it is an act of liberation. It is the moment the idea is permanently freed from the fragile, corruptible flesh. This is exactly what drives his final weeks. He realizes that a living man can be compromised, bribed, worn down, or defeated by politics. A living man has to deal with the messy, frustrating friction of human nature. To be truly Incorruptible is to die for the Ideal.

Because Saint-Just famously suppressed his emotions by hiding behind an uncompromising, inflexible mask of ice and marble, people assume he lacked human feeling. That he was some kind of "sociopath". In truth, it was a philosophical exercise, the highest form of performance where your life becomes a role of absolute sincerity. There is no cynicism here. Only pure belief.

Beneath the facade he is forcing onto himself, there was a deeply sensitive (in this sense), hyper-idealistic, and profoundly exhausted young man dealing with what we would now classify as massive psychological pressure, depression, and burnout. But his century elevated this state not as a dysfunction but as perfection. His stoicism wasn't a lack of emotion; it was an intense, violent containment of emotion. He used an overwhelming amount of passion to act that "cold". Most people don't see the volcano underneath the ice; they only see the frost. But people from his time saw it, hence Barère’s quote: "He has a mind of fire and a heart of ice."

However, contemporary society - the one that rose from Thermidorian cynicism and bourgeois liberalism - is profoundly uncomfortable with the concept of the absolute. It teaches the value of self-interest, compromise, moderation, and keeping our heads down (and on) to survive. On the other hand, Saint-Just represents the terrifying, intoxicating (and therefore sublime) concept of total commitment and devotion to an Ideal. And that Ideal is Liberty and Independence. In bourgeois liberalism, liberty is a legal fiction and theory; for someone like Saint-Just, it's a sacred, transcendental force.

​When he says:

"Those who make revolutions by halves do nothing but dig their own graves."

He is rejecting the very concept of middle ground not just in the realm of politics but in life itself. To the contemporary audience, that level of conviction is terrifying. It cannot be compromised with or tempted with wealth, glory or power. It is much safer and easier for a contemporary mind to label that "fanaticism" and "madness" or to believe he was bluffing than to sit with the uncomfortable truth that a human being was capable of loving an ideal - in this case liberty - so much that he viewed his own life, and the lives of others, as entirely secondary to it:

The day I become convinced that it is impossible to give the French people customs that are gentle, energetic, and sensitive, I shall stab myself.

Léon wasn't a popular first name yet, and his grandfather's name was Léonard. He took a traditional name, stripped the -ard, and ended up with a name that unambiguously means "lion". The animal his friend Gateau compares him to, and who rules most of the month he was born during. I don't know how important astrology was to them but he has to at least know he was born a few days only after the Sun crosses from Leo into Virgo? It's as if he looked at the calendar, and said, "No, I'm keeping the Lion."

But, like I said, Louis-Léon has bad optics. It's a bit much in term of symbolism - and we know he liked symbolism.

He believed Antoine came from the Greek anthos - flower, which is where Florelle is derived from. Returning to Antoine is what you might call a masterpiece of revolutionary branding. It's a perfect shift from Leo to Virgo - from the burning ambition of his younger years to the transcendental ascetism of his last two years.

He gets elected as Louis-Léon and dies as Antoine.

