Dans les siècles et dans les cieux

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?"

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.

Not only does he basically echo and complete one of his famous quotes:

"Un peuple n'a qu'un ennemi dangereux, c'est son gouvernement." (​"A people has only one dangerous enemy, and that is its government.")

"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."

But also:

He has shed his humanity to become a symbol and hides behind a porcelain mask.

He becomes a monster in the name of the highest ideal: liberty, integrity, and thus virtue in the 18th century sense (Evey's torture being liberation).

He has this same hard-to-categorize, contradictory pull between despotism and liberty, domination and emancipation, authoritarianism and anarchism described by Miguel Abensour.

He accepts the inevitability of his death not as a tragedy but as the consecration of his principles: if a living man cannot impose the rule of liberty without the use of despotism and therefore becoming corrupt, because no one can reign/govern innocently, then the man must step aside and let the myth take over.

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.

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.

Let's summarize the contents of this clip:

The eve of 17 July 1791...

I SURE HOPE NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN

IT WOULD BE REALLY SAD IF IT DID

Sansculottides: Jour du Travail

The fête du travail should be focused on industry, physical labour, and production of useful things.

In honour of this holiday, I will list some of my works & projects about the Revolution.

RBZPR: Introduction

Robespierre’s Notebook

Session of 9 Thermidor

French Revolution Wikipedia Project

Fragments on the Republican Institutions

Regicide

Digital Art

Paris & the Revolution

French Republican Calendar CCXXIV

Robespierre’s Speech of 8 Thermidor

Translations: Writings & Speeches

Sansculottides

Book recommendations

Portraits & Portrayals

Who’s Your Favourite?

The Historical Inaccuracy of Assassin’s Creed Unity

Thermidor: Another Point of View

Saint-Just’s Notes 

French Revolution: The Cartoon

Robespierre’s Notes against the Dantonists

Desmoulins’ Notes on the Report of  Saint-Just

Playing Cards of the French Republic

Revolutionary Bookmarks

eBooks on the Revolution

Statistics on the Terror

Robespierre’s Periods of Illness 

Robespierre’s speech of 1 Thermidor

Revolutionary Artworks by Béricourt

Revolutionary Timetables

Robespierrisme: History Project

Currently Reading

Fabre d’Églantine on the Sansculottides

1789 - 1795

Couthon’s Speech of 6 Thermidor

Robespierrisme: Literature on the French Revolution

Éléonore Duplay: Research Project

Saint-Just (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1862)

Revolutionary Playing Cards

Robespierre (movie)

Revolutionary Women of 1789

Revolutionary Terror & Terrorism

Google: People also ask

Game of the French Revolution

Revolutionary Women: Françoise Dupont

Robespierre (Albert Mathiez)

French Revolution: Primary Sources

Manuscripts of Robespierre

Robespierre’s books on 9 Thermidor

Tableaux civiques

Ici on s’honore du titre de citoyen

Couthon: History Project

Republican Marriage

The Triumph of the Montagne

“The Reign of Terror”: Myths & Misconceptions

Georges Couthon: Biography

Danton’s Corruption: Research Project

Fragment of a poem on the handkerchief (M. Robespierre)

Revolutionary vignettes

Republican Education: Learning to Read & Write

Hymn on the abolition of slavery

French Republican Pedagogy

The Defender of the Constitution: Translation Project

Hymn of the Montagnards to the Jacobins

Revolutionary school supplies

Mournful song of a mother

A comedy, The converted Aristocrat (Georges Couthon)

French Revolution: Who was … ?

