I hung out with Camille and Lucile yesterday

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

I wanted to share this and I felt this community would really be the only ones to fully appreciate it. Like I've said, I'm living in Paris now, which gives me the opportunity to do a lot of amazing French Revolution stuff. Yesterday I read through the original papers of Camille and Lucile. It was all sorts of stuff, from Camille's diploma from Louis-le-Grand, his letters to his father, the original handwritten copy of the 7th Vieux Cordelier, his final letters to Lucile, to Lucile's journal, Fréron's letters to her, her letters to her mother, and her final farewell notes to her mother written on little scraps of paper. Robespierre's correction letter for Revs de France et Brabant from 1790 or 91 was there, along with Camille's response written at the bottom. I stared at it for a long time because there was an ink smudge with a fingerprint at the top by the salutation and I was like "Whoa, it's Robespierre's fingerprint." Saint-Just's fanboy letter was there. Camille's last letter to Lucile is there and is almost illegibly smudged with tear stains. It was interesting to see that there is a whole bunch of his correspondence that has been omitted even from Matton's huge "Complete Works." I found a complete letter from his father I'd never seen before and lots of their correspondence concerning personal things has been omitted in publication. Camille did actually spend a lot more time writing about his brothers, he seems to have been closer to them than biographies usually let on. That said, there was one fabulous moment when he had to ask his father what his brother's name was so he could look him up in the army. He didn't know the full five-name name, so his dad had to tell him ;-). There was also a letter from Annette Duplessis that I didn't know existed in which she's begging Robespierre for help to save Lucile. Her famous "kill us all you monster" letter was not actually there, so I assume it's kept with Robespierre's papers.

The other thing that amazed me is how incredibly illegible all of these people's handwriting was. Jesus Christ. I'm half convinced that Matton, or whoever did the first official compilation and publication of Camille's work, just made shit up when he couldn't read the writing and other historians just worked off his printed copies because the originals are nuts. I looked and looked and I certainly couldn't find "Je vais mourir" in Camille's last line in the final letter to Lucile. It's probably there, but I can't get over how awful his handwriting was. ;-) Robespierre stands out as having amazingly legible writing. Let's not even talk about Lucile...

Anyway, I just had to gush about that. It was absolutely amazing.

Je suis curieuse...

[simply-kelp.livejournal.com]

I have been stalking this community for a while, but am only now joining because I have a question. (It’s so exciting to see people interested in the French Revolution! Most of my family/friends/colleagues/&etc. just ignore me when I mention anything about it...)

Where do you buy your books on the French Revolution. Some, I’m sure you happen to find by chance, but where do you get the ones that you set out to buy. I have been browsing Amazon lately (because my books are quite lonely), and so many of them are very expensive! (For I am, regrettably, a poor college student...) How much do you generally pay for a book on the French Revolution? It depends on the content, I suppose, but like for an ‘Oeuvres Completes de...’, or those demmed elusive (gad, a Pimpernel reference...) biographies on Saint-Just, Hérault, &etc.

Salut et fraternité,
Kelp