I'm sorry it is just stubbornness at this point and the fact that this book makes me love my revolutionary babes all the more (Ok, not Danton, but I'm probably even falling in love with Marat at this point purely because of how much this book calls him ugly). Like, literally this is the reason why I'm ok with being kinda enamored with Max et al, to balance out the hundreds of years of extremely slanted depictions in the opposite direction.
Don't read this book. There's more accurate fanfic on Ao3.
It’s a little creepy how the pretty privilege makes you a consumer product and not a serious political figure who deserves to be read as such.
Unsurprisingly, he himself criticized the commercial society (aka: early capitalism) for suppressing the individual's self-worth. He meant that the only thing that matters becomes consumption, without true freedom of expression.
Imagine criticizing a system that denatures humanity, dying, and becoming what you feared most.
For me, it's appalling that anyone can be reduced to that; humans are not products to be consumed. And much less dolls.
Here is my earlier Pauline Léon timeline for those interested.
A timeline over the 61 year long life of Claire Lacombe, based primarily on the chapter dedicated to her (page 317-415) in Trois femmes de la Révolution: Olympe de Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe (1900) by Léopold Lacour.
4 March 1765 — birth of Claire Lacombe in Pamiers. Here is her baptism record:
The fourth of March 1765 is born Claire Lacombe, legitimate daughter of Bertrand Lacombe and Jeanne-Marie Gauché, married to one another, baptised the same day by we the undersigned, prayed by monsieur the priest. Godmother: Demoiselle de Lagresel de Pontaut. In faith of the undersigned Galmier priest.
The claim that Lacombe’s firstname was Rose is, according to Lacour, not supported by any primary sources. In those, she is never known under any other name than ”Claire Lacombe.”
September 1790 — Voyage en France de Halem écrites à Lyon reports the following about an actress that according to Lacour is most likely Lacombe: ”Mlle Lacombe, an actress from Marseille, had wanted to make her debut in Lyon in Sémiramis, but the director had not agreed to. The audience loudly demanded Mlle Lacombe, and the uproar only ceased when the director appeared and satisfied the audience by agreeing to the actress's debut.”
January 1792 — Lacombe moves into Hôtel de Bretagne on Rue Croix des petits Champs in Paris (in Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins, page 8, released in September or October 1793, she specifies that she’s lived there for the past 22 months.
25 July 1792 — Lacombe makes her debut on the political scene when she shows up at the parisian jacobin club and delivers the following speech intended to later be read to the Legislative Assembly:
French, artist and without a place, that is who I am. However, legislators, what should be the object of my despair fills my soul with the purest joy. Unable to come to the aid of my country, which you have declared in danger, by pecuniary sacrifices, I come to pay homage to it in person. Born with the courage of a Roman and the hatred of tyrants, I would be happy to contribute to their destruction. Perish to the last despot! Intrigans, vile slaves of Nero and Caligula, may I annihilate you all! and you mothers of families whom I would blame for leaving your children to follow my example, while I do my duty by fighting the enemies of the homeland, fulfill yours by inculcating in your children the feelings that every Frenchman must have at birth, the love of liberty and the horror of despots. Never lose sight of the fact that without the virtues of Veturia, Rome would have been deprived of the great Coriolanus. Legislators, you have declared the homeland in danger, but that is not enough: dismiss from their powers those who alone have given rise to this danger and have sworn the destruction of France. Can you leave at the head of our armies this perfidious Catiline, excusable only in the eyes of those whose infamous projects he wanted to serve? What are you waiting for to launch the decree of indictment against him? Will you wait for the enemies, to whom he daily delivers our towns, to arrive in the senate to destroy it with ax and fire? You have only to keep a culpable silence for a few more days, and soon you will see them in your enclosure. There is still time, legislators, raise yourselves to the height which belongs to you; appoint leaders in whom we can give our confidence; say one word, one word and the enemies will disappear.
Lacombe is positively received. Delaunay d’Angers, the president during the session, answers her: ”Women have always had a great deal of influence over the minds of the French; may you have as much influence over that of our representatives! The Society invites you to assist in its session.” The very same day Lacombe, wearing a garland of roses according to the journal Le Courrier des 83 départemens, reads the same speech to the Legislative Assembly, which orders it to be printed. Viénot de Vaublanc, the current president of the Assembly, answers Lacombe with the following words: ”Madame, more made to soften tyrants than to fight them, you offer to bear arms for liberty. The National Assembly applauds your patriotism, and grants you the honors of its session.”
10 August 1792 — Lacombe partakes in the Insurrection of August 10.
26 August 1792 — Lacombe mounts the rostrum of the Legislative Assembly and reveals that the very same morning, ”the federals of the 83 departments honored me with a civic crown, a national belt, and a certificate attesting that during the journée [of 10 August], I left no stone unturned to ensure the triumph of liberty and equality. I retain the belt and the honorable certificate. I come to offer the National Assembly the homage of the civic crown that it has so deserved by the courage, wisdom, and patriotism it has shown during these great perils. I consider myself happy to be the first to pay what every good Frenchman, a friend of the homeland, owes to his legislators.” Journal des débats et des décrets which records the speech, notes that, after holding it, Lacombe deposits the civic crown on the desk of the Assembly and receives honors amidst lively applause. In number 247 (September 3 1792) of Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel we learn that Lacombe received her civic crown alongside Reine Audu and Théroigne Méricourt, who they too had ”distinguished themselves by their courage during the journée of 10 of August.”
3 April 1793 — Lacombe is recorded to have gone to the jacobins and there have proposed ”that the aristocrats of Paris and their families be seized as hostages.” The journal Nouvelles politiques, nationales et étrangères also records that, the very same day at the Convention, ”Citoyenne Lacombe, who, on the memorable day of August 10th, brought down four of the tyrant's henchmen, presents herself at the rostrum, and proposes, among other measures, that the wives and children of traitors and conspirators be burned. What a woman!”
10 May 1793 — founding of the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women (Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires or Société des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires de Paris). According to historian Claude Guillon (Pauline Léon, une républicaine révolutionnaire (2006)) Lacombe is, contrary to popular belief, not among the founders of this club.