Citoyennes

The Origins of the Jacobin Club

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

Robespierre on the Abolition of the Death Penalty

Robespierre’s notes on different deputies

Departure of the French Amazons (1792)

Louis Antoine Saint-Just: Biography

Civic clothing by Jacques-Louis David

Augustin Bon Joseph Robespierre: Biography

Philippe François Joseph Lebas: Biography

The first abolition of slavery in 1794

Notes written by Robespierre

Nobility & racism under the Ancien Régime

Robespierre on the Cult of the Supreme Being (7 May 1794)

RBZPR: Anniversary

Maximilien Robespierre: Contextualizing Quotes

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

Revolutionary drinking song (1793)

Session of 9 Thermidor at the National Convention

Discover Arras: in the footsteps of Robespierre

The Journeys of the bonnet rouge (1792)

Robespierre’s speeches for the Festival of the Supreme Being

Petition for a Robespierre Museum in Arras

Thermidor Project

9 Thermidor

10 Thermidor

Robespierre’s execution: primary accounts

Horace Desmoulins

Barère on Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon & Lebas

Sansculottes: Sources

Institutions & Elections

French Revolution: Books & Primary Sources

Garnier de l'Aube

Musée de la Révolution française: 360° Virtual Tour

Revolutionary Initials

French Republican Calendar CCXXV

RBZPR: Chapter I

The Girondins: The September Massacres

The « Girondins » : Moderates?

Session of 16 Pluviôse, Year II (4 February 1794)

Decree on the abolition of slavery (4 February 1794)

Women’s roles in the Revolutionary Army

Women in the Revolutionary Army

David’s La Mort de Marat

Session of the Jacobin Club on 3 Thermidor, Year II

Robespierre and the “Reign of Terror”

The Abolition of Slavery: primary & secondary sources

Robespierre’s “catechism”

A Souvenir of the Revolution

The « Deputies of Colour » at the National Convention

Manuscript of Robespierre

French Revolution: Research Kit

On councils (Maximilien Robespierre)

Jean-Baptiste Belley & Jean-Baptiste Mills

La Maison de Robespierre

Robespierre’s intervention in favour of the arrested signatories

Letter of the arrested signatories to Robespierre

The empty cup (Maximilien Robespierre)

The Thermidorians: Research Project

The Carmagnole of the Robespierrists

Admission of the deputies of Saint-Domingue to the National Convention

Procès-verbal of the election of the deputies of Saint-Domingue

La Constitution de la Lune (Le Cousin Jacques)

Wallpapers of the Revolution

Aftermath of Robespierre’s speech of 8 Thermidor

Speech of the young citoyenne Joséphine Fontanier

Proclamation of the Commune of Paris to the French People

Revolutionary Everyday Items

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

A Revolutionary Coin

Oranges in the late 18th century

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

The meaning(s) of patrie in the context of the late 18th century

Revolutionary Buttons

Letter from Charlotte to Augustin Robespierre (18 Messidor Year II)

Letter from Robespierre to an unknown woman (6 June 1788)

Portrait of Robespierre (Merlin de Thionville)

Marie Couthon’s speech (14 July 1790)

The Head or the Ear of a Pig (Romeau)

Couthon’s speech (22 September 1792)

Draft of the French Constitution of 1791: Robespierre’s Annotations

French Republican Calendar: Year CCXXVI

Rousseau and the patrie

Proclamation of the National Convention (9 Thermidor, Year II)

Fréron’s notes on Robespierre

Robespierre against Fouché (26 Messidor Year II)

Report on the “conspiracy” of Robespierre &c. (9 Thermidor, Year II)

Mourir en député (1792 - 1799)

The Infernal Club: First Session (Pilpay)

Syllabaire républicain (Anonymous)

Robespierre on the assassination attempts (6 Prairial, Year II)

Robespierre’s proposed reforms of the Constitution (July 1792)

Léonard Bourdon at the National Convention (10 Thermidor, Year II)

Dialogue of the Tigress Antoinette with the Guillotine (1793)

Robespierre’s Tail (Méhée de La Touche)

Jean Debry’s proposed Legion of Tyrannicides (26 August 1792)

The Constitution of 1793 or The Fulfilled Vows

Execrable Portraits of the traitor Robespierre &c. (Dussault)

Barras on the journées of Thermidor (27 Thermidor, Year II)

