❝ demain, je vous raconterai mon roman et ma réalité ❞
@mathildeaquisexta
Mathilde, 26, southern French. Your local cellar rat (archivist) Blog centered on French Revolution • Napoleonic Era Aspiring Joseph Fouché #1 influencer Online archives account : @archviesaix-sna
(a rewrite of a post I made a while ago - thank you @wenzhulong for reminding me!)
I imagine a lot of people may think that the idea of Jean-Andoche Junot having romantic or sexual feelings for Napoleon Bonaparte is the degenerate fantasy of chronically online fujoshis. But on the contrary, this is an idea that has been explored in both fiction and non-fiction since the early 20th century. A notable example is ‘L’étrange passion de Junot, Duc d’Abrantès’, published in the ‘Mercure de France’ magazine in 1926, a fictionalised account of Junot’s life based on oral history passed down to the author from her ancestor who was friends with Junot, and in this story the author proposes quite explicitly that Junot was bisexual. I also think it’s worth noting in discussions of historical queerness that the way we view sexuality today is very different to how it was viewed historically: statistics show that a much higher proportion of Gen Z identifies as lgbtq+ than any other generation, but that doesn’t mean that more queer people are being born today than in the past, it just means that in older generations people felt a greater pressure to perform heterosexuality and were far less willing to accept the possibility of being queer. In many cases, historical people could be both gay and homophobic (for example, William III of England was widely rumoured to be bisexual but also approved of anti-sodomy laws). I do not think that Junot would have identified as queer, because he evidently presented himself as fitting the mould of traditional heterosexual masculinity and did not feel that his intense feelings about male friends were in any way “deviant”. I do not think that Junot ever knowingly engaged in explicitly homosexual activity, however I do think there is a case to be made for his feelings for men being romantic and sexual as well as platonic, whether he would have acknowledged that or not.
The main example of Junot’s possible bisexuality is his close attachment to Napoleon, however I would like to put forward the possibility of him experiencing attraction to other men as well. Out of all the men who knew Junot the best, such as his aides-de-camp or his valet Heldt, none of them left any memoirs or written sources about Junot, and so his personal relationships with men are ultimately a mystery. His childhood friend Marmont wrote a memoir, but Marmont writes little about their friendship and is furthermore an unreliable author due to his tendency to alter events to depict himself in the best possible light. However, there are a few sources from men who knew Junot that indicate that his possibly fruity behaviour was not limited to his feelings for Napoleon. Decades after Junot’s death, Marshal de Castellane wrote of him:
'King Leopold received the civil and military authorities at the town hall. There was a dinner for thirty people; I was next to Marshal Gérard, who took my thigh, as a sign of friendship, during the dinner. I saw, before him, this kind of caresses by the late General Junot.'
In a book published in 1882, ‘Ceux qui mangent la pomme: racontars parisiens’, the author Philibert Audebrand recalls his acquaintance with an elderly war veteran named Bonaventure who had known Junot in Egypt. Naturally this source can be doubted since it was written over 80 years after the Egyptian campaign and is based on oral transmission of the events, but it is nonetheless noteworthy that in Audebrand’s conversation with Bonaventure he was struck by both Junot’s devotion to Napoleon and Bonaventure’s devotion to Junot:
‘"Ah! "My friend," added the invalid (Bonaventure), "never attach yourself to a man, especially to a great man!"
"Very well," I (Audebrand) replied; "but you, who tell me this, confess that you have never been able to detach yourself from Junot, and I see that you do not pass a day without thinking of him."
"Not a single day. You are telling the truth."’
Lastly, in Ida Saint-Elme’s account of Junot’s complete mental breakdown in Illyria, she mentions that he formed a very close attachment to a local man who was also suffering from mental illness:
‘His (Junot’s) heart, naturally benevolent and affectionate, had even immediately formed a bond there, perhaps the last that would ever keep him in life, and to which he attached more value with each passing day. By a comparison more natural than one might think, but which strangely leaves one to reflect, he had made his Pylades out of a fool of fairly good family, and of fairly innocent morals, so that no one opposed his actions, but endowed moreover with a satirical and buffoonish mind, which exercised itself without scruple on all estates. The burles, sometimes facetious, sometimes bloody, of this Diogenes of Istria, alone had the privilege of enlivening the gloomy worries of the fallen hero; and the latter took an indescribable pleasure in seeing ridiculed all the greatness of the society which he had so dearly conquered, and which he was to enjoy so little.
It was above all in the burlesque imitation of the pomp of the governors and the very French elegance of the intendants that the wicked fool excelled, and it was then that the joy he knew how to inspire in his poor and illustrious friend knew no bounds. It was in one of these fits that the enthusiastic Duke of Abrantès threw himself into his arms and invested him with the noble insignia of the Legion of Honor, himself passing the grand cordon over to him. I saw, upon my return to Goritzia, Monseigneur's fool still grotesquely adorned with these attributes, which only the will of the Emperor could remove from him, and whose bizarre legitimacy our French authorities were obliged, if I am not mistaken, to recognize.’
It is worth noting that Ida Saint-Elme compares Junot to Orestes and his friend to Pylades: in Greek mythology, Orestes was a prince driven mad by the Furies and Pylades was his cousin and best friend. Their mutual devotion to each other in Greek tragedies led some ancient authors, such as Lucian of Samosata, to interpret them as lovers.
And now for the part I imagine you’ve all been waiting for: Junot and Napoleon. Laure Junot writes in her memoirs that Junot loved Napoleon more than he loved her, but since Laure isnt always the most trustworthy source let’s look at some other primary sources! From the very beginning of his career, Junot was noted for his extraordinary devotion to his general. A French newspaper from 1798 described him as
‘the brave Junot, that aide-de-camp so devoted to his country, so tenderly attached to his general’.
Later, Baron Honoré Duveyrier recalled witnessing Junot and Napoleon’s closeness at Napoleon’s headquarters in Italy in 1797:
‘After dinner, a tour of the garden; after the walk, a large circle around Madame Bonaparte, and very often a small circle around the general, in which my memory still traces Monge, Reguault-Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Arnault, Bonhomme de Commeyras and some aides-de-camp, Leclerc, already his brother-in-law, Murat, Lannes and Junot, whom he was fond of.'
