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revolution_fr2007-12-26 07:32 pm
Notes and Justificatory Documents once more
No. 7
Letter from Charlotte Robespierre to her younger brother.
Your aversion for me, brother, far from having diminished as I flattered myself it would, has become the most implacable hatred, to the point that the mere sight of me inspires you with horror. Thus I cannot hope that you will ever be calm enough to hear me out; this is why I am going to try to write to you.
Crushed beneath the burden of my sorrow, incapable of organizing my ideas, I will not undertake my apology. Yet it would be so easy for me to demonstrate to you that I never deserved to excite this fury blinding you in any way; but I abandon the care of my justification to time, which uncovers all perfidies, all blackness; then, when the blindfold covering your eyes will have been torn off, if you can, in the disorder of your passions distinguish the voice of remorse, if nature’s cry can make itself heard, mend an error which is grievous to me. Do not fear that I should ever reproach you for having believed it for so long. I will care only for the happiness of having found your heart once more. Oh! If you could read mine! How you would blush to have outraged it so cruelly! You would see in it, with the proof of my innocence, that nothing can erase the tender attachment that unites me to you, and that it is the only sentiment to which I return all my affections. Without that, would I complain of your hatred? What does it matter to me to be hated by those to whom I am indifferent or despise? Never would their memory come to trouble me; but to be hated by my brothers, I, for whom it is a need to cherish them: it is the only thing that could make me as unhappy as I am.
How dreadful must this passion of hatred be, that it blinds you to the point of calumniating me to my friends! Yet do not hope that your delirium could make me lose the esteem of a few virtuous persons, who are the only benefit that remains to me. With a pure conscience, full of a just confidence in my virtue, I can defy you to make any attempt on it, and I will dare to tell you that with the good people who know me you will lose your reputation rather than hurt mine.
It is important therefore to your tranquility that I be removed from you; it is important even, it is said, for the republic,[1] that I not live in
Let my stay in
I leave you therefore, since you demand it; but, despite your injustices, my friendship for you is so indestructible that I will bear no resentment for the cruel treatment you have made me suffer, when, disabused sooner or later, you come to have for me the sentiments that I deserve. Let not a detrimental shame prevent you from telling me when I have recovered your friendship; and, wherever I may be, even overseas, if I can be useful for something, know to tell me, and soon I will be at your side.
ROBESPIERRE.
P. S. You must know that in leaving your lodging, I will take all the necessary precautions not to compromise my brothers. The quarter where Citoyenne Laporte lives, where I propose to retire provisionally, is the place in all the republic where I can be the least known.
No. 8
Inventory of the objects left by Charlotte Robespierre at her death.
An old mahogany chest of drawers.
A mahogany bed, a straw mattress, and two mattresses.
A little mahogany table.
Another little table made of walnut.
Six chairs and an old armchair.
A lithographed portrait of Maximilien Robespierre.
A portrait in miniature of Joséphine, given by her as a token of friendship to Charlotte Robespierre, in 1790. (At this time, Joséphine was the wife of General Beauharnais.)
A lithographed portrait of Laponneraye.
Three sets of silverware with the family’s initials.
A dozen napkins in good condition with the tablecloth.
Another dozen old napkins, likewise with the tablecloth.
Six old pairs of drapes.
An old dress in gros de
Twelve aprons and dishcloths.
A stove and its piping.
Two dozen dishes, several platters and a few black bottles.
A carafe and six glasses.
Various cooking utensils.
No buildings, no State allowances, no capital.[2]
No. 9
Thoughts gathered by Charlotte Robespierre.
Those who seek happiness in splendor and dissipation resemble those people who prefer the flicker of candles to the light of the sun.
The vulgar seek out the great, not for themselves, but for their power, and these last welcome them through vanity or need.
One is weak by laziness or by distrust of oneself. Woe to him who is [weak] by both these causes together! If he is a simple individual, he will be only null; if he is a king, he is lost.
The fool has a great advantage over the educated man; he is always pleased with himself.
Do you want to count your friends? Come into misfortune.