A Relic of Thermidor

The Mountain (Anonymous, 1794)

Hymn of the Citizens of Colour (1794)

Facts collected in the last moments of Robespierre and of his faction, from 9 to 10 Thermidor (Anonymous)

On the fall of Robespierre and his accomplices (C. Dejean)

Barère on the reorganisation of the Committees (14 Thermidor, Year II)

Barère’s defence of the Revolutionary Government against the charge of dictatorship (11 Germinal, Year II)

Anonymous letter to Robespierre

Augustin Robespierre to the Comité de Surveillance (22 April 1793)

On Robespierre’s conspiracy (Rouget de Lisle)

The Montagnards (A. Valcour)

Program of the Festival of Liberty (1795)

The tomb of the sans-culottes (Ducray-Duminil)

Medical report on Georges Couthon’s injuries (10 Thermidor, Year II)

Foussedoire, Representative of the People (1794)

The Republican Months (1794)

Speech of Citoyenne Lucidor Corbin (30 Pluviôse, Year II)

Food for thought for the crowned charlatans (1793)

A Republican Tradition: Calf’s Head on 21 January

Response to Le Réveil du Peuple (Year III)

légende noire: archive project

Procès-verbal of the General Council (23 Pluviôse, Year II)

(Or at least that's how I learned to do it at the History department of my North American university in the late 2000s - early 2010s. Some details may vary.)

A title is obviously not enough, but don't worry, I've been fooled myself by titles that seemed really good, and then the contents didn't really match. Don't blame the authors, they have little control over that. The publishers wanted to market it and make more money from books that are kind of niche.

The short summaries in the back? Well they're not very detailed... Sometimes they're just praise from other historians. Not the most helpful.

What you really need to check is the table of contents. It's a much better indicator than a title or back summary. Some are very detailed too!

History books often have forewords. They're written by a senior historian, someone who supervised the thesis this book was based on, etc. Sometimes it will have more than one foreword, especially if it's a classic that's started to age. This is where you find information about the author. This is where you'll find out if the author is a historian or someone of another trade who picked it up as a hobby or is doing a serious second career out of it, if there are flaws or biases in their research, if they have an agenda they are willing to admit to or not. Because subjectivity is not BAD. Pure objectivity is a myth. You teach that to first year students because it's easier and otherwise it might make teaching (and grading) a nightmare. First you need to learn the basics. Then you learn how to interpret. Only after that can you pick your side. (I mean, you can pick it fairly early, but you have to be aware that there are sides, because there are always sides. You just have to know what it means to choose that side because yes they are political choices too.) The foreword is also usually where you will learn if this book resulted or was part of a controversy. Causing or being part of a controversy doesn't mean the book is bad. Some topics are just... like that. The French Revolution, for example, is like that.

A note: if it's a book with multiple authors, there will usually be a shorter section that gives you a summary of what each author has published most recently, works on, where they studied, etc. You most likely have a specific type of academic book in your hands: the printed result of a day or two of conferences historians held somewhere in the previous year.

Next you look at the introduction and the conclusion. The introduction might also mention if there's a controversy, in which case the book inserts itself into a longer tradition of it, and isn't sparking anything new - it's already existing. The introduction might also have the author give details on themselves. Usually there should be a section that introduces you to what each chapter/part of the book is about. That's how we learn to write introductions. But it's tedious to do, so not everyone sticks to the formula. Introductions sometimes are... just not that. It's up to the author, and how traumatized they've been by academia I guess.

The conclusion should recap, obviously, but it also showcases ways this book can help bridge the gap between preexisting research that's lacking in some way and future research that could fix that. It's also where the author might connect the past to the present, and talk about how history is relevant to the present day. Well, that's how I write conclusions anyway. There's a bit more leeway, depending.

Bibliographies are you friends. Study them. Look at the titles. Look at authors mentioned. Repeat the process.

