![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
maelicia.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
revolution_frParts IV and V and Conclusion.
On the (mis)representation of Saint-Just in Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution.
Read the manifesto.
FIRST POST: INTRODUCTION, PARTS I-III.
IV. Saint-Just’s “activities” in this docudrama
At the very end of his Rapport sur la conjuration given to the Convention on 11 germinal Year II in order that the arrest of the dantonistes should be decreed, Saint-Just wrote: « Ce que nous avons dit ne sera jamais perdu sur la terre. » (“The words we have spoken will never be lost on Earth.” Or more literally: “What we have said will never be lost on Earth.”)
Yet, they can. You can make them disappear, you can edit them out, you can transform his speech, as with Schama’s mistranslation of his “favourite line” (with genocidal undertones) of Saint-Just’s: “The Republic consists in the extermination of all who oppose it.” However, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
estellacat has explained, the original quote in French (part of the report of 8 Ventôse Year II) is : “‘Vous avez voulu une République ; si vous ne vouliez point en même temps ce qui la constitue, elle ensevelirait le peuple sous ses débris. Ce qui constitue une République, c'est la destruction totale de ce qui lui est opposé. On se plaint des mesures révolutionnaires ! Mais nous sommes des modérés, en comparaison de tous les autres gouvernements.’ To compare both quotes in the same language, an English translation of the sentence in bold in the preceding paragraph: ‘What constitutes a Republic is the total destruction of that which is opposed to it.’ If Schama's version were translated into French, it would probably go something like this: ‘Ce qui constitue la République, c'est l'extermination de tous ceux qui lui sont opposés.’ ...Which is really not the same thing at all.”
Let’s be serious here: Saint-Just isn’t doing a lot in this so-called “documentary”. In fact, he’s not doing anything. He recits one speech, the one given on 10 October 1793 on the Revolutionary Government, which is shut down by Simon Schama, who says of it:
“What a horrible speech, what an imbecilic illogic, depraved thing to say.” (Part Four, 9:10)
It’s not necessary to point out that this list of faults presents no serious argument against a speech. Schama replies in the domain of emotion, and he may argue about “illogic”, but he’s no more logical! But then, that’s Simon Schama’s way of recounting history, and that would be a whole different essay.
Since this is Saint-Just’s only political action, and the only speech he delivers, we can conclude right away that Saint-Just has nothing to do in this docudrama. What is he doing the rest of the time? What the “adolescent topos” requires of him: he sulks, he whines, he throws tantrums. What about Fleurus? The actions he took during his missions – his five missions? Do we learn about them, are they even mentioned in this docudrama? Yet we see those of Collot and Couthon (I admit that it’s usually rare for them to bother to mention Couthon’s mission in Lyon). No mention of the Decrees of Ventôse either. Of his social thoughts and ideals. Of his theoretical work. Of his other speeches. Of the bureau de police he created to process the Decrees of Ventôse. Not a word about any of this. Not a word – never in fact – about Saint-Just’s constitutional work: he worked on the Constitution he suspended with the speech of 10 October 1793. He was on the committee that drafted it, along with Hérault de Séchelles, Couthon, Ramel and Mathieu. But nobody ever cares to mention his constitutional work, his projected constitution presented on 24 April 1793: Saint-Just is “just a child”. He’s just a beginner in politics – and yet he was appointed to the Committee of Public Safety first as secretary (on 30 May 1793) and then elected to it on 10 July. But none of this is important for this “documentary”: this Saint-Just, by doing nothing, is reduced to his most basic role: the devoted supporter and shadow of Robespierre.
V. Saint-Just and Robespierre
They can reduce Saint-Just’s role to nothing, delete his speeches (like the deleting of his last, interrupted speech of 9 Thermidor in La Révolution française: les Années terribles), but they can’t erase his presence, because, as I mentioned earlier, he’s useful. In what way?
First, to provide an opportunity for conservative ideology to bash the radicalism of youth, as in the case of all the dialogues between Carnot and Saint-Just.
But there is another way: in his relationship with Robespierre.
Has there been any progress since Andrzej Wajda’s suggestion of the “homosexuality” and “effeminacy” of Robespierre and Saint-Just? There has been progress as far as the abandoning of typical effeminate representations in this one docudrama. But I don’t think there has been any progress made concerning the representation of their relationship, which is always presented in a certain way for a certain use – which we may or not qualify as “homosexual” or “homoerotic” or “homosocial”.
The “subtext” of the “particular” relationship between Robespierre and Saint-Just – and all its rhetorical, literary and ideological uses – isn’t a subject historians tend to discuss. I dare say that there is only one study on it (until mine too is published *coughs*), by Marie-Hélène Huet (whichestellacat has posted on her journal – the whole chapter "The Legacy of History" by Huet is there if you look up in her archives, January-February 2008), who shows this kind of use in Wajda’s film Danton, which was very likely inspired by Stanislawa Przybyszewska’s play (credited by Wajda), the fictitious source of the “homoeroticism” between Robespierre and Saint-Just. Apart from this, nothing.
Though we could note this article on revolution-française.net which mentions the “slash fiction universe” and, among published works, the exception (and very “exceptional” indeed) of Jean Artarit’s very strange, psycho-historical, Freudian delirium, p. 146: « …leur relation [de Robespierre et Desmoulins] ne sera jamais marquée par le trouble et les grandes manœuvres séductrices qui existeront avec Saint-Just. » (“Their relationship [between Robespierre and Desmoulins] will never be characterised by the trouble and great seductive manoeuvres which would exist with Saint-Just”.)
No intellectual tools then, no way to study it, apart from one’s “intuition”, I would say. I may be seeing it everywhere or reading too far into it. However, I do think that, once again, it is part of this docudrama, appearing in one of the many “forms” we could interpret as part of the “homosexual subtext”.
The whole “homosexual subtext” can be first read in the 19th century – or is it we, in the late 20th-early 21st who see the sources of the 19th this way? Frankly, I have still to figure this out, and I am only at the beginning of my attempt to do so – in a few Romantic sources: those which come to my mind are the portrait of Saint-Just given by Georges Duval in his Souvenirs thermidoriens (1844) and that of Alphonse de Lamartine in his Histoire des Girondins (1847), where both authors clearly overstate the whole “classical” theme of Saint-Just’s “devotion” and “intimacy” with Robespierre which, nowadays, if you squint considerably and have a florid imagination, may be interpreted as a form of “homosexuality”.
As for Robespierre, we could locate something similar in Georg Büchner’s Dantons Tod (1835): that is, the speech Danton gives Robespierre, exactly like the one used by Andrzej Wajda in his film: “you never sleep with women”.
“Effeminacy”, which is a trait found in the descriptions of both Robespierre and Saint-Just, didn’t hint, at first, at homosexuality. The point was to make them appear like part of the Ancien Régime: the Ancien Régime was “frivolous”, “effeminate”, with its “fancy, powdered, foppish manners”. Hence why Robespierre and Saint-Just usually appear as fops. It’s my belief that this meaning of “effeminacy” (as symbolic of belonging to the Ancien Régime) was lost in the course of the last two centuries, and now we see what used to qualify them as counter-revolutionaries as a sign of possible homosexuality (which is noted negatively (!) in order to show how “abnormal” (!) they are, as in Wajda’s Danton).
In this docudrama, all that is kept of Robespierre’s “foppish” representation is the ring he wears (as do Hérault and Saint-Just). Strangely, this is the first time I have seen any of them portrayed wearing rings, except for one early 19th century description noted and ironically denied by none else than one of Robespierre’s enemies (and a great source of revolutionary anecdotes), Marc-Antoine Baudot, as quoted by Hector Fleischmann, p. 78:
« [Dans les Mémoires (apocryphes, naturellement) d’une dame de qualité], Robespierre est représenté, orné d’un trousseau de bagues à ses doigts, revêtu d’habits soignés et de linge fin. Et c’est un de ses ennemis, le conventionnel Marc-Antoine Baudot qui, en exil, prit la peine d’en noter l’invraisemblance. ‘Ceci est vrai, écrit-il, quant au linge et aux habits, mais c’est une erreur quant aux bagues.’ »
“[In the Mémoires (apocryphal, naturally) d’une dame de qualité (Memoirs of a Lady of Quality)], Robespierre is represented adorned with a bunch of rings on his fingers, dressed in immaculate suits and fine linen. And it is one of his enemies, the conventionnel Marc-Antoine Baudot, who, while in exile, took the trouble to note its lack of credibility. ‘It is true,’ he writes, ‘as far as the linen and the suits, but it is mistaken about the rings.’”
As far as Saint-Just’s “effeminacy” (usually influenced by the portrait by David, or by the many, many hundreds of descriptions of his “almost feminine beauty”) is concerned, it doesn’t appear in this docudrama, breaking with the mould of the 1970s-1980s as in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1982), in Saint-Just et la force des choses (1975), or the mysterious and made-up appearance in La comtesse de Charny, of a man who is believed to be Saint-Just. The Saint-Just of Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution does appear somewhat foppish with his cane and hat, his gait and his “grand” entrances. However, George Maguire was rather cast in the mould of Christopher Thompson, as I noted in the introduction: the sulky teenager and enraged guard dog of Robespierre, or as “Lindet” is scripted to say in La Révolution française: les Années terribles (07:18-07:33):
SAINT-JUST: Vous ne tourneriez pas à la modération, par hasard, Lindet ? (You wouldn’t , by chance, be turning to moderation, would you, Lindet?)