In one of Junot’s few surviving personal letters, written to his father from Egypt in 1798 and published in a Burgundian newspaper, he expresses his admiration of Napoleon:
‘As we were returning to Cairo, well satisfied with our expedition, we heard the terrible news of the defeat of our squadron. This irreparable loss has afflicted us; but we will be able to get out of the situation, the fortune and genius of our leader are better than ten French squadrons.’
In Egypt, Junot got into a duel with another man, Lanusse, after Lanusse insulted Napoleon. Many years later when Junot angrily shouted at Laure after she insulted Pauline Bonaparte, Laure rightly deduced that this outburst meant that Junot was still in love with Pauline, and so we know that fighting to protect somebody’s reputation was one of the ways that Junot expressed his romantic feelings.
In 1811, terrible misfortune struck when Junot was shot in the face in a skirmish in Spain, and complications related to this injury later caused the sharp decline of his mental stability. The wound also robbed him of his famous good looks, and his son Napoleon Junot later recalled how deeply his father was hurt when the Emperor called him ugly:
‘At the circle, one day, he (Napoleon) said aloud to him (Junot):
"My God, Junot, how ugly this wound has made you!"
My father made no answer the first time; but, when he returned home, he wept bitterly over these harsh words spoken by him whom he loved so much! He didn't even tell my mother about it.
At the next circle, the same compliment from the Emperor, and as one may imagine, even more acute grief on the part of my poor father. This time only did he not have the strength to keep her to himself, and he poured out his sorrow in my mother's bosom.’
In Laure Junot’s memoirs she blames Napoleon’s harsh treatment of her husband in 1812 for his eventual madness and death, and in a letter written to Berthier about the bulletins in which Napoleon had denounced Junot she wrote:
‘These Bulletins advanced the life of the unfortunate duke... He talked about them constantly in his delirium.’
To conclude, the nature of Junot’s relationships with men is really up to personal interpretation, but I hope this post has made clear why, in my opinion, his feelings exceed what was considered appropriate for platonic friendships of the time.
Lastly I would like to share a drawing of Ganymede by Michelangelo that Junot kept in his private art collection, and which could certainly be interpreted as homoerotic. But I’m putting it below the cut so please only look if you are comfortable with artistic nudity 😭
The obvious companion to the adversaries post. If knowing who hated Bonbon helps paint a picture of who he was, knowing who stood by him — or walked alongside him, or fell for him, or genuinely loved him — might paint an even more vivid one.
Charlotte and Maximilien are not listed here as the sibling situation is genuinely too complicated to squash into a section. Everyone else is fair game.
1. The Arras Foundation: Loyal From Before the Revolution
Antoine-Joseph Buissart
The single most consistent thread of loyalty in Augustin's life outside his immediate family. Buissart was a highly respected lawyer and scientist in Arras — one of those solid, principled pre-revolutionary figures who raised Maximilien almost like a ward and extended the same affection to Augustin. Throughout the brothers' time in Paris, Buissart served as their postal intermediary when they feared their famous surname would cause their letters to be intercepted. He kept the Arras end of the line open for years, and Augustin — who wasn't always great at writing — genuinely loved the man, writing warmly to him about everything from Pas-de-Calais politics to "the little marmots" (the Buissart children)
By the summer of 1794, with Maximilien barricaded in the Duplay house and refusing to answer anyone's letters about Lebon's atrocities, Buissart had essentially given up on the elder Robespierre. It was Augustin he wrote about with desperate hope: "the arrival of Bonbon [...] is the hope of true patriots, the terror of those who dare to persecute them." His wife was staying at the Duplay house at the time — practically in Maximilien's antechamber — and Buissart wrote: "hug him for me, until I can do it myself."
That last line gets me every time honestly
*The caveat that has to go here: Buissart, for all his warmth toward both brothers, did not exactly cover himself in glory after Thermidor. He hastened to denounce them almost immediately (much like a lot of Bonbons other pals). Which is understandable given the terrifying circumstances — but still!!
Régis Deshorties
Augustin's step-cousin — Régis's father had married Augustin's aunt and godmother, Eulaie de Robespierre, as his second wife. Mary Young describes a genuine friendship dating from the Arras years: "a sensitive young man, with Rousseau and Fénelon among his favourite authors." He and Augustin shared jokes about the family, especially about the brewer uncle (Augustin's uncle on the Carraut side), whom they'd nicknamed "Sheltonien" and were, apparently, a bit scared of. Small domestic affections like that.
Régis's sister Anaïs was said to have been an early love interest of Maximilien's — which came to nothing, but didn't seem to damage the friendship between the cousins. His one surviving letter to Augustin, written in July 1794, is touching in its obliviousness: he'd been expecting Charlotte to write and tell him about Augustin's return to Paris, and when he heard nothing, simply assumed everyone was going to come to Arras instead. He ended by asking Augustin to "embrace Charlotte Robespierre and her girlfriends for me" — blissfully unaware, apparently, that the sibling relationship had catastrophically collapsed.
2. The Parisian Household: The Duplays
The Duplay Family
When Augustin and Charlotte arrived in Paris in September 1792, they moved into the Duplay household on Rue Saint-Honoré, where Maximilien had already been lodging for a year. Maurice Duplay was a carpenter; his household included his wife Françoise-Éléonore, three(?) unmarried daughters, son Jacques Maurice, and nephew Simon. Whatever Charlotte's various grievances about Madame Duplay, Augustin's relationship with the family was genuinely warm. He reportedly described Maurice as "the most worthy and generous of men," praised Françoise-Éléonore's housekeeping, and told Philippe Lebas the household "recalled the golden age" — breathing "virtue and pure patriotism." Which is very sweet and also very Bonbon.
Élisabeth Duplay (later Lebas)
Of all the Duplay daughters, Augustin was warmest toward Élisabeth, who married the Conventionnel Philippe Lebas. It was Élisabeth who confirmed, in a note written around 1847, that Augustin's nickname "Bonbon" came from his middle name Bon-Joseph — and the fact that she remembered this specific detail fifty-odd years later and chose to record it suggests she held onto memories of him with some care. Augustin apparently told Lebas that he had "the friendship of a brother" for her, that she was "cheerful and good," and that he liked her best of the sisters.
