revolution_fr | Robespierre: derniers temps (2ed.)

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Robespierre: derniers temps (2ed.)

I am sorry if someone already posted about this book, I did not find anything in the tag.
A couple of months ago I finished to read the new edition of Robespierre, derniers temps by J.Ph. Domecq, as I was curious to read about an alternative approach to historical narration. I am not an historian myself, but I am interested in history and as a writer (to-be?), historical fiction is my preferred genre.
The book is an interesting experiment, although, in my opinion, the author sets to himself a too high task; for those of you who might have not read it, it is an attempt to explain the behaviour of Robespierre in the nigh of Thermidor through what the author calls `intuition de la littérature'. The book is not completely fiction and it is constructed around quotation of various sources (primarily Robespierre's speeches), fragmented by an attempt of narrative and various thought of Domecq himself.
The experiment was at first curious, but it soon become really annoying and personally I do not think it achieved anything new; moreover the fictive portions were not enjoyable.
Furthermore at the end of the book is attached a shorter essay (La littérature comme acupuncture) about the role and the theory of historical fiction and the eventual contribution that a writer can give to a historian. It starts from a very sharp critic of another novel, Littell's Les Bienfaisants (that I personally enjoyed as a reading), to debate about the reception both in Literature and in History of Robespierre's figure.
Now, some questions for you. I was curious to know your opinion if you have read the book. Secondly, what is for you `good historical fiction'? I have read mostly discontent with fiction settled during the French Revolution, so it will be interesting to have some debate about what would be a good fiction (if it is actually possible to have one). Moreover what is the relation between (good) historical fiction and History itself, taking to account the fact that we are speaking of two really different genres with very different rules?

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I don't read the book myself and after reading your comments I don't think I would purchase this one. It sounds like a waste of money and time. I should save both, money and time for more interesting and books.

I'm writing fictional little tales about Hanriot, but when doing it, I try to make clear to persons who reads me that they are not the real thing, that this is not a biography and I don't pretend to discover Hanriot's real motivations by those writings...Sometimes I have the illusion that I know him better than historians but of course I know it ISN'T true and that this is a fantasy.

My problem with the kind of books like the Domecq's one is that they are not totally fiction and they are not totally history. A little like the cases of George Büchner's "Dantons Tod " and Stanislawa Prybyzewska (I'm writing her name straight?) "Danton's Case" and "Thermidor". Büchner and Prybyzewska believed they understood Danton's and Robespierre's inner beings, but they only put their own ideos into their heads...I suppose is pretty the same I do with Hanriot...but of course my works is by far, less impressive and less great than theirs.

I like reading GOOD historical fictions, but I know that when reading these, I end by knowing all about their authors ideas and few about real historical events and persons.

I like reading GOOD historical fictions, but I know that when reading these, I end by knowing all about their authors ideas and few about real historical events and persons.
I agree with you, although I think, no matter what the author says, this is always the case when reading a fiction, no matter what genre. The reader always stipulates a contract with the writer and agrees to suspend his/her own sense of truth while enjoying the narration; this is precisely a point where I disagree with Domecq in is essay one the literature. He postulates that if this contract is ill formulated (like in Les Bienfaisant where the narrator, which is a nazi, plays with the audience saying `if you were me, you would have had the very same behaviour', of course this is not ontologically true, but that is when your suspension of critical judgment come in), then it is not valid.
But I am digressing here, back to my point. I think fiction should be judged by its own criterion and this is a thing that most of people fashioned by history/historians tend to forget. I am a bit tired of people (it's not just something between people interested in French Revolution, it happens with Ancient History as well and probably with any area of history) claiming that that portrait of Robespierre is `not true', that Saint-Just `will never behave in that way' and Desmoulins was `not as nice as in that book' (I read this kind of critics every time I read a discussion about a historical novel). Of course it's not true, it's fiction, it's the author writing with his/her own sensibility/vision of the things (and hopefully is the author trying to convey some kind of message). What should be right to say is `I do not like it' or `It is incoherent because of..'. A bad fiction book is a book which has stylistic/narratological flaws or historical in the sense that it does not respect the macro-event (you can't write an historical novel claiming that Romans had atomic energy, of course), but criticizing the work of an author because he/she does not mirror your understanding of something is my opinion is just ...childish. Of course the reader has the right to say `I don't like his/her treatment of that character, so I won't read the book".
George Büchner's "Dantons Tod " and Stanislawa Prybyzewska (I'm writing her name straight?) "Danton's Case" and "Thermidor". Büchner and Prybyzewska believed they understood Danton's and Robespierre's inner beings, but they only put their own ideos into their heads.
I do not know enough of both writers biography to judge the peculiar case, so take my words as mere speculation. I got the impression from the reading of both works that there was much more in them about the writer's own self and his/her time than about the French Revolution, that's way I found them literary enjoyable (especially Prybyzewska, whose characters (at least some of them) are portrayed really well and are consistently working towards the plot). When a writer is claiming that `he/she knows best of inner feeling/events/etc..', my temptation is always to think that he/she is playing whit a very well-known topic to stipulate his/her contract with the reader (the same when an author claim to have found `an old manuscripts that tells the story of..'), rather than really putting him/her-self above everyone else, which is a very naif assertion.

My point is that in fiction, you tries to bring people to sgare what do you think about a character. It doesn't matter when you are speaking about a totally fictional character and using him/her to defend your point of view, but certainly it could be dangerous if you uses Robespierre to say whay YOU are wanting to say and not him.

Fiction is O.K ;fictional history is not innocent.

I don't think it's childish to beg for a little more accuracy when reading a novel about French Revolution. When you portrais Saint-Just as a bad , psychopatic character it's clear that you wants to show him that way and bring the people to think the same. Yes, you also could do that with real biographies, but your work will be harder, since you need documents to support your views. IN fictions, you just put a nasty sentence in Saint-Just mouth and the work is done...

