Psychology question involving Robespierre...

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Hola, long time lurker, first time posting...

I've recently been pretty obsessed with the French Revolution (particularly Robespierre), and I've been reading quite a bit on him and his contemporaries, and I've noticed that a lot of people have jumped to diagnose several other revolutionaries and analyze every possible psychological inclination they may have had.  (I've read a lot of theories on what made Marat blister up, and there seems to be something of a consensus that Mirabeau probably had every venereal disease known to mankind, and sexual preferences that would have been considered rather deviant at the time have been attributed to Camille...)

But I've searched the internet rather thoroughly, and I have yet to find any explanation for Robespierre's behavior that really amounts to anything other than "He was a jerk" or "He was weird" or "He was just fanatical".
But a lot of his traits:  Jerky walk, fist clinching, facial twitching/grimacing, head/shoulder rocking, light filtering problems, issues with voice modulation, nervous breakdowns, gastrointestinal issues, social awkwardness, trembling hands, issues with unexpected social calls, not liking to be touched, absentmindedness, odd food preferences, not liking to look people in the face, refusal to change clothing/habits, and his tendency toward obsession ---
Seem to point toward something that could be diagnosed.

I was just curious if anyone else thought that his behavior could have been symptomatic of a disorder (or syndrome)?

Comments

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

I'm still in the process of studying all of this, so excuse the summarized form of this explanation:

Psychology/Psychoanalysis and History are a big fashion couple of the 20th century. There's actually been a lot of psychoanalysis attempts of Robespierre, in many languages (I spotted one dating from the first decades of the 20th century, in German, pondering Robespierre's (homo)sexuality). Closer to us, in French, there is Jacques André who tried to psychoanalyse the revolutionary process (La Révolution Fratricide - Essai De Psychanalyse Du Lien Social, 1993), and there is Jean Artarit who published a huge psychoanalytical "biography" of Robespierre (in 2003 -- it was reedited last year). As far as I understood, both are influenced by Lacan, who revived Freudian theories. So to answer, according to André and Artarit, Robespierre wasn't just "a jerk/weird/fanatical", he had a "particular psychological profile, etc."

However, as Jacques André himself did end up saying: you can't psychoanalyse a historical figure. You can't make a psychoanalysis without the person in front of yourself revealing his own psyché. This is not how it works.

The main problem with all of these attempts (and it shows in Artarit a lot) is that they will take the most anecdotes they can, coming from various sources, without evaluating the worth of the sources, and stick them all together to build a "psychological portrait". Only, when it comes to Robespierre, you have to understand that we will never know who was the real Robespierre. Our knowledge of Robespierre's personality is blurred both by his "black legend" (his negative legend built by the Thermidorians) and by his idealization by his would-be revolutionary/republican heirs in the 19th century.

So to speak, all these traits you mention may come from Thermidorian accounts, memoirs of the contemporaries or unreliable "witnesses" (written long, long after the events), or were often just made up during the 19th century either by the pseudo-historians themselves or by novelists/playwrights. To conclude, I don't think these traits help at all in understanding Robespierre's role in history, or in understanding the Terror/the French Revolution: at the very least, it can be useful for novelists or filmmakers, as the many films and books produced in our period sufficiently prove. Finally, I don't think we're going anywhere or learning anything in diagnosing post-mortem (and long, long post-mortem, might I say) a disorder or a syndrome for Robespierre: psychological history is only an updating of the good old 19th century "history of the great figures" (i.e. certain individuals caused this event or that massacre because of their particular traits/because they were crazy/amazing/etc.) and it's also very much fitting to our present period in which we try to reduce the social to the maximum so to give the main priority to the total triumph of the individual.

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Ah, I suppose the fact that the only other language I can really speak/read reliably is Spanish probably limits the sources I've got immediate access to.

That question mainly came from the fact that I discovered this bit of history around the time I was doing a pretty hefty research project on high-functioning autism, and many of the traits described by both his friends and enemies fit quite well within the criteria.
But I definitely agree about the fact that most of those traits probably didn't really affect the course of history. (Well, unless he really did get the shakes, and the botched-suicide theory is the true one...)

Never thought of those sort of descriptions being used as smear campaigns (since when does twitching indicate a malicious spirit?), but come to think of it, the only modern portrayal I've seen (given I've not seen too terribly many) that seems to portray them more as signs of intensity rather than in a negative light was an old black and white movie.. The title was 'La terreur et la vertu' or something similar to that.

Haha.. Your summarized explanation was still pretty thorough.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

*blink blink* One of the political and revolutionary leaders who took part and participated in shaping his era, and one of the most famous too, an autistic? I don't know much about autism, and even less on high-functioning autism, but that seems rather... off. I would say that, from the way some people seem to explain his main traits and 'pathology', that they'd rather categorize him as having an obsessive–compulsive personality style. But, as I explained above, the thing that bugs me a lot with all of this is that it's reducing a particular social context to the personal disorders of an individual. I personally believe the development of psychology and all the related (pop psychology, sex therapy, etc.) contributes to reduce social responsibility and that it's merely a tool to conformism and normativity. Example: nooo, it's not society that is unfair, it's YOU who have a problem and must fix it within yourself...! Rigid and inflexible principles as part of the defense of a cause to make the society a better and fairer place to live in isn't a pathology in my book!

Never thought of those sort of descriptions being used as smear campaigns (since when does twitching indicate a malicious spirit?)
Actually, it's more part of the whole portrait they created of him. I have no idea if that indicated something for them that we may not possess the key of understanding to -- or maybe, it means the same as for us: that they try to say he was unstable and crazy.

but come to think of it, the only modern portrayal I've seen (given I've not seen too terribly many) that seems to portray them more as signs of intensity rather than in a negative light was an old black and white movie.. The title was 'La terreur et la vertu' or something similar to that.
I've seen La Terreur et la Vertu (see my icon; I rather like that film), but I don't really remember twitching...