This is how it really happened. And once you know this, you truly understand how revolting Assassin's Creed Unity's version is, and that it's purposefully switching the roles upside down to further vilify the Robespierrists and Jacobins. The idea that some people might not question Assassin's Creed Unity's version and accept it as truth fills me with immense sadness and disgust. Robespierrist men never whipped women, and it was Marat who saved Théroigne de Méricourt from other women.

From: François Gendron, The Gilded Youth of Thermidor, p. 21-29.

Content warning: sexualized violence against women, specifically political opponents.

I was having a lot of thoughts about this topic, so here we go.

Yes, a blurb on the official Panthéon website says the figure on a horse is General Hoche.

Here's a shocking truth: sometimes even official websites make mistakes.

It's quite possible the source for the Panthéon blurb is the 1911 news clipping found by @robespapier:

Here's another shocking mistake: journalists make mistakes too.

Look what he wrote:

The general on a horse is Hoche, as beautiful as a god, with his thoughtul brow and his poet eyes [...]

It's stated as evidence but it's actually his assumption. Nowhere does it say "Sicard told me so". It's the journalist's interpretation. And his interpretation is extremely bizarre because throughout the 19th century, starting all the way back to Michelet, this kind of description - "as beautiful as a god, with his thoughtul brow and his poet eyes" - matches Saint-Just.

François-Léon Sicard (1862-1934) lived his entire life fed with the romantic imagery of the French Revolution used by the Third Republic where Saint-Just became the quintessential Representative on Mission:

When it comes to a monumental statue meant to represent the spirit of the Convention nationale, you have to factor several things where myth-making and legend collide with an accurate representation of history.

Yes, one side represents the deputies and the other the military. However, the Convention nationale DID NOT heroize generals. They put the military under direct control of the Convention.

Now, is it more likely to be a general or a representative on mission?

At first glance, if you see a figure on a horse surrounded by soldiers, you'll conclude it's a general. With superficial aesthetics in mind, Hoche could fit the bill.

Hoche was important - but was it enough, among all the generals, to choose him to be represented here?

We can't know what Sicard thought, but we know his monument is meant to represent the Convention nationale. It's specifically designed to honor the legislative assembly, its members, and the triumphs achieved under its direct governance. Hoche was never a member of the Convention. He was a soldier. Moreover, choosing him among other generals might cause controversies.

It's just as likely to be depicting a Representative on Mission, as the extension of the legislative will (on the left) and of the Republic (in the middle) who is guiding the troops to victory. Because the Representatives on Mission were members of the Convention. They were part of the military machine but only as the necessary civilian/legislative supervision.

That's for the symbolism.

Next, when you study the actual iconography, you see that it's clearly not Hoche:

Note that the first image is Hoche's statue in the Panthéon, which is right next to the monument.

So, is it Saint-Just? We can't know for sure, but based on iconographical cues, it's possible. Why Saint-Just? Because of how he built his own legend on mission that Michelet then cemented to our very days.

However, here's an alternative explanation that can satisfy everyone:

The figure on a horse might be both.

He might be meant to be a Generic General or a Generic Representative on Mission. It might be intentional that you can choose to interpret him as either Hoche or Saint-Just. Because depictions of the French Revolution, especially state-sponsored ones, have always been extremely controversial, prone to scandal and polarization. Example: the Bicentenial movie.

French Republican memory has always been a fierce political and emotional battle. The ambiguity might be specifically designed to reconcile both types of Republicans - those who glorify the generals and those who celebrate the representatives on mission - rather than divide. It's very possible that this debate we're having is written in the very origin of the monument itself. That Sicard never said who it was, the journalist assumed it was Hoche, and Sicard didn't correct him. We might never know, unless we find a document by Sicard that identifies the figures exactly.

Anne Quennedey talks about it on her blog about Saint-Just:

Le 30 juillet dernier a eu lieu au Panthéon la commémoration en l’honneur de Robespierre, de Saint-Just et des autres victimes du coup d’État du 9 Thermidor en II (27 juillet 1794). Cette manifestation s’est tenue devant le Monument à la Convention nationale, autrement appelé Autel républicain, érigé en 1913 par François-Léon Sicard à l’emplacement où Soufflot souhaitait installer l’autel religieux.

