Welcome to 1789...

Ok, after my previous silly post--which, I fear, only divulged how my fixation with C. and L. nearly borders on psychosis--I wanted to share another instance of recognition, this one more substantial and legitimate. As I was reading through Letters Written in France in the Summer 1790 by Helen Maria Williams, the following caught my eye:

“I have heard several persons mention a young man, of a little insignificant figure, who, the day before the Bastille was taken, got up on a chair in the Palais Royal, and harangued the multitude, conjuring them to make a struggle for their liberty, and asserting, that now the moment was arrived. They listened to his eloquence with the most eager attention; and, when he had instructed as many as could hear him at one time, he requested them to depart, and repeated his harangue to a new set of auditors.” (p. 76)

Now, for some reason the editors, who are pretty meticulous in clarifying historical background, neglect to identify this “young man” with a footnote. How strange! This is C.--right? The chair, the Café du Foy, the great speech...it all seems to fit. I just found it bizarre that Williams doesn’t know him by name, since he would have been familiar by now (1790) in Paris--but I was more struck by the editors’ omission, since they take such care to provide details in other instances. Hmm.

Well, I forgot C.’s birthday last month, but I did remember what happened today, 215 years ago. How appropriate that the Danton film was released on DVD this past week, too.

I wish that I had something more interesting to write. For me, there’s such a persistent sense of life and rebirth at this time of year, which adds a quasi-spiritual element to the act of remembering the past. Forgive me for indulging my literary self, but I think that T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land most aptly describes the phenomenon:
 

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding           

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing           

Memory and desire, stirring           

Dull roots with spring rain.

And, later in the poem:  “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” The images that Eliot uses have always struck me for the unsettling combination of the morbid and the beautiful, and the yearning for a kind of resurrection.

Claretie, in his long biographical preface to the first volume of C.’s oeuvres, dedicates a footnote to a brief anecdote relating the experience of a certain J.-J. Dussault, who would apparently see the same bunch of lilacs sprouting near the guillotine “where he had seen Camille’s head fall” on the same date the previous year, only the flowers weren’t fully in bloom, as they were when C. died. “And every year, on April 5, Dussault went curiously, almost superstitiously, to see this bunch of lilacs, which he called Camille’s lilacs.”

I also think of how C. drew that comparison between himself with “sans-culotte Jesu.” He was attesting to his innocence, but I like to think of it as a promise that his memory would be resurrected and preserved after his death.

So, my little tribute ended up being more about C. than the others--sorry! The bottom line is, let’s raise our glasses in honor of some great characters, without whom there would be no basis for our historical obsession! ;)

Bonsoir, citoyens. I just discovered this wonderful community, and it makes me glad to know that you’re all keeping the Revolution alive in your hearts and minds. What began as my favorite unit in 11th grade AP European history has transcended academic interest to become something far more personal. I recently had the opportunity to live and work in France, and it was incredible to revisit some of the old scenes, stand there, and think about the past. Luckily, I was alone, because my friends and family wouldn’t condone such wondering and wallowing over things that had happened 200+ years ago.

At the moment, what is your favorite primary piece of writing? I read Lucile’s journal (Editions des Cendres, 1995) a few weeks ago, which I truly enjoyed. I liked the strange dreams, as well as her short stories. And I love her little codename for Camille (“Melkam”)! Adorable. What an intelligent, sensitive young woman she was.

Also, I’ve been skimming through an English translation of Jules Claretie’s Camille Desmoulins and His Wife:  Passages from the History of the Dantonists, which isn’t a bad read since I like 19th c. literature. However, I’m interested in finding a more recent biography of Camille--do you guys have any suggestions? English or French.