#frev compilation

For Fréron’s father Élie Fréron praising one of Collot d’Herbois’ plays, see this post.

For the relationship between Desmoulins and Charles Lambrechts, see a letter to the former from the latter dated September 12 1781, cited in Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république (2018) page 28-29: ”[Your successes make me encourage you] to make the final efforts to overcome the small natural defect of which you complain, and which must embarrass you much more in France than it would embarrass you in this country, where people hardly plead verbally, and where in all genres people look much more at the substance than at the form; I urge you, however, not to be discouraged on this side and I dare to predict that with constancy you will overcome all obstacles; you will imitate Demosthenes in this.”

For the relationship between Desmoulins and Lucile Duplessis’ mother, see this post.

For Lucile Desmoulins and Sylvain Maréchal’s relationship, see Lucile’s diary from 1788.

For Hérault de Séchelles and Michel Lepeletier being childhood friends, see the Convention session of December 29 1793 (Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, number 100, page 404), during which Hérault is recorded to have said: ”I who, in the world, have never had more than one close friend since the age of six. Here he is! Michel Lepeletier, oh you from whom I have never parted, you whose virtue was my model, you who like me was the target of parliamentary hatred, happy martyr!”

For Billaud-Varennes serving as Danton’s secretary in 1787, see Billaud-Varenne, membre du Comité de salut public: mémoires inédits et correspondance (1893) page 21. See also Notes de Topino-Lebrun, juré au Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris sur le procès de Danton et sur Fouquier-Tinville (1875) page 19, according to which Danton during his trial would have stated: ”Billaud-Varennes doesn’t forgive me for having been my secretary.”

For Brissot and Pétion being childhood friends, see Discours de Jérôme Pétion sur l’accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre (1792) page 16: ”I’ve known [Brissot] since his childhood. I’ve seen him in these moments where the soul completely shows itself.”

For Barbaroux taking an optics course under Marat, see Mémoires inédits de Charles Barbaroux, député a la Convention nationale (1822), page 57.

For Brissot and Marat’s relationship pre-revolution, see Mémoires de Brissot, volume 1, page 346-361, as well as a letter from Brissot to Marat dated June 6 1782 and a letter from Marat to Brissot dated 1783.

For Brissot’s relationship with the Rolands pre-revolution, see a letter from Brissot to M. Roland dated June 24 1787, and an undated one from Brissot to Mme Roland, as well as Mémoires de Madame Roland, volume 2, page 358.

For the relationship between Brissot, Clavière and Mirabeau, see Mémoires de Brissot, volume 2, page 23-24 and 28-33, as well as a letters from Mirabeau to Brissot dated 11 August 1783 and 15 July 1786and a letter from Brissot to Mirabeau dated July 1786.

For the relationship between Brissot and Lafayette, see a letter from Lafayette to Washington in favor of Brissot dated May 25 1788, and number 659 (May 29 1791) of Brissot’s journal Le Patriote Français: ”I saw Lafayette before the revolution.”

For the relationship between Madame de Genlis and Brissot, see Mémoires inédites de Madame la comptesse de Genlis, volume 4, page 106-110, as well as this letter dated June 1783 from Félicité Brissot to Félicité Genlis.

For Condorcet objecting to Brissot’s imprisonment in the Bastille in 1784, see Mémoires de Brissot, volume 1, page 348: ”I owed my freedom also to the warmth of a few precious friends who offered to vouch for me at the price of their own liberty; I also owed it to the almost universal outcry from men of letters, even those I scarcely knew at the time, who, convinced of the austerity of my principles and morals, denounced as slander the composition of the pamphlets attributed to me and loudly demanded the end of my captivity. Thus, not only did the friends I mentioned in these memoirs give me proof of their devotion, but I also received marks of interest from a host of other people who were then almost strangers to me, such as Condorcet, with whom I have since had so many honorable relations.”

For Brissot and Gabriel Vaugeois being college comrades, see Mémoires de Brissot, volume 1, page 34: ”I have yet not spoken of Vaugeois, he was one of my college comrades, who had de la solidité dans l’esprit and love for the sciences.”

For the relationship between Prieur de la Côte d’Or and Guyton-Morveau, see Prieur de la Côte d’Or(1946) by Georges Bouchard, page 54, 62.

