revolution_fr | The Last Nights of Ventôse

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The Last Nights of Ventôse

"Actually, they were almost the same age, with a difference of two years only, but never really realizing this fact. They both accepted Maxime as the older one with no doubt. Their mutual feelings were much stronger than normal friendship; it was simply love from both sides, in Camille's case with a huge amount of adoration. The condition for his own happiness was Maxime being close to him; an adult child tended to live in a constant exhausting rebelion against his own slave's dependence. Yet the feelings of the older one were probably even stronger, though they did not restrain his being. Maxime's love was 'at least strange', entirely protective, much more passionate than fraternal attachment, not even paternal, but typically maternal. A kind of love hard to bear, painful, monstrously deep, mindless to the point of absurd, full of nervous fear and insatiable tenderness - in the case of a man, of course, hidden extremly well. During the last months, he didn't have time - nor right - to ponder Camille, aching in his all body with a dumb pain he refused to even think about; for half a year Camille had been giving him one stroke after another, deliberately and knowingly hitting the weakest point each time. An incredibly strong attack of malaria, from which Maxime was pulling through with such a toil, was probably the result of this game. A love of this kind is ripped of any dignity so far that the more your darling one harasses you, the more loved he is."

Not mine, though I wouldn't mind it to be. This piece of fanfiction is almost a hundred years old, being a part of a novel by Stanisława Przybyszewska, Ostatnie noce ventôse'a / The Last Nights of Ventôse. Posted in this community because it's one of a very few places where the author's name is recognized, and I think she is worth it.

Translation by me.

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We should not forget, though, that there are not historical proofs of such deep feelings on neither of the sides.

It's a novel, a piece of fiction, not a scholar work. As for the truth, we'll probably never learn, like you say: they took it to their graves. Studying history one can only say that their relationship was strong (to the point) and complicated. Przybyszewska gives one explanation, a possible one we can accept as well as decline, as there is no way of verifying it.

Anyway,thank you for translating and posting. Przybyszewska's indeed worth it.
Yes, I know it's fiction. Many people tend to confuse fiction and history, though. Therefore my remark. What proofs do we have, by the way, of a STRONG friendship between the two?

This is absolutely fabulous! Thanks for posting.

Thank you so much for translating that! I have read the two plays of hers that were translated into English and been interested in the novel ever since, but as there is no translation and I do not speak Polish (always mean to sign up for a course - largely for that very reason, in fact - but never do), I've never been able to find out anything more about it than that it also deals with Robespierre. I'm not surprised to see its take on the relationship with Desmoulins, quite in tune with their little scene in "The Danton Case", with Robespierre always fearing that he has 'seen through his most intimate feelings'. What is the rest of the book like, content-wise? I trust it's not all slashy slush?

I wonder what Przybyszewska would have thought of 'fanfiction' that identifies itself as such, slash in particular, since in effect, that is precisely what she is writing - not only with the under-/over-/all-around-tones between those two, but with half of her entire cast at least attracted to Robespierre, if not to one another, and with so much gossiping and quasi-romantic angsting - to exaggerate slightly, she paints the entire revolution as a grand bisexual soap opera ... and yet she doesn't seem to have acknowledged that she was taking things lightly, writing out fantasies. The historical-political inaccuracies in her writings can be explained as 'alternative interpretations adjusted to better serve the expression of her own ideas and concerns' (the dangerous misconceptions that can arise from writers using history in this way without acknowledging clearly that they have not illustrated a fact but created a fiction have been pointed out in the past), but there is so much of these little personal affairs in them that doesn't seem to express either the acting figures' historical personalities nor any personal philosophy of the author's, but just seems to be dreams running wild, and-- well, yes, I wonder if she acknowledged that at least to herself, or if she actually believed that everything, the politics and the personal relations, was the way she presents it.

:D I could not have expressed it better. Wow. At least whe TRIES to be honest with the real people she writes about...Anyway.