And yes; you sure makes a "tacit contract" with the reader, but you perfectly knows that most of the readers accepts what they read as real. I've spoke with people who believes thatBabette Duplay was an idiotic and would run after every single man she would see for they've read it in "A Place pof Greater Safety" or that Saint-Just was very happy of killing Camille just for "Danton".

I never wanted an author to portrait characters exactly as I should like them, but I become mad when they lies too much. Little lies are O.K;but I didn't like big lies .

I enjoy both, Büchner and Prybyzewska, tough.

I think that taken in this perspective, your reasoning is not applicable to historical fiction only. If a writer has to consider that his reader believes what he/she says to be true, then even if you invent a character which has, for example, mental health issues and it is evil, then you will have to take into account that this could reflect to reader considering that mental health=being evil. But to which extent a writer can be charged of this responsibility and how much is the reader to be charged of the consequences of his/her own responsibility (i.e. not distinguishing between fact and fiction)?
I do not think there is any agreement on this, as every person will answer the question in a different way As far as my personal knowledge of writers go, I can say that there are (sadly) really few contemporary writers that write with such a moral intention in mind; I don't think that most of them will portray an historical figure as good or bad because they want to show him or her that way, but that just how they think that character will be functional/enjoyable for the reader (then we can discuss for hours if this approach is right or wrong -I think it is indeed very dangerous in general).

Historical accuracy is completely legitimate, what I called `childish' is when a critic is motivated by the very subjective argument that that historical figures would not have act that way because ...it does not respect my idea of that historical figure; and as far as my experience goes this seems to be the most common motivation to bring down historical fiction. I think here again comes the problem of not distinguish between fiction and fact; I am sure if, for example, bot you and I would write on the same historical character, making sure that we will stick with the facts at the best of our knowledge, we would still probably come to a very different portraits, which would both be, in my opinion, legitimate.
You can be accurate up to a certain point, but when you are writing a fiction you have other things than history to consider. For example, in my opinion the biggest flaw (one of) of Mantel's A place of greater safety is not that much in the characters, but in a ill-designed plot which simply does not work well, it is very chaotic for someone who has not a background in French Revolution and mix quotations and fiction in a really awkward way. I found his depiction of characters much more justifiable in the book than what she said, for example, in the infamous BBC documentary on the Terror where she was stepping out of her role as a writer and acting like an historian: there the whole `sit down child' line was indeed outrageous, definitely not innocent and very dangerous.
In a narrative portraying Saint-Just as the sadistic evil Lucifer firstly is a flaw in the fiction construction as the writer is just using a flat stereotype (the Villain), not creating a character, which should not be just `black' or `white'.
The risk is -and it is a question that I ask myself constantly- is that by setting paramater most fit for historical research than for fiction to prevent the possibility of any historical fiction at all.

(sorry for the long reply, English not being my native language makes explaining theoretical points more difficult).

Here, we agree completely.And maybe my problem to explain myself is that my English is not great. My replies uses to be long too, because I'm afraid of not being undrestood.

I think that the trouble could be more in the reader than in thw novelist. Sometimes, readers don't realize they are reading a fictional book, and when they read real history books they still have the fictional characters portrayed in their minds. For them, when they read about Robespierre, Maximilien will be the guy they read about in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" or "A Place of Greater safety". Of course, this is pretty common when we thinks about French Revolution movies. For some people, Camille will always be the "goody-goody" boy from "The French revolution; Years of Hope" and "Years of Rage", while for others he'll be the hysterical and childish guy from "Danton", and so on...I suppose that this problem wouldn't exist if people could read history books about French Revolution BEFORE watching fictional films or reading fictional books. Bit of course this is totally impossible. Only a desideratum.

You are right about fictional characters being 100% good or 100%, a thing that wouldn't exist in real life. But people likes to see the characters simplfied .It didn't happens only in history fiction, but in all kind of fictional narrative. In the case of real characters the only thing you need to do to show him as a bad or good person is to magnify the evil or good side of his/her personality to make his/her characterwork in the general plot.

I agree about "A Place of Greater Safety". Again, I could understand the book only for I had read historical works about French revolution before. If not, the whole thing could become very confusing indeed.

I've also watched the infamous BBC documentary in which Hilary Mantel spoke about Terror, and it was really pitiful. But it was quite useful for me too, since I understood much better why she wrote her novel the way she did.

I have Domecq's book, but I haven't read it. I heard him give an interview with J-C Martin and Alexandre Cousin on the radio recently and he didn't seem to have a very original perspective on Robespierre or the Revolution, but of course I can't judge the work itself based on that.

As for what makes a good historical novel, I'm not sure I have any absolute criterion except not to be manipulative. And I realize this is a potentially subjective criterion and it's difficult to define exactly what I mean by that, but to give an example: take the movie "Sade" (hey, it's a ficitional portrayal too). Briefly, the Robespierriste character is shown being abusive to his girlfriend, while Sade is shown as a character who is gentle with and respectful of women. While the former portrayal especially cannot be termed "inaccurate," since the character in question is fictional, I feel that it is manipulating the audience by creating a false sympathy for Sade and a false antipathy for Robespierre and his friends - false in that Saint-Just, an actual historical friend of Robespierre's, wrote that people who beat women should be banished from his ideal republic, while in Sade's ideal republic women have to be sexually available to any man at any time and don't have the right to say no, in addition to his record of sexual assault (which I think may fairly be called the antithesis of his character's implied beliefs in the film). Therefore the film is giving Sade credit for robespierriste beliefs and blaming the Robespierristes for Sade's beliefs in order to elicit sympathy for the former and antipathy towards the latter. And yes, you could argue that it's the viewer's responsibility to realize that this is just fiction and not to allow it to inform their views of Robespierre or Sade, but how many viewers who aren't historians are actually going to do that? Author's of fictions in my view, have a duty to the public not to manipulate them.