From wit to good sense there is a greater distance than one would think.
Bravura is an abstract currency; he who will hardily seek death in the enemy ranks trembles before the executioner’s steel. There are false heroes, as there are false tokens. Truth be told, valor is an innate quality, one cannot show it off.
The old refurbished monarchies will only last as long as the people do not feel their strength; such edifices always perish by their foundations.
Those who seek honors resemble lovers: possession decreases the price.
The surest means of remaining poor is to be an honest man.
With audacity one can undertake everything, one can not do everything.
I prefer force of reasoning to eloquence of style; ideas are worth more than words.
In revolutions there are two sorts of people, those who make them and those who profit from them.
Vengeance against the malicious is reparation made for virtue.
He who prefers riches to glory is a dissipater who borrows from usury and is ruined in interests.
Religious practice is to religion what the accoutrements of power are to power. The vulgar man measures a courtier’s credit by his number of lackeys; the populace judges the god’s power by the number of his priests.
Old men who conserve the tastes of youth lose in consideration what they gain in ridiculousness.
A fool is only boring, a pedant is unbearable.
The material order is extremely limited; truths must be sought in the moral order.
Chance is the only legitimate king in the universe.
The interest directing men from one pole to the other is a language they learn without grammar.
The superior man is impassible by nature; whether he is praised or blamed matters little to him: it is his conscience he listens to.
There are people who oblige as others insult; one must be on one’s guard against them, lest one be forced to ask oneself the reason for their kindness.
He who practices virtue only in hope of gaining renown is close indeed to vice.
The follies of others never serve to make us wise.
A beautiful woman is pleasing to the eyes, a good woman is pleasing to the heart; the one is a jewel, the other a treasure.
Ambition is to man what air is to nature; take the one from morality and the other from physicality and there is no more movement.[3]
No. 10
Letter from Charlotte Robespierre to the citizen Laponneraye in Sainte-Pélagie.
It is not, my friend, easy for me to express to you the tender sentiment that your proceedings evoke in me; the verbal reply that I made to your amiable sister proves that I appreciate all its grandeur and delicacy. I repeat, you are worthy of making your honor, and you do not deserve to be refused. I accept therefore from the best, the most humane and the tenderest of sons (a thousand times fortunate to be the mother of such a son!), I accept a quarter of your offer, because I believe that will suffice me, in the expectation that I will be receiving from friendship two hundred francs every six months, which makes sixteen hundred francs a year for me. This friend has promised me nothing, but she is so regular in making me this present that I think she will continue.
I will therefore receive from he who wishes to have the sentiments of a son for me, whom I regard as such, and for whom I already had so much affection; I will receive, not only with recognition, which is an entirely natural thing, but with pleasure. To receive with pleasure! That word encompasses everything; I believe that you will be happy with me.
A few thoughts have come to me, my friend, which I must indeed share with you. The good that you want to do me will cost you pains, work, evenings perhaps, at last, of privations, and I ask you if a mother’s heart would feel nothing at these reflections? Nevertheless, I will not break my word; your no, you will not refuse me has taken away my means, for it is impossible to resist. Oh! How my brothers would have loved you!
Adieu. Receive my friendship for all your family, which is mine.
ROBESPIERRE.
A thousand obliging things on Mademoiselle Mathon’s part.
No. 11
Charlotte Robespierre’s will.
I, Marie-Marguerite-Charlotte Robespierre, the undersigned, possessed of all my intellectual faculties, wishing, before paying nature the tribute owed her by all mortals, to make known my sentiments towards the memory of my eldest brother, declare that I have always known him for a man full of virtue; I protest against any letters attacking his honor which have been attributed to me. Wishing next to dispose of what I will leave upon my decease, I establish as my universal heir, Mademoiselle Reine-Louise-Victoire Mathon, for whom I would like everything that I will leave to be collected as her property.
In good faith, made and written by my hand, in
ROBESPIERRE.
No. 12
Discourse pronounced on
Citizens!
