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revolution_fr2007-12-26 07:10 pm
Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs
CHAPTER V[1].
Different assassination attempts on Maximilien Robespierre.—Fouché is introduced to Charlotte Robespierre by Maximilien.—He asks to marry her.—Fouché’s mission in Lyon.—Robespierre overwhelms him with reproaches regarding his conduct in that city upon his return.—Rupture between Charlotte Robespierre and Fouché.—Charlotte Robespierre is calumniated by Madame Ricord.—Charlotte Robespierre and her younger brother’s relations with Bonaparte.—Interview between Robespierre and Marat.—Robespierre the younger returns to Paris and does not want to see his sister.—Charlotte writes to him.—Maximilien becomes isolated from his colleagues on the Committee of Public Safety.—Portents of 9 Thermidor.—Robespierre’s enemies’ grievances against him.—Assessment of Danton and Camille Desmoulins.—Sessions of 8 and 9 Thermidor.—Death of the two Robespierre [brothers].—Their sister’s arrest.—Conclusion.
Since Maximilien Robespierre perished, a victim of counterrevolutionaries, his enemies’ rage has emerged in calumnies, lies, and furious diatribes against him; but before his death, independent of those means which have always suited them, they had another which was no less worthy of them: the dagger.
A great number of assassination attempts were made on him. History has spoken of Cécile Renault and of Ladmiral [l’Admiral], but it has said nothing of the many other assassins who came to my unhappy brother’s house in the intention of cutting his throat.
We were one day gathered at M. Duplay’s house, when a man came and asked to speak to Maximilien Robespierre. My brother went to him and prayed him to say what he wished. That man replied that he could only speak to him in private; he was then shown into a neighboring room where my brother followed him. Some moments later we heard a violent movement. Right away we suspected the unknown man; we entered the room where he was with Maximilien, and we saw that he had seized my brother around the neck, that he had pushed him against the wall, and that he was strangling him!... the assassin was built like Hercules, and had an easy advantage over Maximilien, who was weak bodily and of a delicate complexion. We cried out piercingly; the assassin then let go his victim and took flight; entirely occupied as we were with succoring my brother, we did not think of cutting off his escape.
Another time, two men came likewise to M. Duplay’s house to speak to my brother, who had gone out; we told them that he was absent. They insisted on seeing him. There was something suspicious in their countenances, in their miens, and even in their words; everything about them announced their malevolent designs; they were questioned on the object of their visit, and they cut themselves off, which succeeded in confirming our idea that those two men were nothing but criminals, who wanted to assassinate Maximilien. They said that they absolutely needed to speak to him, and that they would return. They did return, in effect, the next day at dinnertime when we were at the table; they did not enter together; perhaps they had made M. Duplay’s house a meeting-place to execute their crime. The first to arrive seemed embarrassed; he asked to speak to Robespierre in private; we replied that their vile plans had been discovered. At these words, he became troubled, mumbled a few words, and retired in all haste. Only a few minutes passed before his companion of the previous evening arrived. He was not given the same to speak; he was told that his accomplice had preceded him by an instant, that there was nothing more for him to do than to join him, and that their attempt had failed. No more was needed to destroy him; one might have called him a man struck by lightning; he fled as if being pursued.
These two events, and many others as well, gave Robespierre the certainty that a gang of assassins had been organized to make attempts on his life. Moreover, the words spoken by an ex-monk named Saintenax, who had said in a café in Choisy-sur-Seine that sooner or later all the villains of the committee would be struck down, came to the aid of that conviction of my brother’s, which was also my own, a conviction which has not left me; yes, I am still convinced that the foreign courts, the émigrés, and the aristocrats of the interior conspired to end the lives of the members of the Committee of Public Safety, and especially my brother’s life. Corrupted historians have rejected that opinion, but I well believe it; they were paid for it; but historians who have written the history of the revolution conscientiously are of the same opinion as I am in this regard. Read Laponneraye,[2] and see if he does not think that a secret conspiracy had been formed to assassinate Maximilien Robespierre.
