As an orator Robespierre began the Revolution with some technical disadvantages … His voice, too high-pitched to be naturally pleasant, was also feeble in volume and lacked tonal variation. His physical stature was unimpressive … In a word, he lacked the presence of a great and commanding orator, and this shortcoming was accentuated by his habit of reading his speeches from a pile of manuscript, often with his head buried in his text.
Robespierre was well aware of these liabilities, and he worked diligently to overcome them or make his auditors forget them. His potency, however, lay not in his technical perfection but in what he had to say.
– The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre by David P. Jordan
I like how this movie tried to capture Robespierre’s oratory. Rather than aiming for what will seem compelling based on modern expectations, the film instead shows how someone who apparently lacked “charisma” was able to speak to the people.
Drum roll please (okay maybe not, that does remind one of the moments before the blade falls on the guillotine—at least if one is an aristo) …
Here it is—our RIBBONS OF SCARLET cover!!!
What … are those the Market Women, members of the original WOMEN’S MARCH, marching on Versailles? Why yes!!! But my role in RIBBONS was to offer the story of the only Royalist—The king’s intelligent, pious, and ultimately daring sister Princess Elisabeth, who takes a stand to defend her brother, spirit her family to safety, and restore the old order, even at the risk of her head.
And Madame Elisabeth is only one of the women at the center of this female-centered telling of the French revolution. “ Six bestselling and award-winning authors bring to life a breathtaking epic novel illuminating the hopes, desires, and destinies of princesses and peasants, harlots and wives, fanatics and philosophers—unforgettable women whose paths cross during one of the most tumultuous and transformative events in history: the French Revolution.”
As the women of RIBBONSs march on towards their destinies, march over to your favorite book retailer and and pre-order your copy of RIBBONS OF SCARLET!
It’s time for another sneak-peek into the world of my next novel—RIBBONS OF SCARLET (coming October 1, 2019). WE HAVE OUR OFFICIAL COVER COPY, guaranteed to give you all the feels!
The above IS A TEASER.
DO YOU HAVE THE SHIVERS YET? CLICK THE LINK AND READ the back-cover in full. Then don’t forget to pre-order your copy! Because #historicalfiction rules!
Voila mes amies! Whether you are a royalist or revolutionary, the time for action is now! I am are delighted to announce that my latest novel, RIBBONS OF SCARLET, is now AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER EVERYWHERE!!! ***As an aside my faithful ones, please note BARNES & NOBLE CURRENTLY HAS THE LOWEST PRE-ORDER PRICE ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION.***
This is an exciting, collaborative work, involving five other top historical fiction talents, and represents a unique, glorious and often gritty look at the French Revolution from an entirely female perspective.
So help us get this party started by pre-ordering your copy today!!! Merci mille fois!
“It was a grief,— Grief call it not, ‘twas anything but that,— A conflict of sensations without name, Of which he only, who may love the sight Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge, When, in the congregation bending all To their great Father, prayers were offered up, Or praises for our country’s victories; And, ‘mid the simple worshippers, perchance I only, like an uninvited guest Whom no one owned, sate silent; shall I add, Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.”
William Wordsworth, The Prelude, describing his feeling of alienation from his own country when Britain declared war on France.
Fuck it, post with the Frev alignments of the First Gen Romantics:
William Wordsworth: Girondin. He literally hung out with Brissot (maybe. probably. it’s a long story) what did you expect
Robert Southey: he worshipped the ground Robespierre walked on and called himself a Jacobin
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: mostly at the time he would just call himself a democrat, he never really used the labels they used in France. As far as the government was concerned he was considered a Jacobin, though (see: Spy Nozy incident)
Dorothy Wordsworth: did not leave behind anything about politics at all. I would probably guess her views were similar to her brother’s, perhaps a little more moderate
Lamb siblings: tbh I don’t really know. I don’t think Mary cared very much and I haven’t looked into Charles in that period much
Robert Burns: he was almost proto-marxist in principle and loved both the principles of both Frev and Amrev. Again, he didn’t ever basically tattoo JACOBIN on his head like Southey but his sympathies probably lied there
William Blake: I’m pretty sure Blake didn’t call himself anything but he was pretty much an early anarchist so make of that what you will
Robert Southey went ultra-conservative later in life though. As Lord Byron put it in his amazing satire on Southey, The Vision of Judgement:
“He had written praises of a Regicide; He had written praises of all kings whatever; He had written for republics far and wide, And then against them bitterer than ever; For pantisocracy he once had cried Aloud, a scheme less moral than ‘twas clever; Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin— Had turned his coat — and would have turned his skin”
Also I hugely recommend all the French Revolution-related sections of Wordsworth’s Prelude (even though he also went over to conservatism). Especially the part about his guilty nightmares after his friends the Girondins were executed:
“Such ghastly visions had I of despair And tyranny, and implements of death; And innocent victims sinking under fear, And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer, Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth And levity in dungeons, where the dust Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me In long orations, which I strove to plead Before unjust tribunals,—with a voice Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense, Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt In the last place of refuge—my own soul.”