I wasted my time preaching the republic. The republic and democracy are now down, and it is unfortunate for an author to shout in the desert and to write pages as worthless, as little listened to, as the motions of J. F. Maury. Since I despair of overcoming insurmountable currents, tied for six months to the bench of rowers, perhaps I would do well to regain the shore, and throw away a useless oar. I should leave Garnery, continue writing Révolutions de France et de Brabant at a discount, without attempting with my librarian, the unequal struggle of Tournon with Prudhomme. But I hear Robespierre call my discouragement corruption, and exclaim that I am sold like the others to the King's wife and to the ministerial party. I must undeceive my dear Robespierre, I must give new proofs of my incorruptibility every week, show that I am as proud a republican as he is, and that when the number of patriots, which is diminishing prodigiously every day, would be reduced to one or two citizens, it is I who would like to remain the last of the Jacobins. […] How is it that I was accused of being a sold-out journalist, and that I saw Robespierre and L... among my slanderers, when it is so difficult to find proofs of corruption against me? Robespierre et L ... […] So I could not have my neck wrapped in a handkerchief and complain of esquinancia without being reproached for argyrancia as well. Ungrateful Robespierre! Desmoulins in number 27 (May 31 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant

M. Malouet: …Is Camille-Desmoulins innovative? He will justify himself. Is he guilty? I will be the accuser of him and of all those who take up his defense. Let him justify himself, if he dares. (A voice rises from the stands: Yes, I dare. A part of the surprised assembly rises; the rumor spreads in the assembly that it is M. Camille Desmoulins who has spoken; the president gives the order to arrest the individual who uttered these words.)  N…: I ask that we deliberate beforehand on this arrest.  M. Robespierre: I believe that the provisional order given by the President was indispensable; but must you confuse imprudence and inconsideration with crime? He heard himself accused of a crime against the Nation, it is difficult for a sensitive man to remain silent. It cannot be supposed that he intended to disrespect the Legislative Body. Humanity agrees with justice, pleads in its favour. I ask for his release, and that we move on to the agenda.  [The president annonces that M. Camille Desmoulins has escaped and can’t be arrested. The Assembly pass onto the order of the day.] Session of the National Assembly, August 2 1790

Not that I idolize J.J. as I did in the past, since I saw in his Confessions that he had become an aristocrat in his old age. How far he was from looking at an Alexander with the pride of this Cynic, to whom he is compared, and how painfully I saw that he united the opposite faults of Diogenes and Arisippus! It is a pleasant thing to hear the author of the Social Contract protest in his Confessions about the simplicity of the commerce of such great lords (M. and Madame de Luxembourg) he cries with joy, he wants to kiss the feet of this good marshal, because he wanted to accompany one of his friends, an office clerk, for a walk. Is there anything smaller, more ridiculous? I received, he says elsewhere, the greatest honor that a man can receive, the visit of the Prince de Conti, (an honor that Rousseau shared with all the girls of the Palais-Royal.) At this point I tossed away the book out of spite, and I admit, that I had to reread the speech on equality of conditions, and Julie's novel, in order to not hate the philosopher of Geneva, like Durosoy and Mallet du Pan; for the same principles, in the mouth of such a great man, are more condemnable and worthy of aversion than in the mouths of our two gazetteers, whom God created poor in spirit, and predestined as such to the kingdom of heaven. Desmoulins in number 55 (December 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant

You are right to take the step of seniority over me, and disdainfully call me ”young man,” since it is 24 years since Voltaire made fun of you. Desmoulins responding to Marat in number 76 (May 9 1791) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant

Robespierre the younger was called the great howler, the national bellower. Desmoulins said: Ducos' least gesture is an epigram, and the very sound of young Robespierre's voice is foolish. Desmoulins said of the opinions put forward by Robespierre the younger in the rostrum that they always came from the throat, never from the head.  Note written by Edme-Bonaventure Courtois, cited in Camille Desmoulins and his wife; passages from the history of the Dantonists founded upon new and hitherto unpublished documents(1878) by Jules Claretie, p. 458.

After Legendre, the member of the Convention who has the highest opinion of himself is Saint-Just. One can see by his gait and bearing that he looks upon his own head as the corner-stone of the Revolution, for he carries it upon his shoulders with as much respect and as if it was the Sacred Host. But what makes his vanity killing is, that some years ago he published an epic poem in twenty-four cantos entitled Argant [sic]. Rivarol and Champcenetz, from whose microscope, used in the interests of the Almanach des grands hommes, not a single verse, not a single hemistich in France has ever escaped, have in vain gone searching for this; they who have hunted up even the least little scrap of literature have not seen Saint-Just’s epic poem in twenty-four cantos. After such a misadventure, how can he show himself? Lettre de Camille Desmoulins, député de Paris à la Convention, August général Dillon en prison aux Madelonettes (1793) page 52.

