According to the historian Antoine de Baecque, the death mask in Mme Tussaud's could not have been made from life, as has often been asserted--a rather persistent legend. This is because the Thermidorians expressly prevented it from being made: "Contrary to the legends that were spread, not only was no death mask of Robespierre taken in wax, before or after the execution, but we also find in the archives of the two committees, the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security, an order of 10 Thermidor 'relative to the disposing of the conspirators." It recommends "the acquisition of a great quantity of time,' of which, it then says, "a substantial layer will be spread over the remains of the tyrants to corrupt them and prevent them from one day being deified." A series of measures is thus taken in the immediacy of events. The final disappearance of the corpses of the Robespierrists must be hastened, the Incorruptible corrupted: decomposition of the bodies is accelerated, the communal ditch of the Errancis closely guarded, as well as the Rue du Rocher, which leads to it, to avoid any theft of "relics," and a death mask is prohibited, setting this apart from other famous victims of the guillotine, executions in the course of which the executioners were less scrupulous." (de Baecque, trans. Charlotte Mandell, Glory and Terror pp. 150-1)
As to its having been taken in life, well, it's possible I suppose. But it's no less possible that it was made from memory with his portrait as a guide.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 01:48 pm (UTC)As to its having been taken in life, well, it's possible I suppose. But it's no less possible that it was made from memory with his portrait as a guide.