Quotes about Robespierre

[pevampire.livejournal.com]

I want to know what historians generally think of Robespierre but i'm having sort of hard time
researching ;_; Just quotes about him would be okay (if i can understand it) but what do
historians say about him? Do they really say horrible things? It would be nice if you could give me some quotes about Maxime. ^_^

Comments

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

It depends a lot on the historian. There seems a split between the Dantonists and the Robespierrists in terms of the study of history, even years later (not to metion the the pro-monarchy, pro-centerist, pro-girondin, pro-something else entirely factions...), so some historians are total appologists for Robespierre while others are so biased against him, their accounts are equally useless (and border on slander--and it IS hard to slander someone responsible for as much bloodshed as Robespierre).

I think a good number have difficulty rationalizing (but who wouldn't?) the ethical and even admirable soft-spoken lawyer from Arras come delegate of the Third Estate of 1789 with the paranoid and dangerous terror politician who went to his death in 1794. Thus, portraits of him are bound to be inconsistant.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Korngold notes that Thiers, as a historian, condemned Robespierre as one of the vilest human beings who ever lived. Decades later, when Thiers was head of the French government in 1871, he presided over the massacre - with no formal trial - of thousands of Communards: estimates vary from 30,000 to 50,000 people.

That's not an excuse for the more horrific acts of the Revolution, but it is a cautionary tale for historians, condemning people for their actions from the comfort of their well-upholstered university armchairs.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

By the way, that isn't a jibe at you - it's me having a go at Thiers (and others of his ilk)! It's interesting that Norman Hampson is more sympathetic to the Revolution in the books he writes just after his WW2 experience, and decreasingly so as he gets older. In France it seems to be the other way around, which I can't help feeling is also related to the Wartime record - viz the play 'Pauvre Bitos', which seems sympathetic to collaborators and condemns Bitos / Robespierre for condemning them. In 1958 the French govt very publicly stated it would not be commemorating Robespierre's 200th anniversary.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I think a good number have difficulty rationalizing (but who wouldn't?) the ethical and even admirable soft-spoken lawyer from Arras come delegate of the Third Estate of 1789 with the paranoid and dangerous terror politician who went to his death in 1794.
You ask who wouldn't feel this way? Well, I for one have never bought this "two Robespierres" theory that a lot of people, especially in the English speaking world, have advocated--and which has come, among some people, to be a kind of conventional wisdom. Many French historians disagree with it as well, so I would be careful what assumptions you make.

...To put that plainly: those who believe that are entitled to their opinion, but it's dangerous to assume that everyone shares that opinion (or any opinion, really) just because it seems obvious to you.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

*applauds* Thiers and his hypocrisy always drive me up the wall. >.>

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Here's a short essay you might find interesting: it's by the Edwardian (c 1910) novelist and essayist G.K. Chesterton, and I was surprised when I first read it, because the standard view of his time - which he discusses here - was that Robespierre was a villain - the criminal of the essay's title. Instead, whilst noting his flaws, he notes too that it took someone like that to attempt such an extraordinary social transformation - Chesterton thought it the boldest since Christianity. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alarms_and_Discursions/A_Criminal_Head

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

I think that one of the first historians to write defending somewhat Maximilien was Alphonse de Lamartine. He began his monumental work: "History of the Girondins" applauding all that this political group did, but eventually, he was somewhat "haunted" by Robespierre and his portrait of him is rather positive for our dear "Maxime". Don't forget that he had the chance to speak with people who had been alive at French Revolution times. He interviewed Elisabeth Duplay more than once, and read a lot of documents that were available in his lifetime (most of them burned at the Hotel-de-Ville when Communards put fire to it); so, at least, for him, Robespierre was not the monster he was for Thiers, Taine and even Michelet. He is much less biased in his depiction of the "Incorruptible"...And he was "in love" with the kind of life he lived at the Duplay's.

HanriotFRan (Vanesa)