(no subject)

[misatheredpanda.livejournal.com]

CAMILLE DESMOULINS IS 250 TODAY!

I don't actually have anything to commemorate the event, sadly. However I would like to encourage you to spare a thought (and perhaps a few words, if you feel so inspired) for this man who slipped into history - and more than a few peoples' hearts in the past 250 years - against the odds. I could never express how grateful I am for it.

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

However, the question becomes murkier when we talk about what some might consider a kind of internal compromise. When is a change in position an evolution of ideas, and at what point is it a compromise? Take, for example, Robespierre's views on the monarchy. When he became a republican, was he compromising with the current political climate and possibilities? Or, on the other hand, was he compromising before when he supported a constitutional monarchy? Or both? Or did his thoughts on the matter merely change with more reflection? Or was it a combination of all three? However you slice, it there is almost certainly some kind of compromise involved.

To look at it from yet another perspective, there are probably those who say "Robespierre was incapable of compromise" and mean "Robespierre was self-absorbed and didn't care about the opinions of others." Which I don't think is true. You can't expect anyone with principles to do anything but combat the ideas of those whose principles are diametrically opposed. I mean, what do people want Robespierre to have done, said (to continue by example from above) to the colonial lobby, "you know, you have a point about the British potentially getting control of our colonies if we abolish slavery"? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And situations where it is likely that he listened attentively to someone else's views and adopted him are likely to be invisible. Take Lepeletier's education bill, for example. We only ever see him proposing it to the Convention after Lepeletier's assassination, on the latter's behalf. We don't know what his views on education were before he read it. Quite possibly they were different but Lepeletier managed to convince him. We shouldn't assume that everything Robespierre ended up supporting was something he supported from the beginning, and still less that he came up with all his ideas in isolation from his colleagues.

I think as most people do make compromises, and perhaps feel guilty about them
If people are making the kind of compromises they feel guilty about, they need to realize that that's their own issue and deal with it accordingly instead of taking out on historical figures. Beating up on Robespierre because you can't beat up on your conscience speaks much better of him than it does of you. I think I saw a biography of Robespierre once that called him "the conscience of the Revolution." It's very apt here.

Robespierre is a rather tempting target to attack if one wishes to defend oneself against the charge of being an out-of-touch theorist who has no concept about what goes on in the real world.
Very true. Though I always wonder what individual academics feel targeted by this as individuals when I've always seen it as a generalized attack the concept of academia. You would think they would know better than to buy into those kinds of stereotypes to the extent that they feel it's necessary to put up the kind of defense that says, "Yes, academia is like that, and this historical figure I'm studying was like that, but I'm the exception. See how relevant I can make myself, see how I can jump through all your hoops and fit myself into the mold you're really trying to prescribe for me. Not like them." Bizarre, really.

And look, my post(s) is/are long anyway! XD;

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Sorry - a tangent just waylaid me. I think what I meant to say is that my French just isn't up to coming to a reasonable conclusion about La Terreur et La Vertu. There you go, you do me a long reasoned post on Robespierre and compromise and I come up with twitchy Robespierre is hot.

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Sorry, this is the third time I'm posting this. Tonight, I trully suck at HTML

I had a very long comment that brilliantly said everything it was I was trying to say, and then the internet ate the whole damn thing, even after I copied it

Bad internet! Eating posts is wrong. Easting posts after you've copied them is just plain evil.

Back when I was applying to college, a rather prestigious liberal arts college was using PoGS as a starting point for its French Revolution course.

Whaaaaaaaaaat??? My first thoughts, and perhaps it shows how desensitised I am to misogyny was -they can't be hoping to get many men on that course. Because I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable on a course built around a novel which glories so much in reducing its character into some sort of objectified suffering sexpot.

I'm always amazed at the number of people who do seem to rec PoGS as "a good starting point" or "an excellent account" to people wanting to know more about the revolution when to me it just seemed like a thoroughly generic book with historical detail thrown in as interesting backdrop. I think what they might mean is that the book presents Robespierre, Camille and Danton as recognisable 21st century tropes (geek boy, fey-boi, big hearted wideboy) who don't alienate the reader by doing anything too obviously eighteenth century and aren't unduly obsessed with anything as weird as a revolution.