Philippe Lebas
Primarily known as Maximilien's closest companion, but genuinely close to Augustin too. He chose to die with the Robespierre brothers on 9 Thermidor — shooting himself rather than submit to arrest. His son, Philippe Lebas Jr., later published a testimony about Augustin that includes the famous anecdote about the three of them — Augustin, Simon Duplay, and Jacques Maurice Duplay — going one evening after the opera to the house of salonnière Jeanne-Louise-Françoise de Sainte-Amaranthe, "and this escapade was so severely criticised by Maximilien that, despite all the attraction of such a house for men, the oldest of whom was barely twenty-nine years old, they were careful not to return there."
This is VERY funny if you think about it for a second.. Classic Bonbon behavior honestly
3. Partners on the Road: The Midi Missions
Jean-François Ricord
Augustin's most sustained professional companion and the person he worked most closely with during the most formative period of his political life. Ricord was the deputy for Var, assigned alongside Augustin to the Army of Italy from July 1793 onward. They traveled together, fled federalists together (abandoning their carriage to the Marseille section members in the process), helped engineer the siege of Toulon together, and spent months navigating the violent and chaotic politics of the Midi side by side.
Barras and Fréron — who had every reason to discredit the pair — described Ricord as manipulating Augustin completely, "moving him at will without the latter even realizing it." But given the source, this reads more as a political smear than an accurate portrait. What the record actually shows is two men with a compatible political outlook: both more pragmatic and moderate than the ultraradical faction, both committed to stabilizing the regions they administered rather than devastating them. After Thermidor, Saliceti ordered Napoleon's arrest partly on the grounds that he had carried out a mission on Ricord's orders — which says something about how central Ricord remained to the whole Midi operation even after Augustin was gone.
*Post-Thermidor: Ricord's behavior was... not great. Within days of the news reaching Nice, he wrote to the Committee that he "blushed to have been the friend of Robespierre the Younger" and claimed he was Augustin's "most implacable enemy" from the moment of "his treason." He'd also suppressed a Committee decree ordering Haller's arrest and given Haller a passport to flee to Genoa, which then became its own problem. Mary Young is quietly devastating about this: "It is a vain speculation to ask what Ricord really thought of Augustin. But Augustin had probably cuckolded him." Anyway.
*The Ricord-Augustin relationship gets complicated fast once you introduce Madame Ricord. See below.
Gasparin Sauli
One of the most interesting figures in Augustin's story and the most unjustly obscure. A young Genoese noble and committed republican patriot who attached himself to Augustin after the capture of Toulon — "laid his friendship and his services before him," as Mary Young puts it — and then traveled with him through the entirety of the Franche-Comté mission:
The group that set out for Vesoul in January 1794 consisted of Augustin, Viennot (a chemist from Vesoul), Sauli, and La Saudraye, and they all lodged together at Humbert's house in the rue du Collège. The day after their arrival in Vesoul, Sauli was elected a member of the People's Society. The following evening he gave a speech that is frankly one of the most extravagant pieces of public praise Augustin ever received, apostrophizing him directly in front of the assembled club:
"And you, Robespierre! You who have so many titles to my esteem, my admiration, my friendship! You in whom the rarest talents are joined to a modesty that makes them the more precious! You at once legislator and soldier, by your example you give a model for a courageous man, by your justice that of a man of integrity, by your philanthropy that of a good man..."
He kept going. The Society voted to print both his speech and La Saudraye's.
He was with Augustin throughout the Franche-Comté mission — including the dramatic departure from Besançon, where Nodier describes crowds of women filling the courtyard waiting to present petitions as the carriage drove away. Sauli stayed on through Lyon and then traveled with Augustin back to Nice before returning home to Genoa at the beginning of March. Augustin wrote to him afterward asking for military intelligence about Piedmont and Sardinia, and signed off the letter's last line in Italian — "Si a Oneglia se troaro dei salicie" — which Mary Young suggests (charmingly) was written to show Sauli he hadn't forgotten what he'd been teaching him during their months on the road together.
The aftermath was bleak: Sauli was arrested almost immediately upon returning to Genoa, "perhaps too ingenuous to make a really good spy," per Mary Young. After Thermidor, the village of Jussey — one of the towns Augustin had administered — went so far as to expunge not only Augustin's name from the minutes but Sauli's too, because he had been "close to odious conspirators." The village then burned mannequins of the Robespierres for good measure. This is the French Revolution for you.
Claude-François Humbert
An old college friend of Maximilien's (from Louis-le-Grand) who hosted Augustin in Vesoul. The house in the rue du Collège accommodated Augustin, Sauli, and La Saudraye for the duration of the mission — Nodier called it a "humble abode," though it had to be reasonably large to fit them all. Mary Young notes, somewhat dryly, that Humbert had "supposed Royalist sympathies" which Augustin "apparently was not realising, or choosing to ignore." Humbert ultimately decided to stay in Paris rather than accompany the group south.
Viennot
The apothecary of Vesoul and arguably the loyalest friend Augustin made on the missions. He and Humbert came to Paris together to tell Maximilien about the disastrous situation in the Haute-Saône under Bernard de Saintes — which is how the whole Franche-Comté detour came about in the first place. Viennot showed Augustin his study when they arrived in Vesoul, which turned out to be full of copies of Maximilien's speeches. Mary Young says Viennot "at least was sincere in his liking for Augustin, and would seem to have been trustworthy."
The proof of this came after Thermidor. When Viennot was arrested by Bernard's people, Augustin wrote one of his most impassioned letters in his defense: "Frank, energetic, disinterested, honest, such is the character of Viennot, apothecary of Vesoul... Viennot is an ardent friend of liberty, an honest man who fights intrigue." And then Viennot repaid this loyalty when it actually mattered. After Thermidor, the local Jacobin Boizot tried to get Viennot to co-sign a letter condemning Augustin as a tyrant and claiming they'd both "resisted him when he had power." Viennot refused to sign it. Boizot had to send the letter with only his own name on it. Viennot "always maintained that Augustin was worthy of a better fate."
In a world full of Ricords, Viennot behaved like a Viennot. Good for him!!