L’Autel républicain réunit une vingtaine de personnages autour d’une sculpture allégorique coiffée d’un bonnet phrygien et tenant un sabre qui figure la Convention. À sa droite, un groupe de députés, parmi lesquels on reconnaît Maximilien Robespierre, prête serment. À sa gauche, Sicard a évoqué les soldats de l’an II et les victoires militaires de la Première République contre les rois coalisés. Il a sculpté un groupe de soldats précédés de deux tambours que surplombe un homme à cheval couramment identifié à Saint-Just [1]. Le jeune Conventionnel, on le sait, mena de l’automne 1793 à l’été 1794 plusieurs missions aux armées en Alsace puis dans le Nord de la France, missions qui aboutirent à des victoires dont la plus célèbre est celle de Fleurus le 26 juin 1794. Dans l’imaginaire collectif, ses missions aux armées ont conduit à associer Saint-Just à l’équitation, ainsi qu’en témoignent d’autres œuvres des XIXe et XXe siècles comme cette gravure de Paul Jonnard-Pacel que mon amie Louise répertorie sur son site Internet, ou encore une chromolithographie de 1905 par Frédéric Regamey conservée à la Bibliothèque universitaire de Strasbourg. Sur cette dernière œuvre, Saint-Just est l’homme à cheval au second plan dont l’assise très droite rappelle celle du cavalier de l’Autel républicain édifié quelques années plus tard.

[1] Voir, par exemple, Ralph Korngold, Saint-Just, Grasset, 1937, p. 11.

TRANSLATION

On July 30 [2022], a commemoration was held at the Panthéon in honor of Robespierre, Saint-Just, and the other victims of the coup d’état of 9 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794). The event took place in front of the Monument to the National Convention, also known as l’Autel républicain [the Republican Altar], erected in 1913 by François-Léon Sicard on the site where Soufflot had intended to place the religious altar.

L’Autel républicain depicts about twenty figures gathered around an allegorical sculpture wearing a Phrygian cap and holding a saber, representing the Convention. To its right, a group of deputies—among whom Maximilien Robespierre can be recognized—is taking an oath. To its left, Sicard depicted the soldiers of Year II and the military victories of the First Republic against the coalition of kings. He sculpted a group of soldiers led by two drummers, overlooked by a man on horseback commonly identified as Saint-Just [1]. As is well known, the young member of the Convention led several missions to the armies in Alsace and then in northern France from the fall of 1793 to the summer of 1794; these missions resulted in victories, the most famous of which was that of Fleurus on June 26, 1794. In the collective imagination, his missions to the armies have led to Saint-Just being associated with horseback riding, as evidenced by other works from the 19th and 20th centuries, such as this engraving by Paul Jonnard-Pacel that my friend Louise lists on her website, or a 1905 chromolithograph by Frédéric Regamey held at the University Library of Strasbourg. In this latter work, Saint-Just is the man on horseback in the background, whose very upright posture is reminiscent of that of the horseman on the l’Autel républicain, erected a few years later.

[1] See, for example, Ralph Korngold, Saint-Just, Grasset, 1937, p. 11.

What this tells is that by the time Sicard created the monument, Saint-Just had become strongly associated in the collective imagination with the figure of the representative on mission leading the armies of Year II to victory.

Her friend Louise is most certainly the one named either Louise Antoinette Tuil or Louise Ampilova-Tuil who she frequently collaborates with on articles, like the one on his books and the one on his apartments, and the website the most well-known currently on Saint-Just (in French). Indeed, her website also identifies the Man on the Horse as Saint-Just. Not only that, they both work with the Association pour la sauvegarde de la Maison de Saint-Just, Quennedey as president and Tuil as secretary.