Quote source help!

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know an exact source for the quote 'you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs', which is often used with reference to (revolutionary) violence and variously attributed to Stalin, Lenin, Napoleon, and Robespierre (Google tells me vaguely, 1790,'on ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs') - is there an exact source (speech, letter, pamphlet?). I appreciate it would probably be a popular saying prior to that anyway, but...

The other quote source I'm wondering about is Saint-Just's alleged response to Camille Desmoulins' written remarks about him carrying his head like the holy sacrament: "I'll make him carry his like Saint Denis" - was that a bit of contemporary gossip, or the invention of Buchner in his play 'Danton's Death'?

Comments

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know an exact source for the quote 'you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs', which is often used with reference to (revolutionary) violence and variously attributed to Stalin, Lenin, Napoleon, and Robespierre (Google tells me vaguely, 1790,'on ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs')

I have no idea where it comes from, but if it is from the Revolution that would be totally ironic, considering what argueably led to Condorcet's death.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Does history record how many eggs were considered excessive?

I like the response - "...but you can break a hell of a lot of eggs without making a decent omelet" (me, I've got a special omelet pan!)

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

Didn't he say something like two dozen? Whatever it was, it was a lot more than should go in an omelet.

Personally, I think one egg suffices (and is all that fits in my omelet pan)--with some cheese and herbs de provence for flavor.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Maybe he was attempting suicide by cholesterol!

[ephaistion85.livejournal.com]

Could be Michelet the source of your second quotation? I'm almost sure he wrote something like this in his Histoire.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

It's possible that Michelet could have got it from Buchner, though I don't know how well known Buchner was by the 1860's. He wrote the play in 1834 and it was published in 1835, republished in 1850 and again in 1879, though it wasn't actually performed until 1902. Buchner incorporated a lot of quotations into his play, but a lot of Saint-Just's dialogue is his own invention, so I'm not sure if he got that particular phrase from a history book/source or just made it up.

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm finding references to that quote on google books from the 1840s - still after Buchner's play, but wikipedia (lol reliable sources) and such tell me that it was lost for a long time, so presumably it wouldn't have been terribly well known only a decade after it was written...? That still doesn't rule it out, though... I can't believe I didn't think to check this ever, I think I've heard it so many times I just took it for granted!!

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Yeah - Hilary Mantel uses it in her novel as though it was contemporary. It sounds to me like it could be contemporary or soon after, though apocryphal - like a deadlier version of the many quotes attributed to Oscar Wilde that turn out to have no definite source. Buchner makes up a lot of Saint-Just's dialogue, but would the severed head/Saint Denis line immediately spring to the mind of a presumably protestant young German, in the way that it would to a catholic Parisian gossip-monger? That's what makes me think it's French, even if it was made up.