26 June 1793 — Lacombe goes to the jacobins, and, in the name of the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women, urges the club ”to invite the Convention to refuse to pay Montansier 200,000 livres in compensation that she is claiming for her trip to Belgium.” According to both Lacour and Guillon, this is Lacombe’s first attested appearance as member of the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women.
18 August 1793 — Lacombe leads a delegation of Revolutionary and Republican Women to the jacobins to announce that they ”are going to occupy themselves with public safety, like the jacobins.” She is applauded.
26 August 1793 — a delegation from the Revolutionary and Republican Women comes to the Convention. Lacombe, the spokesperson, holds the following speech calling for the removal of all former nobles from office, as reported in the Moniteur, number 240 (August 28 1792), page 503-504:
Citizen legislators, rightly outraged by the countless abuses that have occurred in all government departments, and especially in the Ministry of the Interior, we come to challenge your severity and demand the enforcement of constitutional laws. We did not demand this constitution with such fervor only to have it violated with impunity. Demonstrate that you intend to save the nation by removing all the nobles from office. It is not enough to have given laws to the people; they must feel their beneficial effects. They must see with indignation that some men fatten themselves on their blood while they perish in misery. We no longer believe in the virtue of these men, who have only cloaked themselves in the mantle of patriotism to indulge with impunity in injustice and brigandage. Do you want us to believe that the nobles have no defenders among you? Remove them from all the positions they hold. Do not say that this would disorganize our armies by depriving them of experienced leaders; the more talented they are, the more dangerous they are. Put these brave soldiers in their place, soldiers whom intrigue has hitherto supplanted. If, under the reign of despotism, crime held sway, under the reign of liberty, merit alone should be honored. You have decreed that suspect men should be arrested, but is this not a ludicrous law when the suspect men are the very ones charged with enforcing it? Is this how the people are mocked? So this is the reward for the suffering it endured for liberty. No, it will not be said that the people will be forced to take justice into their own hands: you will decree the dismissal of all administrators who have betrayed their duties. Decree the dismissal of all former nobles, decree the mass conscription of men, and then you will have saved the homeland.
13 September 1793 — Lacombe stops Convention deputy François Chabot when he’s coming out from the jacobin club and asks him to help M. de Rey, former mayor in Toulouse that Chabot dismissed three months earlier, and who has since been thrown in prison. Chabot responds that Rey is guilty and that he’s surprised Lacombe is pleading on behalf of a rich former noble, a man who imprisoned 17 patriots in Toulouse. Lacombe asks for the evidence of his guilt, and insists that Rey has only used his wealth to help the poor and give them bread since the beginning of the revolution. Chabot hand-waves this by explaining that is how the aristocrats deceive the people, and once again underlines that Rey is a former noble. According to Lacombe’s version of the meeting, she then tells Chabot that if he doesn’t render Rey the justice he is due, she will go to the Convention and obtain it herself, while in Chabot’s version, Lacombe threatens him with ”the adamant aversion of the Revolutionary Republicans” if he doesn’t get the Committee of General Security to release Rey. (Moniteur, number 264, page 695, Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins, page 3-4)
14 September 1793 — Lacombe goes home to Chabot and asks him if he’s now better disposed to bring justice to M. de Rey. After Chabot once again repeats that Rey is a counter-revolutionary, Lacombe replies that men still shouldn’t be kept in prison like that, that, revolution or not, they must be interrogated within 24 hours, set free if they’re innocent and promptly guillotined if they’re not. Seeking to evade the question, Chabot says that they’re just a society of women letting themselves be led. Lacombe insists that neither flattery nor assignats have ever swayed the members of her club and that she’s deeply convinced of M. Rey’s innocence after having gathered information from ”the best patriots in Toulouse.” She concludes the former mayor has committed no crime other than that of wounding Chabot’s own pride when he got sent to the department as a commissioner and Rey had to ”take action” against one of Chabot’s agents for preaching counter-revolutionary principles. After Chabot once again repeats he’s not going to do anything, Lacombe exclaims ”we did not destroy the Tyrant only to put others in his place.” Chabot fires back: "Denounce me, have me brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, I don't care." Lacombe answers that it is quite astonishing that a man who calls himself a patriot should be little so in his actions, to which Chabot again replies: "You are a society of women, who want to meddle in affairs and who are being misled,” causing Lacombe to repeat that neither flattery nor assignats will ever sway them and that they’re only interested in the oppressed. Among these oppressed are Rey who Lacombe considers a victim Chabot has chosen to sacrifice, to the extent he has offered his nephew a job that would take him away from Toulouse, thus depriving Rey of the only comfort he has left. Lacombe asks if this really is how men should be treating each other before repeating her warning that if Chabot — who she now calls ”dictator without power” — doesn’t ensure Rey receives justice, she will go to the Convention and speak truths that will not be to his advantage. According to Lacombe’s version of the story, Chabot then turns to look at her ”with the eyes of a cockroach” and responds that he will issue a report setting Rey free without sending him back to Toulouse. He admits that Rey has in fact done immense good for the people there and has excellent qualities, but that he’s too influenctial. Such a passage does however not show up in Chabot’s version, where he instead stands firm in his statement that he’s never going to do anything he thinks isn’t for the public good. According to Lacombe, Chabot also tells her that he has never been able to refuse anything to women, to which she retorts that she’s sorry that he is a public man and pities the homeland since she suspects the counter-revolutionaries’ wives probably have no difficulty in obtaining favors from him either. (Moniteur, number 264, page 695, Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins, page 4-6)
