Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (51 page)
Read Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution Online
Authors: Ruth Scurr
Mirabeau, G.-H. de R. Comte de (1790) (attrib.),
Gallery of Portraits of the National Assembly, Supposed to Be Written by Count de Mirabeau
, 2 vols., Dublin: H. Chamberlaine and Rice.
———. (1835–36)
Mémoires de Mirabeau, biographiques, littéraires et politiques, écrits par lui-même, par son père, son oncle, et son fils adoptif,
8 vols., Paris: A. Auffray.
Montesquieu, C. L. S. Baron de (1950–61)
De l’ésprit des loix
[1748], critical ed. by J. Brethe de la Gressaye, Paris: Société Les Belles Lettres.
Nicolet, C. (1982)
L’idée républicaine en France (1789–1924): Essai d’histoire critique
, Paris: Gallimard.
O’Brien, B. (1837?)
The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre
, London: J. Watson.
———. (1857)
An Elegy on the Death of Robespierre
, London: G. J. Holyouke & Co.
O’Brien, C. C. (1985) “Virtue and Terror,”
New York Review of Books
, vol. 32, pp. 28–31.
Ording, A. (1930)
Le bureau de police du Comité de salut public: Etude sur la Terreur
, Oslo: J. Dybwad.
Ozouf, M. (1989)
La fête révolutionnaire (1789–1799),
Paris: Gallimard.
Palmer, R. R. (1939)
Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France
, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. (1959)
The Age of the Democratic Revolution
, vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. (1965)
Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution,
New York: Atheneum.
———. (1975) (ed.),
The School of the French Revolution: A Documentary History of the College of Louis-le-Grand and Its Director, Jean-François Champagne, 1762–1814
, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. (1985)
The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution
, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Paris, J. A. (1870)
La jeunesse de Robespierre et la convocation des Etats généraux en Artois
[based on articles in
Mémoires de l’Académie d’Arras
], Arras: Rousseau-Leroy.
Pasquino, P. (1998)
Sieyès et l’invention de la constitution en France
, Paris: Odile Jacob.
Pernoud, G. and Flaissier, S. (1960)
The French Revolution
, trans. R. Graves, London: Secker and Warburg.
Price, M. (2003)
The Fall of the French Monarchy, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Baron de Breteuil
, London: Pan Macmillan.
Proyart, Abbé (1803)
Louis XVI détrôné avant d’être roi: Ou, tableau des causes de la Révolution française, et de l’ébranlement de tous les trônes
, Paris: Chez l’Auteur.
Proyart, J. M. (1850)
La vie de Maximilien Robespierre
, Arras: Chez Théry Libraire.
Prudhomme, L. M. (1789)
Résumé général, ou extrait des cahiers de pouvoirs, instructions demandes & doléances, remis par les divers bailliages, sénéchaussées & pays d’états du royaume, à leurs députés à l’Assemblée des etats généraux, ouverts à Versailles le 4 mai 1789 avec une table raisonnée des matiéres/par une société de gens de lettres
, Paris: [s.n.].
———. (1797)
Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française, à dater du 24 août 1787, contenant le nombre des individus qui ont péri par la Révolution, de ceux qui ont émigré, et les intrigues des factions qui pendant ce temps ont désolé la France. Ornée de gravures et de tableaux
, 6 vols., Paris: [s.n.].
Ratineau, F. (1992) “The Books of Robespierre on 9 thermidor,”
Annales historiques de la Révolution française
, vol. 287, pp. 131–35.
Rigney, A. (1990)
The Rhetoric of Historical Representation: Three Narrative Histories of the French Revolution
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Riley, P. (2001) (ed.)
The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Riouffe, H. (1795)
Mémoires d’un détenu, pour servir à l’histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre
, Paris: Chez de Boffe.
Riskin, J. (1999) “The Lawyer and the Lightning Rod,”
Science in Context
, vol. 12, pp. 61–99.
Robespierre, A. B. J. (1891)
Lettres inédites de Augustin Robespierre à Antoine Buissart
, ed. V. Barbier, Arras: Rohard-Courtin.
Rœderer, P.-L. (1853–59)
Œuvres du comte P. L. Rœderer
, 8 vols., Paris: Firmin-Didot Frères.