Now that we have moral imperatives out of the way, it behooves authors of historical fictions to follow much the same rules they would follow as authors of any kind of fiction: don't create one-dimensional characters or use artificial plot devices; do allow the story to grow in a plausible manner out of conflicts that arise based on the characters and the circumstances they're placed in. Without taking these guidelines into effect, no work of fiction can be considered good.

Finally, I have my own personal criteria, those which make a work of historical fiction, in particular one focusing on the Revolution, worth reading or not to me (see part 2 of this exceedingly long comment).

First, it's a pretty safe bet I'm not going to enjoy reading/watching/listening to/whatever anything counterrevolutionary. There could theoretically be an exception to this, but it would have to be very good in other respects. Of course, many counterrevolutionary works already transgress against proper literary practice, by doing things like turning Robespierre into a cardboard villain, or are simply manipulative to a greater or lesser degree.

I'm also probably not going to enjoy any fiction where the author didn't do his or her research. This one is largely self-explanatory: I study this period; I will be seriously annoyed by any fictional portrayal of it that seems to be based on having watched the History Channel documentary. This is not to say that I require perfect accuracy. There are mistakes in "City of Darkness, City of Light" (as well as places where I disagree with the interpretation, but we'll get to that) and I still think it's probably the best English language novel on the Revolution. There are plenty of inaccuracies in the movie "Les mariés de l'an II," but it's a farce and the inaccuracies were clearly deliberate changes made for the sake of humor and the plot, by authors who knew the period well enough to give a flavor of it even while diverging from a strictly accurate account, and it's one of my favorite films on the Revolution. Note, of course, that comedies of this nature are the exception to the rule about well-developed characters; all the characters in the film are stereotypes, but that's the point, and in fact, the more you know about the period, the more the portrayals of different groups become like an inside joke.

And then there's the question of interpretation. And here a distinction needs to be made between works which have an original plot, often with fictional characters, in which the Revolution is the setting, and works in which the Revolution is the plot, or a large part of it, in which the main characters are usually, but not always (think R. Margerit's La Révolution series, in which the main characters are something of a composite of various historical figures - plus the author's own perspective and characters from late 18th century novels - and take part in major historical events) actual historical figures.

In both types of novel, I think it's helpful for the author to have his or her own, plausible interpretation of events, but I think it's absolutely crucial for the latter type - or at least for my enjoyment of it. The former type can get away with simply adopting an existing interpretation and rolling with it, provided the original plot and characters are worth reading about.

Works in which the Revolution pretty much constitutes the plot have to have an original interpretation for me to consider them any good. And yes, I do mean original in the sense that one expects a historians work to be original. There is no point in my reading yet another fictionalized biography of Robespierre unless that author has an original take on his life and ideas. If you're just going to write another piece on his and Danton's dueling personalities - a trope that cliché and dull from a literary perspective as well as, in my view, a poor interpretation of the historical events of the fall of the factions - no one has any reason to read you, if only because that's already been done to death.

The only real reason to write a fictionalized account of historical figures' lives, as far as I'm concerned, is if you're going to come up with a new interpretation from the point of view of a genre that allows for speculation, as history usually does not. A novelist has far more leeway to fill in gaps in the historical record than a historian does. Historical fiction of this kind, at its best, is a kind of thought experiment and should ideally be as meticulously researched and thought out as works of non-fictional history. When this happens, the two genres can complement each other. Take for example, the famous question of whether Robespierre was shot or attempted suicide. The historian has to acknowledge both possibilities, discuss the reasons for believing one or the other and review the historiography even if his or her interpretation ultimately comes down on one side or the other, and his or her analysis can also only employ that which has actually been documented and survived to the historian's time. The novelist, on the other hand, can illustrate one theoretical possibility, employing thoughts and actions that could theoretically been taken - that is, that do not openly contradict the historical record - and which might explain why things might have gone one way or another, but on which the historical record is silent. Thermidor itself is another, even better example of how fictional accounts can complement historical accounts; it seems obvious that the session of the Convention of 9 Thermidor was plotted in advance, but as F. Brunel points out, the historical record doesn't tell us much of anything about that. A novel could speculate about how that happened. And one could multiply the examples: what was actually discussed at CSP meetings? A history can't tell us, but a novel could come up with a plausible speculation.

In other words, there are certain tools open to the author of fiction which the historian can't use and I will get annoyed with any author who does not make use of them. I will respect any author who works in this way, whether or not I agree with his or her interpretation, just as I respect any rigorous historian whether or not I agree with his or her interpretation. Which is not to say that this can't be abused - there are certainly implausible things that can be inserted into a fictional narrative where the sources are silent, based on the logic that no one can prove that it didn't happen that way, but if an author does this, the exercise loses its interest. Though again, this is subjective.

To be honest, however, the closer a book comes to my own interpretation(s), or even to interpretations that I think the author makes a good case for, even if I don't share them, the more I'm going to enjoy reading it. Which is why this is so subjective. I have a great deal of respect for Robert Margerit, for example, but his portrayal of Thermidor was painful for me to read, (mainly because I don't agree with his premise that any rational person living at the time would essentially hold an Aulardian view of the culte de l'Être suprême and therefore Robespierre brought Thermidor on himself for wanting to force a new religion on people who were apparently already all won over to 20th century style laïcité). Does that make any work of fiction (or any history, for that matter) that disagrees with my interpretations inherently "bad"? No, not necessarily. It might be bad for other reasons, but not just because of that.

