Élisabeth Le Bas's Memoirs (Part I)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Now that I've you all a few days to digest the last chapters and appendices of Charlotte Robespierre's memoirs, as promised, this will be the first of probably several posts of  Élisabeth Le Bas's. A note though: the tone, as you might have guessed, is rather different from Charlotte's. Élisabeth's memoirs are focused on herself, rather than the famous historical figures she knew. She only really discusses them in relation to herself. Which is actually more interesting in some cases, narrative-wise. But you'll see. And please do comment on the content: it would be nice to be able to discuss it. (Especially since this is the part containing the basis for that infamous scene in A Place of Greater Safety--if you don't know about that, so much the better for you and your brain.)

Mme Le Bas’ Manuscript[1].

 

                It was the day when Marat was borne in triumph to the Assembly that I saw my beloved Philippe Le Bas for the first time.

                I found myself, that day, at the National Convention with Charlotte Robespierre. Le Bas came to greet her; he stayed with us for a long time and asked who I was. Charlotte told him that I was one of her elder brother’s host’s daughters. He asked her a few questions about my family; he asked Charlotte if we came to the Assembly often, and said that on a particular day there would be a rather interesting session. He urged her to come to it.

                Charlotte asked my good mother for permission to take me there with her. At that time, my mother liked her a lot; she still had nothing to complain of.

                My mother was so good that she never refused her anything that could please her. She allowed me to accompany her many times.

                Therefore, I was with her at the Convention.

                She occupied an apartment in the front, in my father’s house on the Rue Saint-Honoré. I was also good friends with her, and it was a pleasure to go see her often; sometimes I even pleased myself to help her with her hair and her toilette. She too seemed to have much affection for me.

                My mother saw our attachment to Robespierre and his family with pleasure. For us, we loved him like a good brother! He was so good! He was our defender when my mother scolded us. That happened to me sometimes: I was quite young, a bit scatterbrained; he gave me such good advice that, as young as I was, I listened to it with pleasure.

                When I had some unhappiness, I told him everything. He was not a severe judge: he was a friend, a good brother indeed; he was so virtuous! He venerated my father and mother. We all loved him tenderly.

                Finally Charlotte came to get me to be present at a session which was to be quite noisy. Le Bas came up to me; for the first time, he addressed me to tell me quite good things. He told Charlotte that there would be a night session, that it should be quite interesting, that she should ask permission for me to come with her.

                Charlotte had no difficulty obtaining it. She was Robespierre’s sister, and my mother regarded her as her daughter. Poor mother! She believed Charlotte as pure and sincere as her brothers. Great God! This was not so!

                We went therefore to that session. We had brought oranges and some sweets. Charlotte offered some to Le Bas and to her younger brother.

                These messieurs, after having stayed with us for some time, left us to go vote.

                I asked Charlotte if I could offer Le Bas an orange; she said yes. I was happy to be able to show him an attention. He accepted with pleasure. How good and respectful he seemed to me!

                As I said already, Mademoiselle Robespierre seemed pleased with me.

                At another session of the Assembly, where we found ourselves again together, she took a ring from me that I had on my finger. Le Bas saw and asked her to let him see it, which she did. He looked at the figure that was engraved on it, and he was obliged, at that moment, to go away to give his vote, without having the time to return the ring, which caused me great torment; for he could not return it to me, and I no longer had it on my finger. Our good mother was dear to all of us and we trembled to cause her pain.

                At that same session, Le Bas had lent us, Charlotte and I, a lorgnette. He returned, for a moment, to speak to Mlle Robespierre of what had just happened in the session; I wanted to return his lorgnette to him; he did not want to take it back and said that we were going to have need of it again. He begged me keep it. He went away again, and, at that moment I pleaded with Charlotte to ask him for my ring back; she promised me to do so, but we didn’t see Le Bas again.

                He had charged Robespierre the Younger with making his excuses and telling us that he had found himself indisposed and had been obliged to leave, quite to his regret. And myself too, I regretted no longer having my ring and not being able to return his lorgnette to him. I feared to displease my mother and be scolded; this was a great torment to me. My mother was good, but very severe.

                Charlotte said, to console me: “If your mother asks you for your ring, I will tell her how the thing happened.” All this made me quite unhappy: it was the first time such a thing had happened to me.

                From that time, we did not have occasion to return to the Convention again. Charlotte told me to be calm about what tormented me so. She also told me that M. Le Bas was quite sick and could no longer return to the Assembly.