16 September 1793 — at the jacobins, a secretary, after underlining that the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women has always shown ”an excellent patriotism,” announces that the club has just expelled one of its members, one citoyenne Gobin, for having denounced enragé leader Theophile Leclerc ”who on a daily basis insults Marat’s ghost by publishing a newspaper imitating that of the great man, even though it’s not at all within his principles.” The secretary then reads aloud a letter Lacombe had written to citoyenne Gobin, in which she tells her she has to put forward evidence for her denounciations or else risk get labeled as a slanderer. Chabot states that it is time to blow the lid off the ”so called republican women” and reveal ”the intrigues which agitate them.” He describes his two meetings with Lacombe a few days earlier, claiming that she used ”all the remarks that aristocrats usually make when we arrest some of their friends” and that her proper title should rather be Madame Lacombe ”for she is not a citoyenne.” He adds that the Revolutionary Republicans ”have dared to attack Robespierre, calling him Monsieur Robespierre!” Basire then reveals that a delegation of Revolutionary and Republican Women recently went over to the Committee of General Security to demand the release of one Semandy that they thought had been wrongfully arrested. After Basire explained Semandy had been denounced as playing a principal role in the counter-revolution in Marseilles, the women instead asked for permission for the entire society to go into the prisons to inform themselves of the motive behind arrests and set people free if they judged it right to. After Basire responded this is not possible, the women replied with insults, telling him he is just like ”M. Robespierre, who dared to treat them like counter-revolutionaries,” causing Basire to retort with: ”when one speaks of Robespierre like that and attacks his patriotism, there’s nothing more to say.” Basire ends by declaring he thinks the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women overall is pure, but that it should carry out a scrutiny test to sort out the ”intriguers.” Renaudin then returns to Lacombe herself, stating that ”Madame Lacombe, who loves nobles so much,” lodges not only Leclerc at her house, but also ”a thief” who has stolen a pair of pistols from a friend of his. Another member then attributes all the troubles recently going down in Paris to these women and is met by murmurs from the galleries. When he asks for the arrest of all ”muscadins” of both sexes the club does however applaud. Shortly thereafter, Lacombe shows up and demands the floor, something which causes the tumult to rise to such levels the president is forced to take cover. The women in the galleries around Lacombe start shouting: "Down with the schemer, down with the new Corday, go away, you wretch, or we'll tear you to pieces!" while a big number of the club’s members leave their seats to come around to Lacombe and speak in the same terms. Lacombe exclaims that she would rather get assassinated than go out:
Here, I will perish, or I will be heard. Is this how you, cowards, will show yourselves the Friends of Justice, by stifling the Truth? The first one of you who dares to advance, I’ll teach what a free woman can do.
After Lacombe has uttered these words, she hears a man exclaiming: “Beware, this bitch is still armed.” Eventually, the club does however realize it’s impossible to get Lacombe to leave, and therefore contents itself with sending a guard to stand at her side to silence her should she be tempted to speak again. The president is able to take control again, and tells Lacombe that it is a real crime to cause trouble and prolong it in an assembly of people which need to deliberate coolly on the interests of the people. After that, the jacobins decide to 1, write to the Revolutionary Women and urge them to get rid, by means of a cleansing vote, of the ”suspicious women” who lead the Society, and 2, ask the Committee of General Security to arrest said ”suspicious women.” An admendment is then made to 1, ask the Committee of General Security to immediately summon Lacombe, and 2, ask said committee to arrest Leclerc as well. Three guards are therefore sent down to Lacombe in the gallery, where she sits calmly while getting faced by insults by what she estimates to be around 4000 people. At half past nine, half an hour before the end of the session, the guards escort Lacombe out of the club and into the courtyard, which it too is filled with people shouting they hope she gets guillotined. The guards bring Lacombe to the Committee of General Security where they are made to wait in the antechamber for two hours, until they get told that they can’t enter since no one is there. The one guard remaining with Lacombe at that point then exclaims that the way the committee is treating her is ”an unprecedented act of arbitrariness” and that he shall escort her home. Arriving there, they do however discover that seals have been placed on the door, and they go to the Halle section which tells them they can’t be removed until tomorrow. On leaving, Lacombe does however run into two other members of her club who have been going about trying to find out what has become of her, and one of them invites her to come and spend the night at her house instead. (Moniteur, number 264, page 695, Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins)
17 September 1793 — Lacombe presents herself at the Surveillance Committee of the Halle section to ask for the seals on her apartment on Rue Croix des petits Champs to be removed. The commisionaires carefully examine all her papers and end up finding ”nothing suspect, on the contrary we only found correspondances of the Sociétés fraternelles which breath the purest of patriotism, and different letters where the public good and patriotism are well expressed.” (report cited in Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins, page 15)
September-October 1793 — Lacombe releases the fifteen pages long Rapport fait par la citoyenne Lacombe à la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, de ce qui s'est passé le 16 septembre à la Société des Jacobins in which she reprints the minutes from the jacobin session from September 16 and ger svar på tal regarding the things said about her and her society during it. Lacombe begins by underlining that what the secretary said about citoyenne Gobin is false, she was not struck from the club’s list after having criticised Leclerc, she was just asked to clarify herself. Lacombe then gives her version of her two meetings with Chabot, adding that the only witnesses to the second one was ”the vile companion of his dissolute life” (probably Chabot’s 16 year old Austrian wife Leopoldine) as well as ”a masked lady with a gentleman dressed in a nasturtium-colored frock coat with a very wide silver braid on his collar.” She calls Basire a ”miserable liar” for his account of what happened when a deputation from her club went over to the Committee of General Security. The deputation, according to Lacombe, didn’t call for Sémandy's release, it just asked on what grounds he had been imprisoned, and it certainly didn’t ask for permission to go into the prisons and set people free at their own choosing, considering they respect the law. They also neither called Basire a blac-bec nor Robespierre Monsieur. Lacombe warns Robespierre, telling him she’s noticed that those accused of wrongdoing seem to believe they can get away by accusing those who denounce them of speaking ill of him — ”Beware lest those who need to cloak themselves in your virtues drag you down with them into the abyss.” After defending her club from charges of looting of sugar and soap, when they are rather the ones who have tried to put a stop to it, as well as giving a detailed description over what happened to her after having made her presence known at the jacobin club on September 16, Lacombe ends by declaring she doesn’t think it was the ”true Jacobins” she saw that day — ”intrigue alone had seized the place of their meetings, or if there were some friends of Liberty and justice among this crowd of schemers, we dare to flatter ourselves that indignation alone prevented them from speaking.”