LINDET : Mais, comparé à vous, citoyen, même un chien enragé aurait l’air d’un modéré, comparé à vous et à votre maître Robespierre, le bourreau lui-même est un ange de tendresse ! (But, compared to you, citizen, even a mad dog would look moderate—compared to you and your master Robespierre, the executioner himself would be an angel of tenderness!)
The insufferable Saint-Just from La Révolution française: les Années terribles and the psychotic Saint-Just from Andrzej Wajda’s Danton were both despicable: giving orders, pushing people, furiously tearing things, sending “evil agents” to beat up Desmoulins. And yet, I never thought I would argue it someday, but these characterisations were still better than the one shown in Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution: they were still “active”, “doing things”, “leading” – even “dominating”. When they were throwing tantrums, they seemed to be taken more “seriously,” if only because these Saint-Justs would threaten the person who had insulted them (for example, Lindet, in La Révolution française) and that they would then leave to whine to “evil-paranoid-dictator-Robespierre” that they wanted that person’s head. They were thus acting according to the Thermidorian characterisation of Saint-Just as another “tyrant”, or a “little tyrant”. However, Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution proposes another interpretation Saint-Just’s role. Reduced to one of the “accomplices of Robespierre” (the name given to all Robespierre’s friends and supporters in Thermidorian propaganda), like all of them, he is one of his “valets”, “courtiers” and “creatures”. On page 12 of his Report, Courtois wrote:
« Puis vous lisez ces flagorneries niaises dans une lettre du conspirateur Saint-Just à Robespierre, long-temps (sic) avant qu'ils fussent réunis à la Convention : ‘Vous qui soutenez la patrie chancelante contre le torrent du despotisme et de l'intrigue ; vous que je ne connais que comme Dieu, par des merveilles... ; je ne vous connais pas, mais vous êtes un grand homme.’ Ah ! c'est ici qu'on peut le dire : si la peste avait des emplois et des trésors à distribuer, elle aurait aussi ses courtisans comme Robespierre. »
(“Then you read those stupid sycophancies in a letter from the conspirator Saint-Just to Robespierre, long before they met in the Convention : ‘You who support our tottering homeland against the torrent of despotism and intrigue; you whom I know only as I know God, by miracles...; I do not know you, but you are a great man.’ Ah! Here we can say: if the plague had jobs and treasure to distribute, it would have courtiers as Robespierre did.”)
This is the type of role, of devotion, they cast this Saint-Just into: a courtier, a valet. Who, indeed, as in Courtois’ tale, finds a place in the Convention and on the Committee of Public Safety through his mentor’s influence. (This interpretation also survives in John Hardman’s biography of Robespierre (1999), in which he describes Saint-Just in this way, p. 89: “The beautiful, almost feminine Saint-Just had written Robespierre an admiring letter out of the blue in 1790 asking him to intervene to save the market of his local town, Blérancourt, in the general re-organization of the country. In 1792, still aged only 25, he came to Paris and, legend has it, spent the night of 2 September, at the height of the massacres, together with Robespierre in a cellar [It should be noted that he here amalgamates two different legends]. Robespierre procured his election to the Convention as part of the Paris delegation [Another error: Saint-Just was elected as part of the Aisne delegation. It should also be noted that Georges Duval (and others, no doubt) propose the same interpretation that Robespierre "helped" Saint-Just to be elected (!!!).].”)
In the docudrama, we can see a scene where Robespierre, during a session at the Committee, rises from his chair, walks right, faces Carnot, then moves back towards the left to very randomly place “possessive hands” (as pervictoriavandal’s description) on Saint-Just’s shoulders, and say (Part Two, 06:10): “For that we must produce honest government and build virtuous institutions.” So would this be this docudrama’s subtle way of (not) mentioning Saint-Just’s project on republican institutions, a work which would appear, in this scene, to be commissioned by his mentor? It further illustrates the point that Saint-Just is just a disciple of Robespierre with no original thought of his own. His work, his voice, his thoughts, are just those of Robespierre, well-learnt by his devoted student. This is what they think of Saint-Just? This is all they think of Saint-Just? It makes me wince. It makes me want to vomit. I could never write it enough.
I felt a rage when I saw Saint-Just dressing Robespierre with his coat, dusting off his shoulders, arranging the ponytail of his wig, and helping him to put his tricolour sash (Part Eight, 04:19-04:44). (And in the matter of the tricolour sash: they always have to note Robespierre’s uniqueness to distinctly symbolize his “dictatorship”, don’t they? At the Fête de l’Être Suprême, all the deputies of the Convention, all the members of the Committee of Public Safety, should be dressed the same way: in the same blue coat, with the same tricolour sash and the same bouquet. They never show this in films or docudramas.) Once again, we’re given the Thermidorian characterisation of Robespierre’s friends as his valets, not his equals, of Robespierre as a “king” (or a “tyrant”) who must be dressed, who cannot rise from his bed on his own (Part Seven, 05:18) and who has his coffee brought to him by Saint-Just (Part Nine, 00:51-02:10). Why? Was that last addition necessary? (And as a side note, why are they always drinking wine or liquor all through the scenes? Because they are so obviously, stereotypically French?) Why is Saint-Just bringing Robespierre coffee instead of working with him, his colleague? Why is he standing instead of sitting next to him? Why is he taking a more “feminine” gender role? (I’m a feminist and this inferred sexism makes me wince as well. Just when you think that in 1964, la La Terreur et la Vertu was already “feminist” in giving Éléonore Duplay a role beyond her traditional “sphere” by having her copying Robespierre’s speeches and reports and acting as a secretary (while that was historically reported as being her cousin’s (Simon Duplay) role). Now compare this with the considerably “feminized” gender role they’ve given Saint-Just in this docudrama – and we’re in 2009. Add one more reason to regret the 1960s.) Why is he acting like his valet, his courtier? Because this is a heinous Thermidorian characterisation that is effectively killing Saint-Just’s character, his personality and his soul.
As far as the “giving of the bouquet” part is concerned (Part Eight, 04:48-04:54): they merely reprise and renew the scene invented by Andrzej Wajda’s Danton and by Tanith Lee’s The Gods Are Thirsty: “...[Robespierre] always liked flowers. Saint-Just used to bring him roses by the armful, like a young bride”. In this docudrama, they add Saint-Just giving a slight, teasing bow of the head to Robespierre (Part Eight, 04:50). The topos of the “Great King and Dictator Robespierre” has been pushed too far – but this can only be through the use they can make of Saint-Just’s weakened and mutilated characterisation.
Conclusion:
Yes, Saint-Just was “young” and “pretty” and “pouty”. But that’s not all he was. He was a revolutionary. He had a political, social and military thought. He was a historical actor. His evolution was frozen and blocked in history by the guillotine and so he remains an “eternal adolescent”. But to reduce him to this alone? It is, as Vinot said, “disposer de son âme”.
For the conclusion of this essay, I would like to make a comparison between Saint-Just’s introduction in this docudrama and that in the film La Terreur et la Vertu (1964), in the first part on “Danton”, which covers the winter of Year II through the execution of the dantonistes (the other part of the film, called “Robespierre”, follows up and covers the last months of the robespierristes).
In La Terreur et la Vertu, Saint-Just, played by Denis Manuel, is introduced in the first film as he presents a report on his mission in Alsace to the Committee of Public Safety (present: Lindet, Carnot, Billaud, Collot, Barère, Robespierre, Couthon). Here is the speech he gives them, constructed from the letters he sent to the Committee of Public Safety during his mission in Alsace:
« Il manquait à l'armée des chefs vraiment républicains et qui croient à la victoire. Nous avons cherché et nous avons trouvé Pichegru et Hoche.
[The army lacked truly republican leaders who believed in victory. We sought and we have found Pichegru and Hoche.]
Les soldats n'étaient pas soutenus par une partie de la population, trop indifférente au sens de leur combat. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur les sociétés populaires. Le comité révolutionnaire, sous leur impulsion, a procédé à trois mille arrestations.
[The soldiers were not supported by part of the population, too indifferent to the meaning of their fighting. We were supported by the popular societies. The revolutionary committee, under their impulsion, proceeded to make three thousand arrests.]
Les soldats étaient en loques et ils marchaient pieds nus. Nous avons mis en réquisition 10 000 paires de souliers chez les aristocrates de Strasbourg et saisi tous les manteaux.
[The soldiers were in rags and marched barefoot. We requisitioned 10,000 pairs of shoes from the aristocrats of Strasbourg and seized all their coats.]
Il y avait à Strasbourg un citoyen Schneider, accusateur public près le tribunal révolutionnaire. Il s'était livré à des excès propres à jeter le discrédit sur la justice et la cause de la Révolution. Il ne se présentait dans Strasbourg qu'en carrosse, traîné par six chevaux et environné de gardes le sabre nu. Nous l'avons fait arrêter, exposé sur l'échafaud de la guillotine à la vue du peuple pour expier l'insulte faite aux mœurs de la République naissante.
[There was in Strasbourg a Citizen Schneider, public prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal. He had abandoned himself to excesses liable to throw discredit on the justice and the cause of the Revolution. He presented himself in Strasbourg only in a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded by guards with bared sabers. We had him arrested and exposed on the scaffold of the guillotine in view of the people, to expiate the insult done to the mores of the nascent Republic.]