                I admit that this news made a great impression on me. I could not take account of it: I, so young and so gay, I became sad and pensive; everyone observed my sadness, even Robespierre, who asked me if I had some sorrow; I assured him that nothing was wrong, that my mother had not scolded me, that I could not take account of what I was feeling. He said kindly: “Little Élisabeth, think of me as your best friend, as a good brother; I’ll give you all the advice one needs at your age.” Later, he was how much confidence I had in him.

                For a long time I had ceased to hear anyone speak of Le Bas, and I did not know who to address myself to have news of him.

                At this time, we often went walking as a family in the Champs-Élysées; ordinarily we chose the most retired paths. Robespierre often accompanied us in these walks. We passed happy moments together thus. We were always surrounded by poor little Savoyards, whose dancing it pleased Robespierre to watch; he gave them money: he was so good! For him it was a joy to do good: he was never happier than in those moments. He had a dog, named Brount, that he loved a lot; the poor beast was very attached to him.

                In the evening, after returning from the walk, Robespierre read us the works of Corneille, Voltaire, Rousseau; we listened to him as a family with great pleasure; he knew so well how to make what he was reading felt! After an hour or two of reading, he retired to his room, saying good evening to all. He had a profound respect for my father and mother; they too regarded him as a son, and we as a brother.

                For some time, my health had been less good; my parents observed this and resolved to send me to stay a month in the country, with Mme Panis (in Chaville). She had all a mother’s cares for me; she took me walking in very beautiful gardens.

                One day, among others, she took me to Sèvres, to a country house inhabited by Danton. I had never seen him; but great God! How ugly he was! We found him with a lot of people, walking in a very beautiful garden. He came to us and asked Mme Panis who I was; she replied that I was one of Robespierre’s host’s daughters.

                He told her I appeared to be suffering, that I needed a good [boy]friend, that this would return me to health. He had the sort of repulsive features that frighten one. He came up to me, wanted to take my waist and kiss me. I repulsed him forcefully, though I was still quite weak.

                I was very young; but his face scared me so much that I pleaded insistently with Mme Panis not to bring me back to that house; I told her that this man had said horrible things to me, such as I had never heard. He had no respect for women, and still less for young people.

                Mme Panis seemed to regret having taken me to that house and told me that she did not know that man under that report; she assured me that we would not return to his house and then told me that he was Danton; she urged me not to speak to my mother of what had happened, because it could cause her pain, and she would no longer want to let me come to see her. I admit that this recommendation was not pleasing to me, for our good mother had raised us in the habit of never hiding anything from her.

                I did not even want to stay in the country anymore; but my brother came to see me, and we passed a few more days there; and we departed once more for Paris.

                God! How happy I was to see my parents again! I had such a need to recount everything to my mother! The horrid mien of that man followed me everywhere.

                My mother did not find my health much better; she asked me several questions, asked what I had done in Chaville and if I had had fun there, if I had gone on many walks and where we had been. Poor mother! I could hide nothing from her; she seemed very perturbed by what I told her and asked me if I would like to return to Sèvres again; but I said no with such emphasis that she no longer spoke to me on the subject.

                I was still quite sad; our good friend Robespierre tried every means of finding out what was wrong with me, told me that this sadness was not natural at my age, and so much the more since I had always been cheerful until then.

                What could I say to him? I could not resolve myself to explain the reasons for my sadness to him!

                Upon my return I went to see Charlotte; I feared to speak to her about Le Bas; I was afraid she would think it was only about the ring. She seemed happy to see me and also found me changed. I asked her then if it had been a long time since she had gone to the Convention; she said yes and I could learn no more from her.

                How much I would have liked to hear someone speak of Le Bas! God! How I suffered! No one spoke his name; it had been nearly two months since he had appeared at the Convention or the Jacobins.

                It was after these two months of absence that I saw my beloved again. My mother, having gone one day to dine in the country with Robespierre, had left us, my sister Victoire and I, at the house, recommending that we should go reserve seats at the Jacobins for the evening session, at which it was thought that Robespierre would speak (the days when he was to be heard there was always so large a crowd that one was forced to reserve seats in advance). I went alone and arrived early so as not to miss out.

                What was my surprise and joy when I saw my beloved! His absence had made me spill tears. What was my happiness when I recognized him!

                I found him quite changed; he recognized me right away and approached me with respect. He asked me how I and all my family, as well as Robespierre, were faring, saying that he had not seen Robespierre in a long time, though he had a great deal of friendship for him. Finally, after a silence of several minutes, which he broke first, he asked me many questions and sought to feel me out.