24 September 1793 — the journal Feuille du Salut Public reports ”The femme or fille Lacombe is finally in prison, and unable to do harm. This counter-revolutionary Bacchante now drinks only water; we know that she loved wine very much, that she loved food and men no less, as evidenced by the close fraternity that reigned between her, Jacques Roux, Leclerc, and company, etc.” One day later, the Gazette Française also reports that ”Femme Lacombe, who in our revolution has played a role almost equal to that of demoiselle Therouenne [sic], has been arrested.”
7 October 1793 — a deputation from the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women, with Lacombe as the spokesperson, is admitted at the Convention. The Moniteur records the following speech: ”Legislators, yesterday someone came to surprise your religion; schemers, slanderers, unable to find crimes, dared to compare us to the Medicis, to an Elizabeth of England, to an Antoinette, to a Charlotte Corday. Ah! Doubtless nature has produced a monster who has deprived us of the friend of the people. But no, are we responsible for this crime? Was Corday part of our society? Ah! We are more generous than men. Our sex has produced only one monster; while for four years we have been betrayed, assassinated by the countless monsters that the male sex has produced. Our rights are those of the people, and if we are oppressed, we will know how to oppose resistance to oppression.” The petition is sent to the Committee of General Security.
The same day, Lacombe also leads a deputation to the jacobins to declare that she doesn’t think it was ”real jacobins” who slandered her and her society on September 16. She then goes on to defend herself against the different accusations made against her by the club, adding that upon entering, a member had told her: ”I will cut your throat.” Lacombe ends with the following words: ”I have always professed the principles of Marat: if you want to immortalize me like him, this is a fine occasion. Strike! I forgive you with all my heart. I would rather perish by a patriot’s hand than conspire with the brigands.” These words end up being applauded, suggested the jacobins might have warmed up a bit to Lacombe again. (Journal de la Montagne, number 130 (October 10 1793), page 937)
29 October 1793 — at the Convention, a deputation of women is admitted to present a petition denouncing the fact ”so-called revolutionary women” have tried to force them to wear the bonnet rouge. They demand the freedom to dress however they please. Fabre d’Églantine, having denounced the manouvre, follows this up by throwing shade on the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women — ”I have observed very well that these Societies are not composed of mothers, daughters, sisters looking after their young brothers or sisters, but of a kind of adventurers, knights-errant, emancipated girls, female grenadiers.” Fabre ends by asking the Committee of General Security to make a report on ”the women societies.” An unknown deputy then reveals that Committee of General Security member Amar shortly is going to deliver a report regarding both the bonnet rouge and the Society of Revolutionary Women. The Convention ends by decreeing that no citizen or citiziness has the right to force others to wear any particular garment. One of the women petitioners then mounts the rostrum and asks for ”the abolition of all women clubs, because it was a woman who caused France’s misfortune.” (Moniteur, number 39 (October 30 1793), page 290)
30 October 1793 — At the Convention, Amar, as announced the day before, reads a report where he announces the dissolution of the Society of Revolutionary Women, as well as all other women’s clubs, to the National Convention (Moniteur, number 41 (October 31 1793), page 299).
2 April 1794 — The Committee of General Security orders for Lacombe to be arrested and brought to the Saint-Pélagie prison. This is the first mention we have of her since October 9 1793.
3 April 1794 — Lacombe gets arrested and brought to the Saint-Pélagie prison. Interrogated the very same day, she reveals it’s been two years since she last had a job, having instead lived off her own savings and the sale of a few belongings. When the concierge at the prison documents Lacombe’s apperance, he writes: ”height of 5 pieds, 2 pouces (168 cm). Brown hair, eyebrows and eyes, medium nose, large mouth, round face and chin, plain forehead.”
28 May 1794 — the citoyennes Lamoce and Hérouart write a piece where they accuse Lacombe of having 1, protested against the decree adjourning the Constitution in front of the Society of Revolutionary Women, declaring that a move like this "was only likely to incite the people to revolt at every moment, to lead them to carnage and pillage, and undoubtedly to lead them a second time to prisons to renew the horrors that had already been committed there,” 2, having disapproved of the repression of Lyon in front of the same club, saying that ”French blood is being shed by Frenchmen,” and then painting "to discourage the people, the most heartbreaking and frightening picture of the dead and dying during the siege,” 3, having condemned the September massacres in front of the same club, and finally 4, having spoken to citoyenne Lemoce of the members of the Committee of General Security and stated that ”these blanc-becs must be made to tremble,” that the representatives on mission were enriching themselves, and that the reason Robespierre hasn’t gone on a mission is because ”he is too cowardly and too afraid for his life. Did you notice how pale he was when I spoke to him? Fear was written all over his face." They also repeat the claim that énragé leader Théophile Leclerc, at this point married to Pauline Léon since six months back, had been sleeping at Lacombe’s house since May 1793. Already prior to this, Lamoce and Hérouart had written another denounciation against Lacombe, accusing her of having ”made remarks against Robespierre" and "proposed the renewal of the Convention.” The authorities had however dismissed this particular denounciation as ”vague and without basis,” which is probably what prompted the two women to further elaborate.
6 June 1794 — the revolutionary committee of Halle-au-Blé writes a letter to the Committee of General Security recognizing that the imprisoned Lacombe has shown ”a lot of patriotism [and] at the same time a lot of intrigue.”
7 June 1794 — Lacombe writes a one page letter to an unknown destination that starts with the header ”citizens,” and the rest of which, in Lacour’s words, is ”not that interesting.”
8 June 1794 — the day of the Festival of the Supreme Being, Lacombe writes — ”Pélagie, 20 prairial, day of joy for the French, I am unable to join.”