4. The Women of the Missions
A note upfront: both Luzzatto and Mary Young discuss these relationships with appropriate uncertainty, and the primary sources — mostly Charlotte's memoirs and various hostile Thermidorian accounts — all have obvious axes to grind. Calibrate accordingly.
Marguerite Ricord
Jean-François Ricord's wife, who traveled south with the mission because Ricord was from Grasse and the assignment was effectively a homecoming for him. She was, by Charlotte's account, "young and seductive" with coquetry "at least equal to her beauty." Charlotte's version of the story — the one that most flatters Augustin — is that Marguerite made advances on him which he nobly resisted out of a sense of honor toward his colleague. The version "more accredited by students of la petite histoire," as Luzzatto puts it, is that he yielded entirely. Either way, the relationship caused the lasting rupture with Charlotte, and Barras and Fréron — AS MENTIONED BEEFOORREEE — found the whole dynamic politically useful — weaponizing Augustin's attachment to discredit him as a puppet of the Ricords' domestic influence when reporting back to Paris.
*What's genuinely interesting here is that Barras's memoirs (liar that he is) describe Napoleon as "assiduously" paying court to Marguerite specifically because of her influence over Augustin. If he is to believed, she was apparently politically proximate enough that Napoleon thought cultivating her was worth his time.
*Post-Thermidor note from Mary Young, who does not let anyone off easy: "Augustin had probably cuckolded [Ricord]. He had also made his colleague's life difficult by prolonged absences in Vesoul and Paris; he had always been a law unto himself. Certainly, Ricord may finally have concluded, he owed nothing to the memory of his friend." See above re: Ricord's letter.
Guillodon La Saudraye
Augustin's mistress during the Franche-Comté mission — a "much-talked-about ex-marchioness" who accompanied him openly through the Haute-Saône. Far from discreetly kept in the background, she was apparently genuinely involved in political decisions: suspects petitioned her directly, asking her to intercede with Augustin for their release. Michelet described her in characteristically overheated terms as "extremely equivocal" and blamed her influence for all manner of things. The scene at the Besançon Jacobin club, where a Bernard de Saintes loyalist (a tinsmith, per Luzzatto) stood up mid-meeting and loudly demanded she be removed, noting that "Robespierre, neither husband nor father, has brought his woman here" — is one of the more vivid small moments of Augustin's story. He apparently took the insult, signaled to her to leave, and she walked out.
*though most of what we know about Saudraye is through Nordier who was, again, 12 years old.. take the whole thing with grains upon grains of salt
*Augustin's letter to Maximilien asking him to meet with La Saudraye and hear from her firsthand about conditions in the departments is one of the more interesting windows into how he thought about knowledge. He described it as "necessary information to come to know certain characters who play a role in the Revolution." He genuinely seemed to believe that what she had seen and heard mattered, and that Maximilien — barricaded in Paris — couldn't understand conditions on the ground without hearing from people who had actually been there.
5. The Italian Connection
Napoléon Bonaparte
The most famous entry on this list by some distance. Their relationship is documented from so many angles — Charlotte's memoirs, Madame Junot's, Barras's, Napoleon's own accounts at Saint Helena, Lucien Bonaparte's memoirs — that it's almost unusually well-evidenced by the standards of Augustin's life.
The basics: they met properly around the time of the siege of Toulon, where Napoleon commanded the artillery. Augustin identified him early, writing to Maximilien in April 1794 about "citizen Buonaparte, general head of the artillery of transcendent merit" — noting his Corsican origin and that he could be trusted because he'd resisted Paoli's overtures when it would have been profitable to do otherwise. That's the only surviving letter in which Augustin mentions Napoleon directly.
By the spring of 1794, according to Napoleon's own much-later accounts, the friendship was intimate enough that Augustin consulted him on virtually everything: "Robespierre would never sign anything to do with the army or the supplies without consulting me. He would say to Haller who was then administrator: 'That's good, but I must speak to Bonaparte.'" He also believed that Augustin asked Maximilien to make him Commander of the Army of Italy — and that Carnot blocked it.
The most dramatic episode comes from Lucien Bonaparte's memoirs: Napoleon was apparently offered the job of replacing Henriot as commandant of Paris, through Augustin's connections, and turned it down. Lucien records him saying: "The young Robespierre is an honest fellow; but his brother is not to be trifled with: he will be obeyed. Can I support that man?! No, never." He then announced that the only honorable place for him was the army, that they must have patience, and that "I shall command Paris hereafter!" The younger Robespierre solicited him in vain.
Charlotte adds an almost unbelievable detail in her memoirs: that after 9 Thermidor, Napoleon proposed to the remaining representatives on mission with the Army of Italy that they march on Paris to punish the Thermidorians and avenge the brothers. The representatives were apparently so terrified by this that they hurried to reject it. No other source confirms this but it sounds exactly like the Napoleon of 1794.
His letter to Tilly after Thermidor: "I was a little affected by the tragedy of the younger Robespierre, whom I loved and believed to be pure, but, had he been my father, I would have stabbed him myself if he aspired to tyranny." He loved him well. He also spent several weeks under arrest anyway for his association with the Robespierres, which is perhaps the Revolution's form of dark comedy. And years later, he received Charlotte at the Consulate and gave her a pension — speaking of her brothers "in very flattering terms."
Charlotte, for her part, describes Napoleon's admiration for Maximilien and friendship with Augustin as straightforwardly genuine: "Bonaparte was sincerely a republican; I would even say that he was a montagnard republican; at least he had that effect on me." Madame Junot's memoirs add that Augustin was "what might be called an agreeable young man, animated by no bad sentiments."
Haller ("Papa Haller")
The Swiss banker put in charge of army supplies in Nice from October 1793 onward. Tall, thin-faced, blue-eyed, with — somewhat eccentrically for the period — a red beard. The kind of man who "gets things done": highly intelligent, a bit sharp, with extensive connections in Genoa. Ricord's report introducing him to the Committee was "slightly defensive," as Mary Young notes — his civisme was "not quite above question" — but they couldn't do without him. He was popular enough with the officers that they called him "Papa Haller."