Un officier avait demandé un congé pour s'occuper de ses affaires privées. Considérant qu'il s'est préféré lui-même à la patrie en danger, nous l'avons dégradé sur une place publique et envoyé en arrestation.
[An officer had asked for a leave of absence to take care of his private affairs. Considering that he preferred himself to our homeland in danger, we demoted him in a public square and sent him into arrest.]
Nous avons persuadé les officiers et généraux qu'il n'y avait là d'alternative pour eux que la victoire ou la mort. Nous leur avons ordonné de manger avec les soldats, de coucher dans leur tente, de rester à la tête de leur division et brigade.
[We persuaded the officers and generals that there was no alternative for them but victory or death. We ordered them to eat with the soldiers, to sleep in their tents, remain at the head of their division and brigade.]
Nous avons visité tous les camps, persuadé les soldats que nous saurions vaincre avec eux ou mourir, et nous nous sommes jetés avec eux dans les batailles.
[We visited all the camps, persuaded the soldiers that we will know how to be victorious with them or die, and we threw ourselves with them into the battles.]
Citoyens, vous nous aviez ordonné de vaincre; nous avons mis l'armée en état de vaincre et nous avons vaincu. »
[Citizens, you ordered us to be victorious; we made the army capable of victory and we have been victorious.”]
It’s pretty much self-explanatory. A huge difference from Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution indeed.
The Saint-Just of this film is proud, dignified and resolute. He speaks with natural authority and leadership. Above all, he’s shown as a man, an adult, not a kid: he’s the equal of the other members of the Committee of Public Safety; he’s the equal of Robespierre too, and their relationship is one of deep friendship (with slightly homoerotic undertones), not one of master and disciple, nor yet of tyrant and valet.
In the next scene, Robespierre, who is sick, has written to Saint-Just, calling him back from his mission in the North to fight the factions. Saint-Just introduces his social ideals and announces the Decrees of Ventôse, which he presents to the Convention in the scene after this dialogue:
For the record: they really are speaking of social politics, of the future Decrees of Ventôse, of the "enlightenment of the people" and of "the road to revolutionary reason" in these images... no matter how it looks like. Just "slight" homoerotic undertones. Really.
ROBESPIERRE: Ah, c'est toi, Saint-Just. [Ah, it's you, Saint-Just.]
SAINT-JUST: J'ai fait au plus vite. Mais tu es malade. Tu as de la fièvre! [I came as fast as I could. But you’re sick. You have a fever!]
ROBESPIERRE: Ce n'est pas ce qui importe. Il faut que je te dise— [It doesn't matter. I have to tell you—]
SAINT-JUST: Je sais; je suis au courant. [I know. I was already informed.]
ROBESPIERRE: Jamais la République n'a couru un aussi grand danger. Nous devons éclairer le peuple. [Never the Republic has been threatened by such a great danger. We must enlighten the people.]
SAINT-JUST: Oui, mais pas seulement avec des mots; le peuple veut des actes. [Yes, but not only with words; the people want action.]
ROBESPIERRE: Oui, mais Hébert réclame des mesures qu'il nous est impossible d'appliquer. Il le sait bien. Hébert veut le désordre. [Yes, but Hébert is demanding measures it is impossible for us to apply. He knows this. Hébert wants disorder.]
SAINT-JUST: Oui. Nous, nous voulons l'ordre, mais pas un ordre hypocrite; nous voulons un ordre dans lequel on commence à mettre réellement en pratique les principes d'égalité et de justice. C'est la force des choses qui nous conduit à être entièrement honnêtes avec nous-mêmes. [Yes. As for us, we want order, but not an hypocritical order; we want an order in which we truly start to put into practice the principles of equality and of justice. It is the force of circumstance that leads us to be entirely honest with ourselves.]
ROBESPIERRE: Tu as raison. [You are right.]
SAINT-JUST: Nous n'avons que trop tardé. Le peuple est entre les mains d'Hébert parce qu'il a faim, parce qu'il n'a plus confiance en nous. [We have waited too long. The people are in Hébert's hands because they are hungry, because they no longer trust us.]
ROBESPIERRE: Que proposes-tu? [What do you propose?]
SAINT-JUST: Une loi, privant de leur propriété non seulement les émigrés, mais les corrompus, les suspects, les mauvais citoyens, au bénéfice de la Nation qui les distribuera aux patriotes déshérités. [A law, divesting not only émigrés, but the corrupt, suspects, bad citizens, of their property, to the benefit of the Nation, which will distribute them to disadvantaged patriots.]
ROBESPIERRE: Mais c'est une atteinte à la propriété... [But this is an attack on property...]
SAINT-JUST: Non. Non, c'est une atteinte aux abus et le commencement de la justice. Le peuple saura que l'on s'occupe de son sort; il ne sera plus désorienté; il n'écoutera plus les démagogues; il entrera dans la voie de la raison révolutionnaire. [No. No, this is an attack on abuse and the beginning of justice. The people will know that we care about their fate; they will no longer be disoriented; they will stop listening to the demagogues; the people will start on the road of revolutionary reason.]
The Saint-Just played by Denis Manuel isn’t belittled like a child or a teenager: he argues with the others, he reasons with the others, he can convince the others – and he knows how to answer Carnot, and the others as well, as the next and last extract shows. The Committee is imploding, and the members quarrel on various issues (social, military, revolutionary justice, the law of Prairial). This part of the film begins with the implosion of the Committee of Public Safety. The translated dialogue below is shown between 04:35 and 09:05:
COLLOT: On passe tout aux aristocrates, et rien aux sans-culottes![We give the aristocrats everything, the sans-culottes, nothing!]
BILLAUD: L'attention scrupuleuse que tu portes à l'honnêteté des citoyens de la Section de l'Indivisibilité, tu pourrais peut-être la consacrer à ces gens qui font la grève, à ce peuple qui gronde, à tous ces mécontents qui réclament l'application de la Constitution de '93. [Perhaps you could consecrate the scrupulous attention you bring to bear on the honesty of the citizens of the Section de l’Indivisibilité to these people who are striking, to this people who are grumbling, to all these malcontents who are calling for the application of the Constitution of ’93.]
SAINT-JUST: La Constitution de ’93 n'est pas une panacée. Les lois de ventôse peuvent tranquiliser le peuple. [The Constitution of ’93 is not a panacea. The Laws of Ventôse may reassure the people.]
COLLOT: Ah! Les lois de ventôse! Oui, il y avait longtemps...! La tarte à la crème des lois de ventôse! [Ah! The Laws of Ventôse! Yes, that was a long time ago…! Slapstick, those Laws of Ventôse!]
SAINT-JUST: Ton langage est déplacé, Collot! [Your language is out of place, Collot!]
COLLOT: Saint-Just, toi qui n'était pas là, toi qui était aux armées, demande un peu à Robespierre qui a empêché l'application des lois de ventôse, qui a favorisé au contraire les boutiquiers, ce petit commerce que voulait supprimer Hébert. Qui! Qui, sinon Robespierre! [Saint-Just, you who weren’t there, you who were with the armies, just ask Robespierre who prevented the application of the Laws of Ventôse, who, to the contrary, favored the shopkeepers, that little trade that Hébert wanted to suppress. Who! Who, if not Robespierre!]
ROBESPIERRE: Ce n'est pas vrai. (se lève) Nous avions demandé deux commissions pour examiner les lois de ventôse! Qui l'a empêché? Carnot, Lindet, Barère! Et vous (à Billaud et Collot), qu'avez-vous fait? [That’s not true. (rises) We asked for two commissions to examine the Laws of Ventôse! Who prevented it? Carnot, Lindet, Barère! And you (to Billaud and Collot), what did you do?]
SAINT-JUST: Oui, Collot? [Yes, Collot?]
Silence.
SAINT-JUST: J'arrive de l'armée. Je vous rapporte une victoire qui s'appelle Fleurus. Le comité que je retrouve n'est plus celui que j'ai quitté. On agissait. Ensemble, ne plus savoir que discuter et se disputer! [I’ve just arrived from the army. I am reporting a victory called Fleurus to you. The Committee I regain is not the one I left. We acted. Together, to no longer know anything but how to discuss and dispute!]
BILLAUD: On a voulu endormir le peuple avec des cantiques. [Someone wanted to lull the people with hymns.]
COLLOT: L'Être Suprême doit tenir lieu de pain! [The Supreme Being must take the place of bread!]
SAINT-JUST: Je trouve singulière cette alliance qui semble vous unir contre le plus pur d'entre nous. [I find this alliance which seems to unite you against the purest among us singular.]
CARNOT: L'homme dont tu parles, Saint-Just, s'est rendu insupportable à tous. Il menace tout le monde. Il se voit des ennemis partout. Il ne supporte point la contradiction. [The man of whom you speak, Saint-Just has made himself insufferable to all of us. He threatens everyone. He sees enemies everywhere. He does not bear contradiction.]
COUTHON: "Il se voit des ennemis partout"... N'est-ce pas qu'il en existe partout? [“He sees enemies everywhere”… Is that not because they are everywhere?]
SAINT-JUST: En venant en ce lieu, j'ai trouvé en effet de la tyrannie, mais elle n'est pas du côté de Robespierre. J'ai trouvé de la conspiration, mais elle n'est pas du côté de Robespierre. [In coming to this place, I have in effect found tyranny, but it is not from Robespierre’s quarter. I have found conspiracy, but it is not from Robespierre’s quarter.]