28 July 1794 — Robespierre’s hostess Françoise Duplay is found hanged in her cell in the Sainte-Pélagie prison after having spent one day there. When Françoise’s daughter Élisabeth more than fifty years later comments on a passage in Alphonse de Lamartine’s book Histoire des Girondins (1847) describing the (as he perceives it) murder, she has written ”La Lacombe.” (cited in Le conventionnel Le Bas: d'après des documents inédits et les mémoires de sa veuve (1901) by Stéfane-Pol, page 331)
11 August 1794 — Lacombe writes the following letter to the deputy Laloy: ”I have sacrificed three years of my time to my homeland. As I have neither husband nor children to offer it, I have made it a privilege to serve it myself, and it is only after having exhausted all my financial resources that I forced myself to enter into a commitment.”
29 September 1794 — Lacombe gets transferred from the Sainte-Pélagie prison to the Port-Libre prison alongside 25 other prisoners, among them Pétion’s widow and son and Robespierre’s friend and admirer Madame Chalabre.
15 November 1794 — Lacombe gets transferred from the Port-Libre prison to the Luxembourg prison. At an unspecified date, she gets sent back to the Port-Libre prison again.
21 April 1795 — Lacombe gets transferred to the Plessis prison. Éléonore, Simon and Jacques-Maurice Duplay gets transferred there at the same time.
16 May 1795 — Lacombe gets transferred back to the Sainte-Pélagie prison. Éléonore Duplay gets transferred at the same time.
1 June 1795 — Lacombe writes a petition to the Committee of General Security beginning with the words: ”Citizens, since fourteen months back I am imprisoned on your committee’s order, in vain have I sought justice.”
16 August 1795 — Lacombe writes a letter to an unknown Convention deputy asking to be set free as well as reminding him of ”the person who, in September 1793, dared to ask you to go to the public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal to testify to the truth in favor of citoyenne X, then detained in the Conciergerie prison. The speed with which you acted and the care I took resulted in the prisoner being released three days later.”
18 August 1795 — the Committee of General Security ”seeing the petition from citoyenne femme Lacombe, detained in the Pélagie prison, and the attestation from the representatives Saurine and Sevestre” orders for Lacombe to be released. The order is executed two days later.
22 August 1795 — the seals are lifted from Lacombe’s apartment.
19 June 1821 — Lacombe is admitted as a "mentally ill person" to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. She gets documented as a school teacher in the hospital journal.
2 May 1826 — Lacombe dies at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, following an aortic aneurysm near her heart. She was 61 years old.
Contemporary descriptions of Lacombe
Remember the famous Lacombe, renowned actress, and president of the fraternal society of revolutionary amazons? It was she who set herself up as a stall-keeper, for the supply of the small pleasures of state prisoners, her companions in misfortune. Strange effect of vulgar ideas of detail and profit. Before she had taken this step, head held high, proud gaze, imposing gait, one would have believed her on stage ready to play her roles now simple, gracious to the buyers, she is no more than a modest little bourgeois dressed to the nines and knowing how to sell her merchandise at the highest price. She wraps, out of politeness, the candle in a scrap of paper which alone is worth the 50 sous she sells it for; one must pay, each evening, this sum, without counting the price of some small reinet apples at seven sous each. With what graces still, she says, all to oblige the citizens.
Les mystères de la mère de Dieu dévoilés : troisième volume des Causes secrètes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794), by Joachim Vilate, p. 41-42. This information is most likely false, considering Lacombe was still in prison when this pamphlet was written.
Fille Lacombe was pretty and, as an actress, acquired a considerable reputation in provincial theaters. Arriving in Paris in 1791, she threw herself into the most extreme demagoguery, associating only with the most fervent revolutionaries. On August 10, 1792, she fought as an Amazon and received a wrist injury. She founded a women's club, which held its meetings in the charnel house of the Church of Saint-Eustache. She presided over the society wearing the bonnet rouge. Robespierre, sensing that this society of true sans-culottes lent itself to ridicule and malicious gossip, launched an attack against it in a speech to the Jacobins, and this led to the club's dissolution. Fille Lacombe had seen two of her lovers perish on the scaffold. She found herself abandoned and destitute: no theater director wanted to take her on in his troupe; so she took a stall at the Luxembourg Gate and sold tobacco, matches, apples, and other similar items to make a living. When the Directory moved into the Luxembourg Palace, the stall and the young Lacombe disappeared. We do not know what became of her.
Histoire secrète du tribunal révolutionnaire (1815) by Pierre Joseph Roussel, volume 2, page 130-131.
There was also a Mlle Lacombe who held forth in the groups; she had been, I believe, an actress, but she did not attract the crowd like Mlle Théroigne, because she did not have the eccentricities of her emulator: she was simply a beautiful woman. Beauty meant nothing in this circumstance: gestures and singularity were needed.
Notes historiques sur la Convention nationale, le Directoire, l'Empire et l'exil des votants (1893) by Marc-Antoine Baudot, p. 111.
Shall we speak here of a society of fallen women, picked up from the dregs of Paris, whose audacity is matched only by their shamelessness, female monsters possessing all the cruelty of weakness and all the vices of their sex? The mere sight of them inspires horror. These women played a major role in the 1793 revolution. An old Parisian hussy commands them, and their daggers belong to whoever knows best how to wield them. It seems that Lacombe, their leader, has seized considerable power; and in the debates brewing between Robespierre and his allies, and Danton and his, this shameless woman might well tip the scales in favor of the party she chooses to support. To what excess of infamy have the French people been led! It could be that, in the end, upon closer examination, the French armies fought, the Assembly of the nation was dishonored, the public fortune was destroyed, and the entire Republic was stained with French blood, only through the intrigues of the most hideous hussies of Paris.
Memoirs of Buzot (written in the fall of 1793), cited in Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot & de Barbaroux (1866), page 72.
Mademoiselle Lacombe had no other merit than a rather beautiful physique, she represented the goddess of liberty in our public celebrations. She had, like Mlle Théroigne, a big influence in groups. She had no brilliant qualities, but her manners went well with the mass of the people. She had been, it is said, an actress, and I would not be surprised if she had acted in comedies at that time, as so many others have done for the last forty years.
Mémoires et notes de Choudieu: représentant du peuple à l'assemblée (1897), page 479.
