Mer rougie par des torrents de sang

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

"Le vaisseau de la Révolution ne peut arriver à bon port que sur un mer rougie par des torrents de sang" 

Does anyone know if this quote is
1) historical of fictional (Büchner's) . If real when it was pronounced?
2) If it's real, is it Saint-Just's or Barère's?

"Une nation ne se regénère que sur des monceaux de cadavre."
And what about his one? Is its only source a Thermidorian satirical play, again? The one in which it's attributed, as maelicia has found out, to a mysterious friend of Saint-Just?

Because it is often attributed to Saint-Just, too. It's astonishing; as if Saint-Just hadn't left to posterity enough gory quotes, the anti-revolutionary propagandists must invent new ones :D

Well, that's not serious historiography at all. According to George Henry Lewes, Vilate contributes the first quote to Barère and the second one to Saint-Just and they are supposed to have said it at a private dinner during Marie-Antoinette's process. Has anyone read Vilate? So, did Barère say his bloody quote in the Convention or at a dinner with his CPS buddies? Did he say it at all? Oh dear.



Thanks for help!

Comments

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

When I google it, most people attribute it to Saint-Just (duh). One of these funny ones in a discussion page on Wiki about Che Guevara (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion:Che_Guevara), in which said person mentions a series of quotes from these "psychopaths" of the Revolution who could help us to "unmask nowadays' tyrants". Hm. And quotes Saint-Just as such: "Le vaisseau de la Révolution ne peut arriver à bon port que sur une mer rougie par des torrents de sang. En plus des traîtres, nous devons punir ceux qui manquent d’ardeur. Il n’y a que deux sortes de citoyens, les bons et les mauvais. La république doit protection aux premiers. Quant aux seconds, ils ne méritent que la mort !" Ooh, the bad synthesis!

However, here (http://books.google.ca/books?id=OMYaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=%22Le+vaisseau+de+la+R%C3%A9volution%22+PORT&source=bl&ots=LbRyBMGQFl&sig=3xCAI2QdkUVNO5EeOkqx9wic4HI&hl=fr&ei=BsOiSq7PKoyllAedsJT1CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=%22Le%20vaisseau%20de%20la%20R%C3%A9volution%22%20PORT&f=false), you see it comes from Vilate's Causes secrètes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor, published in brumaire an III (ha ha ha!) and it's attributed to Barère -- and I do recall that I read it often being attributed to Barère in books and not in silly webpages. -_- The edition of that text, which dates of 1825, puts a note with a dialogue involving Barère, Collot d'Herbois, Carrier, Vadier (ha ha ha ha! the accused of the post-thermidorian purges! what a coincidence!) and "a friend of Saint-Just" for some strange reason, saying that this (crazy) dialogue comes from "un ouvrage satirique contre les Jacobins, composé après le 9 thermidor et la chute de Robespierre":

Barère. Le vaisseau de la révolution ne peut arriver au port que sur une mer rougie de flots de sang... (Bravo.)

Un ami de Saint-Just. Je signale pour ennemis de la révolution tous les nobles, tous les prêtres, tous les hommes de palais, sans excepter les médecins et la médecine. (Bravo.)

Barère. Il faut commencer le déblai par tous les constituans et les principaux chefs de la législature. Fréteau est acquitté, dit-on ; les jurés sont donc des contre-révolutionnaires ! !

Collot. On le reprendra.

Barère. La guillotine n'est qu'un lit un peu moins bien fait qu'un autre. (Bravo.)

Vadier, frappant du pied. Il faut renouveler les jurés faibles, ça ne va pas assez vite. (Applaudi.)

Un membre. La révolution est un foudre qui doit tout pulvériser. (Oui, oui.)

Collot d'Herbois. Plus le corps social transpire, plus il devient sain. (Bravo.)

Un ami de Saint-Just. Une nation ne se regénère que sur des monceaux de cadavre. (Applaudissemens redoublés.)

Barère. L'arbre de la liberté ne jette au loin ses rameaux verdoyans qu'autant qu'il est arrosé du sang des rois. (C'est vrai, c,est vrai.)

Carrier. Celui-là est un modéré qui ne sait pas boire un verre de sang humain. (Bravos universels et mention honorable.)

HAHAHAHAHAHA. The last quote just kills me. It reminds me what de Baecque or Baczko say somewhere (don't remember which) about a pamphlet in which Robespierre would have asked a new aspiring member of the Jacobins to drink a glass of human blood. Oh, and I love how that dialogue sounds like a bunch of random quotes all copy-pasted together. And I do love how that "une nation ne se regénère que sur des monceaux de cadavre" quote isn't even Saint-Just's, but a friend of Saint-Just's. Oh dear.

I'm pretty sure I read that quote (of Barère, not of Saint-Just) being quoted in a different context though... And I'm wondering if it isn't the deformation of a common metaphor -- "the boat of the Revolution" -- or something. They could have used it often, or in different contexts.

I don't know about Büchner though because I didn't read it. -_-

[lucieandco.livejournal.com]

I'm quite sure that line does not appear anywhere in Büchner. It definitely is not in his Saint-Just's great speech, though it would be very much in tune with that. His Robespierre says (approximately) "We will not let the vessel of Revolution run aground on these people's shallow calculations and mudflats.", but that is the only mention of a vessel; his Saint-Just mentions a Red Sea, but does not literally state that it is reddened by blood, though it is surely implied ("Moses led his people through the Red Sea and through the wilderness until the old and rotten generation had dissolved before he founded the new state. [...] We have neither Red Sea nor wilderness, but we have the war and we have the guillotine.").
I've read it attributed to Barère via Vilate in his "Causes secretes de la Revolution du 9 au 10 Thermidor" from 1795; that seems to be the likely first appearance, and the source used by all other works giving the line to Barère (such as Catherine Gore's "The Tuileries"). Whether or not Vilate's testament is trustworthy is another question.

[matador41.livejournal.com]

Hi, I see the first quote has already been dealt with. Here's a suggestion for the second. Hope it helps. Wikiquote always a good start.

“A nation only regenerates itself upon heaps of corpses.”
Saint-Just quoting Mirabeau before members of the Committee of Public Safety on October 17, 1793.
Cant find a direct source just Saint-Just: Colleague of Robespierre by Eugene N. Curtis [p. 236]

I have a copy of a speech he made to the Convention on 16th October for a law against the english and no mention in there so…
someone's going to have to go to a decent library and look up the relevant volume of the CPS archives.

Happy hunting!