The sister of the great Robespierre has ceased to live. That precious and last remnant of an illustrious family, that angelic woman, who was spared by the Thermidorian scaffold, and who, from anguish to anguish and sorrow to sorrow managed to survive until our times like a living relic of that past where her immortal brother shone with an incomparable radiance, has just been consumed by death and no more of her remains to us than cold and insensible ashes; and these inanimate ashes that we contemplate here with sorrow will yet be taken from us forever: the tomb will swallow them up, and in a few moments only a name will remain to us…………………………….
But what a name!
Robespierre will be great and admired in every century because his devotion to the cause of humanity was inalterable and pure. If odious calumniators have, for some years, blackened his memory, the future will scatter the clouds obscuring such an exquisite life; advancing posterity will rehabilitate the disinterested patriot, the incorruptible democrat; or rather, has posterity not already begun for him? Already is justice not being done from all quarters to the purity of his intentions, the sublime elevation of his character, the goodness of his heart?
All these qualities, which shone to so high a degree in Maximilien Robespierre were also found in his sister: good and sensitive, gentle and full of candor, she lacked nothing for a perfect resemblance of her brother: nothing; for, if calumny was fierce against Maximilien, like him she was calumniated.
But, it will be said, what hold could calumny have had over her? Was she, a woman, whose life was entirely consecrated to the habits and occupations of her sex, beyond politics and the venomous hatred she breeds? That Robespierre could have been calumniated may be conceived to a certain point; did he not have all the enemies of the people for his enemies? But his sister, though she shared his principles and his sentiments, had she vowed a combat to the death against the aristocracy? No matter! She was calumniated: she has been reproached with having renounced her brother, with having joined with those who immersed themselves in the blood of the martyr of Thermidor. What horrible blasphemy!
No, virtuous and ill-fated Maximilien, you sister did not renounce you; no, she did not made an apostate of herself by trampling the principles which had been the gospel to her all her life beneath her feet.
Sister of Maximilien Robespierre, wrench yourself for a moment from the arms of death; appear to us once more, and tell us if your good and unhappy brother ever ceased to be revered and cherished in your thoughts, and if you ever ceased to render homage to his virtues.
Charlotte Robespierre was born two years after Maximilien, and three years before her youngest brother. She was the constant companion of their childhood; she shared their pleasures and their chagrins; joyous when they were gay, sad when they felt pain. One could not hear her recount the traits of their youth without tenderness. She was separated from her brothers for the whole duration of their studies; when they found each other later, they brought into their private life the same warmth of sentiment as in their childhood. But soon the two Robespierre [brothers] dove into politics with all the enthusiasm of two souls impassioned for liberty and equality; from the shore where her sex maintained her their sister followed them anxiously upon that sea so prodigious in tempests and shipwrecks and her ardent wishes accompanied them. She saw both of them surrounded by enemies, always ready to strike them. Let her torments be judged! She died every day of the death threatening her brothers.
At last the fatal moment arrived….. Two axe blows were heard, two heads rolled, two cadavers were thrown pell-mell in the same cart… Ah! You know too well who those two victims were; let me dispense with naming them for you. But their sister, what became of her when she learned of their so horrifically tragic end? Life became unbearable for her; she vegetated sadly, dolorously for forty years; and, to the sorrow of having lost two adored brothers, was added that of seeing them up against the most dreadful calumnies. Forced to hide her name to escape the rage of her brothers’ assassins, she lived in obscurity, applauding the efforts of the republican party to gift
That, in a few words, was Robespierre’s sister. Virtue so pure deserves all the homage of patriots. Let us honor her, not only because of her brother, but because she united in herself the most distinguished qualities.
Receive our adieus, sister of Robespierre. We return you to the earth, our common mother; we will leave you, but we will carry the sweet memory of you in our hearts, and this memory will never be erased. Death may perhaps take you from our respect and love, but it is beyond its power to take from us the consolation of thinking of you, of living with you in mind, of seeing you, of speaking with you as if you had not ceased to be.
Sister of Robespierre, one last time adieu!
If anyone shows any interest I might also post my translation of Élisabeth Le Bas's memoirs...