(I hope this is what you meant, because I can't refrain from replying to this. I'll risk it anyway.)
I so agree with you. I mean, this is such a fascinating parallel, even if a bit funny -- I don't think Saint-Just would like being compared to an English Queen (and yet again to a woman -- it's growing old, isn't it?). But it's really, sincerely an interesting concept. My own "theory" of Saint-Just's psychology is that he tried to "regenerate" himself with the Revolution, that he was "born again" with it, and then he was convinced that the model -- his model, his inspiration, etc. -- could work with others as well. No religion could have done that conversion but a revolution did it...
Your parallel is really close to it: it's becoming a whole new public person, cutting away from the past, as the vids you linked show. Thus, it's really different from what an "average individual" (who is more private than public) would do in a "normal situation" -- hence why Hilary Mantel's psychologising of Saint-Just fails, or why it always fails when they do that and call him "a whiny, tantrum-y teenager". They fail to understand the particularities of that context, the incredible, unique and, yes, self-important way they felt. Saint-Just wanted to become that idealized, perfect citizen, perfect patriot, perfect representative of the People he wrote about.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-07-17 11:22 pm (UTC)I so agree with you. I mean, this is such a fascinating parallel, even if a bit funny -- I don't think Saint-Just would like being compared to an English Queen (and yet again to a woman -- it's growing old, isn't it?). But it's really, sincerely an interesting concept. My own "theory" of Saint-Just's psychology is that he tried to "regenerate" himself with the Revolution, that he was "born again" with it, and then he was convinced that the model -- his model, his inspiration, etc. -- could work with others as well. No religion could have done that conversion but a revolution did it...
Your parallel is really close to it: it's becoming a whole new public person, cutting away from the past, as the vids you linked show. Thus, it's really different from what an "average individual" (who is more private than public) would do in a "normal situation" -- hence why Hilary Mantel's psychologising of Saint-Just fails, or why it always fails when they do that and call him "a whiny, tantrum-y teenager". They fail to understand the particularities of that context, the incredible, unique and, yes, self-important way they felt. Saint-Just wanted to become that idealized, perfect citizen, perfect patriot, perfect representative of the People he wrote about.