Mary Young describes him as performing "the overwhelming task of feeding the town and army where honesty would not have sufficed." His relationship with Augustin was close enough to become a liability after Thermidor: the Thermidorians accused him of being "the principal agent" in Augustin's supposed crimes, demanded his arrest, and discovered that Ricord had already quietly given him a passport to flee to Genoa. He made it to Switzerland. Years later Napoleon employed him — which tracks.
A Note on Monvoison
I'd be leaving something out if I didn't mention the frankly suspicious school friend. Monvoison was a wealthy man Augustin spent time with during his Paris interlude in December 1793 – January 1794. A police report noted that "he had been educated with Robespierre the Younger (at Louis-le-Grand) and that is the cause of the intimacy between them." He was, per the same report, suspected of making money on the side and "said to have had friends who had been guillotined." He talked of going back to Nice with Augustin and making a great deal of money there. Mary Young observes dryly that Augustin "probably had no intention of taking him, but the fact that he associated with such a doubtful character showed his usual carelessness over his acquaintances." He is a figure in the post-Thermidor accusations against Augustin — the claim that "all his friends had been aristocrats" gestures at exactly this kind of association.
Bonbon's complete inability to vet his social circle is extremely on-brand.
ANYWAYS
The rough chronology:
Pre-revolutionary loyalties: Buissart, the Arras circle
The Parisian interlude: the Duplay household, Lebas
The missions: Ricord, Marguerite, La Saudraye, Napoleon, Sauli
The very end: Buissart again, waiting desperately for Bonbon to come home
I don't think it's a coincidence that his most memorable relationships were forged on the road rather than in committees. That tracks..
Sources:
The same sources as the adversaries post carry this one equally, with the heaviest weight falling on Luzzatto's chapters "Stories of Women," "Your Brother is No Longer the Same," and "Only Bonbon," plus Mary Young throughout..
Luzzatto, Sergio. Bonbon Robespierre: Il Terrore dal volto umano. Translated by me, 2025. Original Italian edition: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2009.
Young, Mary. Augustin: The Younger Robespierre. London: Core Publications, 2011. (Chapters 10–16 and 20 especially.)
Michon, Georges, ed. Correspondance de Maximilien et Augustin Robespierre. 2 vols. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1926.
Poupé, Edmond. "Robespierre Jeune et Gasparin Sauli." Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française (1962). [Primary source for Sauli; Mary Young draws on this directly.]
For Napoleon specifically:
Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères (1835)
Mémoires de la Duchesse d'Abrantès [Madame Junot] (1832)
Mémoires de Barras, membre du Directoire (1895)
Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (1823)
Mémoires de Lucien Bonaparte, prince de Canino (1836)
Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène 1816–1821 by Henri Gratien Bertrand, vol. 2 (1951) — cited in Mary Young, chapter 16.
This is honestly a post/list I've been wanting to make for a while, mostly because of my own needs and wants to have a dedicated place to refer to in order to know how others felt about Bonbon, and vice versa..
Now that it's nearly summer break for me before I start college in the fall, I feel like I have an adequate opportunity to begin this project of mine!!
There were a lot of things I've forgotten about over this past year of dedicating my life and mental energy (especially to daydreaming of) the younger Robespierre (SHAME!!!), and I keep getting surprised going back and reading and being like, "wait.. I thought Fréron and Bonbon were TIGHT!! Didn't he defend him that one time?!!" Even though I SHOULD know that Fréron is like 1/3 men who LOATHED Bonbon...
ANYWAYS!!
Here is a comprehensive breakdown of the figures, factions, and historical detractors who found themselves at odds with Bonbon throughout his life and legacy.
1. The Local Rivals: The Arras & Pas-de-Calais Factions
Before making waves on the national stage in Paris, Augustin spent plenty of energy battling provincial conservatives and moderate factions right in his own backyard.
Beaumetz:
The president of the Conseil d'Artois who weaponized a clever pamphlet campaign against Maximilien during the election of the Third Estate. He preyed on the credulous peasantry by spreading rumors that the elder Robespierre actively wrote against religion. (Or. in a more neutral way: He participated in a pamphlet campaign against the Robespierres during the Estates-General elections, including allegations that Maximilien was hostile to religion.)
The Departmental Council / The Feuillants:
This moderately Royalist majority in the Pas-de-Calais council constantly clashed with Augustin over his fierce demands to hold departmental sessions in public: Their Procurer-General even openly attacked Augustin as a calumniator, prompting Augustin to strike back with the "firmness of an incensed Roman".
2. Estranged Allies
Joseph Lebon:
Though initially a close ally, a local curé, and the helpful Mayor of Arras who helped secure Augustin's provisional post as Procurer General, the relationship was fraught. Early on, Augustin showed an underlying distrust of Lebon’s pushy, volatile nature. This structural rift deepened during the affair of the Parisian commissioners Jason and Legray, where Lebon prioritized local popularity over strict adherence to Parisian Jacobin mandates — a foreshadowing of the bloody divergence in their later revolutionary missions.
*Lebon and Augustin certainly had tensions, especially by 1794, but they were not consistent enemies in the same way Barras, Bernard, or Carnot were: Mary Young repeatedly portrays their relationship as one of growing divergence rather than outright hostility. Augustin increasingly disliked the methods that made Lebon infamous, but there is little evidence of a personal vendetta comparable to what developed with Barras or Bernard.
Antoine Christophe Saliceti:
A fellow Jacobin deputy on mission with the Army of Italy. Though they initially worked together alongside the young artillery general Napoleon Bonaparte, deep ideological and personal rifts opened between them over military authority and regional administration. While never as openly hostile as figures like Barras or Bernard de Saintes, the relationship grew noticeably strained as Augustin's moderation deepened: Saliceti’s hardline political maneuvering frequently clashed with Augustin’s increasingly pragmatic, anti-terror stance, fracturing their alliance in the critical months leading up to Thermidor.
*if it wasn't clear: Saliceti is also less clearly an "enemy" than Barras or Bernard.. Maybe the same situation with Leblond applies here
3. The Big League Enemies: The Girondins (Brissotins & Rolandins)
Once Augustin joined the National Convention, the factional warfare between the Montagnards and the Girondins became his primary fixation, pulling him into aggressive, hardline political stances.