CARNOT: Du côté de qui? Réponds, Saint-Just. De qui? [From whose quarter? Respond, Saint-Just. From whom?]
SAINT-JUST: (se lève) De toi, Carnot. Tu as donné l'ordre à Jourdan de se démunir de 18 000 hommes pour les envoyer à Pichegru. [(rises) From you, Carnot. You gave Jourdan the order to divest himself of 18,000 men to send them to Pichegru.]
CARNOT: Oui, je l'ai fait. [Yes, I did that.]
SAINT-JUST: Si je n'étais intervenu, Jourdan perdait la bataille de Fleurus. Cela t'était indifférent, Carnot! (Carnot se lève.) Du moment que Pichegru pouvait conquérir la Hollande! [If I had not intervened, Jourdan would have lost the battle of Fleurus. That was a matter of indifference to you. (Carnot rises.) From the moment that Pichegru could have conquered Holland!]
CARNOT: Je ne te permets pas! [I will not permit you!]
ROBESPIERRE: (se lève) Tu ne songes qu'à la guerre de conquête, Carnot. Tu ne songes qu'au moment où tu pourras prélever des indemnités de guerre! Tu ne fais pas la guerre de la Révolution, Carnot; tu fais la guerre comme au temps des rois! [(rises) You think only wars of conquest, Carnot. You only dream of the moment when you will be able to draw war indemnities. You do not make the war of the Revolution; you make war as in the time of kings!]
CARNOT: Moi, Carnot?! [I, Carnot?!]
ROBESPIERRE: Toi, Carnot! Nous faisons la guerre pour libérer nos frontières, non pour conquérir, pour que dans un pays libre et en paix nous puissions enfin construire la République! [You, Carnot! We make war to liberate our frontiers, not to conquer, so that we can finally construct the Republic in a free and peaceful country.]
CARNOT: Sais-tu ce que je pense de toi, Robespierre? Et de toi, Saint-Just? Avec vos soupçons perpétuels et votre inquisition incessante? C'est que vous êtes des dictateurs! Parfaitement! Des dictateurs ridicules! [You know what I think of you, Robespierre? And of you, Saint-Just? With your perpetual suspicions and your incessant inquisition? That you are dictators! Perfectly! Ridiculous dictators!]
SAINT-JUST: Retire immédiatement ce que tu viens de dire! [Retract what you just said immediately!]
CARNOT: Jamais! [Never!]
ROBESPIERRE: M'accuser de dictature! Moi! Alors que depuis deux mois, on s'est opposé systématiquement à toutes les mesures que je préconisais. Moi, un dictateur? Ma vie! Toute ma vie s'inscrit en faux contre cette calomnie! Où est ma richesse? Où est ma force armée? Où sont les corrompus à ma solde? Moi, un dictateur! Je n'ai pour moi que la force de ma raison, de ma parole, de mon action, que j'ai mis au service du peuple, du peuple souverain! Moi, un dictateur... C'est toi, Carnot, qui aspire à la dictature. À la dictature de l'administration militaire, ton domaine réservé! Et toi, Collot, et toi, Billaud, à la dictature de la haine! [To accuse me of dictatorship! Me! When for two months all the measures I’ve advocated have been systematically opposed. I, a dictator! My life! My whole life disputes the validity of this calumny! Where are my riches? Where are my armed forces? Where are the corrupt men in my pay? I, a dictator! I have nothing for me but the strength of my reason, of my words, of my actions, that I have placed in the service of the people, of the sovereign people! I, a dictator… It is you, Carnot, who aspires to dictatorship. To the dictatorship of the military administration, your reserved domain! And you, Collot, and you, Billaud, to the dictatorship of hatred!]
COLLOT: Qui persécute les sans-culottes? Robespierre! [Who persecutes the sans-culottes? Robespierre!]
BILLAUD: Qui ressuscite l'inquisition? Robespierre! [Who’s resuscitating the Inquisition? Robespierre!]
CARNOT: Qui veut se faire dictateur? Robespierre! (Carnot marche vers Saint-Just et le bouscule.) Et toi, tu reviens ici pour lui prêter main forte?! [Who wants to make himself dictator? Robespierre! (Carnot walks toward Saint-Just and shoves him.) And you, did you come here to lend him your aid?]
BARÈRE: Allons, citoyens! Nous sommes tous des montagnards ici! Et nous nous déchirons! [Come on, citizens! We’re all Montagnards here! And we’re tearing each other apart!]
ROBESPIERRE: Il n'y a plus de Montagne. Il ne peut y avoir désormais que deux partis à la Convention: les bons et les méchants. Sauvez donc la patrie sans moi! Je ne remettrai plus les pieds au Comité! [There is no more Mountain. From now on there can only be two parties in the Convention: the good and the malicious. So save our homeland without me! I will not set foot in the Committee again.]
He leaves, Saint-Just follows him.
SAINT-JUST: Robespierre, qu'as-tu dis? [Robespierre, what did you say?]
ROBESPIERRE: Ils ne me verront plus! [They’ll see me no more!]
SAINT-JUST: Ce n'est pas possible. [That’s not possible.]
ROBESPIERRE: Ma décision est prise. Rejoins-les, toi, si tu veux! [I’ve made my decision. You, rejoin them, if you want!]
SAINT-JUST: Pourquoi dis-tu cela? Ne crois-tu plus que je suis ton ami? [Why do you say that? Don’t you believe that I’m your friend?]
ROBESPIERRE: Si, je le crois... [Yes, I believe it…]
SAINT-JUST: Nous sommes tous à bout de nerf. Réfléchis. Songe que la République n'a trouvé son salut que le jour où le pouvoir a été exercé collectivement par les comités. Il faut que tu reste au Comité, Robespierre. [We’re all at the end of our tether. Think. Consider that the Republic only found its salvation the day when power was first exercised collectively by the committees. You must remain with the Committee, Robespierre.]
ROBESPIERRE: Non! [No!]
He leaves.
You may argue that the Saint-Just of La Terreur et la Vertu is idealized – and on a certain level, you are right. Some may even say that you rather believe he was the snotty kid of La Révolution française: les Années terribles and of Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution. What you ignore if you choose to believe this, though, is that, in his myth, Saint-Just has always been both. Who was he really? We’ll never know for sure: we only have the contradictory testimonies of these who knew him (or pretended they did). Maybe he was both. He was a complex person – not the caricature Hilary Mantel describes. He may have appeared, to his enemies, as this sulky, arrogant, ambitious, murderous “teenager”. He may have appeared, to his friends and admirers, as a gifted, precocious, courageous, stoical young man. You must know that both exist. But you must also know that Saint-Just was never the offensive caricature shown Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution, who helps Robespierre to practice his speeches, who re-reads them, who dresses him and brings him coffee while the other man works – did you see Saint-Just write a single speech or report? – and who repeats such a stupid line as “Camille has done something very stupid” (Part Seven, 05:28) twice. A peculiar scene and a peculiar characterisation indeed, in which Saint-Just appears shallow and Robespierre distrustful of Saint-Just’s principles and beliefs – “Please tell me you’re not enjoying this,” Robespierre tells Saint-Just as the latter reads from Desmoulins’ Vieux Cordelier (Part Seven, 06:32). The way this Saint-Just reacts would never fit Saint-Just’s self-representation or his ideals: it does not – it cannot – inspire any respect or even any fear – only derision and mockery. This could never be Saint-Just, the complex personality who could inspire a form of “fear”, mixed with “fascination” or “inspiration” – or emulation (he tried to “inspire” the Revolution) – pretty much like the word awe conveys, but which hardly translated in French: in fact, it’s what they called sublime. The revolutionaries were obsessed with this concept of the “sublime” (the culture of Year II being very much characterized by it) and I believe Saint-Just is one of the revolutionaries who best succeeded in moulding himself according to it, with the myth he helped create around himself while he lived, particularly during his missions – a myth he was very self-conscious about. Saint-Just wanted to become the idealized, perfect citizen, perfect patriot, perfect Representative of the People he wrote about: « Le simple bon sens, l’énergie de l’âme, la froideur de l’esprit, le feu d’un cœur ardent et pur, l’austérité, le désintéressement, voilà le caractère du patriote » (“Simple good sense, an energetic soul, a cool intellect, the fire of a pure and ardent heart, austerity, disinterestedness : that is what characterizes a patriot.”) (Rapport sur les factions de l’étranger, 13 ventôse an II). The regeneration of humanity had passed through him as well and it was the Revolution which affected the important changes in his personality.
But let’s be (fatally and sadly) realistic: who will watch La Terreur et la Vertu? Could this film ever truly hope for some sort of diffusion? An old, made-for-television, black and white film from the 1960s, in two long parts filled with tedious political debate, in French and without subtitles? Yet, it’s the only film I know to portray the Robespierristes – and Saint-Just – accurately: or at least, to give them back the immortal souls in which they believed.
LAST POST: SAINT-JUST'S WORDS (QUOTES), A FEW REFERENCES.
Read the manifesto.
FIRST POST: INTRODUCTION, PARTS I-III.
IV. Saint-Just’s “activities” in this docudrama
At the very end of his Rapport sur la conjuration given to the Convention on 11 germinal Year II in order that the arrest of the dantonistes should be decreed, Saint-Just wrote: « Ce que nous avons dit ne sera jamais perdu sur la terre. » (“The words we have spoken will never be lost on Earth.” Or more literally: “What we have said will never be lost on Earth.”)