Of course, sometimes a work has something about it that makes a good deal of this go out the window. I have a great fondness for Victor Hugo's Quatre-Vingt-Treize. Admittedly, it's not counterrevolutionary or particularly manipulative, but it's also not always very accurate, the characters are archetypes rather than actual human beings, and it certainly doesn't provide a historical interpretation of the Revolution that any modern historian would find credible. So why do I like it? It's epic; it's poetic; it's about a fundamental clash of ideas and ideals, even if they're more those of Hugo's time than the Revolution; it has some beautiful passages in it and also some very funny ones. What else can I say? It's Victor Hugo and he's my favorite novelist.

And I guess this brings me to my final point, which is that I can potentially find any work of historical fiction worth reading.* I can come up with criteria as to what makes the best historical fiction all I want, and certainly the more of the criteria a work fits the more likely it is that I'll enjoy it, but in the end, it's just not that simple.

*With one exception: the rule about manipulation pretty much always stands. Especially the kind that seems to go like this: "Author: I hate the Revolution and I want everyone else to hate it too, but I'm worried that they won't hate it enough if I just portray it as I actually think it happened, so I'm going to have Robespierre condone torture or molest children just to be safe."

First of all I really appreciate your contribution, as it is indeed well motivated. I agree with most of what you have said and I greatly appreciate your sincerity in admitting that some of these criteria might remain subjective.
There is just one point in which I am not sure to agree completely with you and it is when you say If you're just going to write another piece on his and Danton's dueling personalities - a trope that cliché and dull from a literary perspective as well as, in my view, a poor interpretation of the historical events of the fall of the factions - no one has any reason to read you, if only because that's already been done to death.. Most of narration is made of topoi, I think these can still be potentially interesting if the author is able to add a new twist to them (which is of course, an ominous task); I am not saying to base the fall of the factions just on this (that would be in my opinion ridicule), but a writer can still consider also this aspect if he/she applies to it a completely new scheme.
Another point which is generally unclear to me is about manipulation: which are the boundaries between manipulation and interpretation? Your example was straight forward, but, sadly, I believe that manipulation can be more subtle and insidious (and sometimes even unwillingly made), so how can you avoid out without being dry and giving up on the fictive part?

I think I must explain myself. What I am trying to do -as foolish as it can be- is not writing another fictive account on the 1792-1794 period (which, I think, I do not have enough skills/knowledge to do), but try to do something from the perspective of women's memory. I have been doing (and still do) a lot of research into mémoires and preservation of personal and political memory (and I must admit that your lj was an enormous trigger for this idea) , which I think can provide the ground for a good narrativa that can actually say something new if not on the Revolution itself, at least on copying with it (as we are both lovers of Hugo, you will understand me if I make as an example of what I mean the last volume of Les Misérables, where in potential there is this sense of `copying with the past' that affects Marius). And I think this perspective will gain more from a women-narration, as in fiction on the period, women tend to be even more stereotyped than men (but this seems to be a general trend contemporary literature, I generally found much more difficult to find well-written women-characters than men-characters.) What will come out of all this, I still do not know - (I have sketched few chapters, but I am sure that in few months, when I'll go back and revise them I will just erase everything).

Thanks for reading all that; I'm afraid I wrote you something of a mini-essay. I'll try to be brief this time.

What I was trying to get at regarding the "Robespierre vs. Danton" mythos and how that's drawn on in fiction, is first, quite simply, that I'm tired of it because it seems like all anyone ever writes/makes films about. This doesn't mean that it's categorically impossible for someone to write something about it that I would enjoy, since I never rule anything out. Second, the lack of self-awareness on the part of authors that use this trope annoys me. They usualy don't seem to realize that they're drawing on a myth that's been being constructed in literature and history going back to the 19th century. Indeed, this dichotomy is frequently presented as self-evident.

Now, I understand that topoi are important in fiction. However, with rare exceptions, I don't want to read about Danton and Robespierre the literary characters, grounded more in their mythology than in primary sources. Perhaps I'm too much of a historian in this, but if I'm going to read/watch a work of fiction in which Robespierre and Danton are the main characters, I would like one that challenges the audience's assumptions, preferably by going back and re-examining the sources (though of course the worst of all possible worlds is when a work claims to be doing that just repeats the same old myth anyway). And yes, that is the same thing I appreciate in a work of non-fiction, but so be it. I've already explained how the approaches differ, even when it happens that both have the same goal of creating a plausible reconstruction. Because of this, I don't see them as the same, but I understand how it would be possible to argue that I don't appreciate literature for what it is and just want to make it a handmaiden to history. Which is actually pretty true. *shrugs* That's probably why I study history and not literature.

Besides, I believe we owe a certain respect to the dead. For me, part of that respect means that if we're going to represent them, we have a duty to represent them not as they would have wanted to be represented, but as much as we possibly can, as they appear to us based on surviving evidence. The dead are not literary characters or puppets, but real people, and perhaps it's superstitious, but it feels almost sacrilegious to me, if one is going to portray them, in fiction or otherwise, not to make a sincere effort to understand and represent them as they were, or as closely as we can reconstruct it.*

*That may mean our judgment of them is ultimately negative and we represent them accordingly, but if that's the case we're ultimately weakening and not strengthening our case if we feel the need to embellish. And I don't mean filling in plausible, or at least not implausible, details. I mean, there's plenty of reason to dislike Fouché and there are plently of places in the historical record where we can't prove he was involved in some kind of intrigue and yet where he likely was. It's not disrespectful to his memory to portray him as involved in an intrigue at a moment when it could well have happened but we have no record of it, because we do have a great deal of evidence that Fouché was an intriguer. But there is, as far as I know, no good reason to suppose that Fouché enjoyed torturing small animals. Thus, it would be doing an equal disservice to his memory (not to mention the intended audience) to represent him as an entirely upright and innocent individual and to represent him as a torturer of small animals, because neither representation shows an equitable judgment of Fouché based on available evidence.