Jean-Marie Roland:
The Minister of the Interior who used public funds to print and distribute thousands of copies of anti-Robespierre speeches. Roland tried desperately to corrupt the public spirit in the Pas-de-Calais, though Augustin took immense pride in the fact that his family successfully unmasked these plots.
Jean-Baptiste Louvet:
The Girondin who dramatically pointed a finger at Maximilien in the Convention and shouted, "I accuse you". Rushing to his brother's defense, Augustin became deeply agitated and claimed to have personally overheard Louvet’s supporters plotting to murder Maximilien: Augustin to be held back from physically attacking these would-be assassins.
Jean-Denis Lanjuinais:
A prominent Girondin supporter whose memoirs highlighted the extreme volatility of the Convention. He explicitly noted that Augustin and other deputies on both sides of the aisle were known to wave pistols around during their explosive debates.
The Advocates for Catherine Clere:
During the height of the factional war in the spring of 1793, several Girondin deputies attempted to secure a reprieve for Catherine Clere, a woman sentenced to death for a food-supply disturbance, arguing she was merely drunk and politically ignorant. Locked into a fanaticized anti-Girondin stance, Augustin ruthlessly opposed the motion, declaring, "We have passed a law against Royalism, and those who speak against the law are Royalists," helping defeat attempts to spare her from execution — an act starkly out of character with his later moderation.
4. The Radicals & True Enemies
The relationship with hardline radicals is one of the most fascinating layers of Augustin's political trajectory, showing how quickly the shifting tides of the Revolution turned allies into executioners.
In the spring of 1793, Augustin was actually closely identified with these extremists, joining them on the benches to aggressively heckle Girondin speakers. Hostile observers even lumped them together as ferocious "aboyeurs" (hecklers). However, Augustin’s later missions to the South completely shifted his outlook; he began adopting moderate policies, releasing prisoners, and realizing that terror was actively damaging the Jacobin cause. This sudden moderation deeply alienated hardline radicals who embraced terrorist tactics, turning former political allies into the very men who would ultimately pull the Robespierre brothers down in Thermidor. Despite later assumptions that the two were close friends, they appear better understood as political allies of convenience during the struggle against the Girondins. By 1794 they found themselves on opposite sides of the question of revolutionary repression.
Paul Barras:
Alongside Fréron, Barras served as a representative on mission in the South who epitomized the brutal, blood-drenched excesses of the Terror that Augustin came to despise. While Barras and Fréron enriched themselves and enacted mass executions at Toulon and Marseille, Augustin openly split from them, advocating for justice over indiscriminate slaughter. This earned him the permanent, lethal enmity of Barras, who viewed Augustin's moderation as a direct threat to his own survival and corruption, making Barras a key architect of the Thermidorian coup.
Lazare Carnot:
One of the most consequential enemies of the Robespierrist circle during Year II. Carnot's relationship with Maximilien and Saint-Just deteriorated into open warfare inside the Committee of Public Safety, with accusations of dictatorship, threats of prosecution, and explosive personal confrontations. Augustin was drawn into this conflict as both a loyal Robespierrist and an increasingly active participant in investigations into Carnot's conduct, throwing himself into his desperate attempts to destroy Carnot. Only days before Thermidor, Augustin encouraged recently liberated patriots from Arras to brief his brother on accusations against Carnot. After throwing himself from the Hôtel de Ville on 10 Thermidor, Augustin explicitly named Carnot as a conspirator in his final recorded political testimony. Carnot, for his part, later described himself as Robespierre's "most declared enemy." Taken together, the evidence suggests that by the summer of 1794 hostility between Carnot and the younger Robespierre had become both political and deeply personal.
Bernard de Saintes:
Perhaps Augustin's clearest enemy among fellow Montagnards. As representatives on mission in neighboring regions, Bernard and Augustin embodied two increasingly incompatible visions of revolutionary government. Bernard aggressively expanded arrests and repression, while Augustin released prisoners and attempted to soften the application of Terror in the Franche-Comté and Haute-Saône. Their feud became public and vicious. Bernard denounced Augustin to Paris, while Augustin retaliated by attacking Bernard's conduct, accusing him of indecency, vanity, being so skinny he could be swept away by a light breeze, and abuse of authority. The clash became famous enough that decades later Charles Nodier still remembered witnessing Augustin publicly confront Bernard at the Jacobin Club of Besançon. Their conflict was not merely personal; it symbolized the growing divide between Augustin's late-Year II moderation and the hardline revolutionary methods Bernard continued to champion.
5. The Post-Mortem Detractors: Hostile Sources
The animosity didn't stop at the guillotine. After Thermidor, a wave of memoirs and histories sought to thoroughly trash Bonbon's reputation, cementing a highly partisan historical record.
Many of these writers may have disagreed sharply with one another on Maximilien Robespierre, yet remarkably converged on portraying Augustin as intellectually insignificant, creating one of the most persistent legends surrounding his historical reputation.
Le Blond de Neuvéglise:
One of the earliest post-Thermidor biographers who laconically dismissed Augustin in 1795 as a man entirely "without brains, without talent, without character" who possessed only a "brutal, ferocious instinct".
Marc-Antoine Baudot:
A fellow conventionnel who left behind incredibly dismissive historical notes, writing that Augustin had a "narrow and ignorant brain" and was viewed by the Convention as an "absolute fool". Baudot famously and cuttingly summarized him as nothing more than "a jar that echoed whenever his brother rapped on it".
Pierre Villiers:
A commentator who claimed to be Maximilien's secretary and published highly malicious gossip branding Augustin as a "miserable attorney, moneyless, false, drunken and crapulous".
What strikes me most while researching Augustin's opponents is how varied they were. Some were royalists, some Girondins, some fellow Montagnards, some former allies, and some only attacked him after his death. The sheer diversity of these adversaries makes it difficult to reduce Augustin to a single political identity. The man denounced by Beaumetz in Artois, condemned by Louvet in the Convention, feuding with Bernard in Franche-Comté, and mocked by Baudot after Thermidor was not always the same Augustin.
I guess the chronology is roughly:
Provincial reformer fighting local conservatives.
Radical anti-Girondin deputy.
Representative-on-mission.
Increasingly moderate critic of Terror.
Thermidorian victim.
Historical punching bag.
