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.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-10-31 11:38 pm (UTC)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.)