Yet, they can. You can make them disappear, you can edit them out, you can transform his speech, as with Schama’s mistranslation of his “favourite line” (with genocidal undertones) of Saint-Just’s: “The Republic consists in the extermination of all who oppose it.” However, as
estellacat has explained, the original quote in French (part of the report of 8 Ventôse Year II) is : “‘Vous avez voulu une République ; si vous ne vouliez point en même temps ce qui la constitue, elle ensevelirait le peuple sous ses débris. Ce qui constitue une République, c'est la destruction totale de ce qui lui est opposé. On se plaint des mesures révolutionnaires ! Mais nous sommes des modérés, en comparaison de tous les autres gouvernements.’ To compare both quotes in the same language, an English translation of the sentence in bold in the preceding paragraph: ‘What constitutes a Republic is the total destruction of that which is opposed to it.’ If Schama's version were translated into French, it would probably go something like this: ‘Ce qui constitue la République, c'est l'extermination de tous ceux qui lui sont opposés.’ ...Which is really not the same thing at all.”Let’s be serious here: Saint-Just isn’t doing a lot in this so-called “documentary”. In fact, he’s not doing anything. He recits one speech, the one given on 10 October 1793 on the Revolutionary Government, which is shut down by Simon Schama, who says of it:
“What a horrible speech, what an imbecilic illogic, depraved thing to say.” (Part Four, 9:10)
It’s not necessary to point out that this list of faults presents no serious argument against a speech. Schama replies in the domain of emotion, and he may argue about “illogic”, but he’s no more logical! But then, that’s Simon Schama’s way of recounting history, and that would be a whole different essay.
Since this is Saint-Just’s only political action, and the only speech he delivers, we can conclude right away that Saint-Just has nothing to do in this docudrama. What is he doing the rest of the time? What the “adolescent topos” requires of him: he sulks, he whines, he throws tantrums. What about Fleurus? The actions he took during his missions – his five missions? Do we learn about them, are they even mentioned in this docudrama? Yet we see those of Collot and Couthon (I admit that it’s usually rare for them to bother to mention Couthon’s mission in Lyon). No mention of the Decrees of Ventôse either. Of his social thoughts and ideals. Of his theoretical work. Of his other speeches. Of the bureau de police he created to process the Decrees of Ventôse. Not a word about any of this. Not a word – never in fact – about Saint-Just’s constitutional work: he worked on the Constitution he suspended with the speech of 10 October 1793. He was on the committee that drafted it, along with Hérault de Séchelles, Couthon, Ramel and Mathieu. But nobody ever cares to mention his constitutional work, his projected constitution presented on 24 April 1793: Saint-Just is “just a child”. He’s just a beginner in politics – and yet he was appointed to the Committee of Public Safety first as secretary (on 30 May 1793) and then elected to it on 10 July. But none of this is important for this “documentary”: this Saint-Just, by doing nothing, is reduced to his most basic role: the devoted supporter and shadow of Robespierre.
V. Saint-Just and Robespierre
They can reduce Saint-Just’s role to nothing, delete his speeches (like the deleting of his last, interrupted speech of 9 Thermidor in La Révolution française: les Années terribles), but they can’t erase his presence, because, as I mentioned earlier, he’s useful. In what way?
First, to provide an opportunity for conservative ideology to bash the radicalism of youth, as in the case of all the dialogues between Carnot and Saint-Just.
But there is another way: in his relationship with Robespierre.
Has there been any progress since Andrzej Wajda’s suggestion of the “homosexuality” and “effeminacy” of Robespierre and Saint-Just? There has been progress as far as the abandoning of typical effeminate representations in this one docudrama. But I don’t think there has been any progress made concerning the representation of their relationship, which is always presented in a certain way for a certain use – which we may or not qualify as “homosexual” or “homoerotic” or “homosocial”.
The “subtext” of the “particular” relationship between Robespierre and Saint-Just – and all its rhetorical, literary and ideological uses – isn’t a subject historians tend to discuss. I dare say that there is only one study on it (until mine too is published *coughs*), by Marie-Hélène Huet (which
estellacat has posted on her journal – the whole chapter "The Legacy of History" by Huet is there if you look up in her archives, January-February 2008), who shows this kind of use in Wajda’s film Danton, which was very likely inspired by Stanislawa Przybyszewska’s play (credited by Wajda), the fictitious source of the “homoeroticism” between Robespierre and Saint-Just. Apart from this, nothing.Though we could note this article on revolution-française.net which mentions the “slash fiction universe” and, among published works, the exception (and very “exceptional” indeed) of Jean Artarit’s very strange, psycho-historical, Freudian delirium, p. 146: « …leur relation [de Robespierre et Desmoulins] ne sera jamais marquée par le trouble et les grandes manœuvres séductrices qui existeront avec Saint-Just. » (“Their relationship [between Robespierre and Desmoulins] will never be characterised by the trouble and great seductive manoeuvres which would exist with Saint-Just”.)
No intellectual tools then, no way to study it, apart from one’s “intuition”, I would say. I may be seeing it everywhere or reading too far into it. However, I do think that, once again, it is part of this docudrama, appearing in one of the many “forms” we could interpret as part of the “homosexual subtext”.
The whole “homosexual subtext” can be first read in the 19th century – or is it we, in the late 20th-early 21st who see the sources of the 19th this way? Frankly, I have still to figure this out, and I am only at the beginning of my attempt to do so – in a few Romantic sources: those which come to my mind are the portrait of Saint-Just given by Georges Duval in his Souvenirs thermidoriens (1844) and that of Alphonse de Lamartine in his Histoire des Girondins (1847), where both authors clearly overstate the whole “classical” theme of Saint-Just’s “devotion” and “intimacy” with Robespierre which, nowadays, if you squint considerably and have a florid imagination, may be interpreted as a form of “homosexuality”.
As for Robespierre, we could locate something similar in Georg Büchner’s Dantons Tod (1835): that is, the speech Danton gives Robespierre, exactly like the one used by Andrzej Wajda in his film: “you never sleep with women”.
“Effeminacy”, which is a trait found in the descriptions of both Robespierre and Saint-Just, didn’t hint, at first, at homosexuality. The point was to make them appear like part of the Ancien Régime: the Ancien Régime was “frivolous”, “effeminate”, with its “fancy, powdered, foppish manners”. Hence why Robespierre and Saint-Just usually appear as fops. It’s my belief that this meaning of “effeminacy” (as symbolic of belonging to the Ancien Régime) was lost in the course of the last two centuries, and now we see what used to qualify them as counter-revolutionaries as a sign of possible homosexuality (which is noted negatively (!) in order to show how “abnormal” (!) they are, as in Wajda’s Danton).
In this docudrama, all that is kept of Robespierre’s “foppish” representation is the ring he wears (as do Hérault and Saint-Just). Strangely, this is the first time I have seen any of them portrayed wearing rings, except for one early 19th century description noted and ironically denied by none else than one of Robespierre’s enemies (and a great source of revolutionary anecdotes), Marc-Antoine Baudot, as quoted by Hector Fleischmann, p. 78:
« [Dans les Mémoires (apocryphes, naturellement) d’une dame de qualité], Robespierre est représenté, orné d’un trousseau de bagues à ses doigts, revêtu d’habits soignés et de linge fin. Et c’est un de ses ennemis, le conventionnel Marc-Antoine Baudot qui, en exil, prit la peine d’en noter l’invraisemblance. ‘Ceci est vrai, écrit-il, quant au linge et aux habits, mais c’est une erreur quant aux bagues.’ »
“[In the Mémoires (apocryphal, naturally) d’une dame de qualité (Memoirs of a Lady of Quality)], Robespierre is represented adorned with a bunch of rings on his fingers, dressed in immaculate suits and fine linen. And it is one of his enemies, the conventionnel Marc-Antoine Baudot, who, while in exile, took the trouble to note its lack of credibility. ‘It is true,’ he writes, ‘as far as the linen and the suits, but it is mistaken about the rings.’”
As far as Saint-Just’s “effeminacy” (usually influenced by the portrait by David, or by the many, many hundreds of descriptions of his “almost feminine beauty”) is concerned, it doesn’t appear in this docudrama, breaking with the mould of the 1970s-1980s as in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1982), in Saint-Just et la force des choses (1975), or the mysterious and made-up appearance in La comtesse de Charny, of a man who is believed to be Saint-Just. The Saint-Just of Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution does appear somewhat foppish with his cane and hat, his gait and his “grand” entrances. However, George Maguire was rather cast in the mould of Christopher Thompson, as I noted in the introduction: the sulky teenager and enraged guard dog of Robespierre, or as “Lindet” is scripted to say in La Révolution française: les Années terribles (07:18-07:33):
SAINT-JUST: Vous ne tourneriez pas à la modération, par hasard, Lindet ? (You wouldn’t , by chance, be turning to moderation, would you, Lindet?)
LINDET : Mais, comparé à vous, citoyen, même un chien enragé aurait l’air d’un modéré, comparé à vous et à votre maître Robespierre, le bourreau lui-même est un ange de tendresse ! (But, compared to you, citizen, even a mad dog would look moderate—compared to you and your master Robespierre, the executioner himself would be an angel of tenderness!)