As you say, there are probably non-vile ways of teaching that course, but it does make you wonder why they bother giving such a privilege to such a trite book.

Perhaps the whole Citizens thing made everyone forget that there is supposed to be a difference between history books and historical fiction. At least PoGs gets Camille's age right.

Robespierre, "Slavery is wrong and should be abolished, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights"; colonial lobby, "Not only must slavery be maintained, but free blacks must also be denied access to citizenship"; compromise view: "Let's maintain slavery but give free blacks civil rights"; Robespierre: "I denounce your compromise. Again, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights."

See also his "Can someone please explain to me why sovereignty only resides in the people that pay more than three working days tax? No? And what's all this silver mark rubbish?" Constituent Assembly: "Okay, the sliver mark is rubbish, I grant you, we'll get rid of it but we'll put up the initial voting qualification to five days tax, deal?" Robespierre: "Which part of you cannot be half-free do you not get?"

This is a large part of the reason I translate.

Its appreciated. Very much so.

They don't like Robespierre's personality type, so they take it out on his politics.
I've been thinking about this whole Danton and Robespierre thing and maybe its a really superficial reading, but sometimes I think its as simple as this: I have a friend who doesn't drink. When she comes out with me she really bothers people, even though she's very sociable and friendly, there are some people who cannot help getting shifty or seeing it as a judgment, almost to the point of intolerance, when it is just a personal preference. I think Robespierre affects people like that.

Cf, good films like "La Terreur et la Vertu" which offers an interpretation which could be disputed, but not immediately proven wrong.


La Terreur et La Vertu really stumped me as it's extremely wordy without many visual cues and while I can just about follow it by putting faces to events my understanding of it is still extremely superfical. Fouché looks like Fouché. Robspierre is cat-eyed and blinky. Very blinky. With some jerky hand clenching thrown in. Am I a real oddment or is this slightly hot?

I find the plant watering scene almost indescribably cute. (Oh and look Wadja, two men engaged in an intense relationship that's positive and nurturing not creepy and weird like you seem to find it.) I find Lebas' breeches inexplicably tight. And the end is just heartrending, and I wish I knew what Saint-Just and Robespierre were saying to each other at that window. And he never got the chance to speak to Eléeonore.

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

"Am I a real oddment or is this slightly hot?"

I'm really glad someone else finds blinky-Robespierre (for lack of a better idea of what to call him) adorable. I wish I could find that entire movie online somewhere!

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Bad me. I have a secret and shameful vice for men with black ribbons in their hair that has no relation to the revolution.

The whole Robespierre one is here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/xvxvg_frenchlittlelemon_la-terreur-et-la-vertu

I can't find a complete Danton one, although as Danton looks like a suckling pig enough to give me nightmares, it might be for the best.

[celine-carol.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've looked all over and only found clips of that movie.. Haha, I do prefer an ugly Danton to the one in the movie Danton though!

"I have a secret and shameful vice for men with black ribbons in their hair"

lol Nothing shameful about that. I imagine it's probably pretty common...
Actually, there was an incident in which I was watching part of that movie, and when my roommate asked why I was watching something in French rather than working, I turned the screen around (it was the plant-watering scene), and her response was "I understand".

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

As you say, there are probably non-vile ways of teaching that course, but it does make you wonder why they bother giving such a privilege to such a trite book.
Probably an attempt to be "edgy" and "relevant." A lot of profs seem to be getting unfortunately desperate on that score, imho. Though how the Revolution could ever cease to be relevant on its own is beyond me.

Perhaps the whole Citizens thing made everyone forget that there is supposed to be a difference between history books and historical fiction.
Perhaps. Though that difference has only been very recently demarcated even without the existence of Simon Schama. And it's only gotten worse with post-modernism. Because, after all, since we can't "know" what really happened, a novel is just a good as a serious work of scholarship, right?