so my two theories (and PLEASE correct me if/when i’m wrong lmao 😭) are as follows: 1) antoine was his ‘“real”’ name (that he used in private with those closest to him)— despite hating each other, the cps was obviously very close in a weird toxic way, as they spent most of their time with one another (sj was obviously at the front a lot, but nevertheless)- it’s therefore pretty plausible that he would have used his ‘private’ name with them. the other option with this theory is that sj wasn’t necessarily on ‘antoine’ terms (lmao) with the whole cps, but he was with barère, which would be a whole other discussion 💀 anyway, it’s therefore also plausible that he gave his name as antoine at thermidor bc in many ways he would have been too exhausted to fully put on his persona- he’s got nothing to lose, he can’t just be ‘saint-just’ in the records, so he tells them his real name. my only issue is (and there is really no way of knowing that i’m aware of, so this is all neither here nor there, it’s just fun to discuss) is that sj obviously didn’t let down his persona around the cps- i like to think of sj’s persona as having layers to it- there’s the really really public one, for the convention and the soldiers and the rest of it, which is more monotone and laconic and a bit of a marble statue impression. then there’s the slightly less public one, which the cps gets to see- still cold, but a bit more of a little shit at times (the 2016 (?) production of thermidor is perfect iykyk)- not necessarily more emotional, but *slightly* less stoic and more bitchy, because you can’t be stoic in a room with carnot because he’s just that irritating. and then there’s his real self beneath that (maybe. idk. maybe there’s more layers lmao). anyway, tangent aside, if his names are attached to personas in a way, and he’s still very much got a persona on with the cps, would he use his ‘“real”’ name there?? i obviously don’t know, as this is largely speculation, but yeah 😭 which brings me to theory 2) that antoine was again more of a public name in some regards, and a different name was his ‘“real”’ name. which one? idk- he didn’t leave us any traces to tell us, much like how he deliberately hid his ‘“real”’ self from posterity- elisabeth simply refers to him as ‘saint-just’ in her memoirs as far as i remember, but i find it hard to believe that she simply knew him as ‘saint-just’, especially as barère seemingly knew him by a first name. obviously, this makes him giving the name antoine at thermidor tragic in a different way: up until the end, he kept his true self hidden 🥲

either way, it got me thinking. I’ve heard so many examples of how similar both robespierre and saint-just were in what they both wanted and their political views overall, but are there any cases where the two had contrasting views or if they clashed in anyway, or were they always in agreement with each other?

1. The Law of Prairial

Their biggest known disagreement is over the Law of 22 Prairial, though surprisingly few people actually talk about it.

[I talk about this in a bit more details here. @anotherhumaninthisworld has a good summary of the situation here too with translated quotes.]

To recap: Gateau writes after Thermidor that Saint-Just actively opposed the law. This could easily be dismissed as Gateau trying to make his friend look better in hindsight (especially since Gateau really bought into the "Robespierre-was-the-sole-tyrant" post-Thermidor kool-aid). But there are very reasonable grounds to support this claim. Specifically, the circumstances around Saint-Just's sudden recall from mission and his almost immediate flight back to the Army of the North - skipping even the Feast of the Supreme Being.

Historically, Saint-Just was the one who delivered the speeches/reports that laid the groundwork for things like the Law of Prairial: his reports on the revolutionary government, on the police bureau, and on the destruction of the factions. This is how he acquired the reputation of the "Archangel of the Terror" (a title coined much later by Michelet). It was a task he acknowledged and reluctantly accepted:

"I have attacked men no one else would have dared to attack, everything might have made a criminal the one who dared, only I had the duty to deliver this dangerous message, it's the youngest who must die and prove his courage and virtue."

When you consider those factors, it is extremely bizarre that the Law of Prairial ended up being Couthon's legislative work. It seems highly likely the Committee originally wanted Saint-Just to draft and present it, but he refused, leaving Couthon to step in.

2. The Failed Reconciliation of the Committees

Other potential sources of disagreement belong to the realm of assumptions as we can't know for sure, but they also have evidence to support them. One of them concerns the events leading up directly to Thermidor: the (failed) reconciliation attempt of 5 thermidor, which La Terreur et la Vertu goes into.

I don't think we have any insider sources on the events themselves outside of Saint-Just's very own speech on 9 thermidor. The Thermidorians seem oddly silent about this. Possibly because it breaks their entire narrative: if they knew Saint-Just was conspiring with Robespierre or was more despotic than him, why did they charge him with that report? The fact that they chose him specifically when it wasn't his usual style of report is also bizarre to me. Like I wondered once: was it purposefully intended as an insult or as a way to drive him and Robespierre apart?

If that was the case, it did seem to briefly work. This is supported by at least one witness: Jacques-Maurice Duplay, interrogated on 12 nivôse Year III. Though he claims he did not hear about the reconciliation proposal, he answers that "they seemed greatly divided" at the time. Considering he mentions that only when they bring this up, it seems related.

When you look at it from the perspective of a linear timeline, Robespierre's speech of 8 thermidor seems like a direct response, an attack even, on what Saint-Just was planning. After a meeting between the two committees on 5 thermidor, Barère announced their reconciliation on the evening and Saint-Just's report was planned and scheduled already. (And I would need to check the date but I think Barère also gave a speech to that effect to the Convention on 7 thermidor.) That Robespierre would publicly undermine Barère seems very likely - but Saint-Just? The day before his own report?