Roudinesco, E. (1991)
Madness and Revolution: The Lives and Legends of Théroigne de Méricourt
, trans. M. Thom, New York: Verso.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1962)
The Political Writings
, ed. C. E. Vaughan, 2 vols., Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. (1987)
La nouvelle Héloïse
, trans. J. H. McDowell, University Park: Penn State University Press.
———. (1993)
Emile
, trans. B. Foxley, London: Everyman.
———. (2000)
Confessions
, trans. A. Scholar, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roux, L. F. (1794)
Liste de proscription des patriots
, Paris: Lejebure.
Roux, P. de (1986) (ed.)
Mémoires de Madame Roland
, Paris: Mercure de France.
Sanson, C. H. (1911)
Mémoires de Sanson, exécuteur des jugements criminaels
, Paris: A. Michel.
Sardou, V. (1895)
La maison de Robespierre (réponse à E. Hamel)
, Paris: Paul Ollendorf.
Saint-Just, A. L. L. (1908)
Œuvres complètes
, 2 vols., ed. C. Vellay, Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle.
Schama, S. (1989)
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
, London: Penguin.
Shapiro, B. M. (1993)
Revolutionary Justice in Paris, 1789–1790
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shuckburch, E. (1989)
The Memoirs of Madame Roland
, London: Barrie and Jenkins.
Sieburg, F. (1937)
Robespierre
, trans. J. Dilke, London: Geoffrey Bles.
Sieyès, E.-J. (1989)
Œuvres de Sieyès
, 3 vols., Paris: Edhis.
Soboul, A. (1958)
Les sans-culottes parisiens en l’an II: Mouvement populaire et gouvernement révolutionnaire, 2 juin 1793–9 thermidor an II
, Paris: Clavreuil.
———. (1967) (ed.)
Actes du colloque Robespierre, XIIe Congrès international des sciences historiques
, Paris: Société des Etudes Robespierristes.
———. (1973)
1789, l’an un de la liberté: Etude historique, textes originaux
, Paris: Editions Sociales.
———. (1981)
Comprendre la Révolution: Problèmes politiques de la Révolution française (1789–1797)
, Paris: F. Maspero.
———. (1980) (ed.)
Girondins et Montagnards: Actes du colloque, Sorbonne, 14 décembre 1975
, Paris: Société des Etudes Robespierristes.
Sonenscher, M. (1997) “The Nation’s Debt and the Birth of the Modern Republic: The French Fiscal Deficit and the Politics of the Revolution of 1789,”
History of Political Thought
, vol. 18, pp. 65–103, 267–325.
———. (2003) (ed.)
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Political Writings, including the Debate between Sieyès and Tom Paine in 1791
, Cambridge: Hackett.
Springer, C. (1981) “Far From the Madding Crowd: Wordsworth and the News of Robespierre’s Death,”
Wordsworth Circle
, vol. 12, pp. 243–45.
Stäel, A. L. G. de (1983)
Considérations sur la Révolution française
, Paris: Tallandier.
Stéfan-Pol [pseud.] (1900)
Autour de Robespierre: Le conventionnel Le Bas d’après des documents inédits et les mémoires de sa veuve
, pref. V. Sardou, Paris: Ernest Flammarion.
Tackett, T. (1996)
Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789–1790)
, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. (2003)
When the King Took Flight
, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thomas, W. (2000)
The Quarrel of Macaulay and Croker: Politics and History in the Age of Reform
, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, J. M. (1939)
Robespierre
, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. First published, in two volumes, in 1935.
———. (1970)
Robespierre and the French Revolution
, London: English Universities Press Ltd.
———. (1989)
Leaders of the French Revolution
, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Tour du Pin, H. L. Marquise de la (1979)
Escape from the Terror: The Journal of Madame de la Tour du Pin
, ed. and trans. F. Harcourt, London: Folio Society.
Van Kley, D. (1994) (ed.)
The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789
, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
———. (1996)
The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791
, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Vermorel, A. (n.d.)
Œuvres de Vergniaud, Gaudet, Gensonné
, Paris: Libraire Editeur.
Vilate, J. (1825)
Causes secrètes du 9 thermidor
, reprinted in
Collection des mémoires relatifs à la Révolution française, avec des notices sur leurs auteurs
, Paris: Baudouin Frères.