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

I should probably explain that a bit.. HFA and Asperger Syndrome (another autism spectrum disorder) are rather far removed from classical autism (which is what people generally think of when they hear the word). The symptoms of these disorders can be summed up to social awkwardness on a chit-chat level, eccentricity, obsessions, and sensory difficulties like light filtering. Hm.. Probably the most famous people that are believed to have such disorders are Bill Gates, Eddison, and Einstein (with Bill Gates being the more accurate case obviously, since he is still alive). Interestingly, OCD is often a co-diagnosis with AS or HFA.

Ah... Well, I would never consider such a thing as a pathology! Rather an explanation. (Sorry, I tend to look at things from more of a scientific standpoint). Regardless of any label that could be slapped on someone (with the exception of extreme psychosis and things of that sort), their actions are their own and they are responsible for them, regardless of what traits are or are not a result of their hardwiring.
But I'm not militantly attached to those ideas or anything, just interested in what makes people tick the way they do.

Not twitching so much as I remember him clenching his hands at his sides a fair bit when he was just talking and not really furious or anything, and a lot of fiddling with his glasses and other little things like that.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Sorry, for "not liking to be touched": is the movie "Danton" your historical source? And for the other "symptomps"?

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

No. My sources were all text and, though the credibility of pretty much anything said about Robespierre is suspect, I tried to find the ones that were mentioned in at least two sources (preferably by both friends and enemies). For example, the facial grimacing was mentioned by several people, among them Mme Roland (before the political tide turned Robespierre against her and her husband) and one of his teachers from LLG. I don't remember precisely who said it, but the same person who mentioned the head/shoulder movement, dislike of touching, fist clenching, and disliking looking others in the face (that last one was actually in several sources which I don't feel like back-checking my internet history to find), was someone else involved in the higher-levels of government: I found it used in at least two books, (One of them was Scurr's Fatal Purity. The title of the other escapes me, but the cover for it was that picture of Robespierre sans-wig leaning on a table) so I assumed the source was partially accurate since the description wasn't too outlandish.

I wasn't particularly fond of 'Danton'... Especially the bit where they have Robespierre posing in a blue toga for some portrait to show imaginary dictatorial ambitions and a god-complex, which as far as I know has no historical accuracy. Also, the portrayals of Eleanor (terrible!) and Saint-Just (he seemed a bit too, idk.. unstable) annoyed me.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Did you consider that, if you do find the same trait in at least two sources, it may be because one of the two copied the other? It is a known thing for Thermidorian sources, for example: they all copy/pasted pretty much the same original portrait (dating from 13 thermidor) and put some additions. As for the biographies using these details, I wouldn't give much credibility, since they're also copy/pasting...

disliking looking others in the face (that last one was actually in several sources which I don't feel like back-checking my internet history to find)
If it's difficult to actually say how twitching can be part of a negative portrait, this one is easier, because often they followed it by an explanation: Robespierre disliked looking others in the face because he was hypocritical/double-face, etc., and, to put it simply, a bad person not to be trusted. I could actually look for the part in one of the many pamphlets that mention it, I know I stumbled across it recently. Also, this would seem like going with the portrait that some made of "Robespierre is like a cat" -- think all the attributes given to a cat, and you get more traits to the portrait of Robespierre.


and one of his teachers from LLG.
I'm curious, actually, to know which source this is.

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Hm.. Never thought of them copy/pasting those traits. Since they all were personally acquainted with him, I assumed they would have drawn more on their individual recollections.

Ah... I actually meant to say "and one of his classmates from LLG"...
I was referring to Freron's comments (in which he also compares him to a cat).
The only descriptions I've ever seen of him from a teacher/employee of LLG were from Proyart, but those seemed a bit too bitter to be reliable...

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

What a pity, I'd be very interested in the sources to judge their reliability myself.
For the moment, some of the "symptomps" seem to me as a part of the Thermidorian "not a people's man" image (i.e. Robespierre WAS NOT the only one among the jacobins who chose not to give up wearing the powdered wig, however, this detail was widely stressed to question the sincerity of his republicanism), while others shout at me "beware of florid 19th century writers like Carlyle and pseudo-Freudian homophobic 20th century filmmakers like Wajda" :-D BTW, "nervous breakdown" is Ruth Scurr's THEORY, not a proven fact. Many others attributed Robespierre's "absence for illness" to TBC and other diseases. As for the "issues with unexpected social calls" - what exactly are you referring to?
As for the bibliography in Spanish, there is actually quite a lot of stuff translated, including speeches and other primary sources not available in English.

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I really don't know what sources would be reliable and which ones wouldn't.
I mean, obviously not the ones that pretty much say he was the devil wearing stripes, but the more moderate sounding ones are a bit confusing...

Charlotte's memoirs are actually what gave me impression that he was prone to severe anxiety and stress, which can lead to physical illnesses especially if someone quits eating like she said he would. And most of his long absences from public life were after really stressful decisions. But I guess those could have really been caused by anything.

The "Issues with unexpected social calls" was referring to a couple of accounts I read about his needing to be presentable before taking visitors (as opposed to Danton and Marat's more casual meetings). One thing I read even said he would sometimes ask for advance notice of a visit, preferably in writing? (this for people he wasn't well acquainted with, not his friends)

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

BTW, "nervous breakdown" is Ruth Scurr's THEORY, not a proven fact. Many others attributed Robespierre's "absence for illness" to TBC and other diseases.

Sorry for butting in with a trivial comment, but what is TBC?