So you can take it as a sense of development rather than just accumulating names.. if you will
What’s confounding me is the rising anti-Semitism I see everywhere, but the same people doing it will then go on to like, rant about how Taylor Swift’s merch may have contained Nazi iconography while dubbing her “Swiftler.”
Or they’ll see that a person is Jewish and make snide comments like “uh oh Zionist alert” and then engage positively with content drawing parallels between the Trump Regime and Hitler’s rise to power.
None of it makes sense and it’s doing my head in.
Like, over the course of the last ~150 years the use of the “Zionist” label has been used to ethnically cleanse and harass Jews by parties as diverse as: heads of states inhabited by MENA Jewry, Poles in the 60s, Soviets, and Richard Nixon. And do we really think Taylor Swift’s merch team would do a relatively deep cut re: Nazi iconography for necklace sales? And then those same people will treat Jews as guilty until proven innocent.
I think there's a pileup of related, but distinct phenomena that manifest to pull elements from past antisemitism in ways that appear new and novel but which derive from older things:
0) My operating theory for the last... 20 years has been that as the Greatest Generation and Shoah survivors die off, Anti-Jewish Hatred will revert to its historical levels. The time from 1945/7/8-1967 and then 1967-2023, (Generously simplified into 2 rough eras) for Jews, worldwide has been exceptional. (relative to... the last few thousand years)
I think hatred of Jews exists, ironically as a parasitical, socio-religious meme that can infect people while also providing them with, effectively, a 'liturgy' to practice it that can easily adapt with the times.
(Just Say Jewish, Jack, or Euphamisms for "Jew")
So Jew hate becomes a euphemistic way to address fears of the current moment with new definitions and cute little phrases and markers and emojis.
"Spiritually Israeli" = "artistically empty, sub/inhuman, without merit, cynically capitalistic"
"Zionist" means "Sinister Jew I don't Like," (Implied to be something that must be watched for with ALL Jews) "AIPAC" means ZOG/Jew I don't Like.
"Nazi" of course means/has meant "Bad Person, the WORST, the Meanest and ugliest" so of course it is natural to apply that to Jews Who Fall Short of The Lessons From The Holocaust. (And of course the deliberate decision to do so is never interrogated by ostensibly caring and educated people.)
(We can also get into Jew-As-Feminized Other/Woman as regards the weird swift hate but that's probably another discrete discussion)
Further contentions:
1) The current internet is a socially isolating and consumerist
and now necessary for everyday life in most 'developed' societies. (Govt forms optimized for smartphones and computers, QR code menus, etc) So people feel isolated and a bunch of them are searching for community and a sense of order. So stuff like the Palestine Omnicause becomes a religious practice with cult overtones because of that hunger. Even ostensible "Anticapitalists" are heavily consumerist and individual in their 'belief structures' and activism now.
(To clarify, this is not Palestinians in general or people who want to live in peace but rather people taking advantage of the situation to grift/build cults/kill Jews.)
2) Fandoms: Mass Politics and social media politics are genre fandom now:
This has developed on fandom lines with a focus on 'purity.' As it HAS developed accordingly, other 'fandoms' must be attacked as 'impure/frivolous/sinful' and using the mechanism of "Nazi" is all most of these people know. (There's also a delicious little thrill in busting that out and using it, and dead Jews, for other points after cheering on our murders but that's beside the point)
3) Populist movements are patriarchal above all, sexist, and racist. Having a 'lib mommy' figure to tear down to show you're 'not like other girls/rubes etc' slots nicely into "Taylor Swift is Hitler" (She's a lib-coded woman who can be bashed with any tools available)
4) People are finding pseudoreligious community and connection in online fandoms, most of which also heavily feature conspiracies and moderator astroturfing. Conspiracism runs on Jew-Hate, and Jew-Hate is the fuel for populist movements. (See the linked Ward article)
5) Jews (and the Shoah) as useful tools. Populists are finding it useful to use Jews as tools for unification of diverse movements around those conspiracy theories, but also Jews as a tool for attacking or boosting 'worthier' causes. So. Find "Good Jews" and use them to attack "Bad Jews" or use the idea of Jews/The Shoah to attach moral agency to Insert Cause.
See the Trump admin's opportunistic embracing of going after "Antisemitism on Campus" (After the campuses themselves did a horrible job of addressing it) or people like Rep. Ilhan Omar quoting Elie Wiesel.
Neither group involved gives a single solitary shit about protecting Jews, and failed repeatedly, while giving aid and comfort to every single libel and conspiracy (Hello Nazi Bar how are you today)
but they find our narrative and the implied moral authority of the "Jew Brand" useful while disliking us as living people and culture.
6) De Judaizing Jewish art and culture. (Much bigger issue, ties into point 1 about Comsumerism and 2 about Fandom, they want to use things Jews made without being 'tainted' and there's much more of a push to do that. )
The Shoah existing (and people coming around to it being bad while resenting the 'guilt' implied to them) led to a 'snapback' effect where even the worst crimes committed against Jews must now be relitigated as the people who experienced and encountered them firsthand
So we have, essentially, a "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." situation, but now it's heavily consumerist, tailored (Taylored?) around a secular kind of cultic religion that has updated old 'memes' and it can be spread everywhere by malign actors with botnets and useful idiots because it is a VERY useful toolbox for aiding authoritarian populists, making money, and unifying diverse groups to accomplish political goals.
(Link to Ward's Skin in the Game and an archive link because the OG article is not live for me)
Caveat: You're the accredited and published (Yay!) Holocaust scholar so pull me up if you think I'm wrong here. (I'm just some schmoe with a very old History BA.)
To be clear, you address some issues here that I am not informed enough about to be able to comment on. But in general? This is a brilliant meditation on anti-Semitism in the postmodern era. I kind of need you to write a book about this so it can be used as a canonical text alongside Yerushalmi’s Zakhor.
ps. Credentials and publication history does not mean that I’m better or smarter than you. Your posts and responses frequently leave me shook on an intellectual level.
So I'm an archivist and a few days ago I got an email from a 15-year-old girl wanting to know if I've got any material on the only still-existing old mill in town (you've got to imagine this mill not like a quaint, stereotypical windmill the likes of which Don Quixote fought against but rather like an industrialisation-era factory).