I've always known (expected, believed) that somewhere, Przybyszewska had written and left behind some "fanfiction". ...And exactly as I expected, it would be a total failure of characterisation. *shudders*

That's the impression I'm under - that, grotesque though it may seem, given the often far-fetched claims and conclusions her plays make, she herself did believe that her vision of the men and events was as true as if she had been a witness, and that she never consciously altered anything to make a certain point (which, whether one agrees with the point in question or not - or thinks they shouldn't have ab/used historical scenes to get it across - is what Büchner did, even what Wajda did, each using the 'stage' of the revolution to vent their own frustrations), and even less for sheer entertainment value.

It's known that Przybyszewska had a love/hate relationship with "Danton's Death" and dismissed Rolland's "Danton" for reiterating the stereotypes and simplifications made 'popular' by the former (I'm so sad she died before his "Robespierre" came out, she probably would have had a lot to say about it), but I wonder what she would have thought of works in which the authors clearly and consciously distort certain historical persons and events not to make a philosophical or political point (which, though potentially problematic [if the fact/fiction distinction isn't maintained, as we've gone through last month :D], is how half of world literature has come about since ancient times) but just to fit in better with their personal fantasy of the 'soap opera' (e.g. Hilary Mantel's treatment of the Duplays or Saint-Just). She probably would have recoiled in horror - and yet, didn't she do the same thing when (in "The Danton Case" - can't speak for the novel here) she practically reduced Desmoulins to a blubbering baby ready to serve enthusiastically as the squeeze toy for either the supermale Danton or the superman Robespierre (or when she Pyladified Saint-Just, or had Billaud-Varenne, Barère, and Collot d'Herbois bicker about the atmosphere 'loaded with eroticism' that surrounds Robespierre, or how his 'very presence [...] goes to the boys' heads', and so on and so forth) - even if it happened in the purest of intentions? With Przybyszewska, the gap between what she (apparently) thought she was doing (bring An II to life and do justice to the unappreciated and vilified genius of Robespierre) and what she did (apparently) do (project all the processes of her mind - from concrete politics and philosophy to romantic fantasies and frustration at her own career as a luminary, or lack thereof - onto the 'cast' of the French Revolution) is so wide it seems impossible to judge her work by any coherent standards. But it's fascinating.

Tis so true; I think the rest is made up somehow. Too bad we don't know, but Maxime certaintly has the gravity of being older that i don't disagree on. xD

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I will link to this post of yours in order to prove that a literary critique can have the same worries about "making historical persons and events to soap opera" as a historian :D

Apologies for delay.

I know about confusing fiction and history, but this phenomenon will never stop surprising me. Perhaps it is only me as a philology scholar, but how can one take a historical novel, especially written by at least one generation younger writer, and treat it like an actual source. Though some writers actually do more research than others, they should be always taken cum grano salis, at least in my opinion. I never take anything for granted, holding personal opinions marked "subjective", but that's me.

On your last thought - I think much depends on what we both call "friendship" and when we mark it as "strong". Personally, I would never ask anyone to be the best man/maid of honour at my wedding and later the godparent of my first child, were it not a person truly close to me, but perhaps you see it in a different way. Returning to history, I've always been interested with young Maxime's school years. Obviously intelligent yet not from the best of families, in a rather snobistic society, which together creates a high possibility that even if he wasn't ostracised, he wasn't very popular, too. In such circumstances, a relationship of a sensitive child surrounded by maybe not enemy, but indifferent school mates, with one fellow student can become strong and survive years. But perhaps you don't like psychological approach (Adlerian-Freudian, I'd say). On to structuralism then. Why, by the love of the Supreme Being, why was non-sentimental, non-trusting Robespierre whose private space was so small that almost non-existing and for whom the Revolution was all life, why was he keeping up with Desmoulins for so long, having friendly contacts with political oponent, with possibilities, yes, but not so extraordinary that he couldn't be replaced. Even when Robespierre became more antagonistic with Danton. From a purely political point of view, he didn't need Camille that much and "should" actually "forget" about him much sooner (come on, "friends" in POLITICS? with a guillotine in a background?). He didn't. He obviously hesitated. The explanation "loved him" is just one explanation, and a very simplified one. Love is complicated. Like hell. Neither of us has to accept Przybyszewska'a direct "slash" interpretation (though in further parts of the novel she writes a lot about mechanisms of repression), but I think that yes, that was something - not necessairly that - between the two, something strong and rare in Robespierre's life. I'd dare to say Camille's, too. And it finished the way it did.

