Charles Nodier/sources

[citoyenneclark.livejournal.com]

Hi! So I'm working on a paper about Saint-Just, (specifically the myths and his portrayal in the Black Book, how they are historically accurate, or not, and what historians think about SJ.) Yes...all this in 6 pages. (in one week) but don't get me started. Firstly, I was wondering if anyone knew where to find a full version of Charles Nodier's text about SJ. Historians seem to use bits and pieces, but I can't find the full version. (Is it in his/Alexander Dumas book the blue and the white?)

Secondly, I was wondering if any of you could suggest thermidorian sources, and sympathetic sources on SJ? I've decided/was assigned to divided the paper into 2 main parts, the things that the movie gets right, and the things they get wrong.

As for getting vaguely correct:
They portray SJ as a man of action
And show him to be a natty dresser/vanity

For the incorrect:
he's a bloodthirsty, sadistic kitten kicker
He's Robespierre's henchman
He's the life of the party.

I'm planning to use Curtis's book to disprove the henchman part. The issue is that a lot of the sources and antidotes on SJ, specifically about the EVIL! part, are all either really biased, or just bizare. And that goes for both sides of the debate. I'm thinking of using Gateau's writing about him, after he was executed, but that's a suspect piece also, and defiantly not impartial.

Currently I'm using Thompson's Leaders of the French Revolution, Palmer, and Hampson's books. Do you think this is even possible? >_<
Thanks everyone. Input is much much much appreciated.

Edit: seems spellcheck autmomatically changed Nodier's spelling. Fixed that.thanks!

Comments

[francoisejeanne.livejournal.com]

Hi! I suppose you spelled the name incorrectly. Isn't it Nodier?
I don't know much about the text you mentioned, but it seems there is something on Google Books. Here's the link: http://books.google.com/books?id=UHpBAAAAYAAJ&hl=fr&pg=PA319#v=onepage&q&f=false
I hope this is what you're looking for.

Salut et fraternité,

FJ

[citoyenneclark.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. How reliable would you consider Nodier to be source wise? I've noticed that historians use him frequently, but wasn't he around 12 when he actually saw SJ?
Thanks!

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

He was 12 or 14. (I think it depends on when he talks about the anecdote he just saw, or maybe some people attributed him another date of birth, but what I used most is 14, I believe.)

I sent you a private message on the reliability of Nodier, btw.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

What Nodier wrote on Saint-Just is divided in different places. There are two I'm thinking of right now. I don't have much time tonight as I'm going out for Halloween, but maybe tomorrow I can give you some more info...?

I'm thinking of using Gateau's writing about him, after he was executed, but that's a suspect piece also, and defiantly not impartial.

All sources on Saint-Just are "suspect", "biased", "bizarre" and "definitely not impartial". Seriously. I suggest you give up trying to ever find anything that would "seem" impartial, because if it seems impartial to you, it might not seem impartial to others. Moreover, you can't only call Gateau "suspect", as they all equally are. The best I can suggest is that you take as many different perspectives you can find and piece them together: for example, those who say Saint-Just was superior to Robespierre and hinted at getting rid of him eventually vs. those who say Saint-Just was his devoted, loyal henchman until death; those who say Saint-Just was debauched vs. those who say he was chaste/pure; those who say Saint-Just was an evil monsters vs. those who say he was a martyr for the cause, etc. You can't find anything in between. Saint-Just's personality was in extremes, and in "contradiction" (it's arguable - all human beings evolve and contradict themselves, we're not archetypes) so it's possible to think that Saint-Just almost did it "on purpose" to be remembered this way.

However, I found that Thermidorian sources said very, very little on Saint-Just. Apart from Courtois, I only have two or three other short testimonies of how he was seen:

1. The title of an engraving calling him "insolent";
2. A pamphlet-play in which he's mocked for always repeating what Robespierre said and praising him as the best of all and that everybody should think and say like him (something like that, I'll check again);
3. A pamphlet on 9-Thermidor in which he's described as a ci-devant who was pushing his own agenda.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

There are also many testimonies (most of them are there, in fact) of what his contemporaries said here: http://antoine-saint-just.fr/contemporains.html

Remember though that many - although written by Thermidorians - were written in their memoirs, when they were old men in exile in Brussels, and they might then be inspired by the new generations who produce histories on the Revolution (Thiers, Mignet) and they know about the neo-robespierriste wave of the late 1820s (it starts in 1828, more precisely) - and I suspect many of them took the quill to write their memoirs precisely because they were annoyed with the new cult to Robespierre.

[citoyenneclark.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I was wondering how many sources there were to disprove that myth. It seems that a lot of the sources paint him as a bloodthirsty tyrant. The ones that do show him with some feelings, seem to be mainly based on personal interactions. (ie: LeBas and wife, Gateau...etc) Does anyone know where that story of him pardoning the girl's father comes from? If I remember correctly, during his trip to the front, this girl comes to him, and begs for her father's release. SJ started tearing up, and after she left declared what a good man her father must have been, if he has a daughter as sweet as that. (Yeah...its rather illogical, and slightly out of character, and I'm not sure where its from.)