Villiers, P. (1802)
Souvenirs d’un déporté, pour server aux histoirens, aux romanciers, aux compilateurs d’ana
, Paris: Chez l’Auteur.
Vovelle, M. (1972)
La chute de la monarchie, 1787–1792
, Paris: Editions du Seuil.
———. (1988)
La révolution contre l’eglise: De la raison à l’Être Supreme
, Brussels: Editions Complexe.
———. (1993)
Combats pour la Révolution française
, Paris: Société des Etudes Robespierristes.
Walter, G. (1946)
Maximilien de Robespierre
(with appendix “Robespierre devant les hommes”) Paris: Gallimard.
Walter, G. (1989)
Maximilien de Robespierre
, Paris: Gallimard.
Walzer, M. (1974) (ed.)
Regicide and Revolution: Speeches at the Trial of Louis XVI
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whatmore, R. (2000)
Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Political Economy
, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, H. M. (n.d.)
Memoirs of the Reign of Robespierre
[1795, 1796], ed. F. Funck-Brentano, London: John Hamilton.
Wogue, J. (1894)
J.-B.-L. Gresset: Sa vie, ses œuvres
, Paris: Lecène, Oudin et Cie.
Wordsworth, W. (1995),
The Prelude: The Four Texts (1798, 1799, 1805, 1850)
, ed. J. Wordsworth, London: Penguin.
Wrigley, R. (2002)
The Politics of Appearances: Representations of Dress in Revolutionary France
, Oxford: Berg.
Young, A. (1929)
Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789
, ed. C. Maxwell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Born in 1971, Ruth Scurr studied at Oxford and Cambridge, where she currently teaches politics and history. A prominent literary critic, she has written for
The New York Review of Books
and
The Times Literary Supplement. Fatal Purity
is her first book.
Parts of
Fatal Purity
were researched and written alongside my work as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Politics Department of Cambridge University. I acknowledge the valuable support of the academy, my colleagues, and my students.
An earlier version was generously read and improved by two eminent historians of the French Revolution: Professor Norman Hampson (whose own book on Robespierre is a lasting bequest to scholarship in the field), and Dr. Michael Sonenscher (teacher, colleague, and friend of a decade in King’s College, Cambridge). I am beholden to both. All remaining inaccuracies and infelicities are certainly my own.
I am extremely grateful to Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan Books for her highly intelligent and tirelessly generous editorial work, as well as to Riva Hocherman for her valuable suggestions, Roslyn Schloss for her excellent copyediting, and Kate Levin for her organizational acumen. At Chatto and Windus, my thanks to Jenny Uglow, with whom it is a privilege to work, and to Alison Samuel and Poppy Hampson. I’m grateful also to Lindsay Duguid, Nick Laird, and Erica Wagner, who all took the time to read and comment at length.
My agent, Peter Straus, has helped in countless ways, and I am grateful also to Rowan Routh at Rogers, Coleridge and White and to Melanie Jackson in the United States.
I have always been courteously assisted by staff at the Cambridge University Library, the British Library, the London Library, the Archives nationales, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
For professional advice of different kinds, thank you: Alex Butterworth, Rebecca Carter, Heather Glen, Istvan Hont, Sunil Khilnani, Robert MacFarlane, Brian McDonnell, Angus McKinnon, Andrew Wilson, Bee Wilson (who first encouraged me to begin this book), and Brian Young.
I apologize to Charles, Polly, and Rosalind Dunn for encroachments on their weekends and childhood holidays.
And I thank, above all, John Dunn, for our fierce conversations and everything else he has given me.
Preface
1.
Croker (1967), p. 277.
2.
Croker (1835), pp. 565–66.
3.
Croker (1857), p. 384.
4.
Ibid., p. 299.
Introduction
1.
Forsyth (1989), p. 133; Rœderer (1853–59), vol. 3, pp. 270–71. Rœderer’s depiction of Robespierre was based on personal acquaintance and first published, under the name Merlin de Thionville, in 1794.
2.
Pierre Choudieu quoted in Thompson (1989), pp. 243–44.
3.
O’Brien (1837?), pp. 6–7.
4.
Robespierre (1828), vol. 2, p. 14.
5.
Furet (1978), p. 64.
6.