Robespierre: Camille's writings are to be condemned, no doubt; but nevertheless it is necessary to distinguish the person from his works. I consent freedom to treat Desmoulins like a spoiled child who had happy dispositions, and who has been led astray by bad company. His head sometimes wanders, but his talents are precious. […] I end by asking that his numbers be treated like the aristocrats who buy them, with the contempt that profanity deserves. I propose to the Society to burn them in the middle of the room (There is applause several times; Robespierre's speech was interrupted by applause and bursts of laughter).  Desmoulins: That's very well said, Robespierre, but I'll answer you like Rousseau: "To burn is not to answer."  Robespierre: How dare you still want to justify works that delight the aristocracy? Learn, Camille, that if you were not Camille, one could not have so much indulgence for you. Robespierre and Desmoulins at the Jacobins January 7 1794

[The Enragés] reduced to silence the estimable citoyennes whom the love of the public good had led there, they entrusted the scepter to the hands of some female Demosthenes, inspired by these English and Austrian sylphs. Their primary occupation is to cry out for famine, to push the people into despair, to denounce the imperturbable friends of liberty. They are the ones who came in the wake of Jacques Roux and Leclerc, to insult the Mountain and the Jacobins, to insult and threaten the representatives of the people. They are responsible for teaching the universe that modesty is a prejudice, that the distinction between the talents and occupations of the two sexes is nothing other than an invention of the aristocracy; that men must abandon the tribune and the seats of the senate to women; and all men's clubs must appear before the tribunal of revolutionary presidents. Porcia was only an imbecile, with her virtue revered in Rome; she should have played the role of Cato. Cornelia only played a vulgar role, instructing her sons, still children, to defend the rights of the people; Cornelia should have mounted the rostrum for harangues: instead of offering their jewels to the homeland; they will not cry out when they learn of their glorious death: I had given birth to him to serve the homeland; this merit is too vulgar; they are sterile like vice; but on the other hand, they will declaim against the founders of the republic, and slander the representatives of the people. Such is the sublime instrument that the agents of the enemies of the homeland keep in reserve to incite trouble if necessary, at the first moment of embarrassment or disaster with which the republic would be threatened. Rapport écrit de la main de Robespierre, sur la faction de l’étranger, cited in Pièces trouvées dans les papiers de Robespierre et complices (24 September 1794).

M. Le Bas continued to come assiduously to my parents’ home. One evening, he seemed sad to me, he who, until then, had always showed himself to be so cheerful and so happy with me. He was worried and a bit cold. I wanted to know the cause of this change and asked him whether he was still ill; he replied that he was not but that something he had learned recently had much afflicted him; he hesitated to confide it to me; however I insisted and I then learned from him that a man of his acquaintance had abused me to him, and had strongly discouraged him from marrying me, seeking to make him believe that I had had lovers and that one of them ought to marry me. […] He saw my distress and finally named Guffroy [as the calumniator]; he was a printer and bookseller. Memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas. In Les secrets de Joseph Lebon et de ses complices… (1795) page 116, Guffroy admitted that he had attempted to stop the marriage between Lebas and Élisabeth, writing: ”This young man (Lebas) for whom I had held esteem, and whom I had sometimes kept company during an illness, stopped seeing me when I saw him assiduously frequenting Hébert and David; and when I told him the truth about Duplay's daughter whom he married despite the truthful stories I told him.” 

Philippe had, it seems, learned from a certain source many things on the conduct of this young person (Guffroy’s daughter), and even knew that she was pregnant, having had a liaison with her father’s master printer. He replied therefore bad-temperedly: “Guffroy, you wish me too well; I thank you for the ill you have told me of Mlle Duplay, but I want to be the father only of children of my own making.” Guffroy, furious at this refusal, would later put all his effort into troubling our happiness, but he did not succeed. The pregnancy of his daughter was only too certain, for she had her lying-in four months after my marriage. Memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas

Shall we speak here of a society of fallen women, picked up from the dregs of Paris, whose audacity is matched only by their shamelessness, female monsters possessing all the cruelty of weakness and all the vices of their sex? The mere sight of them inspires horror. These women played a major role in the 1793 revolution. An old Parisian hussy commands them, and their daggers belong to whoever knows best how to wield them. It seems that Lacombe, their leader, has seized considerable power; and in the debates brewing between Robespierre and his allies, and Danton and his, this shameless woman might well tip the scales in favor of the party she chooses to support. To what excess of infamy have the French people been led! It could be that, in the end, upon closer examination, the French armies fought, the Assembly of the nation was dishonored, the public fortune was destroyed, and the entire Republic was stained with French blood, only through the intrigues of the most hideous hussies of Paris.  Memoirs of Buzot, cited in Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot & de Barbaroux (1866), page 72.