Frustrating and fascinating, aren't they? All the things "well never know" about history. Pity that Robespierre's personal papers were destroyed.

You're welcome. Perhaps I'll translate more, but I have to choose a part of the book.

First of all, I consider Przybyszewska's historical fiction totally legitimate and insightful (as I explain here: ). I just posed the questions I posed in order to open an interesting debate ;-)

As for Robespierre and Desmoulins.
First of all: yes, I think they were friends during the years of Revolution. I doubt they were friends in the school and I am convinced they had no contact in the long years between the schoolyears and the revolution.

Second: There exists a problem of judging people's from today's poit of view. For example, today in many countries, people choose their bestmen or the godfathers of their children among their friends. In many other countries, and in many more in past, people have chosen them mainly for social prestige or in order to provide their children with support of an influential person in the future. That was especially the case of the godfathers. So, what may to us seem as a proof of a close friendship, might have just meant that Robespierre was in that moment the most influential of Desmoulins' acquaintances. Or not.
Anyway, there are indeed other signs that leave the door open for speculation, I admit it ;-) Though it seems to me that the boom of this speculations in the 20th century has more to do with our Freudian obsessions that with the late 18th century feelings and events, haha

Right for the last one! But psychically suffering children aren't the "invention" of our times, as well as homoerotic desires (no identity, I agree). The question is how would both of these things express themselves. Surely repressed - or, if we omit Freudian term, self-denied, on much larger scale than nowadays. But non-existent? Interesting topic.

BTW, where did you get the idea that Robespierre was "non-sentimental, non-trusting Robespierre whose private space was so small that almost non-existing" from? Now, basing ourselves on historical sources, we know quite for sure that he was very sentimental, after all, he was a Rousseauist and loved all the nature-people-doggies-flowers etc. stuff, to put it simple. In his private space, he loved to play big brother to the Duplay youth, priding himself for solving their petty disputes, and to other revolutionaries, and there were parties where this political brotherhood was cherished at the Duplays almost every night. (BTW, Couthon moved to the Duplays with his family, and still nobody speculates about a love between the two ;-). That's history. The "man without friends" is 20th century fiction. The "cold monster" is a British one.

Oh, of course you're right. But it's still highly significative to which figures "we" project them and to which we don't...I still find it highly significative to see when this "traumatic childhood" is used in a historiograhic explanation and when it's not. The same for the homoerotism...BTW, the men then had much less problems to express their FEELINGS for other men than the men of today, imo. We haven't progessed so much, with all that desire to classify the emotions and put them into labelled boxes. Anyway, it's another topic.

http://community.livejournal.com/revolution_fr/90848.html

We had a debate on jacobin frienship here, too.

Oh, it developed nicely since my last check; thank you.

Hm, good point, I used the word in another meaning. Though remember that this nature-loving Rousseauist is also responsible for the Terror and he wasn't called "cold monster" for no reason. Not that these two cannot go together, as many examples show. In Robespierre's case, I think, it shows his tragedy.

Were he an open, trusting person, they would eat him up much sooner. "Brotherhood was cherished" - or illusion of such? There are friends and "friends". I believe in the Duplays and (hesitant) maybe Saint-Just.

Sorry: I deleted the post, intending to re-post it with one added sentence (which I do), that's why the one you answer to appears below yours.

Well, that's precisely the point. It'd be very naive to think that people responsible for the Terror (and it was indeed a collective responsibility) had to be friendless anbd cold monsters in their private life.

Buonarroti, les Julien, Le Bas, Couthon etc.

It's ok, I did the same in order to repost it below your new version.

"the men then had much less problems to express their FEELINGS for other men than the men of today"

I do agree. And you're right: when it comes to the works of art or actions taken by historical persons, sometimes their traumatic childhood/homoerotic feelings/unrequited love/whatever is a key to understand the above, sometimes matter a little and sometimes not at all. Supreme Being protect me from scholar manierism and fanaticism puting one methodology above another ones: I am far from explaining everything via psychoanalysis.

That's nice to hear. For a scary example of such approach, see for example Jean Artarit's Robespierre ou l'impossible filiation. It's a clear case of a psych who's a way sicker than his object of professional (?) interest.

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