The insufferable Saint-Just from La Révolution française: les Années terribles and the psychotic Saint-Just from Andrzej Wajda’s Danton were both despicable: giving orders, pushing people, furiously tearing things, sending “evil agents” to beat up Desmoulins. And yet, I never thought I would argue it someday, but these characterisations were still better than the one shown in Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution: they were still “active”, “doing things”, “leading” – even “dominating”. When they were throwing tantrums, they seemed to be taken more “seriously,” if only because these Saint-Justs would threaten the person who had insulted them (for example, Lindet, in La Révolution française) and that they would then leave to whine to “evil-paranoid-dictator-Robespierre” that they wanted that person’s head. They were thus acting according to the Thermidorian characterisation of Saint-Just as another “tyrant”, or a “little tyrant”. However, Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution proposes another interpretation Saint-Just’s role. Reduced to one of the “accomplices of Robespierre” (the name given to all Robespierre’s friends and supporters in Thermidorian propaganda), like all of them, he is one of his “valets”, “courtiers” and “creatures”. On page 12 of his Report, Courtois wrote:
« Puis vous lisez ces flagorneries niaises dans une lettre du conspirateur Saint-Just à Robespierre, long-temps (sic) avant qu'ils fussent réunis à la Convention : ‘Vous qui soutenez la patrie chancelante contre le torrent du despotisme et de l'intrigue ; vous que je ne connais que comme Dieu, par des merveilles... ; je ne vous connais pas, mais vous êtes un grand homme.’ Ah ! c'est ici qu'on peut le dire : si la peste avait des emplois et des trésors à distribuer, elle aurait aussi ses courtisans comme Robespierre. »
(“Then you read those stupid sycophancies in a letter from the conspirator Saint-Just to Robespierre, long before they met in the Convention : ‘You who support our tottering homeland against the torrent of despotism and intrigue; you whom I know only as I know God, by miracles...; I do not know you, but you are a great man.’ Ah! Here we can say: if the plague had jobs and treasure to distribute, it would have courtiers as Robespierre did.”)
This is the type of role, of devotion, they cast this Saint-Just into: a courtier, a valet. Who, indeed, as in Courtois’ tale, finds a place in the Convention and on the Committee of Public Safety through his mentor’s influence. (This interpretation also survives in John Hardman’s biography of Robespierre (1999), in which he describes Saint-Just in this way, p. 89: “The beautiful, almost feminine Saint-Just had written Robespierre an admiring letter out of the blue in 1790 asking him to intervene to save the market of his local town, Blérancourt, in the general re-organization of the country. In 1792, still aged only 25, he came to Paris and, legend has it, spent the night of 2 September, at the height of the massacres, together with Robespierre in a cellar [It should be noted that he here amalgamates two different legends]. Robespierre procured his election to the Convention as part of the Paris delegation [Another error: Saint-Just was elected as part of the Aisne delegation. It should also be noted that Georges Duval (and others, no doubt) propose the same interpretation that Robespierre "helped" Saint-Just to be elected (!!!).].”)
In the docudrama, we can see a scene where Robespierre, during a session at the Committee, rises from his chair, walks right, faces Carnot, then moves back towards the left to very randomly place “possessive hands” (as per
victoriavandal’s description) on Saint-Just’s shoulders, and say (Part Two, 06:10): “For that we must produce honest government and build virtuous institutions.” So would this be this docudrama’s subtle way of (not) mentioning Saint-Just’s project on republican institutions, a work which would appear, in this scene, to be commissioned by his mentor? It further illustrates the point that Saint-Just is just a disciple of Robespierre with no original thought of his own. His work, his voice, his thoughts, are just those of Robespierre, well-learnt by his devoted student. This is what they think of Saint-Just? This is all they think of Saint-Just? It makes me wince. It makes me want to vomit. I could never write it enough.I felt a rage when I saw Saint-Just dressing Robespierre with his coat, dusting off his shoulders, arranging the ponytail of his wig, and helping him to put his tricolour sash (Part Eight, 04:19-04:44). (And in the matter of the tricolour sash: they always have to note Robespierre’s uniqueness to distinctly symbolize his “dictatorship”, don’t they? At the Fête de l’Être Suprême, all the deputies of the Convention, all the members of the Committee of Public Safety, should be dressed the same way: in the same blue coat, with the same tricolour sash and the same bouquet. They never show this in films or docudramas.) Once again, we’re given the Thermidorian characterisation of Robespierre’s friends as his valets, not his equals, of Robespierre as a “king” (or a “tyrant”) who must be dressed, who cannot rise from his bed on his own (Part Seven, 05:18) and who has his coffee brought to him by Saint-Just (Part Nine, 00:51-02:10). Why? Was that last addition necessary? (And as a side note, why are they always drinking wine or liquor all through the scenes? Because they are so obviously, stereotypically French?) Why is Saint-Just bringing Robespierre coffee instead of working with him, his colleague? Why is he standing instead of sitting next to him? Why is he taking a more “feminine” gender role? (I’m a feminist and this inferred sexism makes me wince as well. Just when you think that in 1964, la La Terreur et la Vertu was already “feminist” in giving Éléonore Duplay a role beyond her traditional “sphere” by having her copying Robespierre’s speeches and reports and acting as a secretary (while that was historically reported as being her cousin’s (Simon Duplay) role). Now compare this with the considerably “feminized” gender role they’ve given Saint-Just in this docudrama – and we’re in 2009. Add one more reason to regret the 1960s.) Why is he acting like his valet, his courtier? Because this is a heinous Thermidorian characterisation that is effectively killing Saint-Just’s character, his personality and his soul.
As far as the “giving of the bouquet” part is concerned (Part Eight, 04:48-04:54): they merely reprise and renew the scene invented by Andrzej Wajda’s Danton and by Tanith Lee’s The Gods Are Thirsty: “...[Robespierre] always liked flowers. Saint-Just used to bring him roses by the armful, like a young bride”. In this docudrama, they add Saint-Just giving a slight, teasing bow of the head to Robespierre (Part Eight, 04:50). The topos of the “Great King and Dictator Robespierre” has been pushed too far – but this can only be through the use they can make of Saint-Just’s weakened and mutilated characterisation.
Conclusion:
Yes, Saint-Just was “young” and “pretty” and “pouty”. But that’s not all he was. He was a revolutionary. He had a political, social and military thought. He was a historical actor. His evolution was frozen and blocked in history by the guillotine and so he remains an “eternal adolescent”. But to reduce him to this alone? It is, as Vinot said, “disposer de son âme”.
For the conclusion of this essay, I would like to make a comparison between Saint-Just’s introduction in this docudrama and that in the film La Terreur et la Vertu (1964), in the first part on “Danton”, which covers the winter of Year II through the execution of the dantonistes (the other part of the film, called “Robespierre”, follows up and covers the last months of the robespierristes).
In La Terreur et la Vertu, Saint-Just, played by Denis Manuel, is introduced in the first film as he presents a report on his mission in Alsace to the Committee of Public Safety (present: Lindet, Carnot, Billaud, Collot, Barère, Robespierre, Couthon). Here is the speech he gives them, constructed from the letters he sent to the Committee of Public Safety during his mission in Alsace:
« Il manquait à l'armée des chefs vraiment républicains et qui croient à la victoire. Nous avons cherché et nous avons trouvé Pichegru et Hoche.
[The army lacked truly republican leaders who believed in victory. We sought and we have found Pichegru and Hoche.]
Les soldats n'étaient pas soutenus par une partie de la population, trop indifférente au sens de leur combat. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur les sociétés populaires. Le comité révolutionnaire, sous leur impulsion, a procédé à trois mille arrestations.
[The soldiers were not supported by part of the population, too indifferent to the meaning of their fighting. We were supported by the popular societies. The revolutionary committee, under their impulsion, proceeded to make three thousand arrests.]
Les soldats étaient en loques et ils marchaient pieds nus. Nous avons mis en réquisition 10 000 paires de souliers chez les aristocrates de Strasbourg et saisi tous les manteaux.
[The soldiers were in rags and marched barefoot. We requisitioned 10,000 pairs of shoes from the aristocrats of Strasbourg and seized all their coats.]
Il y avait à Strasbourg un citoyen Schneider, accusateur public près le tribunal révolutionnaire. Il s'était livré à des excès propres à jeter le discrédit sur la justice et la cause de la Révolution. Il ne se présentait dans Strasbourg qu'en carrosse, traîné par six chevaux et environné de gardes le sabre nu. Nous l'avons fait arrêter, exposé sur l'échafaud de la guillotine à la vue du peuple pour expier l'insulte faite aux mœurs de la République naissante.
[There was in Strasbourg a Citizen Schneider, public prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal. He had abandoned himself to excesses liable to throw discredit on the justice and the cause of the Revolution. He presented himself in Strasbourg only in a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded by guards with bared sabers. We had him arrested and exposed on the scaffold of the guillotine in view of the people, to expiate the insult done to the mores of the nascent Republic.]
Un officier avait demandé un congé pour s'occuper de ses affaires privées. Considérant qu'il s'est préféré lui-même à la patrie en danger, nous l'avons dégradé sur une place publique et envoyé en arrestation.
[An officer had asked for a leave of absence to take care of his private affairs. Considering that he preferred himself to our homeland in danger, we demoted him in a public square and sent him into arrest.]