The admirable speech that my brother pronounced on the occasion of the criminal attempts of Cécile Renault and Ladmiral may be read in the Monitor. He stated formally in this discourse that he expected to die, but that he was happy to die for the sacred cause of liberty and equality; that he would do the most good he could on earth, since the villains had marked the term of his existence so near, and that the more haste with which they scrambled to sever the thread of his days, the more he felt the need to consecrate his life to useful actions in order to leave a name dear to humanity behind. One fear alone tormented him: that the villains, after having assassinated him, would calumniate him. He wrote some verses on this subject, of which I remember only the five which follow:
The only torment of the just at his last hour, (Le seul tourment du juste à son heure dernière,)
And the only one which will then tear me apart, (Et le seul dont alors je serai déchiré,)
Is to see, in dying, pale and somber envy (C’est de voir en mourant la pâle et sombre envie)
Distill shame and infamy upon my name, (Distiller sur mon nom l’opprobre et l’infamie,)
To die for the people, and be abhorred for it… (De mourir pour le peuple, et d’en être abhorré…)
What gave my brother Maximilien the presentiment of an impending death was not so much the dagger that the aristocrats made glint before his eyes, but the attitude of a great number of so-called patriots in his regard. Robespierre expressed his thoughts with a harshness and frankness that discontented those who had something to reproach themselves with; most of the men who were involved in the plot of Thermidor had no other grief against him than that of being rightly and energetically blamed for their acts. Fouché was among these.
Fouché had shown the most ardent patriotism, the most sacred devotion since the beginning of the revolution. My brother, who believed him sincere, had accorded him his friendship and his esteem; he spoke to me of him as a proven democrat, and introduced him to me in praising him and asking me to give him my esteem. Fouché, after having been introduced to me by my brother, came to see me assiduously, and had those regards and attentions that one has for a person in whom one is particularly interested.
Fouché was not handsome, but he had a charming wit and was extremely amiable. He spoke to me of marriage, and I admit that I felt no repugnance for that bond, and that I was well enough disposed to accord my hand to he whom my brother had introduced to me as a pure democrat and his friend.
I did not know that Fouché was only a hypocrite, a swindler, a man without convictions, without morals, and capable of doing anything to satisfy his frenzied ambition. He knew so well how to disguise his vile sentiments and his malicious passions in my eyes as in my brother’s eyes, that I was his dupe as well as Maximilien. I responded to his proposition that I wanted to think about it and consult my brother, and I asked him the time to resolve myself. I spoke of it, effectively, to Robespierre, who showed no opposition to my union with Fouché.
It was around that time that the latter departed on mission for
I was present for the interview that Fouché had with Robespierre upon his return. My brother asked him to account for the bloodshed he had caused, and reproached him for his conduct with such energy of expression that Fouché was pale and trembling. He mumbled a few excuses and blamed the cruel measures he had taken on the gravity of the circumstances. Robespierre replied that nothing could justify the cruelties of which he had been guilty; that Lyon, it was true, had been in insurrection against the National Convention, but that that was no reason to have unarmed enemies gunned down en masse.
From that day forth, Fouché was the most irreconcilable enemy of my brother, and joined the faction conspiring his death. I would only learn this later. Fouché never again set foot in my apartment, but I met him from time to time on the Champs-Elysées, where walked almost every day. He addressed me as if nothing had happened between him and my brother. When I learned that he was Maximilien’s declared enemy, I no longer wanted to talk to him. Despicable words have been spoken about me on the subject of that man, some have dared to say that I was his mistress before and after 9 Thermidor; this is an abominable calumny! Never did Fouché cease to have the greatest respect for me; and if in his discourse he had included any words tending to make me neglect my duty, I would have left him that very instant.
Besides, Fouché had only sought my hand because my eldest brother occupied premier place on the political stage. That honorific of Robespierre’s brother-in-law flattered his pride and his ambition; to judge by that man’s conduct since, everything was a calculation with him, and, if he pretended to love me, that’s because he saw it was in his interest. What would have become of me if I had married such a being?
Upon his return to
He departed once more for the Army of Italy without having come to see me. I did not dare speak of our conflict to Maximilien; I saw how busy he was! All his time was measured. My younger brother recounted everything to him, and not only spoke to him of my brusque departure from
During his second stay with the Army of Italy, Robespierre the Younger had the occasion to get to know Bonaparte rather well. During his first mission, we had both met him, but had not cultivated the acquaintance in particular until the second. Bonaparte held my two brothers in very high esteem, and especially the eldest; he admired his talents, his energy, the purity of his patriotism and of his intentions. Then Bonaparte was sincerely republican, I will even say that he was a Montagnard republican; at least he gave me that impression by the way he viewed things at the time when I found myself in Nice. His victories would later turn his head and make him aspire to dominate his fellow citizens; but when he was only an artillery officer in the Army of Italy he was the partisan of a broad liberty and a true equality.