“Marcel Gauchet’s intellectual biography of the French Revolution’s most celebrated—or notorious—spokesman brings out all the ambiguities forced upon him by the way the revolution developed. Gauchet’s lucid analysis makes clear why Robespierre’s role in shaping the revolution and its legacy has fueled so much vehement disagreement over two centuries.”
A tutelary Genius leaves the Senate, armed with a blazing sword, it exterminates the oppressors of France. The atrocious Revolutionary Tribunal, knocked down into the dust, lets [everyone] glimpse its visage under the mask of Justice, its satellites flee, with daggers in hand, and rush to carry off the fruits of their pillages. The terrible but blind force, which shattered the most beautiful productions of Genius stops and ceases to destroy. Tyranny, savage and always concerned, torments literature and the fine arts, it assassinates Chemistry and Physics, which it tears away from their useful works, it drags [the art of] Painting into the dungeon, it throws old age and childhood there, who moan while awaiting death.
Robespierre is a name which is found, with great regularity, in the many fictional pamphlets produced by the Revolution. These pamphlets had a short life and, of course, were published and printed anonymously. A few titles will indicate the nature of this fiction, starting with Robespierre chez les orphelins ou Histoire secrette des derniers jours de Robespierre (London, 1794). In this account, we learn why Robespierre was absent from the Convention for the last three weeks of his life: he got drunk, lost his way home and fell asleep in the countryside. He is woken up by a child who is chasing a swarm of bees, who regrets that the bees have lost their queen. This remark puzzles Robespierre. He catches the queen in his snuff box and is surprised that the other bees discover the queen’s whereabouts and become organised and orderly. There is clearly a message here. Robespierre gets badly stung, he is taken to an orphanage and the account finishes with a dialogue between Robespierre and the two orphan boys, during which he admits the errors of his ways.
This song is a direct response to Le Réveil du Peuple, which was popular among muscadins, royalists and anti-Jacobins of all shades in Year III. While Le Réveil violently repudiated “the Terror” and reflected the (post-)Thermidorian discourse on the “excesses” of the Revolution, the Réponse auRéveil du Peuple sought a certain rehabilitation of the legacy of Year II, a reaffirmation of revolutionary values and principles.
(This song was sung to the same tune as Le Réveil du Peuple.)
Peuple Français, de qui la gloire / French People, whose glory
Est toujours l'effroi des tyrans, / Is always the terror of the tyrants,
Vois-tu les monstres de la Loire / Do you see the monsters of the Loire
Renaître ici plus dévorans? / Being reborn here, even more devouring?
Entends leurs cris, vois l'insolence / Here their cries, see the insolence
Des muscadins amis des rois; / Of the muscadins, friends of the kings;
Ils voudraient réduire au silence / They want to reduce to silence
Les vrais défenseurs de tes droits. / The true defenders of your rights.
Au sein de la place publique / Amidst the public square
Vois-tu ces bustes renversés? / To you see these smashed busts?
Des martyrs de la république / Hear the wrathful manes
Entends les mânes courroucés! / Of the martyrs of the republic!
After the defeat of the Jacobins, a leftist republican current persisted in the provinces, whose manifestations and intensity varied according to the local power relations and the decree of tolerance shown by the authorities and the government. In the form of a simple struggle for survival, as after the repressions of Prairial Year III and Floréal Year IV, or of the resurgence of a political practice and reaffirmation of an ideology, as in Year IV and Year VII, the permanence of this current until the Consulate demonstrates its vitality. In the regions where royalist agitation was endemic, the republican defence strategy favoured the local Jacobins. Thus, in Toulouse, where they remained in the municipality, they were able to animate the resistance to the Counter-Revolution and to organise the defence of the city which repelled the royalist insurrection in Thermidor, Year VII. The policy of union of the republicans, practices by the Directory in order to face the royalist peril, allowed the Jacobins to reorganise. As under the Revolution, their action concentrated in the clubs. Some of them were recreated in the beginning of Year IV ; the one of the Panthéon is the most famous. After 18 Fructidor the cercles constitutionnels multiplied in the provinces, and in Year VII the Jacobins found themselves at the Manège, which appeared like a resurrection of the club of Year II. While developing the clubs and animating civic festivals, the neo-Jacobins engaged in an intense propaganda in the press and in a campaign of petitions to the Directory and to the Councils. Their action measured up to the successes that were won in the elections of Year VI, in spite of the campaign of the government. The influence of the left intensified in Year VII ; the Jacobins, once more in power after 30 Prairial, secured solid positions in the administration and resumed the offensive on the legislative plan. The military difficulties allowed the Jacobin minority to induce the Councils to vote measures of public safety, the Jourdan Law, the emprunt forcé and the Law of Hostages (10-24 Messidor). This second terror disappeared with the danger for the patrie.
