revolution_fr | (no subject)

Hello. Some little things - which I suppose are easier to take for granted...

First: I somehow feel guilty asking this, since it's not very useful either way (yes, let me deprecate myself a moment more) - else I might have brought it up earlier as it's been bothering me vaguely for years - but since I'd like to finally strike it off my 'wtf' list, I'm just going to put it out there: I recall reading on this site (incidentally, is it gone?) that Desmoulins was a "rumored" bisexual. Since then I have found this addressed in all of one place: Mantel's novel. Somehow, a work of fiction and the internet just don't do it for me, so I was wondering if anyone here knows of any reference to Camille's sexuality coming from a legit source? Or anything that isn't fictional outright, at least? Or is it just something the author of that site might have absorbed from fiction? Or both?!

Second: Okay, maybe this is just silly. But can anyone tell me more about the lock of Robespierre's hair at the Musée Carnavalet? ...and why it's white?

By the way, I'd like to suggest that since this community has separate tags under "desmoulins" and "camille desmoulins" that they be merged together. (Of course I am stupid about such things.)

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Oh! I haven't read City of Darkness, City of Light (funny, I've just never seen it anywhere), but that's interesting. I thought of The Danton Case but, well, what stood out more in my mind (okay, I must admit, not much of it stands out in my mind) was Robespierre toward Camille - but I do think your right. ("Robespierre-sexual"! It's an uncanny description of the plays as a whole.)

...that has no relation to the Revolution.
Why, why does that addition make it all so much ~~funnier~~ worse? XD Ah, it's too bad that whole passage is rather strange and obscure. But yes, that phrasing rather makes me wonder what was meant by "deviances" (i.e. deviating from the Republic, or just being deviant?) because clearly it was not the same as "vice".

And even odder to make it public in an accusation before the Convention! I can only presume it was some sort of attempt to make Camille break with Danton before the trial (assuming the prisoners would get to hear the contents of the accusation in full).

I hadn't considered it might be something like laudanum before today - though I think Camille's erratic enough without having to be stoned!

That part was just in Robespierre's private notes, it didn't make it into Saint-Just's speech.

I'm actually re-reading The Danton Case right now and there are some lines in that for which I'm trying to figure out a non-sexual interpretation. During Camille and Robespierre's big break up scene, yeesh... I wish I could see this play staged, just to see if the director dared to make the rampantly homoerotic undertones as blatant as they are in the stage directions.

You're right, the phrasing of that sentence is unclear... And I guess that's why novelists/playwrights have seen it and gone "Woo hoo! Creative liberty!"

The mental image I get of that encounter from Robespierre's highly obscure re-telling is Danton dismissively saying of Camille, as an explanation for his political deviance, "Whatever, he's just a _____" (insert your deviancy of choice here).

"Undertones"? Ah, it's true love, but they realise it too late! I don't think there's any non-sexual way of reading it! I did see a version of the play staged but so long ago...I'll get the adaptation script one day to jog my hopeless brain, but I do remember this scene as quite low-lit and slashy. Even in Wajda's version it retains that quality, which I saw as tragic, but I know some see as Wajda just being homophobic (deviant sexuality/diseased regime).

Heh - I bet Danton put it a hell of a lot more colourfully that Robespierre writes it (I love his 'I'll eat his brains and shit in his skull' line!)

Aw, Danton is so cute. (But yes, trying to picture him - even elusive and historical as he is - saying, "Better look out for that Camille, he has a private and shameful vice!" - well, it just isn't working.)

I have a feeling Danton was very much the sort of person to use epathets that Robespierre would relate to vice and mean it in good humor.