One thing that has not been reported, as far as I know, by any historian of the revolution, is that after 9 Thermidor Bonaparte proposed to the representatives of the people who were on mission with the Army of Italy, and who had succeeded my younger brother and Ricord, to march on Paris to chastise the authors of the counterrevolutionary movement who had caused the death of my two brothers. This bold proposition, which revealed the courage, the greatness of spirit, the extraordinary patriotism of he who made it, frightened the representatives, who hastened to repulse it.
Bonaparte’s admiration for my elder brother, his friendship for my younger brother, and perhaps as well the interest with which my misfortunes inspired him, allowed me to obtain a pension under the consulate. I had known Madame Bonaparte when she was General Bauharnais’ [Beauharnais] wife; she had even shown herself to be very attached to me; and, after 9 Thermidor, I continued to see her. For some time yet she received me with the same regard, but soon I perceived a change in the welcome she gave me. The coldness and indifference that I had remarked in her redoubled to the point that I believed my dignity demanded that I cease the visits which seemed to annoy her. Several times her door had been closed to me; on day I met her, I expressed my surprise on this subject; she made me a thousand excuses, and accompanied them with such demonstrations of friendship that I believed ingenuously that if I had not been allowed to come in and see her it was because of a misunderstanding. “When you would like to honor me with a visit,” she said to me, “name yourself, and my door will be opened to you at once.” I recalled this recommendation, when some days later I went to see Madame Bonaparte; the concierge having told me that she was not home, I named myself, telling him that Madame Bonaparte herself had recommended that I give my name and that I would be received immediately. “Eh! Mademoiselle,” replied the concierge in a half mocking, half dry tone, Madame says the same thing to everyone and she is available for no one.” She showed all the insolence of a grande dame of the court of Louis XV.
When Bonaparte became first consul I was advised to ask him for an audience. I had no resources; since the death of my brothers I had received the hospitality of my excellent and respectable friend, M. Mathon, who had been their friend and who was from
. . . . . . . . . . . .[4]
I have often heard my brother’s name attached to that of Marat, as if the way of thinking, the sympathies, the acts of those two men were the same, as if they had acted in concert. It is thus that the portraits and busts of Voltaire and Rousseau are placed side by side, as if those two great writers had been the best friends in the world when they were alive, while in truth they found each other insufferable. I do not claim to discount Marat’s merit, nor make an attempt on the purity of his devotion and of his intentions. Some have dared to say that he was in the pay of foreigners; but have they not said that of my brother? The field of the absurd is immense and limitless. Have they not said of Maximilien Robespierre that he had asked the young daughter of Louis XVI in marriage? After such an accusation nothing should be surprising anymore; more burlesque and impossible assertions must be expected; it is the nec plus ultra of inanity.
To return to Marat, I will dare to affirm that he was not an agent of foreigners, as it has pleased some to say; Marat had felt the infamies of the Ancien Régime and the poverty of the people strongly; his fiery imagination and his irascible temperament had made him an ardent, and too often even imprudent, revolutionary; but his intentions, I repeat, were good.
My brother disapproved of his exaggerations and his rages, and believed, as he said many times to me, that the course adopted by Marat was more detrimental than useful to the revolution. One day Marat came to see my brother. This visit surprised us, for, usually, Marat and Robespierre had no rapport. They spoke first of affairs in general, then of the turn the revolution was taking; finally, Marat opened the chapter on revolutionary rigors, and complained of the mildness and the excessive indulgence of the government. “You are the man whom I esteem perhaps the most in the world,” Marat said to my brother, “but I would esteem you more if you were less moderate in regard to the aristocrats.” – “I will reproach you with the contrary,” my brother replied; “you are compromising the revolution, you make it hated in ceaselessly calling for heads. The scaffold is a terrible means, and always a grievous one; it must be used soberly and only in the grave cases where the patrie is leaning toward its ruin.” – “I pity you,” said Marat then, “you are not at my level.” – “I would be quite grieved to be at your level,” replied Robespierre. “You misunderstand me,” returned Marat, “we will never be able to work together.” – “That’s possible,” said Robespierre, “and things will only go the better for it.” – “I regret that we could not come to an understanding,” added Marat, “for you are the purest man in the Convention.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[1] It will be remarked that there must be necessarily be a gap between the fourth and fifth chapters, as between the third and the fourth. L.
[2] The Course of the History of France, from 1789 to 1830, tome II, pages 235-236.
[3] Charlotte Robespierre and her younger brother were staying together before their quarrel.
[4] What follows relates in no way to what precedes it and what follows it; I insert it here because I found no occasion to place it in another part of these Memoirs. L.