Now the unfortunate part is we will never truly know what happened between them over this. We only have assumptions and theories based on their speeches and other circumstances/factors.

Which brings us to how this friction plays out on screen. The way La Terreur et la Vertu presents it, Saint-Just didn't know about Robespierre's speech, hadn't read it, and considered it unwise. We can only truly infer the last part from Saint-Just's own speech on 9 thermidor. It's clear that if he had anything already written for his, he scrapped and revised a lot based on the events on the 8 and in the night of the 8 to the 9.

Most people don't think of compromise when they think of Saint-Just, but Vinot explains that he was actually willing to sacrifice a massive amount of his own principles and politics to save the revolutionary government from imploding.

On 4 thermidor (July 22), with Robespierre and Couthon absent, the joint Committees finally set up the last four popular commissions mandated by the Ventôse decrees. Even Lindet ended up signing. But the reconciliation on 5 thermidor came at a high prize, like Vinot says:

The decree on the four popular commissions was not followed by any implementing texts. Maximilien received nothing but a few polite tributes. In return, his young colleague had accepted the partial disarmament of the sections, and had given up on the centralization of the police, the purging of the Convention, and the publicizing of his religious policy. With cold composure, he concealed his bitterness and did not decline the responsibility of writing the report.

Saint-Just did not mention in his later speech of 9 thermidor that to get this compromise, he had signed a decree with Barère, Billaud, and Carnot to remove four companies of sectional gunners loyal to the Robespierrists from Paris. He also apparently agreed to "recognize the policing prerogatives of the Committee of General Security at the expense of the Bureau of Police".

Naturally, this uneasy truce was sabotaged almost immediately. On the evening of 6 thermidor at the Jacobins, Couthon gave a speech that essentially blindsided Saint-Just before Robespierre did on the 8:

On the evening of the 6th, at the Jacobins, Couthon admittedly reaffirmed the unity of the Committees, but—forgetting the promise made by Saint-Just—persisted in wanting to crush "five or six petty human figures whose hands were full of the Republic's wealth and dripping with the blood of the innocents they had sacrificed." He targeted only the corrupt representatives and covered the "national representation" with highly emphasized praise. It was a speech in line with the Robespierrist camp, yet moderate enough not to displease the Plain.

In this context, Robespierre's speech on 8 thermidor doesn't seem so explosive. It was only a matter of time.

3. Was There A Rift Between Saint-Just and Robespierre?

Albert Ollivier, whose biography served as the basis for Saint-Just et la force des choses, is a proponent of the theory that Saint-Just and Robespierre were no longer close. He leans hard into the "growing rift" camp. But it's a bit more complicated than that.

First, it completely ignores that in spite of everything Saint-Just still chose that path on 9 thermidor, the way Marisa Linton eloquently put it.

It seems very likely that he had a way out. Multiple, even. He didn't take any. Maybe the reconciliation report was another way they offered him since he refused to be sent back to the North. The pragmatists of the Committees knew that he was a valuable asset to maintain their own power. When they lost him, they lost their leverage against those who criticized the revolutionary government. His final speech was even used to later indict them.

Saint-Just didn't have to deliver that speech. He could have dropped his defense of Robespierre entirely. He could have chosen to submit his report to the rest of the Committees the way he "promised". But they "withered his heart" on that fateful night from the 8 to the 9.

It's possible he knew that reading his speech wouldn't have changed anything - though keep in mind that this is Lindet's perspective, not Barère's, not Prieur's, and not Carnot's extremely elusive one. Actually, Lindet's perspective offers us insight into Carnot's: "The only remaining question was which party would prevail in the Assembly. The only issue at stake was the reputation of Carnot and Robespierre." The whole "Organizer of Victory" PR branding that narrowly saved his ass? He didn't have that in July 1794 - he didn't until Spring 1795. Keeping Saint-Just alive, who was fresh from the Fleurus victory, could have been extremely useful.

Another problem with Ollivier's interpretation is that he inherits a very specific perspective these three specifically gave him, and the post-WW2 context is shaping his argument a lot. (I could go into that more but this whole post is already getting long. Let's just say the specific historical context he writes in influences his interpretation - that's not rare for historians.)