The femme or fille Lacombe is finally in prison, and unable to do harm. This counter-revolutionary Bacchante now drinks only water; we know that she loved wine very much, that she loved food and men no less, as evidenced by the close fraternity that reigned between her, Jacques Roux, Leclerc, and company, etc. Feuille du Salut Public, 24 September 1793. 

This is the truth of what happened between Mr. Chabot and me, he said he had witnesses, I must name them. Upon entering his house, I first saw the vile companion of his disordered life. Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la société des Républicaines Révolutionnaires (fall 1793). The ”vile companion” Lacombe talks about here is probably Chabot’s 16 year old Austrian wife Léopoldine.

That despotism, fanaticism, pride, avarice lavishing gold and promises, arm the hands of a multitude of men without confession, without family, without homeland, this we have often had examples of since the [beginning of] the revolution. But that a weak and timid sex, stripping away at the same time the two feelings which are most essential to its being: fear and pity, arms its feeble hands against its fellow citizens, its friends, its brothers, its defenders; that one see women assembled in a public square, calling men to fight, provoking some, inciting others, ordering murder and setting an example! [---] Once again, it is the corruption of morals which today produces the anti-civility of women, formerly noble. Well! how could they not fear to cross, at one point, the limits of their sex, they who have stripped all sense of modesty? How would they blush to add hypocrisy to so many even more shameful vices? Chaste women are timid, lost women are bold, daring, cruel.  Adresse aux femmes de Monteauban par Mme Robert, ci-devant Melle de Kéralio (1790)

I saw for a moment when [the jacobin club] was composed of only three members of the National Assembly and twenty to thirty other citizens. Terror had dispersed the rest; it had dispersed several of the men who now play the leading roles there. Of the three members of the Assembly, one was little known. Robespierre, whose reputation was rooted in patriotism, nevertheless did not enjoy the kind of esteem that wisdom and moderation in the conduct of public affairs confer. I saw Robespierre trembling, Robespierre wanting to flee, Robespierre not daring to show himself before the Assembly... Ask him if I trembled. Discours de Jérôme Petion sur l'accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre (November 1792), on Robespierre following the founding of the Feuillant club in July 1791.

Eh! What can one imagine that is too cruel from a scoundrel who caused his benefactors, M. and Mme. Roland, to perish on the scaffold, they who saved him after the event on the Champs-de-Mars, who risked everything to save his execrable life, who induced me, whose disinterestedness and, dare I say, virtuous character they knew, to sacrifice my reputation to the point of throwing myself into the Feuillans, to protect Robespierre from the blind anger of the enemies of the Republic: blind, I said; for the vile scoundrel was innocent of the generous movement that had arisen against Louis XVI. He trembled like a leaf shaken by the winds, and his little soul was as incapable of braving an obvious danger as of conceiving a project useful to the liberty of his country. What Madame and Monsieur Rolland wanted from me, I could have done for Pétion, but never for Robespierre, whom I despised with all my might. Mémoires sur la Révolution française, par Buzot, député à la Convention nationale (1828), page 163-164.

[Claire Lacombe] would have said one day, speaking with Lemoce about the members of the Committee of General Security: ”these blancs-becs must be made to tremble.” Another time, following a visit to the Committee of Public Safety, she would have told her that the representatives on mission in the departments had been enriching themselves there. After Lamoce observed the fact Robespierre had never gone on mission she responded: ”He is too cowardly and too afraid for his life. Did you notice how pale he was when I spoke to him? Fear was written all over his face." Denounciation against Claire Lacombe dated May 28 1794, cited in Trois femmes de la Révolution: Olympe de Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe (1900) by Léopold Lacour, page 412.

Often Carnot had threatened [Robespierre] point-blank, putting his fist under his nose; one evening Robespierre, a little too sharply attacked by Carnot, felt ill or pretended to feel ill.  Dictionnaire néologique des hommes et des choses, ou Notice alphabétique des personnes des deux sexes, des événemens... (1799) by Beffroy de Reigny, volume 3, p. 11.