The programme of the neo-Jacobins was limited. Every attempt of radicalisation, every widening of the movement in the direction of the sans-culottes brought about the reaction. For the Jacobins, the price of rallying was the sacrifice of their own political and social objectives. Having abandoned the Constitution of 1793 as subversive, they had to accommodate themselves to the one of Year III, hoping to inflect the institutions in a more democratic sense. Their demands mainly focused on the guarantee of the public liberties and, in the social realm, on a fairer distribution of taxes, the distribution of land to the defenders of the patrie, and a primary education for everyone. No radical criticism of the system, as with Babeuf. Would the defence of the Republic lead them to relying on the people? The Jacobin momentum alarmed the government, which insured itself against the « red peril ». Bonaparte was able to make use of this in order to liquidate the Jacobin opposition after the assassination attempt of 3 Nivôse Year IX, and to rally the bourgeoisie to his personal policy.
Source:Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française (Albert Soboul)
To be celebrated on 9 and 10 Thermidor of Year IV, in accordance with article I of title IV of the Law of 3 Brumaire.
First day.
On 9 Thermidor, at 5 o'clock in the morning, the solemnity will be announced by a salvo of artillery.
At 6 o'clock, a second salvo will be fired, and a third one at 7 o'clock.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, the twelve Municipalities will go to the site of the Bastille, accompanied by the Civil Authorities of their jurisdiction.
The Central Administration of the Seine Department the Tribunals and the Central Bureau of the Canton of Paris, preceded by a Military Band and accompanied by a Honour Guard, will also go to the site of the Bastille at the same time.
The president of the Central Administration of the Department, after having delivered a speech analogous to the ceremony, will plant a tricolour flag on the remains of this monument of royal despotism, bearing this inscription:
It will never rise again.
During this ceremony, the Military Band will play the patriotic tunes of 1789.
The Procession will then set off, escorted by large detachments of the National Guard and of the Army of the Interior.
The Procession will go to the Place du Carrousel, in front of the National Palace of the Tuileries, following the boulevard until the Porte Denis, the Rues de Cléry and Neuve-Eustache, the Place des Victoires, the Rues Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, de la Loi and Nicaise.
On the Place du Carrousel a pyre will be erected, upon which the attributes of Royalty and Feudality will be placed.
When the Central Administration of the Seine department will arrive in front of the pyre, the Procession will stop and the President will ignite this pyre.
He will then plant a tricolour flag, bearing this inscription:
10 AUGUST 1792 ; the Monarchy is abolished in France, it will never rise again.
During this ceremony, the Military Band will play the Marseillaise and Le Chant du Départ.
The Procession will again set off for the Champ de la Réunion, by the following way:
Place du Carrousel, Guichet du Carrousel, Le Quai, the Pont National, the Rue de Grenelle, the Place des Invalides and the Avenue of the Military Academy.
The Procession will cross the field, following the embankments on the right up to the hillock ; goint back alongside the embankments on the left, it will return to the hillock in a straight line.
The Music Conservatory will play a symphony, after which the Central Administration of the Department will descend to the foot of the hillock, where, on a pyre, the symbols and attributes of anarchy will be placed.
The President will ignite the pyre ; and during his ceremony, the Conservatory will perform analogous songs and symphonies.
Then the Central Administration of the Department and a part of the Procession will go to the Military Academy, in order to go in front of the Directory.
At one o'clock, the Directory will descend onto the Champ de la Réunion, directly go to the hillock and will take its place there.
The President will deliver a speech, after which he will ignite the sacred fire of Liberty on the Altar of the Patrie. Then the Music Conservatory will sing the Hymn to Liberty, lyrics by Rouget de Lille [sic], music by Pleyel.
The Directory will then take the oath to defend the Constitution of the Year III.
This oath will be repeated by the Constitutional Authorities and by the entire Procession.
A general salvo of artillery and a salvo of grapeshot and of bombs, mingling with the sound of drums and trumpets, will announce the performance of the oath and the end of the ceremony.
The Procession will return to the Military Academy.
In the afternoon of this day, orchestras placed on the Champ de la Réunion will play dance music until the night.
Second day.
This day will consist,
Of races on foot and on horseback, which will take place at 5 o'clock in the evening on the Champ de la Réunion. Prices will be awarded to the winners ;
Of a concert performed on the Champs-Élysées, at seven o'clock ;
Of a firework and of dances and illumination on the great square of the Champs-Élysées.
The present Program will be printed and sent to all Constitutional Authorities, in order to serve as notification letters. […]
Medical report on Georges Couthon’s injuries (10 Thermidor, Year II)
Couthon has been brought, at 5 o’clock in the morning, to the hospice d'humanité; he had, above the swelling on the left side of his forehead, a contused and oblique wound with the breadth of an inch, penetrating until the skull and without denudation; his pulse was weak, he has been put to bed in the salle des Opérations n° 15 and was bandaged; at the time of his arrival, he appeared to be unconscious, but he regained consciousness afterwards and said that his wound was the result of a fall.
10 Thermidor. [Illegible signature.]
Source:Sur la blessure de Couthon dans la nuit du 9 thermidor (Soboul), in: AHRF, n° 120, p. 367. / Archives nationales F7 4656.
Today, the month Nivôseof the French Republican Calendar starts. You can find the full calendar here.
When we see neither greenery, nor flowers, Nor the brilliant swarms which formed their Processions ; Is there a charm [that is] sweeter, more powerful on our hearts Than the lights which a Nymph illuminates in the midst of Snow !
Augustin Robespierre’s letter to the Comité de Surveillance of Arras (22 April 1793)
Republicans,
You just gave me an unequivocal proof of your esteem, by instructing me about your active surveillance ; I will neglect nothing in order to accelerate the progress of your revolutionary operations. I promise by duty and by gratitude to write you at least once per week. I am convinced that our correspondence will be able to serve the common weal, and as the traitors to the patrie have a rapid communication among themselves, it is necessary that the good citizens are not isolated and that they present a mass of lights and of forces [that are] capable of intimidating and of annihilating the enemies of the republic. The patrie in danger raises the courage of free men, the blind rage of the royalists and of the fanatics will die soon and our common efforts will purge the soil of liberty, of all those who do not have enough virtues in order to live in it.
I currently do not know what the powers of the patriot Brune are, I will desire that they are extensive enough in order to carry out all the good which he desires. He is an excellent republican who has rendered services in the revolution, and who, I believe, is always in the same dispositions. I will inform myself of the latitude and the nature of his powers and I will instruct you at once.
Paris is always calm and proud, in spite of the means employed in order to arouse (or incite) disordered movements in this immortal city. The Parisians [who are] informed on the intrigues that surround us denounce the traitors, and as these conspirators are powerful, they employ all means in order to divert the eyes away from their crimes and their conspiracies, in order to only occupy the nation with supposed conspiracies of the Jacobins and of the Commune of Paris, but the Jacobins and the Commune of Paris are the friends of the republic
This is their crime in the eyes of the royalists. The society of the Jacobins is incorruptible by its nature. It debates in the presence of four thousand persons, it therefore cannot betray the interests of the people because [its] only power lies in the opinion of the people. Read what I have said at the tribune of the Convention last Saturday, if the Moniteur has rendered it exactly, and you will have an idea of the enemies which we have to fight.
In the immediate aftermath of the events of Thermidor, both the actors and spectators of these events sought to give meaning to what had just happened ; à chaud, a new imaginary was taking shape, centred around the person of Robespierre: his légende noire, which would impose itself over the next decades, slowly began to emerge in numerous speeches, proclamations, pamphlets etc. This “black legend”, which drew on the tropes and motifs that had characterised earlier attacks on Robespierre, would later acquire some degree of coherence, but at the time of its birth, it was still widely heterogeneous and, at times, even contradictory.
In the course of this research project, I have compiled some of the most influential speeches, writings and images that were published during or immediately after the events of 9 / 10 Thermidor, and which, in some cases, came to shape Robespierre’s légende noire as we know it today.
What do you think, citizens? Feel free to add things!
During my research for this project, I greatly relied on Robespierre: la fabrication d'un mythe (Belissa / Bosc) and on Jolène Audrey Bureau’s Robespierre meurt longtemps, as well as on Hippolyte Buffenoir’s extensive study Les portraits de Robespierre. I also want to thank @montagnarde1793and@valeria-lagrimas for their generous help and advice!