See also his "Can someone please explain to me why sovereignty only resides in the people that pay more than three working days tax? No? And what's all this silver mark rubbish?" Constituent Assembly: "Okay, the sliver mark is rubbish, I grant you, we'll get rid of it but we'll put up the initial voting qualification to five days tax, deal?" Robespierre: "Which part of you cannot be half-free do you not get?"
Exactly.

I have a friend who doesn't drink. When she comes out with me she really bothers people, even though she's very sociable and friendly, there are some people who cannot help getting shifty or seeing it as a judgment, almost to the point of intolerance, when it is just a personal preference. I think Robespierre affects people like that.
I think you're right about that. Sad, really.

Robspierre is cat-eyed and blinky. Very blinky. With some jerky hand clenching thrown in. Am I a real oddment or is this slightly hot?
No, it's definitely hot. XD; I also think Jean Negroni, out of all the actors who have played Robespierre in movies I've seen, looks the most like him. Or at least the most like the bust in my icon, which for some reason I've always seen as more or less what he "really" looked like. Probably because it's 3D.

True and true for the plant watering scene and Le Bas's culottes. What Saint-Just and Robespierre are saying to each other at the end is incredibly depressing. However, I think maelicia may have transcribed it somewhere, if you want to be incredibly depressed. And it's even more depressing that he never even got to say whatever it was he needed to say to Éléonore. (Though, of course, historically, he very well could have, so that's some comfort.)

I really love those movies to death though. Especially the casting. It's the only film centred on the Revolution that actually manages to find actors who look and act like the personages they're portraying. Take Danton, for example. He's not pretty to look at, but neither was the historical Danton, and he looks much more like portraits of Danton than the Dantons I've seen in other movies. And he has a wig. I know it's part of the whole "Danton = natural and therefore good/Robespierre = unnatural and therefore monstrous" trope that Danton doesn't have a wig in other movies, or that he's constantly taking his wig off, but if you look at his portraits, he's wearing a wig in all of them. Which would kind of tend to suggest that, I don't know, HE WORE A WIG. *sighs* (Although, at the other extreme, the filmmakers of LTeLV seem to have forgotten that wigs can come off. Thus we're treated to the unintentionally hilarious spectacle of Robespierre wearing his wig while sick in bed.)

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Probably an attempt to be "edgy" and "relevant." A lot of profs seem to be getting unfortunately desperate on that score, imho. Though how the Revolution could ever cease to be relevant on its own is beyond me.

Indeed. My problem (as an interested non-historian) is often giving the characters enough distance when they often say and do things that seem so modern. I have to catch myself and say no they were actually doing this the first time round, they lived in the eighteenth century, wrote with bird feathers and couldn't imagine traveling faster than a horse could gallop. The ideas are so relevant it is often difficult to put their holders in context.

Rumbling off on a digression I think this is where the Scurr/Mantel theory that Robespierre was essentially a shy, otherworldly, ideological ditz whose strong belief system and lack of "versatility" meant he should have done just about anything other than go into politics falls down a bit. Because it's a modern reading. We might accept today that politics is the preserve of at best pragmatic you-scratch-my-backers and at worse the wholly corrupt, but in the 1790s this was far from a foregone conclusion. In fact, in 1789 it might have been the logical thing that a person obsessed with politics became a politician.

And it's only gotten worse with post-modernism. Because, after all, since we can't "know" what really happened, a novel is just a good as a serious work of scholarship, right?

I would like to know what this current obsession is with historians in proclaiming their subject pointless? It's what turned me off history after school, because I just couldn't see the point in giving three years of my life to a subject it's main practitioners were jumping over themselves to declare as irrelevant. No we can't "know" what really happened, and there is so much of the FR that's undocumented, or poorly documented or missing voice and context. (I always think Robespierre's letter to Camille about the National Guard, the put-your-wife-down-and-write-me -some-copy sounds quite friendly and joshy, but other people seem to think it's self-obsessed and bullying. Of course, I'm reading it in translation, so I might be missing something.) But we can know how to evaluate sources, how to interpret "facts" and how to understand when we are being manipulated.

That's one of the things that annoyed me about Scurr, she quotes extensively from Robespierre's secretary/flatmate and uses his memoirs as a major source for what he was up to in 1790 with only a mention in the footnotes that the source is suspect, and no mention of why it might be dubious. The reader is advised to look in a French language academic paper from 1967 if they wish to know why the source is problematic. That just hurts my head. If you are writing a popular history, and you are relying heavily on a questionable source, surely you should include a little of the debate around that source and perhaps why it convinced you enough to use it, thus giving the interested some insight into how historians "do" history. It just seems deliberately opaque and snobbish to me.

Sorry - that was another tangent.

Or at least the most like the bust in my icon, which for some reason I've always seen as more or less what he "really" looked like.

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

(Continued - more rant)

Is that a bust? I thought it was a statue - the one they couldn't put anywhere because of controversy. Or did my brain make that up?

However, I think maelicia may have transcribed it somewhere, if you want to be incredibly depressed.

Yes, I found it. Oh poor, poor boys ;_;. It's actually sadder than what I thought they were saying, although I guessed the gist was - it's a military dictatorship or death, but not quite put as intensely as that.

(I'm going to flash my colossal ignorance here, is there a source for the Robespierrists rejection of a coup? Because I know the other version where Robespierre was running around yelling "Close the city gates, shut down the presses, arrest the deputies" does claim to come from a note sent to the Commune, and I also know that most of the sources for the events of 9th/10th Thermidor are very, very skewed, but I've not come across the death rather than dictatorship version except here. My apologies if this question has been asked before.)

I've got to admit, I find the dice playing soldiers a bit much. I don't think Robespierre gains much from Christ analogies.

I also think Jean Negroni, out of all the actors who have played Robespierre in movies I've seen, looks the most like him.

I think because most other screen Robespierres seem to be following the stage direction "Look like you are sucking a particularly bitter lemon at all times." And that Robespierre seems to have had quite a wide face, which I think director's ignore in casting in the attempt to make him look suitably thin and sour.

Can I mention I'm also really glad Couthon gets his throne line? I get rather tired of Couthon being used as nothing other than a creepy accessory, it's nice to actually see him as a participant.

And he has a wig. I know it's part of the whole "Danton = natural and therefore good/Robespierre = unnatural and therefore monstrous" trope that Danton doesn't have a wig in other movies, or that he's constantly taking his wig off, but if you look at his portraits, he's wearing a wig

Wasn't wig wearing still fairly common? The whole Danton Robespierre thing though - God in La Revolution Francaise Danton is virtually Santa Claus he's so nice.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Is that a bust? I thought it was a statue - the one they couldn't put anywhere because of controversy. Or did my brain make that up?
You're conflating at least two, possibly three facts. The image in my icon is one of several busts of Robespierre and his brother Augustin that were made by the sculpter Deseine in 1792, two of which are housed in the Conciergerie. (You can see the full image of this particular one here: http://academic.shu.edu/honors/MRobespierre.jpg)Various societies have petitioned and/or raised money to have statues of Robespierre made and put in some public venue. I believe all those plans fell through before any statues were actually made, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, individual artists have made statues of Robespierre.

It's actually sadder than what I thought they were saying, although I guessed the gist was - it's a military dictatorship or death, but not quite put as intensely as that.
It's incredibly depressing. And for the right reasons, for once.

I'm going to flash my colossal ignorance here, is there a source for the Robespierrists rejection of a coup?
Michelet is an important early source for this (though I'm not sure if he's the first) though many historians still agree. In the same book her article on "Revolutionary Monsters" comes from, M-H Huet wrote another brilliant essay on the evolution of this interpretation in Michelet. I highly recommend it if you want to know more about the question.

I don't think Robespierre gains much from Christ analogies.
I want to shout this at Hamel whenever I read his biography of Robespierre. It's an excellent (for the 19th century) biography, much better than most people give it credit for, and the most complete currently in existence. However, especially at the beginning and end, Hamel really beats his readers over the head with Robespierre = Jesus. In the sense that most people give up on the book(s) before they get through the introduction because of this, it really does ruin the biography. Which is a shame, because there's so much good material there. /tangent

And that Robespierre seems to have had quite a wide face, which I think director's ignore in casting in the attempt to make him look suitably thin and sour.
...And then there's the opposite approach: http://saint-just.net/movies/danton21/original/danton21-3.html. I don't even know how they found an actor with a face that wide.

I get rather tired of Couthon being used as nothing other than a creepy accessory, it's nice to actually see him as a participant.
I agree entirely. Which is why, apart from not ignoring him in my scholarship (which goes without saying), I'm going to make him a major character in my novel. When I finally do write it. >.>;

Wasn't wig wearing still fairly common?
Yes and no. There was apparently some pressure during the Revolution - whether it went beyond the usual pressures of changing fashions I don't think has been proven - to stop wearing wigs, but plenty of people continued to wear them. Generally when people stop wearing wigs, we see portraits of them without wigs, even frequently an early portrait with a wig and later ones without. There are however, as far as I know, no portraits of Danton in which he is not wearing a wig.

in La Revolution Francaise Danton is virtually Santa Claus he's so nice.
ROTFL at Santa!Danton. Indeed. Sickening, isn't it? And Camille is worse.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9400E5DB1539E733A25754C0A9659C946897D6CF

As for Robespierre's statue, see the UK-US sources, always so correct as for historical details, hahaha (Capt.Duplay??????? WTF)

There is a beautiful Robespierre Embankment in Saint Petersbourg, though.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Captain Duplay? Oh, that's hilarious!

There is a beautiful Robespierre Embankment in Saint Petersbourg, though.
Does it have a statue?

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

The statue will stand not far from the house where Robespierre made love to the daughter of Capt. Duplay

This would be another example of a phrases connotations changing over time. ;)

I shall leave now and stop lowering the tone.

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

There was a statue to Robespierre erected in Moscow in the very first years of the Russian Revolution, but it was vandalized and moreover, as the other statues erected fast, it was a made of a low-quality material and had to be removed for being in a bad shape.

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

I don't even know how they found an actor with a face that wide.

o.O Okay, yes that was an approach I was blissfully unaware of until now. Also - why is he with Frankenstien? Is that meant to be Saint-Just?

Various societies have petitioned and/or raised money to have statues of Robespierre made and put in some public venue. I believe all those plans fell through before any statues were actually made, but I could be wrong.

I'm misremembering - this again goes back to history class, which was now seventeen years ago, where we were shown a French (I think) documentary about one recent (late 80s?) attempt to get a Robespierre statue erected by the leader of a left-wing working class district of Paris and all the various opposition to this, including I believe, although again relying on memory, someone rather emphatically stating that a Robespierre statue would decrease rental values. The programme kept cutting to a statue of Robespierre against a black background (it had legs, it was sitting down on a chair) maybe it was just the black background, but it looked a bit like the Robespierre in your bust. It could have been a mock up of course, but CGI wasn't that good in those days, so I don't know.

But you know, everything you said about memoirs being unreliable and then some. Even if one isn't a Thermidorian with a cupboardful of dirty laundry to bury, events recalled after a lapse of years are usually well re-edited by the brain.

M-H Huet wrote another brilliant essay on the evolution of this interpretation in Michelet

I've got to read this book. When I've finished everything else I'm supposed to read. I've got a terrible habit of dumping my obligatory reading for my obsessional reading and it does me no good whatsoever.

I'm going to make him a major character in my novel. When I finally do write it. >.>

Good. It is about time.

And Camille is worse.

True, Although, I thought stuttering kid!Camille was possibly the cutest thing ever, the film really went downhill after that. I actually think mad!Maxime topped the list for awful characterisation, I had to rewind back twice to check Saint-Just wasn't carrying him out on the assembly on 9th Thermidor tarzan style. He wasn't. Not quite. And of course, he has cheese in his ears to stop him hearing the voice of the people. But I suspect you've thought all this before.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

The ideas are so relevant it is often difficult to put their holders in context.
Very true. This applies especially to discourse. We may think we understand a word, but often a word's connotations are very different now than they were then. Take the word, "dictator," which I recently posted about. When you say "dictator" in the 1790s, people take that as a classical reference. Not exactly the reaction you get now.

