Monthly Discussion Point:: Saint-Just

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

This month's discussion point is Saint-Just.

Thought we'd change it up a bit and discuss a person instead of an event. ;) Feel free to discuss any aspect of his life, what effect he had on the revolution, your Personal Thoughts on Saint-Just(tm) (the FrenchRevvie's version of Thoughts on Yaoi(tm)! Now with 20% more crazy poetry!), anything.

Comments

[lisotchka.livejournal.com]

Woa! The "Archange de la Terreur", hudge subject! He was born in Burgundy, like me!
I think he was the "writer" of the Revolution: he write a lot of legal texts, trying to make the Revoltion as legal as it could be. As supporter of Robespierre, he was executed on the morning of the 10 Thermidor.

By the way, did you read "La Révolution Française" by Jules Etienne Michelet? It'as a nineteenth century writer, and his books are very cool. It's like Alexandre Dumas of Victor Hugo's litterature!

[sunliner.livejournal.com]

Oh man, don't hate me, but I think Saint-Just is hilarious. Then again, I think mostly every revolutionary is hilarious.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

I'm going to repress any sort of "Omsb I wuv him" outburst, so I won't put him to shame. XD That being said in case it had never been clear enough. -_-;

This is a good timing, because I felt like posting about one of his texts I read two days ago. La Raison à la morne: a short text he wrote in 1789, right after Organt. It has for context a judicial case, which the final verdict shocked public opinion. But Saint-Just doesn't write about the case, rather about the sense of it: the failure of reason. In his text, he tells the story of an unknown woman who was found dead. Nobody knew her and nobody dared to touch her because she was in rags and tatters. But finally, someone dared to touch her and found in her clothes a letter with the addressee "To Reason". So they read the letter, which was written by Necker, who tells her how he's disappointed that nobody could welcome her and that she must have been more than despaired to think of seeking refuge in France. The conclusion is that the man who read the letter just laughed and the body of Reason was brought to the morgue "where it remained for long".

The death of Reason. Modern theme, eh? I should try to find and type all the ideas Saint-Just wrote that still sound so damn actual.

I could type that short story and post a translation, btw...

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

I could type that short story and post a translation, btw...

!! It would be nothing short of awesome if you did~ :D It sounds very interesting.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I have a fairly high opinion of Saint-Just, and not because of his looks either. No more than because my sister has an irrational hatred of him--which I expect goes along with her irrational love of Camille Desmoulins. (Allow to explain: it's not always irrational to hate Saint-Just--for example, it's perfectly logical if you are a royalist and/or a Prussian--nor is it always irrational to like Camille Desmoulins. It's just when these judgments are based entirely on novels and films that it irks me. Both Saint-Just and Desmoulins are both historical figures and ought to be judged as such. They're not characters in a novel--basing one's judgment of them on what any particular novelist has to say is dishonest and irrational. /rant)

I esteem Saint-Just for (among other things) his principles, his loyalty, his eloquence, and his bravery--about in that order. I also find the reputation he has with most people to be undeserved and inaccurate. He's not cold, icy, glacial, frost-bitten, an ice-citizen, or an ice-cube machine. He's also not some beautiful incarnation of death, or of the Terror. And, for the record, he did not "kill" Desmoulins because he was jealous of him/spurned by him/insulted by him/hated his guts/thought his hairstyle was ridiculous/adjust to personal taste. In fact, he didn't "kill" Desmoulins at all. But that, I suppose is another story. /rant #2

[toi-marguerite.livejournal.com]

I wish I had icon skillz because "For the record, Saint- Just did not "kill" Desmoulins because his hairstyle was ridiculous" is begging to be on one of those flashing icon- thingies.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

So it is, come to think of it. XD Unfortunately, though, I can't make animated icons either.

[morgan-wang.livejournal.com]

Someone definatly should make that. Has anyone seen those echy-sketch type things on ebay that are of a French Revolutionary? Example: A bald Desmoulins, and with the echy-sketch you draw their hairdo. Its the funniest thing ever.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Pity no one seems to know how. I have seen those; I found them rather strange, but amusing, I suppose.

[morgan-wang.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll see if I can teach myself. I have to program Open Canvas, I guess I just need a sketch or somthing to work from.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

The problem is, knowing what sort of sketch something of that sort would be best on...

[morgan-wang.livejournal.com]

Even though I don't agree with everything SJ did, or all of his ideas, I still admire him for his loyalty, and the fact that he stuck to his principles when so many other people didn't (Fouche and Talleyrand come to mind) The sad thing is, the idealouges in Revolutions seem to get killed, and the opprunists and double crossers, seem to be the ones who not only survive, but they usually do fairly well after. Fouche was made Duke under Napoleon.
Okay, back to Saint-Just, what I also find interesting about him is the potential that he had. If he lived, I think History would be very different. He probably would have been the leader of France, not Robespierre. I think SJ's personaitly was to strong to be just Robespierre's diciple. What do you think?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think Saint-Just ever was Robespierre's disciple, in a meaningful sense. They were friends and would have continued so: the most obvious marker of this being Saint-Just's willingness to die with his friend(s) during Thermidor. I don't disagree that history might have been different had Saint-Just lived, but I don't think either of them would have ended up leading France, strictly speaking. Assuming that by leader you mean either some sort of strong president or a dictator, I know for a fact that neither of them--and almost no one of their generation--supported the former as an idea compatible with their principles and ideals, and as for the latter, it was just as manifestly against Robespierre's principles, if not quite as certainly against Saint-Just's. However, I think, assuming that Saint-Just was willing to entertain the idea of being dictator (which is, given the historical record, a pretty big assumption), he would have done it on 9 Thermidor in any case; he could never have attacked the Convention first, and he was too principled and proud to achieve it through the sort of back-room deals that Bonaparte would later employ.

[morgan-wang.livejournal.com]

Thats a good point, but couldn't Saint-Just convince himself that the convention has been distorted and they arn't "citizens" and therefore it doesn't matter if they have to be purged. Thats what he did with Danton, even though Danton was part of the Convention.

I think Saint-Just was definatly Robespierre's colleague (See letter) when they were on the CPS, but they Robespierre probably started off as SJ's patron.

Okay, the letter from Robespierre to Saint-Just and LeBas (Taken from Curtis):
My friends, the commitee has taken all measures dependent on it at the moment to second your zeal. It charges me to write to you to explain the motives of its dispositions. It has thought that the priniple cause of the late reserve was the lack of skilled generals; it will send you such patriotic and instructed soldiers as it may discover...for the rest it relies on your energy and you wisdom. Greetings and friendship.

Now, this letter sounds more like a colleage than a superior. Lastly, on 6 Prairial, The Committee sent a letter to SJ asking him to come back to Paris due to poltical termoil. Robespierre wrote the letter, 5 members signed it. SJ went back, decided he was needed at the army more, and went back with even more power. It comes across as SJ almost becoming the master.