…One assures that under the Directory, Lacombe was attached to the Paris police. Regardless, it would appear like the different roles she played haven’t enriched her. She disappeated completely from the political scene, she is thought to be dead since a few years back.
Biographie nouvelle des contemporains (1823), volume 10, page 239.
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robespierriste historians (me) when the supreme being comes down the republican chimney on le jour du chien eve and brings revolutionary virtue and liberty cakes for all the exemplary sans-culottes
A letter from Marat corresponding with a woman who was a victim of domestic violence
I found, at this Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0RLEHHiWmgP7xnDBDRP4Scq7CbRNjyX7mwUHqLPK8quFFRgGuK5fcdmKR1KunibgLl&id=100037757173955 , a letter by Jean-Paul Marat addressed to a woman who was a victim of domestic violence. He published it in this newspaper (although he concealed the young woman’s name for her safety).
Here is the English-translated version.
No. 555 of the newspaper L’Ami du Peuple.
Monday, 20 September 1791
Letter from the Friend of the People to Miss F****
*“I am deeply distressed, Mademoiselle, to hear of the troubles you are suffering on my account, from a brutal man who has over you neither the rights of marriage nor the rights of love; who cruelly abuses your gratitude for the few lessons he gave you in an art through which you hoped to earn an honourable and independent living; who has carried his brutality so far as to leave you marked by his violence; who strives to bind you to his fate so as to make of you a faithful servant; and who now dares to keep you confined, in order to prevent you from receiving the counsel of friendship.
Fear no longer to assert your rights.
If the suspicious or treacherous persons he has placed around you have not already destroyed your resolve to free yourself from so revolting a yoke, open a window, call for help, and bring before the magistrate the unworthy man who so abuses your natural timidity and has made of you a slave at a time when it is acknowledged that even despots ought no longer to have any.
But while waiting for the law to avenge you, seek refuge in the home of your aunts, and then return to your province, to your family. The humblest existence in the parental home is a hundred times preferable to the deceptive comfort you would be forced to purchase at so high a price.
Perhaps your oppressor will cry out that it is monstrous to take the side of a stranger against a man who once gave me shelter; perhaps honest people, misled by his clamours, will accuse me of violating hospitality. I leave the matter to their judgment. But I ask them first whether any consideration should prevent a sensitive man from defending the oppressed weak? What then should the Friend of the People do in such circumstances—he who has devoted his life to fighting tyranny in whatever form it appears?
Let them then tell me what I could possibly owe to a man who took me into his home at a time when I came and went freely and when there was no danger for him in having me at his table; at a time when the patriots he imitated called me the guardian angel of France; at a time when he had no other motive for receiving me than that ridiculous vanity that drives so many fools to seek the company of men who make noise in the world, always regarded as curious beasts.
What could I owe to a man who, renouncing his country the moment there was danger in defending it, and not daring to acknowledge his fears, forced me by sheer disgust to seek another lodging; a man who, taking me as judge of his quarrels, reproached me for not approving his fits of temper, and who, to excuse himself, then said, ‘You know well that I am a brute’; a man who, furious to see his victim about to escape him, attributed to my advice what was but the result of his own excessive ill-treatment, gave way to his rage, and did everything in his power to disturb my new refuge—to frighten the honest citizen in whose house he himself had introduced me, to expose that household to being ransacked by a brutal soldiery, and to deliver me to the fury of the enemies of the nation who have sworn my death.
You shall judge for yourself of his treachery and his atrocity.
A few days ago, in order to alarm my host, he sent him a prude—against whom he had formerly spoken a thousand horrors—who has borne me a cruel grudge ever since I ceased to be the milk cow enriched at my expense by a person (in whom I had blind confidence and to whom I had entrusted the management of my affairs), something he was the first to reveal to me. He threatened to betray me unless I was refused shelter that very evening. The next morning he carried out his threats.
A messenger brought the master of the house a note written under a false name and couched in these terms: ‘Noël warns Mr. So-and-so that he has in his house a person who exposes him to great danger.’ This note was given to me with the request not to endanger my benefactor—something my sense of propriety would not have allowed, no matter what risk changing lodgings might bring.
Not trusting sufficiently to his spies, he used yet another device to force me to leave. At half-past noon he sent, through a second messenger, an unsealed letter addressed to “Mr. So-and-so,” to be delivered to whom?—to Mr. Marat. This letter, written in a disguised hand, contained these words: ‘M. Marat, lose not an instant in securing your safety.’ The more infamous because he used, to destroy me, the very veil of humanity.
The lady of the house, inattentive, received the note without reading the address; it was thus giving the messenger indirect confirmation that I was still there. She handed the note to me. Seeing my name written in full, the consequences of this dark artifice flashed at once into my mind, and I cried out involuntarily: ‘It is done. I am lost.’ And I would indeed have been lost had the messenger been able to read or had he shown the note to some soldier or enemy of the Revolution—so many of whom fill our streets—to ask for the address.
Soon the house would have been surrounded and I would have been cut to pieces by ferocious hirelings, who would afterward have claimed the credit before their general, well known for not being my friend.
My first thought was that this cowardly hypocrite had sold me and that an emissary of the police had been charged with delivering this note, whose style bore the marks of the artifice commonly used to discover the victims of tyranny. My papers were spread out on my table—I hurried to put them out of sight. Motier’s henchmen might be only a few steps away; how was I to escape them?
The lady of the house, who was alone with me, wanted to hide me in a cupboard. I refused such a petty measure. I dressed in haste and went to the home of a neighbour reputed to be a good patriot. He welcomed me warmly, without showing the least fear; he too had suffered persecution and his spirit was hardened.
After a moment of melancholy reflection on the dangers that my zeal in defending oppressed innocence and a tyrannized people had always drawn upon my head, I thought only of ways to elude them. I understood well that the darkness of night could favour my escape. But I feared to await it, almost certain that if I gave the emissary time to report on his mission, the house would soon be surrounded with spies and alguazils. To forestall them by leaving immediately seemed the wisest course, and I took that decision at once, however rash it might appear.
Another consideration strengthened me. Certain that I would be cut down by the soldiery, unwilling to fall alive into their hands, resolved to perish by my own, and fearful of exposing my host to such a scene, I preferred a hundred times to die under the eyes of the people for whom I had made myself a target.
Not wishing to appear suspicious and better to deceive any spies lying in wait, I wished to offer my arm to a lady; while she was putting on a gown, I heard much noise in the street. I armed my pistols, awaiting the fatal moment. It was a false alarm.
The lady arrived and we left after asking someone to make sure that no suspicious person was in the porter’s lodge or lurking outside the house. And so I found myself walking boldly through the streets in broad daylight, with as much assurance as the traitors to the nation themselves.
We reached the fields near the new boulevard; we sat on the grass and remained there five hours until dusk. That evening, Motier was walking near us at the head of his spies.
Once back in Paris, I went alone, at a distance, to ask a friend for a bed, and the next day I prepared to depart for London, where I hope to be by the time you read this letter.
Such, Mademoiselle, is the manner in which I escaped the dangers your persecutor had drawn down on my head in order to satisfy his dark suspicions. However atrocious his conduct, I shall refrain from naming him, out of regard for you and for myself. But I declare to him that if he places the slightest obstacle in the way of your departure, I will proclaim his name aloud, I will cover him with shame, and I will deliver him to public retribution.
Whatever my enemies may think of the motive that inspires me, let them know that I lay down my pen in the act of defending the oppressed. Yet I am pained to offer these melancholy services to a person I hold in high esteem, and to whom I owe so much for the good offices she rendered me during my captivity.”*
MARAT, The Friend of the People
N°555 du journal de L' Ami du Peuple.
Du lundi 20 septembre 1791.
Lettre de l'Ami du Peuple à Mlle F****
« Je suis penetré de douleur, madamoiselle, à l'ouïe des désagréments que vous éprouvez à mon sujet, de la part d'un homme féroce qui n'a sur vous ni les droits de l'hymen, ni les droits de l'amour, qui abuse cruellement de votre reconnaissance pour quelques soins qu'il a pris de vous exercer dans un art où vous cherchiez un moyen de vivre dans une heureuse indépendance; qui a poussé la brutalité jusqu'à vous faire porter des marques de sa violence, qui s'efforce de vous attacher à son sort pour faire de vous une honnête servante, et qui ne craint pas de vous retenir aujourd'hui en charte privée, pour vous empêcher de recevoir les conseils de l'amitié. Ne craignez plus de faire valoir vos droits. Si les personnes suspectes ou perfides, dont il vous a environnée, ne vous ont pas déjà fait perdre la résolution de vous affranchir d'un joug aussi révoltant, ouvrez une croisée, appelez du secours, et traduisez devant le magistrat l'homme indigne qui abuse de la sorte de votre timidité naturelle et qui a fait de vous une esclave, dans un temps où il est reconnu que les despotes eux-mêmes n'en doivent plus avoir. Mais en attendant que la loi vous venge, cherchez un asile chez vos tantes, et puis retrouvez dans votre province, au milieu de vos parents. L' existence la plus humble dans la maison paternelle, est préférable cent fois à l'aisance trompeuse, que vous seriez réduite à acheter si cher.
Peut être votre oppresseur criaillera-t-il qu'il est affreux de prendre de la sorte les intérêts d'une étrangère, contre un homme qui a nous donné asile, peut-être aussi les personnes honnêtes mal instruites par ses clameurs, m'accuseront-elles d'avoir violé l'hospitalité. Je les en fais juges. Or, je leur demande avant tout s'il est quelque consideration qui doive empêcher un homme sensible de défendre la faiblesse opprimée ? Que devait donc faire dans une pareille circonstance l' Ami du Peuple, qui a consacré sa vie à combattre la tyrannie sous quelque forme qu'elle se montre ?
Qu'ils me disent ensuite ce que je puis devoir à un homme qui m'a pris en pension chez lui dans un temps que je sortais librement et qu'il n'y avait aucun risque à courir pour lui à m'avoir à sa table, dans un temps que les patriotes qu'il singeait, m'appelait l'ange titulaire de la France, dans un temps qu'il n'avait d'autre motif de me recevoir que cette ridicule vanité qui porte tant de sots à se rapprocher des hommes qui font du bruit, toujours regardés comme des bêtes curieuses; ce que je puis devoir à un homme qui, reniant la patrie à l'instant où il y eut du danger à la défendre, et n'osant pas avouer ses craintes, prit de m'obliger à partir à force de dégoûts, à chercher une autre demeure ; à un homme qui me prenant pour juge de ses démêles, me faisait un crime de ne pas approuver ses emportements, et qui, pour s'excuser, me disait ensuite, vous savez bien que je suis un cheval; à un homme qui, furieux de voir sa victime prête à lui échapper, attribua à mes conseils ce qui n'était que l'effet de ses mauvais traitements poussés à l'excès, se livra à sa rage et mit tout en œuvre pour troubler mon nouvel asile, pour effrayer l'honnête citoyen, chez lequel il m'avait conduit lui-même, pour exposer sa maison à être saccagée par une brutale soldatesque et me livrer à la fureur des ennemis de la patrie, qui ont juré ma mort.
Vous allez juger de sa perfidie, de son atrocité.
Il y a quelques jours que, pour alarmer mon hôte, il lui dépêcha une béguele, contre laquelle il m'avait débité mille horreurs, laquelle m'en veut cruellement depuis que je ne suis plus la vache à lait, dont une personne (en qui j'avais une confiance aveugle et à qui j'avais abandonné la conduite de mes affaires) l'engrassait à mes dépens, ce qu'il a été le premier à m'apprendre. Il menaçait de me livrer, si le soir même, l'on ne me refusait pas le couvert. Dès landemain matin, il executa ses menaces. Un commissionaire apportait un maître du logis un billet écrit sous un faux nom et conçu en ces termes : "Noël prévient Monsieur un tel, qu'il a chez lui une personne qui lui fait courir de grands dangers". Ce billet m'est remis avec prière de ne pas exposer mon bienfaiteur, ce que ma délicatesse ne m'aurait pas permis de faire, quelque danger qu'il y eût pour moi à changer d'asile. Ne s'en fiant point à ses espions, voici le moyen qu'il employa pour me faire déloger. A' midì et demi, il envoya par un second commissionnaire, un billet décacheté, à l'adresse de M. Un tel, pour être remis, à qui ? à M. Marat. Ce billet, écrit d'une plume contrefaite, portait ces mots "M. Marat, ne perdez pas un instant pour vous mettre en sûreté." moyen d'autan plus infâme qu'il employait à me perdre, le voile même de l'humanité.
La dame du logis eut l'inattention de recevoir ce billet sans lire l'inscription; c'était donner au porteur l'assurance indirecte que j'y étais encore. Elle me présente ce billet. En voyant mon nom en toutes les lettres, les conséquences de ce noir artifice se presenterent à la fois à mon esprit, et je m'écriai involontairement : C' en est donc fait, je suis perdu. Je l'aurais été infailliblement, si le commissionnaire avait su lire ou s'il l'eût présenté à quelque soldat ou à quelque ennemi de la Révolution, dont nos rues sont pleines, pour demander l'adresse. Bientôt la maison aurait été investite, et j'aurais été haché par de feroces satellites, qui s'en seraient fait un mérite après de leur général, bien connu pour n'être pas de mes amis.
La première pensée qui me vint fut que ce lâche hypocrite m'avait vendu et qu'un émissaire de la police avait été chargé de ce billet, dont la tournure portait l'empreinte de l'artifice le plus en usage pour découvrir les victimes de la tyrannie. Mes papiers étaient étalés sur ma table, je m'empressai de les mettre hors de vue. Les satellites de Motier pouvaient n'être qu'à deux pas, comment leur échapper ? La dame du logis, qui s'y trouvait seule avec moi, voulait me cacher dans l'armoire ;je rejetai ce petit moyen; je fis toilette en deligence, et je passai chez un voisin réputé bon patriote; il me reçu avec plaisir et sans témoigner la moindre crainte, lui-même il avait eprouvé des persécutions et il avait l'âme aguerrie.
Après m'être livré un moment à de tristes réflexions sur les dangers que mon zèle à défendre l'innocence opprimée et le peuple tyrannisé avaient toujours attirés sur ma tête, je ne songeai plus qu'aux moyen de m'y dérober. Je sentais bien que l'obscurité de la nuit pouvait favoriser mon evasion. Mais je craignais de l'attendre, presque certain que si je donnais le temps à l'émissaire de rendre compte de sa mission, la maison serait bientôt entourée d'espions et d'alguazils. Les prevenir en délogeant me sembla le plus sage, et je pris à l'instant ce parti, quelque téméraire qu'il parût. J'y étais d'ailleurs déterminé par une autre considération. Sûr d'être haché par la soldatesque, ne voulant pas tomber vivant dans ses mains, résolu à périr dans la mienne, et craignant d'exposer mon hôte à une scène de cette nature, je préferai cent fois périr sous les yeux du peuple, pour lequel je m'étais fait anathème. Pour ne point paraître suspect et mieux tromper les espions qui pouvaient être en embuscade, j'ai voulus donner le bras à une dame; tandis qu'elle était à passer une robe, j'entendis beaucoup de bruit dans la rue, j'armai mes pistolets, dans l'attend du fatal moment. C'était qu'une fausse alerte. La dame arrive et nous partons après avoir prié quelqu'un de s'assurer qu'il n'y avait personne de suspect dans la loge du portier ou quelque mouchard aguets devant la maison. Me voilà donc courant les rues en plein jour avec autant d'assurance que peuvent en avoir les traîtres à la patrie. Nous gagnâme le champs du boulevard neuf; nous nous assimes sur l'herbe, et nous passâmes cinq heures à atteindre la brune. Ce soir-là, Motier se promenait près de nous à la tête de ses mouchards. Rentré dans Paris, j'allais seul et au loin, demander un lit à un ami, et le lendemain, je me disposait à partir pour Londres, où j'espère être rendu au moment où vous lirez cette lettre.
Voilà, mademoiselle, de quelle manière j'ai échappé aux dangers que votre persécuteur avait attiré sur ma tête, pour assouvir ses noirs soupçons. Quelque atroce que soit sa conduite, je m'abstiendrai de le nommer, par égard pour vous et par égard pour moi. Mais je lui déclare que s'il met le moindre obstacles à votre retraite, je déclinerai son nom tout que s'il met le moindre obstacle à votre retraite, je déclinerai son nom tout haut, je le couvrirait d'opprobre et le dévourai à l'exécution publique.
Quelque idée que mes ennemis puissent prendre du motif qui m'anime, qu'ils sachent que je quitte la plume en défendant les opprimés. Mais je suis peiné d'avoir à rendre ces tristes devoirs à une personne que j'estime infiniment et à laquelle j'ai tant d'obligations pour les bons offices qu'elle m'a rendus durant ma captivité » .
Marat was only one of the 749 delegates to the Convention. He held no special title or position, and was at first deeply isolated from the vast majority of his fellow delegates. In spite of all that, he and his agenda soon became the central focus of the Convention’s concerns. He did not dominate it in the sense of being able to dictate its policies, but he did dominate its consciousness. A few months later a hostile delegate groused: “Do you remember our first sessions? Hardly a member would even sit next to him. Now he gets the floor endlessly.”
Clifford D. Conner, Jean Paul Marat, Tribune of the French Revolution.
Malagasy stamp featuring the Committee of Public Safety, put together from separate paintings of the various members, with a misidentified painting of Talleyrand being used for Saint-Just
man, I know it's not him, but I do love that haughty slouch & I love picturing him like that maybe early in the Committee days before being ravaged by war & 1794 in general, at which point he becomes that worn, exhausted figure, fixed in my mind by that scene in Thermidor.
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline
stormborns
amandla
2087
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turnnoffyourmind
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