                He asked me if I was not soon going to marry, if I was in love with anyone, if pleasures and the toilette were to my taste, and if, once married and having become a mother, I would like to nurse my children.

                I replied that I would follow my good mother’s example and always ask her advice.

                Then he told me that I was very good, that he wanted to ask me to find him a woman who was very cheerful, who loved pleasures and the toilette, and who was not thinking of nursing her own children, for that would enslave her and deprive her of the pleasures that a young woman should love.

                God! How this kind of language on his part hurt me! What! I said to myself, there is the manner of thinking of a man whom I believed so reasonable and so virtuous!

                I wanted to go away then; but he entreated me to stay, saying that he had more to say to me; I told him that if he had nothing else to ask me I would like to retire, that his way of seeing being very different from my own, I could not accept the commission he wanted to give me to find him a wife. I begged him to charge some other person with that care.

                I became serious; for never had a felt such chagrin; it was very hard for me to discover such sentiments in a man whom I had adored in secret, whom I believed to be so good by all accounts. I admit that having seen him so full of respect and attentions for me every time I had met him when I was with Charlotte, and that the persistence with which he had insisted on keeping my ring and not recovering his lorgnette—which had been a precious souvenir for me during his illness—I admit that all of that had made me think there was some sympathy between us. My illusions were therefore destroyed.

                Also, this conversation made such an impression on me that I was near to feeling ill. I said to myself: “My God! How imprudent I was to think of him! How I would blush, mother, if you knew my weakness! How I would deserve to be scolded by you! But how unhappy your daughter was! I was in love and I wanted to hide it from you.”

                I then indeed saw my mistake and I wanted to leave him at once; but he insisted emphatically that I should stay, seeing the ill he had caused me. He said to me: “Good Élisabeth, I have caused you much pain, but forgive me for it. Yes, I admit, I wanted to know your way of thinking. Well then! The one I prayed you to seek for me, dear Élisabeth, is you: yes, my friend, you are the one I have cherished since the day I first saw you. I have found her therefore, the one who I had been seeking everywhere! Yes, my Élisabeth, if you want, I will ask your parents for your hand this evening; I will pray them to make for our happiness right away.” He took my hands then and said to me: “But you do not respond? Do you not feel for me what I feel for you?”

                I was so seized with joy that I could not reply; I believed myself dreaming. He was still holding my hand and begging me to respond. God! How happy I was! I told him then that if my parents consented to our union I would be happy.

                He pressed my hands tenderly and told me: “I love you too; fear nothing; you’re dealing with a good man.” – “Me too, Philippe, I’ve loved you since the day when I saw you at the Convention with Charlotte, at that evening session… I still have your lorgnette.” – “And,” he said, “I still have your ring; it has not left me since the day when I fell ill and could no longer see you. My God! How I suffered, deprived of the news of you which was so dear to me for so long! No longer being able to hope to see you again sometime with Mlle Charlotte, all these thoughts were far from advancing my recovery. I wrote to you ten times a day, but I did not dare to send you my letters, fearing to cause you chagrin, good Élisabeth. Several friends came to see me, but no one spoke to me of you; judge of my distress! Finally Robespierre came one day; he was the only man from whom I could have had new of you; but how unhappy I was! I did not know I how I could ask him. Finally, it occurred to me to speak to him of his hosts; he praised the entire family most highly, spoke to me of the happiness he felt to be among people so pure, so devoted to liberty. I already knew this from several of my friends; but, my Élisabeth, he did not speak to me of you. My God! How I suffered for many days. This time was so long… Robespierre the Younger came at last to see me. What joy for me! I was more familiar with him: we were of the same age. We spoke of his brother. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself; I spoke to him of your family, of your sisters; I spoke to him of you, my Élisabeth. He praised you, told me that he had the friendship of a brother for you, that you were cheerful and good and that I liked you best of your sisters, that your good mother was excellent, that she had raised you well, as housewives, that your household was perfect and recalled the golden age, that everything there breathed virtue and a pure patriotism, that your good father was the most worthy and generous of men, that his whole life had passed in goodness. He told me that his brother was very happy to be among you, that you were a family to him, that he loved you like sisters and regarded your father and mother as his own parents. If you could have known, my Elisabeth, how happy I was to hear him speak thus of a family I already honored, and whose conduct toward Robespierre, toward the friend of liberty, had made me recognize and esteem! I wished for the return of my health in order to be able to meet you like in the past with Charlotte…”

                Finally, after a long walk and a long conversation in the garden of the Jacobins, we saw my mother arrive.

                As I already said, it was believed that Robespierre would read a speech that day, but the session was put off until the next day. Then my friend came to find my mother in the galleries and asked her for a moment’s interview; my mother said: quite willingly; and we went out to the Tuileries.

                The weather was superb. After several turns about the park, my friend proposed that my mother should sit down and she consented; he then asked her for my hand. My mother, surprised at this request, replied that she had no intention to marry off the youngest of her daughters before the eldest, and that she still had two others to marry off before me. (At this time my sister Sophie had already married M. Auzat.)

                A rather lively conversation then took place between my mother and M. Le Bas; he told her that it was not my sisters Éléonore or Victoire that he loved. Élisabeth, he said is the one whom I’ve long loved. He added that having been ill for two months, he had been unhappy not to be able to see me, and that only having had news of me once from Robespierre the Younger, he had wanted to write to me, but that he had feared to compromise me, that he loved me too much to cause me pain, that finally it was only be a happy accident that he had met me on my way to reserve seats for the session. “I prayed Élisabeth,” he said, “to please listen to me for a moment; she did not want to, fearing to displease you; but I implored her so strongly that she ended up staying. Then I told her that I loved her, that to have her for my wife would make my happiness. Circumstance has served me today and I very happy, citoyenne, to be able to ask you for my Élisabeth’s hand. If I had delayed in asking you; I feel that I would have employed every means to see her as often as possible; I could have compromised her and caused her chagrin; I love her too much for that; besides, a good man would not have acted thus.”

                My mother, who wanted to marry off my sisters before me, told Philippe that I was too young and a bit scatterbrained:

                “I love her like that,” he replied; “I will be her friend and her mentor.”

                At the last, it was late: the Tuileries was going to close; my mother, not wanting to pronounce positively, said that she could promise nothing without the consent of my father, and engaged M. Le Bas to come the next morning at about nine or ten o’clock; she added that if my father consented to this union, she would herself consent to it with all her heart. Judge of everything I must have felt during this conversation!

                We had to separate until the next day. I passed a very agitated night; my mother, returning to the house, had spoken to my father of the conversation she had just had with M. Le Bas; I admit to my shame that, from a room next to theirs, I heard their conversation. My father seemed happy; but my mother still wanted to marry off my sisters before me. Finally, I heard my father call our good friend: he was so good that we loved him better than a brother. My father informed him of the subject of the conversation and told him: “My friend, it’s our Élisabeth, our scatterbrain, that M. Le Bas is asking us in marriage.” – “I congratulate you on it,” he replied, “so much the better. Élisabeth will be happy; my dear friend, don’t hesitate for a moment: Le Bas is the worthiest of men by all accounts; he is a good son, a good friend, a good citizen, a man of talent; he’s a distinguished lawyer.”

                That good Maximilien seemed happy to see me asked in marriage by his compatriot and pleaded in our favor with my parents; he added: “This union will, I believe, make for Élisabeth’s happiness; they are in love; they will be happy together.”

                He praised me and my good friend; my mother made a few more objections on my distractedness; but our friend assured her that I would be a good wife and a good housekeeper.

                It was almost one in the morning when he retired to his room, wishing my father and mother a good night. I then heard my father say: “There is no reason to hesitate after the way Robespierre has just praised his friend.”

                Our good mother loved her children equally; she feared, in marrying her youngest daughter first, to harm the eldest; my father thought otherwise and said: “If they are in love, must we delay their happiness! No, wife, we must put prejudice aside and consent to this union.” My good mother appeared disarmed then and said to my father: “Well then! My friend, until tomorrow; he will come to ask for your consent.” I heard no more speaking and went to bed, but quite sadly, for I feared that some difficulty would arise. I did not sleep much, and that night seemed very long to me; I awoke before daybreak.

                A nine o’clock precisely I saw my friend arrive. God! How my heart pounded! I was at that moment ironing in the dining room. He passed close to me and said, taking my hand and holding it tenderly: “Courage, my friend!” He entered the salon where my father awaited him. I heard only these words: “You know, citizen, what brings me the pleasure of seeing you. You will have been told of my wish to enter your family; you know that the one I love is the last of your daughters; if not for a long illness from which I have just recovered, I would have asked you sooner. Having had the occasion to meet your daughter several times, I believed from my observation that she understood and shared my sentiments; but, having fallen ill, I could no longer see her. Judge of what I must have suffered during almost two months of absence.”

                After a rather long conversation, the rest of which I did not hear, my father called me to him and said to me severely that because of my lack of confidence in my mother, he would never consent to my marriage; he gave me a long lecture until I was sobbing. At last, my beloved came to me and told me not to make myself ill, to console myself, that my good father would pardon me and that my dear parents had consented to our union.

                Judge my happiness! I could not believe it; my friend was so good, so sweet-tempered, so caressing, that my father told him: “Well then, I want to make for my daughter’s happiness; I give her to you with all my heart: she’s a good little girl; she will make you happy, I hope.” What joy for my friend! We ran to embrace my father and my good mother, who cried with tender feeling.

                The good Robespierre came to share our happiness; that good friend said to me: “Be happy, Babet, you deserve it; you are made for each other.”

                Then my father, Robespierre, Le Bas and my mother took chocolate together while I returned to my work; the conversation lasted until after eleven o’clock. I was still in the dining room when Le Bas crossed it to go out; he took my hand and said: “Goodbye, my beloved, I’m dining with you, your worthy family, and our friend Robespierre.”

                This last continually praised Le Bas; he spoke much of his respectable family, whom he knew very well; Le Bas and his brothers and sisters were still thirteen children and had been twenty-one; their mother had only been fifty years old when she died, following a shock: the rumor had gotten around in the country that the Spanish were on the borders and she was so stricken by this terrible news, not for herself but for her numerous family, that nothing could recall her to life. Her beloved son, Philippe, was inconsolable. They wanted to know the cause of so cruel a death and had an autopsy performed on the body; it was discovered that her heart and liver were attacked.

                This was a very cruel loss for the family: she was a woman cherished by her husband and children, good and humane; she was the mother of the poor. Her son Philippe mourned her for a long time and continually praised that excellent mother. M. Le Bas’ father had been the steward of the properties of the Princesse de Bergues and de Rache; he was also the bailiff of Frévent. He was loved and venerated by that whole country.

---

[1] Je reproduis ce manuscrit sans en altérer le texte, sans en redresser le style, un peu fruste et souvent incorrect ; les femmes de cette époque, grandes par les sentiments, n’étaient point des femmes de lettres.

Oh, also, this is drawn from Autour de Robespierre : Le Conventionnel Le Bas, which is by Paul Coutant, alias Stéfane-Pol, Le Bas's grandson's son-in-law--as the note penciled into my copy so helpfully points out. 

EDIT: I've also posted this in the original here, if anyone is interested.

Comments

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

I agree with Estella about the apolitical approach of Mantel to the FR. It all boils down to commercial, psychoanalyzing swooning about strong male characters, the Revolution represents a sexy, attractive setting to make the emotions run high, to make the conflicts stronger in a context of life-or-death period. I am sick of this neutralization of such an ideologically loaded event. If you see Büchner, Przybyszewska or Rolland, they are ALL ABOUT politics, and that oes not make them less personal, less intereste in the characters of the Revolutionaries. Mantel is not a robespierriste, she has not put forward any convincing political-ideological statement in this respect. She just likes Max, Camille and Georges, the men she would have loved to be.

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I didn't see this reply.

The Revolution represents a sexy, attractive setting to make the emotions run high, to make the conflicts stronger in a context of life-or-death period.

I agree totally, she may have started out fascinated by the Revolution - she says so here (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books--a-revolting-obsession-history-is-fiction-said-robespierre-who-knew-how-it-would-treat-him-is-the-novelist-better-equipped-than-the-historian-to-find-human-truths-behind-the-mask-of-fact-1542080.html) - but by the time the novel finally appeared it had become that, a mere forcing chamber for high drama.

Mantel is not a robespierriste, she has not put forward any convincing political-ideological statement in this respect.
I agree with you too. The reason I call her a Robespierrist is because she self-defines as one. She doesn't seem to she that it is a political position. I am guessing she is confusing being a Robespierrist with having a personal liking for somebody on the grounds of nice waistcoats and an air of tragedy.

It all boils down to commercial, psychoanalyzing swooning about strong male characters,

Hm, not so sure on this. In fact a PoGS seemed dedicated to weakening and emasculating her central male characters, well at least Robespierre and Camille. To me, it seems like she's almost trying to cut them down to size.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are right in the last point, I stand corrected.