Yes, Robespierre's career looks more fluid and regular in its development. It seems to follow the rational laws of cause and effect... though I have to admit I feel much more at ease with Saint-Just's mysterious ups and downs !
I believe he was an "idealist", in an ethymological sense rather than in that usual of "a-dreamer-who-wants-to-change-the-world". His action followed an idea and lacked, of course, spontaneity. It wasn't the generous gesture of a pure passionate man. His behaviour was submitted to a preminent intellectual interpretation of the world - an abstraction. This splitted up his world in two parts, the Good and the Evil as you say. Yes, you're right - he was a moralist, of that same stuff of some religious leaders who are strongly convinced they are called "on a mission" (despite this is f*ckin' irrational !) and want to shape the rest of the world according to their ideas. I believe that the concept of "Extraordinary Man" works very well with him ! I guess it is not a case that Camus in his essay "The Rebel" discusses both Saint-Just's and some dostoevskian characters' revolutionary attitude. Ivan Karamazov from Dostoevsky's "The brothers Karamazov" (-> btw. is it the right English title ?) makes me think of Saint-Just a lot. His perception of the world is intellectual (or at least he makes all the efforts to do so - he wants to control life with his thoughts), he has a conversation with the Devil (symbolizing the Unconscious, the part of the world every moralist uses to reject), he creates the perfect crime having his father killed by another character who looks as his alter-ego (or better, his degenerated caricature)... Saint-Just stands on the other side - the side of the Perfect Virtue performer, opposite to the Perfect Crime performer, but the spirit is the same ! More, at the end of the book we find out Ivan fails and he is driven to madness despite nobody really attacks him (btw. it would be interesting to debate about Saint-Just's behaviour in Thermidor)...
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I believe he was an "idealist", in an ethymological sense rather than in that usual of "a-dreamer-who-wants-to-change-the-world". His action followed an idea and lacked, of course, spontaneity. It wasn't the generous gesture of a pure passionate man. His behaviour was submitted to a preminent intellectual interpretation of the world - an abstraction. This splitted up his world in two parts, the Good and the Evil as you say. Yes, you're right - he was a moralist, of that same stuff of some religious leaders who are strongly convinced they are called "on a mission" (despite this is f*ckin' irrational !) and want to shape the rest of the world according to their ideas. I believe that the concept of "Extraordinary Man" works very well with him !
I guess it is not a case that Camus in his essay "The Rebel" discusses both Saint-Just's and some dostoevskian characters' revolutionary attitude. Ivan Karamazov from Dostoevsky's "The brothers Karamazov" (-> btw. is it the right English title ?) makes me think of Saint-Just a lot. His perception of the world is intellectual (or at least he makes all the efforts to do so - he wants to control life with his thoughts), he has a conversation with the Devil (symbolizing the Unconscious, the part of the world every moralist uses to reject), he creates the perfect crime having his father killed by another character who looks as his alter-ego (or better, his degenerated caricature)... Saint-Just stands on the other side - the side of the Perfect Virtue performer, opposite to the Perfect Crime performer, but the spirit is the same !
More, at the end of the book we find out Ivan fails and he is driven to madness despite nobody really attacks him (btw. it would be interesting to debate about Saint-Just's behaviour in Thermidor)...