So because of the Thermidorians, you got the eternal pull on Saint-Just's "characterization": was he Robespierre's devoted disciple (Courtois), or his potential rival (Carnot, Barère, Prieur)? Was he going to topple him because he was so much more awesome?

Let's ignore that those arguments only exist because 1) Barère and Carnot were cucked and 2) Napoléon happened.

"Barère and Carnot were cucked" - plz follow for more incredibly srs historical analysis ✌️

Carnot and Barère couldn't admit a 26yo was their equal in power but their superior in personality. They Vampire Chronicle'd us and erased his role in the organization of the war front. Let's be real, his existence was a huge blow to their ego, so they had to paint him as this dangerous fanatic who was even more despotic than Robespierre.

After ​Napoléon's coup, every historian has tried to shoehorn Saint-Just into a similar category - even Vinot does it. I'm not immune either, it's an interesting concept to play with creatively, but it doesn't belong to reality. Saint-Just's principles were too strong to choose this path.

An interesting thing to consider is that this idea that Saint-Just was a dangerous rival who was about to topple Robespierre reflects the anxieties Carnot and Barère had over their relationship with him more than the reality of Saint-Just's relationship with Robespierre.

4. Was There An Ideological Clash?

Another thing La Terreur et la Vertu but also Stanisława Przybyszewska's Thermidor suggest is that Robespierre and Saint-Just broke apart over certain political issues. Now Przybyszewska's account is very romanticized, and her sources didn't seem to be the most accurate. She also has her very specific interpretation of these figures, which is why I call anything connected to her works "the Stasiaverse" lol.

On the other hand, La Terreur et la Vertu is very closely grounded in Mathiez and Soboul's school of interpretation. This Saint-Just goes on proto-Marxist tangents that seem a bit too perfectly aligned with the interpretations of those historians. He's basically used by the narrative as the mouthpiece to serve a Marxist critique on Robespierre's actions. They support this with the argument that Saint-Just was more to the left than Robespierre, who tried to appeal to the center to the very end.

There seems to be some validity to this though I can't recall a study that actually did this comparative work. Saint-Just's politics are still very much ignored outside of a few historians. Soboul's Marxist analysis most definitely needs to be revised.

What we can say is that Saint-Just condemned Billaud and Collot to the bitter end, pretty much designating them as "the source of the problems" in his last speech, while only mentioning without naming them directly the issues he had with Barère and Carnot. It's possible Saint-Just saw more utility to the latter two, or at least some way to curb them. Billaud and Collot might have felt more unstable to him, and it's also possible he didn't think they actually represented the left. What I mean is I don't think he saw himself as actually attacking the left of the Committee and siding with its center/right. It's possible he saw himself as the left. But it's also very likely he didn't even conceive politics exactly this way. They didn't really use those terms yet. Even though they invented the left vs right divide, it's not quite part of their vocabulary. They think in terms of moderation, indulgence, exaggeration - which all become counter-revolutionary crimes because to Saint-Just they all have the same goal. Factions aren't valid political options to him: they disturb governance, they mislead the Revolution, and should be crushed. But at the same time this position is not explicitly a "centrist" policy in his eyes: it's how the Republic - and the Revolution - can be saved.

So, to answer the question: yes, Robespierre and Saint-Just absolutely clashed, but it wasn't the dramatic, ideological betrayal or the looming power struggle that movies or self-serving Thermidorian memoirs suggest. (Though personally I feel that the narrative presented by La Terreur et la Vertu, in spite of a few anachronistic hiccups in the socio-political interpretation, is the closest to being an accurate reconstruction.)

While the movies/plays dramatize it to create a good narrative tension, they aren't pulling it out of thin air. There was real friction between them at the end, but it was not because they wanted different worlds. They just disagreed on how to get into the next step. Were they going to stop the Terror? To them, stopping the Terror also meant relinquishing the state apparatus that allowed the punishment of the corrupt representatives who threatened the Republic they wanted. Saint-Just fully understood the limits of the Terror, and that it was being weaponized, misapplied and distorted by representatives he didn't actually have the power to control. He had that power in Alsace and in the North - but not in Paris.

Unhappy Early Thermidor art DD:

I mostly wanted to practice with my skills in drawing angst… I usually draw fluff

“The Angel of Grief”

Inspired by an angel sculpture at a cemetery

...except none of the major political parties are running in this election, currently leaving one opponent: