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[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]

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.