As for the difference between manipulation and interpretation, I agree there are grey areas. But the one thing that's always manipulation in my book is when you have to invent a scenario that contradicts the historical record in order to support your argument. Not just a scenario that isn't mentioned by the historical record; that's fine and even necessary to the genre, but one that opposes it. For example, when at the beginning of the film "Danton," Éléonore strikes her little brother (who, for the record, was actually about fifteen at the time, but that's a less important detail) at a time when the Commune of Paris had just passed a decree prohibiting corporal punishment (as Marie-Hélène Huet points out). Could this scenario have happened? Well, obviously not, since the child in question was much too old for his sister to be giving him a bath and wasn't in Paris at the time anyway. But could a Robespierriste woman have theoretically struck a child in this period? Sure. Is it likely? No, not particularly, since she could probably be reasonably expected to agree with the Commune's decree. But that's not the point either. This is manipulation because the film is heavily implying that what it's portraying as "robespierriste ideology" is warped and unnatural because it involves hitting children, whereas while it's theoretically possible that any given individual identifying with Robespierre's ideals could strike a child, it would be going against those very ideals to do so. Was this conscious manipulation? Did the filmmakers do enough research to know about that aspect of robespierriste thought? Did they care, given that they were using the Revolution as a cipher for Poland in the 1980s (another proceeding I have some serious problems with)? Probably not. Was it still manipulation? Yes. Do I still hold the filmmakers responsible for it? Absolutely. Because they clearly lack that fundamental respect for history that I discussed above. Ironically, they seem to take the same view of it as the Stalinists they're denouncing, i.e. that "the truth is whatever I find politically expedient." (This is, of course, most apparent, laughably so, even, in the scene where they have Robespierre make David erase Fabre from his painting of the Serment du Jeu de Paume, as they are literally fabricating history in order to denounce the fabrication of history.)

But yes, like most things, there's no hard and fast rule of what counts as manipulation. It's subjective, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it's impossible to avoid without writing something dry and boring. Honestly, I think a lot of this has to do with intent. If you set out to write an interesting/entertaining/thought-provoking story while attempting to be respectful of history it's hard to go wrong on the manipulation front.

As to being boring, I think a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking that the more you invent and deviate from the historical record, the more interesting your work will be. Not so. Often these kinds of changes make a story less original, a character less three-dimensional, a scenario less interesting. Making one's work interesting has to do with one's skill as a writer more than anything else. If one feels too reined in by the constraints of writing about historical characters, there's no reason why one shouldn't invent one's own characters and storylines, but one shouldn't necessarily imagine that they will automatically be more interesting than a well-done work of fiction that stays closer to the historical record.

I think your idea sounds fascinating, or at least like something I would want to read. It's not a perspective too many people have adopted and there are stories worth telling there. And all this especially because, as you say, women have not been represented very well in most existing fictional accounts of the Revolution. I'm very glad that my LJ has in some small way, been able to inspire this idea, because I do think it has a lot of potential and I would definitely encourage you to continue with it.

I should probably clarify, re: the issue of respect for the dead, that I do think it's possible to have respect for them and not hold to the letter of what I say above. It's more the attitude of regarding historical figures as one's playthings, as only existing for one's own amusement that bothers me. I do think we have a duty to try not to distort the lives and ideas of historical figures when we represent them, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun with it. There's plenty of room for what ifs and trying out different scenarios in the gaps left by the historical record. The key is to do so while keeping in mind that this is a real person, not a figment of my imagination to be manipulated as I please.

Thank you for your reply again, I am really glad that we are having such a great discussion (which, I can assure, does not happen so often).
My judgment about the movie "Danton" is probably different: I think this is a striking case of conscient manipulation in pretty much every aspect. What I read in it -but it might as well be my own idea of reception- it is the same rhetorical device that orators use, for example, when referring to characters of the past (this happens a lot in Cicero, for example): Wajda is taking something which is historical, but it is completely depriving it of its meaning to turn it into something else. As I see it -I think I told this already to

hanriotfan is nothing but a giant metaphor (pretty much the same kind of manipulation that Desmoulins used when turning Tacitus' English translation in a portrayal of France political situation). Is that respectful of history? Absolutely not, of course, but this is not its aim and it is natural that any scholars of the periodo will go crazy about it (at first, it is the same reaction I have when confronting the reception of some figures from the latin or Greek history). Is this legitimate? Probably the answer differs according to the point of view (absolutely no for the historians, perhaps for the writer, yes for the rhetorician).

I agree whit what you said about the respect for the historical figures (which is, I think, an overall respect for the `Truth'of history), which should be the same that an historian should show, even he personally dislike/disprove of some of the said figures (and honestly I find that in the historiography of the French Revolution this happens quite often). Then a writer has another issue to take into account which is the point of view he/she is adopting, that will inevitably change his/her attitude towards determined character and in this sense will probably not be so close to the actual sources -or that will fill the gaps of the sources themselves (a trivial example could be if you want to describe the Duplays according to Charlotte Robespierre POV at the time of her quarrel with them, according to Maximilien or to a third fictitious character). Of course you first have to analyze your sources and then you can build on them.

As to being boring, I think a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking that the more you invent and deviate from the historical record, the more interesting your work will be. What I meant by that it is not the fidelity as in following the historical narrative, but in the very common and very annoying practice of inserting very long excerpt of the original sources into the narrative. For example I read last summer an historical novel on Catilina's conjuration, which was nice to read, but it had extremely long excerpt from Cicero's Catilinariae (more than half a page every time); perhaps it's just me, but if I want to read what Cicero actually said, I will take Cicero's edition and read it, I don't need a writer to give so much space in his/her text to someone else's text (if you really want to do so, use the appendix of your book). A Small and nicely chosen quotation at the beginning of a chapter is pleasant, but scattering quotations every few pages is really annoying.