Nous avons persuadé les officiers et généraux qu'il n'y avait là d'alternative pour eux que la victoire ou la mort. Nous leur avons ordonné de manger avec les soldats, de coucher dans leur tente, de rester à la tête de leur division et brigade.
[We persuaded the officers and generals that there was no alternative for them but victory or death. We ordered them to eat with the soldiers, to sleep in their tents, remain at the head of their division and brigade.]
Nous avons visité tous les camps, persuadé les soldats que nous saurions vaincre avec eux ou mourir, et nous nous sommes jetés avec eux dans les batailles.
[We visited all the camps, persuaded the soldiers that we will know how to be victorious with them or die, and we threw ourselves with them into the battles.]
Citoyens, vous nous aviez ordonné de vaincre; nous avons mis l'armée en état de vaincre et nous avons vaincu. »
[Citizens, you ordered us to be victorious; we made the army capable of victory and we have been victorious.”]
It’s pretty much self-explanatory. A huge difference from Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution indeed.
The Saint-Just of this film is proud, dignified and resolute. He speaks with natural authority and leadership. Above all, he’s shown as a man, an adult, not a kid: he’s the equal of the other members of the Committee of Public Safety; he’s the equal of Robespierre too, and their relationship is one of deep friendship (with slightly homoerotic undertones), not one of master and disciple, nor yet of tyrant and valet.
In the next scene, Robespierre, who is sick, has written to Saint-Just, calling him back from his mission in the North to fight the factions. Saint-Just introduces his social ideals and announces the Decrees of Ventôse, which he presents to the Convention in the scene after this dialogue:
For the record: they really are speaking of social politics, of the future Decrees of Ventôse, of the "enlightenment of the people" and of "the road to revolutionary reason" in these images... no matter how it looks like. Just "slight" homoerotic undertones. Really.
ROBESPIERRE: Ah, c'est toi, Saint-Just. [Ah, it's you, Saint-Just.]
SAINT-JUST: J'ai fait au plus vite. Mais tu es malade. Tu as de la fièvre! [I came as fast as I could. But you’re sick. You have a fever!]
ROBESPIERRE: Ce n'est pas ce qui importe. Il faut que je te dise— [It doesn't matter. I have to tell you—]
SAINT-JUST: Je sais; je suis au courant. [I know. I was already informed.]
ROBESPIERRE: Jamais la République n'a couru un aussi grand danger. Nous devons éclairer le peuple. [Never the Republic has been threatened by such a great danger. We must enlighten the people.]
SAINT-JUST: Oui, mais pas seulement avec des mots; le peuple veut des actes. [Yes, but not only with words; the people want action.]
ROBESPIERRE: Oui, mais Hébert réclame des mesures qu'il nous est impossible d'appliquer. Il le sait bien. Hébert veut le désordre. [Yes, but Hébert is demanding measures it is impossible for us to apply. He knows this. Hébert wants disorder.]
SAINT-JUST: Oui. Nous, nous voulons l'ordre, mais pas un ordre hypocrite; nous voulons un ordre dans lequel on commence à mettre réellement en pratique les principes d'égalité et de justice. C'est la force des choses qui nous conduit à être entièrement honnêtes avec nous-mêmes. [Yes. As for us, we want order, but not an hypocritical order; we want an order in which we truly start to put into practice the principles of equality and of justice. It is the force of circumstance that leads us to be entirely honest with ourselves.]
ROBESPIERRE: Tu as raison. [You are right.]
SAINT-JUST: Nous n'avons que trop tardé. Le peuple est entre les mains d'Hébert parce qu'il a faim, parce qu'il n'a plus confiance en nous. [We have waited too long. The people are in Hébert's hands because they are hungry, because they no longer trust us.]
ROBESPIERRE: Que proposes-tu? [What do you propose?]
SAINT-JUST: Une loi, privant de leur propriété non seulement les émigrés, mais les corrompus, les suspects, les mauvais citoyens, au bénéfice de la Nation qui les distribuera aux patriotes déshérités. [A law, divesting not only émigrés, but the corrupt, suspects, bad citizens, of their property, to the benefit of the Nation, which will distribute them to disadvantaged patriots.]
ROBESPIERRE: Mais c'est une atteinte à la propriété... [But this is an attack on property...]
SAINT-JUST: Non. Non, c'est une atteinte aux abus et le commencement de la justice. Le peuple saura que l'on s'occupe de son sort; il ne sera plus désorienté; il n'écoutera plus les démagogues; il entrera dans la voie de la raison révolutionnaire. [No. No, this is an attack on abuse and the beginning of justice. The people will know that we care about their fate; they will no longer be disoriented; they will stop listening to the demagogues; the people will start on the road of revolutionary reason.]
The Saint-Just played by Denis Manuel isn’t belittled like a child or a teenager: he argues with the others, he reasons with the others, he can convince the others – and he knows how to answer Carnot, and the others as well, as the next and last extract shows. The Committee is imploding, and the members quarrel on various issues (social, military, revolutionary justice, the law of Prairial). This part of the film begins with the implosion of the Committee of Public Safety. The translated dialogue below is shown between 04:35 and 09:05:
COLLOT: On passe tout aux aristocrates, et rien aux sans-culottes![We give the aristocrats everything, the sans-culottes, nothing!]
BILLAUD: L'attention scrupuleuse que tu portes à l'honnêteté des citoyens de la Section de l'Indivisibilité, tu pourrais peut-être la consacrer à ces gens qui font la grève, à ce peuple qui gronde, à tous ces mécontents qui réclament l'application de la Constitution de '93. [Perhaps you could consecrate the scrupulous attention you bring to bear on the honesty of the citizens of the Section de l’Indivisibilité to these people who are striking, to this people who are grumbling, to all these malcontents who are calling for the application of the Constitution of ’93.]
SAINT-JUST: La Constitution de ’93 n'est pas une panacée. Les lois de ventôse peuvent tranquiliser le peuple. [The Constitution of ’93 is not a panacea. The Laws of Ventôse may reassure the people.]
COLLOT: Ah! Les lois de ventôse! Oui, il y avait longtemps...! La tarte à la crème des lois de ventôse! [Ah! The Laws of Ventôse! Yes, that was a long time ago…! Slapstick, those Laws of Ventôse!]
SAINT-JUST: Ton langage est déplacé, Collot! [Your language is out of place, Collot!]
COLLOT: Saint-Just, toi qui n'était pas là, toi qui était aux armées, demande un peu à Robespierre qui a empêché l'application des lois de ventôse, qui a favorisé au contraire les boutiquiers, ce petit commerce que voulait supprimer Hébert. Qui! Qui, sinon Robespierre! [Saint-Just, you who weren’t there, you who were with the armies, just ask Robespierre who prevented the application of the Laws of Ventôse, who, to the contrary, favored the shopkeepers, that little trade that Hébert wanted to suppress. Who! Who, if not Robespierre!]
ROBESPIERRE: Ce n'est pas vrai. (se lève) Nous avions demandé deux commissions pour examiner les lois de ventôse! Qui l'a empêché? Carnot, Lindet, Barère! Et vous (à Billaud et Collot), qu'avez-vous fait? [That’s not true. (rises) We asked for two commissions to examine the Laws of Ventôse! Who prevented it? Carnot, Lindet, Barère! And you (to Billaud and Collot), what did you do?]
SAINT-JUST: Oui, Collot? [Yes, Collot?]
Silence.
SAINT-JUST: J'arrive de l'armée. Je vous rapporte une victoire qui s'appelle Fleurus. Le comité que je retrouve n'est plus celui que j'ai quitté. On agissait. Ensemble, ne plus savoir que discuter et se disputer! [I’ve just arrived from the army. I am reporting a victory called Fleurus to you. The Committee I regain is not the one I left. We acted. Together, to no longer know anything but how to discuss and dispute!]
BILLAUD: On a voulu endormir le peuple avec des cantiques. [Someone wanted to lull the people with hymns.]
COLLOT: L'Être Suprême doit tenir lieu de pain! [The Supreme Being must take the place of bread!]
SAINT-JUST: Je trouve singulière cette alliance qui semble vous unir contre le plus pur d'entre nous. [I find this alliance which seems to unite you against the purest among us singular.]
CARNOT: L'homme dont tu parles, Saint-Just, s'est rendu insupportable à tous. Il menace tout le monde. Il se voit des ennemis partout. Il ne supporte point la contradiction. [The man of whom you speak, Saint-Just has made himself insufferable to all of us. He threatens everyone. He sees enemies everywhere. He does not bear contradiction.]
COUTHON: "Il se voit des ennemis partout"... N'est-ce pas qu'il en existe partout? [“He sees enemies everywhere”… Is that not because they are everywhere?]
SAINT-JUST: En venant en ce lieu, j'ai trouvé en effet de la tyrannie, mais elle n'est pas du côté de Robespierre. J'ai trouvé de la conspiration, mais elle n'est pas du côté de Robespierre. [In coming to this place, I have in effect found tyranny, but it is not from Robespierre’s quarter. I have found conspiracy, but it is not from Robespierre’s quarter.]
CARNOT: Du côté de qui? Réponds, Saint-Just. De qui? [From whose quarter? Respond, Saint-Just. From whom?]
SAINT-JUST: (se lève) De toi, Carnot. Tu as donné l'ordre à Jourdan de se démunir de 18 000 hommes pour les envoyer à Pichegru. [(rises) From you, Carnot. You gave Jourdan the order to divest himself of 18,000 men to send them to Pichegru.]