Collot d’Herbois still remained his hold on Robespierre’s coat-collar. As I had at that very moment left the Convention on my way to the committee, I became a chance spectator of this fearful scene, whose violence was still not the greatest crime in my eyes. Behind it stood revealed the plot of premeditated vengeance, far worse than a mere outburst of anger. I was among those who compelled Collot d’Herbois to release his hold on Robespierre, who thereupon declared that he could no longer sit with his enemies, styling them a party of septemvirs, whom he would unmask and fight in the body of the Convention. He then took his departure, in spite of the entreaties of the entreaties of the committee, which, having been unable to conquer, sought to retain him in its midst. ”Let him go his way,” I said to those surrounding him. All my interest in him lay in the fact that I did not wish to see him strangled on the spot by a stronger man, and one perhaps as wicked as himself. I followed him for a short distance in order to see him safely home; he was trembling as he walked alone.  Memoirs of Barras, Member of the Directorate (1895), volume 1, page 196-198.

Porcia and Cornélie must be your models, as I have always invoked the soul of Brutus and that of Cato. I leave with you a precious stem, worthy of the Republic; you owe yourself entirely to the education of this interesting being. Communicate to him your soul and mine; the examples of his father will lead him to virtue. When he is old enough to be able to rise to sublime ideas, fill him with the feeling of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. This consoling dogma is the only refuge of withered and oppressed freedom. I hope that the Republic will then be well established; for I believe it to be imperishable, despite all the horrors with which it is defiled. Let him content himself with saying: My father contributed with all his being to cement the happiness of his fellow men. But no resentment or revenge against my oppressors; will they not be punished enough by their remorse?  Philippeaux in his last letter to his wife, April 4 1794. Their son Auguste was 6,5 years old at the time of his father’s execution on April 5 1794.

i find myself in the most cruel situation imaginable. I throw myself into the arms of Providence, I don’t have hope that it will save me. I embrace you a thousand times my dearest wife;  I embrace my son; my last wishes are for you; that he remembers his father.  Pétion in his last letter to his wife (letter undated). Their son Louis Étienne Jérôme was 10,5 years old at the time of his father’s suicide in late June 1794. Pétion also wrote an entire epistle dedicated to his son, where he gives him some fatherly advice and tells him to avenge him.

When you receive this letter, my good friend, I will live only in the memory of those who love me. What a burden I leave you, three children, and nothing to help raise them! However, it is one of my consolations to think that you will want to live well because of your innocent family. My friend, I know your sensitivity, I like to believe that you will give bitter tears to the memory of a man who wanted to make you happy, who made his main pleasure the education of his two sons and his beloved daughter; but, could you neglect to think that your second thought belongs to them? They can at least, by their innocent caresses, take the place of those that I can no longer give you. […] My friend, contain your sorrows, and inspire in my children only modest virtues; it is so difficult to do good for one's country! […] Kiss my children, love them, raise them; console yourself, console my mother, my family. Farewell! Farewell forever. Salle in his last letter to his wife, June 18 1794. I have been unable to discover how old his three children were at the time of his execution on June 19.

I immediately abandoned the coach to run to my husband; all three of us walked in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville. On the way he exhorted me to return home, made me a thousand recommendations on the subject of our son, prayed me not to make him hate his father’s assassins: “Nourish him with your milk,” he said; “inspire him with the love of his homeland; tell him that his father died for it; farewell, my Élisabeth, farewell!” Then I had to separate from him. His last words to me were: “Live for our dear son; inspire him with noble sentiments, you are worthy of them. Farewell, farewell!” And I never saw him again… Memoirs of Élisabeth Le Bas (written in the 1840s). Their son Philippe was six weeks old at the time of his father’s suicide on July 28 1794.

You would surprise me greatly if misfortune had not yet enlarged your soul. What does the fate that awaits me matter, provided that I know how to honor it by my firmness? Any feeling other than love of the homeland must be banished from our hearts at this moment; how many things you will have to tell one day to Pauline and to the child you have just brought into the world! Redouble your efforts to preserve yourself for them, and to transmit to them the sacred fire of virtue with which we are inflamed. Joseph Le Bon in a letter to his wife Élisabeth ”Mimie”, November 9 1794. Their children, Pauline and Émile, were 2 and 1 years old at the time of their father’s execution on October 10 1795.