M. Bloch quoted in Haydon and Doyle (1999), p. 212.
7.
When the Maison Robespierre was purchased by the city of Arras in 1990, the town council decided to entrust its refurbishment to the Compagnons de France, who would receive in payment for their work the right to use part or all of the house. Les Amis de Robespierre pour le Bicentenaire de la Révolution (ARBR), a society established in Arras to ensure that Robespierre’s contribution to the Revolution is not overlooked, campaigned hard to retain space for a small museum devoted to him. The ARBR continues working today to raise Robespierre’s profile in Arras and beyond. See
http://www.amisrobespierre.org/
.
8.
Forsyth (1989), p. 128; Rœderer (1853–59), vol. 3, p. 267.
9.
Dumont (1832), p. 250.
10.
There is dispute over whether Robespierre’s famous sky-blue coat was different from the blue coats worn by the other deputies to the National Convention as their official dress. Vilate (1825), p. 197, suggests that it was not.
11.
Thompson (1989), p. 223.
12.
Ibid., p. 224.
13.
For a summary of the dispute about the decor of Robespierre’s room at the Duplays, see M. Cumming in Haydon and Doyle (1999), pp. 180–81. Also Jordan (1985), p. 58.
1: Child of Arras
1.
On Arras, see Bougard (1988) and Héricourt and Godin (1856).
2.
On Robespierre’s ancestry, see Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, pp. 197–203, and Thompson (1939), pp. 1–4.
3.
Paris (1870), p. 17.
4.
Palmer (1975), p. 43.
5.
Proyart (1803), p. 220.
6.
Rousseau (1993), p. xxi.
7.
Ibid., p. 1.
8.
Ibid., p. 12.
9.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, pp. 211–12.
10.
Palmer (1975), pp. 70–71.
11.
Quoted in Horne (2003), p. 170.
12.
Palmer (1975), p. 84.
13.
Proyart (1803), pp. 217–20.
14.
Desmoulins (1980), vol. 1, p. 521.
15.
Little is known of the childhood acquaintance of Robespierre and Desmoulins. One source says they were neither rivals nor close friends because their age difference meant they were not in the same class; see
Le vieux Cordelier
, p. 3.
16.
Robespierre (1828), vol. 1, pp. 154–55.
2: The Lawyer-Poet Back Home
1.
Paris (1870), p. 18. This institution was founded by Marianne and Joseph Manarre in 1674. It admitted deserving girls between the ages of nine and eighteen, who were taught to read, write, sew, and make lace.
2.
Bougard (1988), p. 178.
3.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 25.
4.
Ibid., p. 26.
5.
Ibid., p. 27.
6.
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 241; Laponneraye (2002), p. 106. Charlotte Robespierre implies that this was a later poem, composed during the Revolution.
7.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 22.
8.
Laponneraye (2002), pp. 44–45.
9.
Ibid., pp. 47–48.
10.
Lewes (1899), p. 39.
11.
See Riskin (1999); also Huet (1989).
12.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 2, p. 357.
13.
Laponneraye (2002), p. 59.
14.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, p. 44.
15.
Archives parlementaires
, vol. 9, p. 393.
16.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, p. 24.
17.
Ibid., p. 28.
18.
Ibid., p. 42.
19.
Ibid., p. 31. The term
l’être suprême
was a well-established way of referring to God in Christian vocabulary since the seventeenth century. Later in the Revolution Robespierre imbued it with new meaning; see Deprun (1972).
20.
Thompson (1939), pp. 22–23.
21.
Rœderer (1853–59), vol. 3, p. 9.
22.
Babeuf (1961), p. 7.
23.
Wogue (1894), p. 267.
24.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, p. 94.
25.
Ibid., p. 89.
26.
Ibid., p. 114.
27.
Ibid., pp. 244–46; Thompson (1939), p. 32. The story of Charlotte’s disapproval was told to Sainte-Beuve by an old bookseller named Isnard, who had taught at the Collège d’Arras.
28.
Ibid., p. 223.
29.
Ibid., p. 224.
30.
Ibid., vol. 3a, pp. 30–31.
31.
Thompson (1939), p. 21.
32.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 24.
33.
Ibid., p. 33.
34.
Joseph Garat remembered that during the Revolution Robespierre kept
La nouvelle Héloïse
open on his desk as a literary and oratorical model; see Proyart (1850), p. 224.
