(Continued from above >.>) I've seen that article you link to before, unfortunately for my own sanity. There's certainly some evidence that Robespierre, *felt* alone, especially towards the end, but that's not the same thing as being alone. People must be (more or less deliberately?) conflating the two.
doesn't Fatal Purity sound more like an anorexia memoir than a book about a politician? Now that I think of it, yes, it does. I've always hated that title - I hated the book too, but that's another story. The major thing that Robespierre was "pure" of, being, of course, corruption, I find it more than a little disturbing that this seems to be the aspect of Robespierre that bothers people the most. I mean, I understand that corrpt politicians might feel threatened by it - thus explaining the mad rush during the bicentennial for them to declare themselves for Danton over Robespierre, as well as, going further back, the popularity of Danton during the 3rd Republic - but historians? Unless there's a lot more corruption going on in academic circles than even I would have supposed, I really can't understand why historians would feel that way as well.
Also, is there any evidence at all that Robespierre was mad? I've never seen this argument made in any serious work of history. Actually, I've never seen it made in any non-serious work of history either (though, admittedly, I don't read many of those). I've only ever seen anyone say Robespierre was mad on the internet, which leads me to conclude that it is nothing but an internet meme.
Okay, sure, I've seen (incredibly annoying) psychoanalytic biographies that claim that everything Robespierre did in his life was because of his early loss of his parents (as if this were actually uncommon in the 18th century), but that's not really the same thing as claiming that he was insane. Hell, even that infamous article by David P. Jordan which opens with, "[Robespierre] was unworldly, resentful, vain, egotistical, susceptible to flattery, contemptuous of or indifferent to all the social pleasures except conversation, guarded and suspicious, his innermost self carefully shielded by ancien régime manners. As a politician he was equally compromised, being inflexible, unforgiving, ill at ease in public, secretive, stiff and pedantic as a speaker (with an unpleasing and not very powerful voice), lacking the common touch, preoccupied. As a political and social thinker, he was annoyingly fastidious, adroit and closely focused rather than original, prone to substitute Jacobin rhetorical formulae for logical steps, obsessively self-regarding, too tied to circumstances to formulate general principles (or disentangle those he held from the personalities and issues of the moment), enthralled by abstractions" doesn't mention insanity in this litany of supposed faults (none of which I have noticed in my study of him, but then, this list does seem fueled by a rather unprofessional level of vitriol, which I can only make sense of by supposing that Jordan fears to have the same labels ascribed to him, as they so often are to academics, unfortunately).
...Oh dear, now who's ranting? I do apologize for going on so long.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-03-10 12:20 am (UTC)doesn't Fatal Purity sound more like an anorexia memoir than a book about a politician?
Now that I think of it, yes, it does. I've always hated that title - I hated the book too, but that's another story. The major thing that Robespierre was "pure" of, being, of course, corruption, I find it more than a little disturbing that this seems to be the aspect of Robespierre that bothers people the most. I mean, I understand that corrpt politicians might feel threatened by it - thus explaining the mad rush during the bicentennial for them to declare themselves for Danton over Robespierre, as well as, going further back, the popularity of Danton during the 3rd Republic - but historians? Unless there's a lot more corruption going on in academic circles than even I would have supposed, I really can't understand why historians would feel that way as well.
Also, is there any evidence at all that Robespierre was mad?
I've never seen this argument made in any serious work of history. Actually, I've never seen it made in any non-serious work of history either (though, admittedly, I don't read many of those). I've only ever seen anyone say Robespierre was mad on the internet, which leads me to conclude that it is nothing but an internet meme.
Okay, sure, I've seen (incredibly annoying) psychoanalytic biographies that claim that everything Robespierre did in his life was because of his early loss of his parents (as if this were actually uncommon in the 18th century), but that's not really the same thing as claiming that he was insane. Hell, even that infamous article by David P. Jordan which opens with, "[Robespierre] was unworldly, resentful, vain, egotistical, susceptible to flattery, contemptuous of or indifferent to all the social pleasures except conversation, guarded and suspicious, his innermost self carefully shielded by ancien régime manners. As a politician he was equally compromised, being inflexible, unforgiving, ill at ease in public, secretive, stiff and pedantic as a speaker (with an unpleasing and not very powerful voice), lacking the common touch, preoccupied. As a political and social thinker, he was annoyingly fastidious, adroit and closely focused rather than original, prone to substitute Jacobin rhetorical formulae for logical steps, obsessively self-regarding, too tied to circumstances to formulate general principles (or disentangle those he held from the personalities and issues of the moment), enthralled by abstractions" doesn't mention insanity in this litany of supposed faults (none of which I have noticed in my study of him, but then, this list does seem fueled by a rather unprofessional level of vitriol, which I can only make sense of by supposing that Jordan fears to have the same labels ascribed to him, as they so often are to academics, unfortunately).
...Oh dear, now who's ranting? I do apologize for going on so long.