Regarding the topoi, I think there are more problems into it. I perfectly agree with what you say from an historical point of view (I will add that for my training, I do not always believe that we can establish the truth of something, but that we have to accept that the sources themselves might contain a good deal of manipulation). There is however another issue with that, which is the reader/market expectations (and just to make it clear this is not my personal opinion on how the literary act should be conducted, but, unfortunately seems to be the standard contemporary norm and this is really frustrating). Nowadays (but probably it has been so for a long time already) most writers tend to write not (only) for the sake of telling a good narrative, but (also) to make a product that will be well received; in order to do so, you have to obey to some tropoi (I hope I won't hurt anyone saying that for example the Twilight saga, Dan Brown's books and Harry Potter are a very clear example of this) to tell the average reader what he/she wants to read (I see much of this process behind both A place of greater Safety and Wolf Hall). Going personally, when I published my first novel (nothing to do with historical fiction) because I was challenging some tropoi (in that case the description of a gay relationship), firstly I had to struggle much harder to find an editor, secondly I received very sharp criticisms (such as `men are not emotional/men do not talk about themselves are never self-reflecting/relationships without engendered roles base on a male/female relationship cannot exist' and such); this is to say that even in a good book, you will probably find tropoi because of this kind of issue.

Thank you for your encouragement. Right now I am concentrating on four historical figures that appeals for me for different reasons (Babet, Henriette Le Bas, Charlotte and Éléonore). The last two are actually giving me real nightmares -especially because I disprove almost every piece of literature that has been written about them. I have been reading Charlotte's mémoirs (and the secondary literature on it) for quite a long time now and I think I'm coming to a bit of understanding of her historical persona (although, at least for me, it is very difficult as it is probably one of the historical figures I found more distant to my own sensibility). About Éléonore... I don't think to explain to you how frustrating it is to read about her, but writing about her is difficult as well; right now I am trying to figure out how to characterize her with language in a way that will be real, respectful and meaningful. But I am sure you will hear more on this from me, as you all probably know way more than me :)

I think I understand what you're getting at now. I suppose I don't really think about that angle because, while if I wrote a novel I would certainly like it to be published and for people to read it, but I have no intention of making my living as a novelist. In fact, hypothetically speaking, if I could magically decide between having many readers but not making any money and making a lot of money but not actually getting read, I would choose the latter any day. Because of this, I wouldn't simplify my characters to suit current tastes. It would surely be immensely frustrating not to get published for that reason - and I have great sympathy for the challenges you and others have faced with the publishing industry - but it would defeat the point for me to get published at the expense of portraying history in a fair, complex, and plausible manner, since the only reason I would care if anyone read my work would be that it would ideally provide an alternative to something like A Place of Greater Safety.

As I said, I would really be interested in reading anything that comes out of this project. But I also understand the difficulties you're having. I've played with the idea of writing a novel from Éléonore's point of view for a long time, but it is difficult to know how to portray her, it light not only of the largely pretty awful fictional representations of her that already exist, but also of the sources, none of which really give a helpful portrayal of her personality (though there are hints here and there). As for Charlotte, I'm afraid I also have some difficulty relating to her.

Thank you for your useful comments again.

I perfectly second your point of view, as, in my opinion, art is a form of expression, not a selling business; but at the same time I know that the issue is overall complicated because often if you auto-publish (so you can publish what you want) it is very difficult (at least if you write in a minor european language as in my case) people won't probably read you at all; secondly ...let's face it, for most writers money and fame matter (I just watched the new Simpsons' episode last night and it was direct to the point).

You surely have more sources on Éléonore than me, but at least is a consolation that you too find her difficult. Yet I think she has so much potential as a fictional character because (this is my interpretation and please feel free to disagree/ comment on that) I see her as a perfect example of strength, commitment and intelligence (as I refuse to portray as a rather simple, plain woman as most writers have done). And also bravery, because I think there is much courage in staying next to someone like Robespierre (whatever their relationship was) because intelligent, self-aware, highly-achieving and highly-demanding people are not always easy, especially when they found themselves in a position of high-responsibility (I must admit that one of the few things I think Domecq was able to portray well in his book was the sense of Robespierre as a person whose brain (metaphorically) `does not switch off', of this continuous reflection-action-reflection circle which is a cipher of a certain kind of personality). And it is interesting to speculate which psychological reactions Robespierre's death can have determined in Éléonore, which, in this sense, really became a modern Cornelia (sorry, I do not find a less typical comparison right now) only after Thermidor (and I mean it in a very positive way as Cornelia is one of my preferred figures from the Roman Republican Era).

As for Charlotte...complete frustration. She is rather interesting to me as she is the less of an `heroine' type and her `negative' feelings and attitudes shows more than in other cases; these features picture her as someone who probably falls within the `average people' (by which I mean she acts and re-acts as most people would do in her situation), yet her memories (a doubtful text as they are) underline also this steady background of regret and sadness -wether precedent or generated by the affective loss she suffered in Thermidor- that would make her a fabulous fictional character. I have very mixed feeling toward her as an historical character as I can't relate to his behavior not to what appears to be her ethic scale at the same time I feel really connected to her loss. *very personal statement to follow* Mutatis mutandis, it is always difficult to come to term with the death of someone close to you as a brother, someone to which you relied upon as you would do with your own parents -or even more-, especially when death comes in a not expected way and in an unnatural time; of course life goes on as it has to be and yet there is always this shadow of memory, sadness and what ifs that becomes part of you (at times withdraws and at times comes back) and you don't really want to let go (every time I read her memories I can't help but shed a tear for my own brother).