35.
Rousseau (2000), p. 418.
36.
Rousseau (1987), pp. 58–59.
37.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, pp. 33–34.
38.
Paris (1870), p. 187.
39.
See Carr (1972), ch. 8, pp. 79–96, for an argument connecting the Rosati Society and Freemasonry in Arras.
40.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 1, p. 194.
41.
Dickens (1988), p. 11.
42.
Paris (1870), p. 124.
3: Standing for Election in Arras
1.
Doyle (1990), p. 76.
2.
Palmer (1959), vol. 1, p. 454.
3.
Lamoignon (1787), p. 3.
4.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 8, p. 307.
5.
Young (1929), p. 97.
6.
Ibid., p. 97.
7.
Ibid., p. 97.
8.
Doyle (1990), p. 14.
9.
Hufton (1974), p. 12.
10.
Robespierre (1989), p. 5.
11.
Crook (1996), p. 10.
12.
The municipality of Arras traced its origins back to the eleventh century.
13.
Stage 1 was elections by parish, corporation, or
quartier
, stage 2 the town assembly, stage 3 the secondary
baillage
assembly (Artois was divided into seven
baillages
), and stage 4 the principal
baillage
assembly, from which the final delegates of the third estate would be chosen.
14.
The most notable was Gracchus Babeuf.
15.
Hampson (1974), p. 41.
16.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 6, p. 18, gives the precise composition of this assembly.
17.
Proyart (1850), pp. 42–43.
18.
Ibid., p. 40.
4: Representing the Nation at Versailles
1.
Pierre L’Enfant, who designed the 1791 street plan for Washington, D.C., had spent time in Versailles as a child.
2.
Young (1929), p. 151.
3.
Ibid., p. 13.
4.
La Morandière [1764] quoted in Corbin (1986), p. 27.
5.
See Alison Patrick’s article in Blanning (1996), pp. 236–66, for a full explanation of how and why the number of deputies fluctuated. Also Tackett (1996).
6.
Ferrières (1932), p. 34.
7.
Ibid., p. 43.
8.
Stäel (1983), p. 140.
9.
Mirabeau (1790), p. 40.
10.
Dumont (1832), p. 144.
11.
Hampson (1974), pp. 17–18.
12.
Staël (1983), pp. 313–14.
13.
Jones (2002), p. 262.
14.
Ibid., p. 310.
15.
Doyle (1990), p. 94.
16.
Rousseau (1962), vol. 1, p. 255.
17.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 41.
18.
Hampson (1974), p. 47.
19.
Aulard (1889–97), vol. 1, pp. ii–xvii. The history of the Breton Club is difficult to reconstruct and it is not clear when exactly Robespierre joined it.
20.
Schama (1989), p. 331.
21.
Dumont (1832), p. 64.
22.
Mirabeau (1790), vol. 1, p. 14.
23.
Ibid., p. 15.
24.
Dumont (1832), pp. 60–61.
25.
Ibid., pp. 61–62. The deputy Reybaz, sitting next to Dumont, said this to him.
26.
Doyle (1990), p. 105.
27.
Dumont (1832), p. 93.
28.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 42.
29.
Desmoulins (1980), vol. 1, p. 77.
30.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, pp. 42–50.
31.
Schama (1989), pp. 389–94.
32.
Godechot (1970), pp. 219–20.
33.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 44.
34.
New Annual Register
, p. 25.
35.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, pp. 44–45.
36.
New Annual Register
, p. 28.
37.
Doyle (1990), p. 113.
38.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 45.
39.
Ibid.
40.
Godechot (1970), p. 327.
41.
Thompson (1989), p. 46.
42.
Godechot (1970), p. 331.
43.
Mirabeau (1835–36), p. 204.
44.
Dumont (1832), p. 138.
45.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, p. 48.
46.
Lefebvre (1973), pp. 35–56.
47.
Lefebvre (2002), pp. 135–36.
48.
Robespierre (1910–67), vol. 3a, pp. 46–47.
49.
Dumont (1832), p. 138.
50.
See K. M. Baker in Van Kley (1994), pp. 154–99.
51.
Archives parlementaires
, vol. 9, p. 236.
52.
Dumont (1832), p. 140.