We might accept today that politics is the preserve of at best pragmatic you-scratch-my-backers and at worse the wholly corrupt, but in the 1790s this was far from a foregone conclusion.
Speaking for myself, I'm personally not resigned to the idea that politics must necessarily always equal corruption, but you're right that it's a common enough idea now and that this wasn't at all the case in the 1790s. Actually, I think someone like Robespierre had a far healthier idea of what politics can be than a lot of people today. He was aware of the corruptibility of those in power, but the very fact that this led him to say that they need therefore to be watched carefully means that he was not resigned to letting them get away with their corruption - something which I think too often accompanies cynicism about politics these days. I mean, how the hell does it make any sense to encourage honest people who have ideals to do anything but get involved in politics?

I would like to know what this current obsession is with historians in proclaiming their subject pointless?
I have no idea. For my part, I think history is one of the least pointless subjects. I mean, every other subject has a history. History is context. History is everything we know so far that can't be observed at this moment. How could studying that be pointless?

I always think Robespierre's letter to Camille about the National Guard, the put-your-wife-down-and-write-me -some-copy sounds quite friendly and joshy, but other people seem to think it's self-obsessed and bullying. Of course, I'm reading it in translation, so I might be missing something.
No, I don't think you're missing anything. That's how I've always read it, and I've read it in the original. Though translation issues do often seem to trip up anglophone historians. Translating "je suis peuple" as "I am the people" instead of "I am of the people," for example. There's a big difference in meaning there. If you're an anglophone historian who doesn't know French as well as you should, you might not realize that "peuple" is in fact functioning as an adjective here, the way nouns often do in French when there is no adjectival form. What he's literally saying is very difficult to convey in English. It's something like "I am indistinguishable from the mass of the people (as opposed to above them)." It certainly does *not* mean "I am the people incarnate," which is what the first English translation, which I've seen in a number of anglophone sources, means.

Scurr's methods in general struck me as pretty irresponsible. She cited, as I recall, very little in the way of recent studies, and still less in French (primary sources aside). And then when she finally manages to cite a French source she can't even be bothered to engage with it, despite the fact that her primary audience is certainly not scholars. (Her biography of Robespierre brought absolutely nothing original to the subject of Robespierre or the Revolution.)

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Take the word, "dictator," which I recently posted about. When you say "dictator" in the 1790s, people take that as a classical reference. Not exactly the reaction you get now.

I've been reading your post and should comment when I get my brain together, but the democracy is crap only dictatorships achieve anything is a line you get a lot in public health, it apparently being much easier to put in needle exchange programmes etc when one doesn't have to worry about voter reaction. (True. Although conversely, it is much easier to shoot drug addicts too. But I digress.) But no, nobody thought of Hitler and Stalin in 1790.

Though translation issues do often seem to trip up anglophone historians.

So an Anglophone can get double tripped - missing the historical context as well as the finer linguistic meanings. Perhaps it's because I'm from the crinkly, embarrassing, bilingual bit of the UK but I'm very wary of translation issues as there is a fair bit that doesn't go smoothly between languages. (I can't quite articulate this point correctly, but one of the things I like about LTeLV is it's Frenchness, the idea that this is what they actually sounded like, I dunno.)

I mean, how the hell does it make any sense to encourage honest people who have ideals to do anything but get involved in politics?

It's the current prevailing wisdom. Fortunately, prevailing wisdom can change.

History is context. History is everything we know so far that can't be observed at this moment. How could studying that be pointless?

And if it is so pointless, why do people keep changing it?

Scurr's methods in general struck me as pretty irresponsible.

Do you know what really anoys me about her. She never shuts up and lets her subject speak. She seems constantly to be diving in telling one what Robespierre thought, which unless she had a crystal ball and a clairvoyant to hand, seems pretty dodgy ground to me.