It would be very interesting to have some feedback from you and general from people of this community, perhaps I will try to translate some parts into English (or rather have my wife do that -the fortune of having a native English speaker at home!).

Sorry to take so long to get back to you - between my research and applications and coming to visit my family, I haven't had much free time.

It does put those of us who want to write something worthwhile that is actually going to get read in something of a conundrum. As for those who are in it for fame and wealth, it's futile, I know, but I wish they would at least leave the Revolution alone. There are so many other things they could be writing about that don't require as much care.

Your thoughts on both Éléonore and Charlotte are really quite astute. Really, to the point that there's not much I can add, except that in Éléonore's case, the real challenge for any fictional portrayal, given the point to which I agree that she exemplifies courage, strength, and intelligence, is to allow her to have those qualities, but to make sure she remains a human, relatable character. Okay, so there is one more thing I would add, and that is what I believe to be the duality of Éléonore's engagement: yes, she was devoted to Robespierre and yes, her views were surely influenced by his, but many authors represent her as a kind of cipher who falls in love with Robespierre and then adopts his ideas simply because they're his. If we are to postulate that Éléonore was an intelligent person, then that just won't do. There is no reason to suppose that Éléonore would not grapple with the questions of the day herself and that her connection to Robespierre, whatever its nature, might in part be based on political affinity. Indeed, I think it must have been, given how devoted Robespierre himself was to politics...

You make some excellent points about Charlotte as well. Certainly, Charlotte had to face great losses, not just with Thermidor, but throughout her life. A lot of her actions can doubtless by traced to her difficulty in coping with them. There are probably plausible enough explanations for her seemingly irrational jealousy of her brothers to be found as well. I have more difficulty relating to her than to Éléonore, but I agree that that doesn't necessarily make her a less interesting character to work with.

I would certainly be interested in reading anything you feel like posting and I'll try to give useful feedback (though I'm afraid I can't promise that it will be timely).

Thank you for your reply, it was definitely encouraging!

I am afraid that with Éléonore my risk is to make her too erudite, as I always tend to do with my female characters (guess it depends from my own familiar background).
Yes, you definitely made a good point speaking about duality, as it is one of the feature more disregarded in fictitious portrait of Éléonore. I am convinced that the relationship between Robespierre and Éléonore was also (or mainly - this point is not yet very clear to me) about intellectual affinities and politics. I can't picture a setting such as `Robespierre's circle' as a net of relationships without intellectual involvement of some kind, as I do believe that strong tides always involve some kind of intellectual exchange.

I will definitely try to translate and post something, although it will take a bit of time: so don't worry about being too busy to reply. We both know that academic life gets very busy at times.

Good luck with your applications and best wishes for the new year :).

I am afraid that with Éléonore my risk is to make her too erudite
I think the best way to counter that is by researching the kind of education Éléonore is likely to have had. From what I know so far, it seems to have been somewhere between that of Lucile Desmoulins and that of Manon Roland, and they (and others) can serve as points of comparison (the latter's memoirs are especially interesting as a reminder that for the kind of person who will read whatever books s/he can, the education taken from that reading can be at least as important as any formal instruction). We know that she and her sisters were educated in the Couvent de la Conception, which adjoined the house in the rue Saint-Honoré (which, however, they did not move into until 1779, which makes me wonder whether they were already attending the convent school before that point). The content of that education, however, is not something I've yet been able to discover. I have a feeling Martine Sonnet's L'Éducation des filles au temps des Lumières or other similar books may prove instructive, once I get a hold of them.... In any case, there are some probable limits: e.g., it's unlikely that Éléonore knew Latin or Greek (however, that probably did not stop her from reading certain works in translation).

I can't picture a setting such as `Robespierre's circle' as a net of relationships without intellectual involvement of some kind, as I do believe that strong tides always involve some kind of intellectual exchange.
I agree. I think certain authors have a tendency of supposing Élisabeth Le Bas's level of interest in politics and intellectual pursuits as typical of her sisters as well, probably at least in part because she's the only one who wrote a memoir, but I think her own testimony rather suggests otherwise, since she was, as she says, considered especially "étourdie" by her family.

Good luck with your applications and best wishes for the new year
Thank you! A happy new year to you too! (Or a happy 12 nivôse...)

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I think too that she probably did not have any classical languages, as mastery of Greek was rarer than we think even for men (no matter how much they boosted to know it...) and Latin, from what I can see from my research was for most of them between basic/intermediate level. The kind of course work required in different institutions for classical languages seemed have a similar differentiation to the Italian traditional educative system. After all, the 18th century saw the acme of bilingual editions of classical texts.
Unfortunately it seems that there is not a copy of the book you quoted available to me in the UK, but I will try to get a copy from amazon, as it looks really interesting.
I do have a hard copy of Manon's writings, I am now searching for a digital one, so I can bring it with me in London :).
At the moment I compiled a scene where Éléonore indirectly quotes from Rollin's Histoire Romaine, I think this can be likely.

Concerning Élisabeth's memoir, I think scholarship is generally quite negative on her, but the arguments are ex silentio (she does not talk too much about politics, so she is not political), which is of course dangerous. She might have emphasized her private life because this what she felt like put in writing or she find more important for herself, but it does not mean she did not have any other interest (the same is even more valid for the rest of the family). I can't agree with most of Yalom's analysis of her memoir at all. Moreover there is a issue of trustworthiness (unfortunately Luzzatto in Il terrore ricordato does not analyze it in details).

Yes, I recall that - Louis-le-Grand was one of the few schools that still taught Greek by the late 18th century, as over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries Greek had been phased out as the vernacular was phased in. Latin was still standard (at varying levels of sophistication), but not for girls in the vast majority of cases. But as you point out, there were a great many classical texts available in bilingual editions or simply in translation.

