revolution_fr | Jul. 23rd, 2009

Delays, delays, delays... As promised, here it finally comes! It took forever to prepare these three posts (you have no idea, really), and you’re soon about to find out why: 26 single-spaced pages in Times New Roman, 12 pts, and more than 10 000 words for the essay; 14 single-spaced pages in Times New Roman, 12 pts, and more than 7000 words for the appendix of quotes (original French and translated)... Considering how long it is, it’s been split in three different posts (sorry for the spamming!).

Many, many, many thanks to

estellacat who helped, re-read, corrected (I speak French – this is the first essay I ever write in English), checked back the quotes and extracts, translated most dialogue from La Terreur et la Vertu in English, which I had typed in French while listening the film, and all the quotes from Saint-Just’s writings. It had to be perfect – because Saint-Just is worth it. This essay was written in two days (first time I ever write so much that fast as well!) and during a very, very long night (I believe I went to bed at 7am, after typing all those quotes from Saint-Just’s writings). Took a week to get the final results you're now soon about to read. Two or three parts were added and re-worked after my extended comments with

victoriavandal and Sibylla as can be read here (that thread inspired me).

NOTE 1: My thoughts on La Terreur et la Vertu in the final paragraph were written before I find a link online to the second film. Hence my joy when I did.

NOTE 2: I overlooked Saint-Just’s physical appearance in the docudrama: for example, the fact that they gave him an emo haircut (!!!) when it wouldn’t have been so complicated to curl up his hair a bit and cut them accurately – nobody had bangs like that in the 18th century! In fact, it’s far for being an innocent choice. Like

trf_chan points out in her review, this docudrama aims at speaking to the younger generation of today through this particular Saint-Just. Exactly like Mona Ozouf is speaking to our present hedonistic world through the libertine idealization, they are speaking to our present younger generation by making him look like one of us: this blending of the past and present is a proof even more striking of this “documentary”’s nature as propaganda.

***

“Thank God I’m pretty, every skill I ever have will be in question…”
Emilie Autumn – Thank God I’m Pretty

On the (mis)representation of Saint-Just in Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution.

I am responding to what will soon be unleashed through the English-speaking world: the horrible after-effects of the BBC program Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution. I am “partial”, no need to tell you this. Usually, considering the subject of my studies, I would probably prefer to focus on the mess they made of the representation of Robespierre. Yet, at the risk of disappointing, I will say that this type of misrepresentation (the whole “Robespierre = Stalin, Mao, Castro, Hitler, Khomeini” package-deal that makes no logical sense) is nothing new, and therefore it is not necessary to make it the center of our critique, though surely we will find many opportunities – here or elsewhere – to attack it anyway.

It is the misrepresentation of Saint-Just in this 90-min. program that I would like to attack here. Those who read my direct “as I watched it,” not-very-scientific critique of it on my journal will know that I lost my calm and presence of mind over it. It shocked me, precisely because most people would probably gloss over it and all the hidden meanings behind it: they would ignore it or dismiss its consequences. Moreover, because people, in this type of scenario, always have the same thing to say in response: “Yes, but he’s pretty and pouty!” As you can read here, the aftereffects have already started to appear. I know this type of reply: I was there once; I said it about Christopher Thompson’s interpretation of Saint-Just in La Révolution française: les Années terribles, and I know how damaging it is. This essay is a testimony to my own past: I was there three years ago; I won’t go back.

The type of Saint-Just played here by the actor George Maguire is in the same vein as Christopher Thompson’s. (He seems to have been cast from the same mould.) Which is to say, twenty years after the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, we’re still there, that we haven’t progressed at all. Even, it’s worse than ever.

Read the manifesto.

( I. Saint-Just's 'Puritanism' )

( II. Saint-Just the 'schoolboy' )

( III. Saint-Just and Carnot )

NEXT POST: PARTS IV-V, CONCLUSION.