CARNOT: Oui, je l'ai fait. [Yes, I did that.]
SAINT-JUST: Si je n'étais intervenu, Jourdan perdait la bataille de Fleurus. Cela t'était indifférent, Carnot! (Carnot se lève.) Du moment que Pichegru pouvait conquérir la Hollande! [If I had not intervened, Jourdan would have lost the battle of Fleurus. That was a matter of indifference to you. (Carnot rises.) From the moment that Pichegru could have conquered Holland!]
CARNOT: Je ne te permets pas! [I will not permit you!]
ROBESPIERRE: (se lève) Tu ne songes qu'à la guerre de conquête, Carnot. Tu ne songes qu'au moment où tu pourras prélever des indemnités de guerre! Tu ne fais pas la guerre de la Révolution, Carnot; tu fais la guerre comme au temps des rois! [(rises) You think only wars of conquest, Carnot. You only dream of the moment when you will be able to draw war indemnities. You do not make the war of the Revolution; you make war as in the time of kings!]
CARNOT: Moi, Carnot?! [I, Carnot?!]
ROBESPIERRE: Toi, Carnot! Nous faisons la guerre pour libérer nos frontières, non pour conquérir, pour que dans un pays libre et en paix nous puissions enfin construire la République! [You, Carnot! We make war to liberate our frontiers, not to conquer, so that we can finally construct the Republic in a free and peaceful country.]
CARNOT: Sais-tu ce que je pense de toi, Robespierre? Et de toi, Saint-Just? Avec vos soupçons perpétuels et votre inquisition incessante? C'est que vous êtes des dictateurs! Parfaitement! Des dictateurs ridicules! [You know what I think of you, Robespierre? And of you, Saint-Just? With your perpetual suspicions and your incessant inquisition? That you are dictators! Perfectly! Ridiculous dictators!]
SAINT-JUST: Retire immédiatement ce que tu viens de dire! [Retract what you just said immediately!]
CARNOT: Jamais! [Never!]
ROBESPIERRE: M'accuser de dictature! Moi! Alors que depuis deux mois, on s'est opposé systématiquement à toutes les mesures que je préconisais. Moi, un dictateur? Ma vie! Toute ma vie s'inscrit en faux contre cette calomnie! Où est ma richesse? Où est ma force armée? Où sont les corrompus à ma solde? Moi, un dictateur! Je n'ai pour moi que la force de ma raison, de ma parole, de mon action, que j'ai mis au service du peuple, du peuple souverain! Moi, un dictateur... C'est toi, Carnot, qui aspire à la dictature. À la dictature de l'administration militaire, ton domaine réservé! Et toi, Collot, et toi, Billaud, à la dictature de la haine! [To accuse me of dictatorship! Me! When for two months all the measures I’ve advocated have been systematically opposed. I, a dictator! My life! My whole life disputes the validity of this calumny! Where are my riches? Where are my armed forces? Where are the corrupt men in my pay? I, a dictator! I have nothing for me but the strength of my reason, of my words, of my actions, that I have placed in the service of the people, of the sovereign people! I, a dictator… It is you, Carnot, who aspires to dictatorship. To the dictatorship of the military administration, your reserved domain! And you, Collot, and you, Billaud, to the dictatorship of hatred!]
COLLOT: Qui persécute les sans-culottes? Robespierre! [Who persecutes the sans-culottes? Robespierre!]
BILLAUD: Qui ressuscite l'inquisition? Robespierre! [Who’s resuscitating the Inquisition? Robespierre!]
CARNOT: Qui veut se faire dictateur? Robespierre! (Carnot marche vers Saint-Just et le bouscule.) Et toi, tu reviens ici pour lui prêter main forte?! [Who wants to make himself dictator? Robespierre! (Carnot walks toward Saint-Just and shoves him.) And you, did you come here to lend him your aid?]
BARÈRE: Allons, citoyens! Nous sommes tous des montagnards ici! Et nous nous déchirons! [Come on, citizens! We’re all Montagnards here! And we’re tearing each other apart!]
ROBESPIERRE: Il n'y a plus de Montagne. Il ne peut y avoir désormais que deux partis à la Convention: les bons et les méchants. Sauvez donc la patrie sans moi! Je ne remettrai plus les pieds au Comité! [There is no more Mountain. From now on there can only be two parties in the Convention: the good and the malicious. So save our homeland without me! I will not set foot in the Committee again.]
He leaves, Saint-Just follows him.
SAINT-JUST: Robespierre, qu'as-tu dis? [Robespierre, what did you say?]
ROBESPIERRE: Ils ne me verront plus! [They’ll see me no more!]
SAINT-JUST: Ce n'est pas possible. [That’s not possible.]
ROBESPIERRE: Ma décision est prise. Rejoins-les, toi, si tu veux! [I’ve made my decision. You, rejoin them, if you want!]
SAINT-JUST: Pourquoi dis-tu cela? Ne crois-tu plus que je suis ton ami? [Why do you say that? Don’t you believe that I’m your friend?]
ROBESPIERRE: Si, je le crois... [Yes, I believe it…]
SAINT-JUST: Nous sommes tous à bout de nerf. Réfléchis. Songe que la République n'a trouvé son salut que le jour où le pouvoir a été exercé collectivement par les comités. Il faut que tu reste au Comité, Robespierre. [We’re all at the end of our tether. Think. Consider that the Republic only found its salvation the day when power was first exercised collectively by the committees. You must remain with the Committee, Robespierre.]
ROBESPIERRE: Non! [No!]
He leaves.
You may argue that the Saint-Just of La Terreur et la Vertu is idealized – and on a certain level, you are right. Some may even say that you rather believe he was the snotty kid of La Révolution française: les Années terribles and of Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution. What you ignore if you choose to believe this, though, is that, in his myth, Saint-Just has always been both. Who was he really? We’ll never know for sure: we only have the contradictory testimonies of these who knew him (or pretended they did). Maybe he was both. He was a complex person – not the caricature Hilary Mantel describes. He may have appeared, to his enemies, as this sulky, arrogant, ambitious, murderous “teenager”. He may have appeared, to his friends and admirers, as a gifted, precocious, courageous, stoical young man. You must know that both exist. But you must also know that Saint-Just was never the offensive caricature shown Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution, who helps Robespierre to practice his speeches, who re-reads them, who dresses him and brings him coffee while the other man works – did you see Saint-Just write a single speech or report? – and who repeats such a stupid line as “Camille has done something very stupid” (Part Seven, 05:28) twice. A peculiar scene and a peculiar characterisation indeed, in which Saint-Just appears shallow and Robespierre distrustful of Saint-Just’s principles and beliefs – “Please tell me you’re not enjoying this,” Robespierre tells Saint-Just as the latter reads from Desmoulins’ Vieux Cordelier (Part Seven, 06:32). The way this Saint-Just reacts would never fit Saint-Just’s self-representation or his ideals: it does not – it cannot – inspire any respect or even any fear – only derision and mockery. This could never be Saint-Just, the complex personality who could inspire a form of “fear”, mixed with “fascination” or “inspiration” – or emulation (he tried to “inspire” the Revolution) – pretty much like the word awe conveys, but which hardly translated in French: in fact, it’s what they called sublime. The revolutionaries were obsessed with this concept of the “sublime” (the culture of Year II being very much characterized by it) and I believe Saint-Just is one of the revolutionaries who best succeeded in moulding himself according to it, with the myth he helped create around himself while he lived, particularly during his missions – a myth he was very self-conscious about. Saint-Just wanted to become the idealized, perfect citizen, perfect patriot, perfect Representative of the People he wrote about: « Le simple bon sens, l’énergie de l’âme, la froideur de l’esprit, le feu d’un cœur ardent et pur, l’austérité, le désintéressement, voilà le caractère du patriote » (“Simple good sense, an energetic soul, a cool intellect, the fire of a pure and ardent heart, austerity, disinterestedness : that is what characterizes a patriot.”) (Rapport sur les factions de l’étranger, 13 ventôse an II). The regeneration of humanity had passed through him as well and it was the Revolution which affected the important changes in his personality.
But let’s be (fatally and sadly) realistic: who will watch La Terreur et la Vertu? Could this film ever truly hope for some sort of diffusion? An old, made-for-television, black and white film from the 1960s, in two long parts filled with tedious political debate, in French and without subtitles? Yet, it’s the only film I know to portray the Robespierristes – and Saint-Just – accurately: or at least, to give them back the immortal souls in which they believed.
LAST POST: SAINT-JUST'S WORDS (QUOTES), A FEW REFERENCES.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 07:41 pm (UTC)Erika Vause's interesting analysis of the discourse of power and the gender construction of Danton, Robespierre and Saint-Just in Wajda's Danton.
Sib.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 07:44 pm (UTC)I always forget the link to that website. I don't personally like that author and website so much, but that one analysis was very clever and had opened my eyes a lot on Danton. Also, it resembles Marie-Hélène Huet's analysis of the same film. (And those alone really happen to be the only ones I know on this, and it's very sad that one of the two can't be quoted in an academic essay, being from an online website, while the other, which can be quoted, doesn't push all the aspects either.)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 10:39 pm (UTC)Back to the subject of the movie - I would really like to see it (the best historical movies are the ones with long debates and no great battle scenes) but my French is getting worse and worse. Even french subtitles would help.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-10 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-19 03:53 pm (UTC)