The trick here is, how does one go about disproving the myths of the BB, if some of them seem actually grounded in albit: bizarre sources?
Thank you so much!

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

You can quote Lejeune? Lejeune has some very in-between passages (http://antoine-saint-just.fr/paroles/lejeune.html):

Quelquefois il se montrait bon jusqu’à répandre des larmes sur le malheur d’autrui; et souvent on l’a vu cruel, jusqu’à fermer son cœur au cri le plus déchirant de la nature. Était-il vrai, quand il pleurait? étais-ce par instinct qu’il commettait des cruautés?

I don't know of the anecdote you speak of - was it in an English-written book? That wouldn't surprise me so much, because there are anecdotes that only appear, somehow, in English. It's very bizarre. In any case, that seems like a usual topos - it looks like it was built from a text by Plutarch. That sort of anecdote was very common. However, there are other similar anecdotes in Nodier - I think it was a soldier that Saint-Just wanted to get executed for his insolence, but Le Bas convinced him to release him, because the soldier was only being zealous (like you-know-who *wink wink*). There are, really, plenty of anecdotes like that around. There is one - that one, I'm not sure where it's from, but Jean-Pierre Gross talks about it in an article he wrote on Saint-Just's myths - where Saint-Just took with him a young orphan boy who had lost his parents in the war, gave him clothes and a meal, and felt good about helping him. Something like that.

However, the anecdote you talk about is hardly what I would consider illogical or out of character: it's logical for the period to believe that if a person is good, their parents must be good as well because they raised them well. It's illogical for us, but not for them. Moreover, it's in character if you consider the other anecdotes I just talked about, like the one with the orphan boy, or even what Lejeune says above. They would generally be very indulgent towards young women, young widows and children (la veuve et l'orphelin...) but very severe towards soldiers and officers. Saint-Just was no exception: there are decrees he signed during his missions that show a great support towards those groups, and it's entirely in character with the emprunt of 100 000 livres from the rich that Saint-Just and Le Bas ordered in Strasbourg:

15 brumaire an II [5 novembre 1793]
Les Représentants arrêtent que le maire de Strasbourg fera délivrer dans le jour 100 000 livres provenant de l'emprunt des riches, entre les sections de ladite ville pour être employées à soulager les patriotes indigents, les veuves et les enfants orphelins des soldats morts pour la cause de la liberté.

15 brumaire an II [5 novembre 1793]
Le maire de Strasbourg délivrera la somme de 300 livres à la citoyenne Suzanne Didier veuve d'un soldat mort pour la liberté.

[...]

16 brumaire an II [6 novembre 1793]
Aux maire et officiers municipaux de Saint-Benoît, district de Rambervillers:
Citoyens - La femme et les enfants de Jean Richard, soldat au 14e bataillon des Vosges et votre concitoyen, sont dans le besoin. Privés de leur soutien que la loi et la défense de la patrie retiennent sous le drapeau, ils ne peuvent attendre que de leur commune les secours qui leur sont nécessaires. L'humanité et la loi vous font devoir de les leur faire donner. Vous sentirez qu'il serait horrible que la famille d'un défenseur de la patrie fût exposée aux atteintes de la faim et à la rigueur de la saison dans laquelle nous entrons. Vous viendrez à son secours, et cet acte de générosité et de fraternité sera transmis par nous à la Convention nationale. Nous espérons qu'au reçu de la présente vous nous mettrez en état de rassurer le citoyen Richard sur le sort de sa femme et de ses enfants.

(If you have or get your hands on Saint-Just's Oeuvres, published by Miguel Abensour, it's p. 924 and 930-931.)


What's "BB"?


P.S. I suggest you really stop using "bizarre" to qualify sources? Yes, okay, so they are sometimes very weird and wtf-y, but they make sense for the period they were written in. (If obviously you meant that in the weird and wtf-y sense, dismiss what I just said. It's just that you keep on repeating that they are "bizarre" while I just said in my previous comment that they all are anyway, which pretty much disqualifies this "analysis" of them.)

[citoyenneclark.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was using bizarre cause that sounded slightly better than wtf-y. In particular I was thinking of the source that said that SJ's pants were made out of the skin of humans...

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, that anecdote - can you believe that I never, ever read it in French? It seems to be very popular in English though. From what I read - I admit I didn't read all the Thermidorian pamphlets evar - I didn't find any Thermidorian speaking of those breeches-made-of-human-skin - and you know, with all the creepiness mentioned by Courtois, he might have as well talked about that. (Although I admit I lack one of the reports of Courtois, that I couldn't put my hands on. Maybe it's in this one, I don't know.) From what I can see from what I read, however, is that this anecdote circulated in very royalist texts (and thus it's logical the republican Thermidorians wouldn't mention it) which would also explain why they were, very early on, translated in English. Unless proven otherwise and given the proof it came from the Thermidorians too, I stick to that for now.

However, Georges Duval talks about the breeches-made-of-human-skin and the tannerie Meudon... but he only says that, um, Le Bas for example worn them. Of all people - Le Bas, really? Since Georges Duval is very catholic, a former member of the Jeunesse dorée, and probably went full-royalist during the Restauration (as his generation and age-group did), I wouldn't be too surprised that he took it from royalist sources.