If you're looking for an online copy of Manon Roland's memoirs, Google books has one. I'm not sure for her letters and other writings, however.

At the moment I compiled a scene where Éléonore indirectly quotes from Rollin's Histoire Romaine, I think this can be likely.
You're right, that seems like a work she would probably have been familiar with. In fact, it was one of the books found among Robespierre's things at the Duplays: http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ahrf_0003-4436_1992_num_287_1_1479?luceneQuery=%28%2B%28content%3Arobespierre+title%3Arobespierre%5E2.0+fullContent%3Arobespierre%5E100.0+fullTitle%3Arobespierre%5E140.0+summary%3Arobespierre+authors%3Arobespierre%5E5.0+illustrations%3Arobespierre%5E4.0+bibrefs%3Arobespierre%5E4.0+toctitles%3Arobespierre%5E4.0+toctitles1%3Arobespierre%5E3.0+toctitles2%3Arobespierre%5E2.0+toctitles3%3Arobespierre%29+%2B%28content%3Aduplay+title%3Aduplay%5E2.0+fullContent%3Aduplay%5E100.0+fullTitle%3Aduplay%5E140.0+summary%3Aduplay+authors%3Aduplay%5E5.0+illustrations%3Aduplay%5E4.0+bibrefs%3Aduplay%5E4.0+toctitles%3Aduplay%5E4.0+toctitles1%3Aduplay%5E3.0+toctitles2%3Aduplay%5E2.0+toctitles3%3Aduplay%29+%2B%28content%3Alivres+title%3Alivres%5E2.0+fullContent%3Alivres%5E100.0+fullTitle%3Alivres%5E140.0+summary%3Alivres+authors%3Alivres%5E5.0+illustrations%3Alivres%5E4.0+bibrefs%3Alivres%5E4.0+toctitles%3Alivres%5E4.0+toctitles1%3Alivres%5E3.0+toctitles2%3Alivres%5E2.0+toctitles3%3Alivres%29%29+AND+%28+%2Baccess_right%3A%28free%29+%29&words=robespierre&words=100&words=140&words=duplay&words=livres&words=free (That's a ridiculously long link, I apologize.) If she didn't have her own copy, she could have borrowed his (assuming it actually belonged to him).

I suppose it is true that the lack of any extensive mention of politics in Élisabeth's memoirs doesn't necessarily make her apolitical, especially considering her audience. If we were to assume that, we would also have to assume that because she barely mentions her sisters, she never interacted with them, which I think even Yalom would surely find ridiculous. There is however some positive evidence, if not for Élisabeth's lack of interest in politics, at least for her naïveté: when she writes that her family considers her "étourdie" and her comment regarding the harvests. It is of course never safe to assume anything, but these qualities, along with what seems to be the focus of her memoirs and correspondence certainly at least suggest that she was likely not engaging in sophisticated political analysis, at least not at the age of 20. Though I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to disagree with anyone putting forward a coherent argument to the contrary.

Actually, I think you're completely right; all of Wajda's "Danton" is a manipulation. The particular instance I cite may not be intentional, but part of the reason I can't excuse it is the larger context of deliberate manipulation. While it's certainly true that people will disagree with me on this, I don't think deliberately manipulating people is ever legitimate, no matter who you are. By the way, is that where Desmoulins got his Tacitus "citation"? From an English "translation"? Because it's certainly not in the Latin... In any case, I consider that to be one of the more manipulative instances of references to Antiquity during the Revolution, though, of course, my feelings on the matter in general are rather complicated...

I agree, it's also best to avoid simply inserting speeches. I've read several works that annoy me to no end by having Robespierre in particular always speak in quotations from his own speeches, even when he's just having a private conversation. It's as if it doesn't occur to them that these are two different registers. It's one thing to have him discussing the ideas he's going to speak about, it's quite another to have him giving orations at the breakfast table.

Just a side note on Desmoulins: unfortunately (I mean from a classicist/philologist interested in the reception of Ancient world) it seems that Desmoulins modeled the whole Tacitean issues of the Vieux Cordelier from a French translation (by Pierre Daudé) of Gordon's Discours on Tacitus. I think there is a discussion on this issue in the preface of Calvet's edition (unfortunately I do not have it in Senate House, so I am not 100% sure) and there is also an article by R. Hammersley, `Camille Desmoulins' Le Vieux Cordelier: a link between English and French Republicanism', which you might know.
There are bit and pieces from different Latin sources (he apparently ascribes to Tacitus bit that are in Suetonius), but I can't say if it all goes back to Gordon's book, as I haven't read it yet. (By the way, my overall impression is that quotations from direct sources or direct translation are relatively rare -with the exception of Saint-Just who loved to play a lot at least with Cicero; I suspend my judgment on Robespierre's work as I have not started yet to analyse his references because nor I nor my library has got a decent edition of all his works).

Thanks for the references - I'm afraid it's not a question I've looked to much into, as my research is currently focusing on 1791-1792 and principally on the journal the "Révolutions de Paris." I've observed in the sources I've have been looking at that direct quotations are rare and long ones almost non-existent (when they come up they're usually a line or two long). So it doesn't surprise me that that would be the case more generally as well. Still, all the quotations I've found so far can be traced back to their original sources in roughly the same form. Which just makes Desmoulins' claim to simply be offering a translation of Tacitus all the more disingenuous...

Well, Estellacat, you've said it! I share totally your point of view, and I wish I could have the same level of English than you to stand my views the way you does.

I can't add a single more word to your three message above. They portraits my exact thoughts on the issue.

I'm glad you understand what I was trying to get at. It's hard to ever fully answer the kind of questions posed here (which is probably why my comments are so long).

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