I wrote back and asked if she needed this for a school project or for something else where there's a deadline looming, for the simple reason that the more time I have, the more in-depth I can go with my research and the more material I'll be able to get for her.
And she answered that no, it's for her personal use because she's interested in abandoned buildings in general.
And, like. What an absolutely excellent hobby for a teenage girl to have. I bet she's the coolest person in her class and I hope that no one ever gives her a hard time about her interests.
Anyway, since I started experimenting with paint earlier this year, I have had to get used to the idea that art has an “ugly phase”, and that the ugly phase can last for a while.
This is the ugly phase of my Bonchamps.
This portrait is basically a study, in my own style, of La Mort de Bonchamps by Thomas Degeorge, 1837. The original is a gigantic painting, which I had the opportunity to see at the Historial de Vendée two years ago. It is very impressive, and the photo really does not do it justice.
In the painting, the dying Bonchamps, surrounded by his most faithful soldiers, gives his second, Charles d’Autichamp, the order that will make him famous. He orders that the 5,000 republican soldiers who were to be executed before the defeated Vendéens crossed the Loire be spared. He tells d’Autichamp that this is the last order he will give, and that he would like it to be obeyed. They obey it.
I do have an issue with it. Not with its artistic merit. It is very much of its period, and the Bonchamps here is clearly inspired by the classical figure on the tomb by David d’Angers. My issue is simpler: Degeorge’s Bonchamps is too pretty. Too composed. Too noble.
Death is not pretty. And I feel making him look so graceful takes something away from the gesture itself.
At Cholet, on 17 October 1793, Bonchamps was shot in the abdomen. It was a fatal wound. It also meant a long, agonising death, lasting more or less a day. There were very few options for pain relief. Very little that could be done. (1)
The man was in agony. And in his agony, he ordered 5,000 prisoners spared.
The Bonchamps of the original painting looks a little too composed for my taste. Mine is still unfinished, but one of the things I want to work on is making his face look more like that of a dying man, without making it grotesque.
And the best part about painting (and, frankly, the useful lesson for someone who likes planning and has perfectionist habits) is that I have no idea how this is going to end up looking. I hope it will looks good.
Notes
(1) There is a post on this blog dedicated to Bonchamp's death and his impressive tomb by David d'Angers. Just take a look at the Bonchamps tag.
a funny thing about having a Problematic Blorbo is that you'll periodically come across a post along the lines of "um let's not forget that [Blorbo] is a bad person..." listing their various crimes, and if you have a modicum of intellectual honesty you find yourself nodding along and saying yeah it's true... but it's the greyness of their character that makes them so compelling... At the same time though you have a little Saul Goodman in your ear going "your honor in their defense: who cares like omfgggg who caresssssss like come onnnnnn"
As a Joseph Fouché enjoyer who has already taken part in a Napoleonic mock trial to defend his ass, the 3 stages method is very effective in case of a sudden "b-b-but how can you like him he is a bad person, he did that and that blah blah" :
stage 1, if there is no proof to support the claim : "It never happened"
stage 2, if there is evidence to support the claim but insufficient/too circumstantial : "It happened but it was not that bad"
stage 3, if the evidence is overwhelming AND bad : "It happened, it was bad, and they deserved it"
I'm sick of the kind of "solidarity" where poor women's anger is shown as being understandable but not actually legitimate. Like, they show upperclass women being empathetic towards their difficult life circumstances, but the poor women are still shown as going "too far", mindless subjects of "mob rule" or evil caricatures.
Ribbons of Scarlet did this a lot, with Sophie de Grouchy, Émilie Sainte-Amaranthe, and even Madame Élisabeth being very charitable and tender-hearted toward those who are struggling, but those who are struggling like Reine Audu & Pauline Léon are still shown as vicious. The novel A Far Better Thing really does this, too, because one of the main villains is shown to have VERY good reasons for hating the local aristocratic family, but it is of course taken to a very vicious & cruel degree of wanting to kill the children, too, wanting to kill aristocrats just for their birth (rather than, you know, treason and espionage...), etc.
It's like modern authors have to acknowledge that the poor women have a point, but cannot ever acknowledge that they are actually right.
"The Colours of the Revolution": A review of a surprisingly decent FREV novel
About a year ago I came over the freshly published German novel Die Farben der Revolution: Eléonore und Robespierre (Jeanette Limbeck) and after a bit of initial scepticism – FREV fiction often tends to be more bad than not – I was actually pleasantly surprised by the result. As the title suggests the novel follows the perspective of Eléonore Duplay through 1791 to 1794, and while it is by no means flawless, it is still a reasonably informed and nuanced one for the standards of many French novels posted around here and definitely deserves a shoutout especially for those who can read German.
The positives
The author has clearly done a fair share of good secondary reading on relevant topics in revolutionary historiography in French and English (Godineau, McPhee, Linton, Leuwers...) and in fact even includes a list of major factual changes or at times inventions at the end of a book (though as we will see later there are a few she missed)
Choosing character on which there are limited sources like Eléonore Duplay can be a bit of a tricky task - it leaves room for invention but also the risk of overdoing it - but for the most part Limbeck succeeded in fleshing her out as a character. A character that shows has artistic and political interests as well as personal friendships beyond her relationship with Robespierre. A character that can be wrong - there is for example a good part in the book where the author decided to make her very enthusiatic for the revolutionary war in 1792 and let her argue with Robespierre on the topic until they finally work it out. Its also pretty good in stressing some of the limits of her outlook as a middle class woman for example as she grows increasingly suspicious of Enragé allied women like Pauline Léon and their "material interests".
And importantly the author for the most part resists the urge to make the main heroine in a historical novel a girlboss who overcomes all the sexist constraints of society through sheer brilliance. Instead she actually has to struggle with them. So, even as she gets more more interested in politics, she has to constantly work on her readings skills to get from basic literacy to actually reading comfortably (and borrow Maximilian's books) because of the limits of her primary education. When she tries to pain classical or revolutionary scenes in her painting lessons, she actually repeatedly realises or is even told by others (thank you David!) that her paintings are stale – which obviously makes sense when female painting students were to allowed to see real male bodies.
While not the POV, Robespierre is overall handled reasonably well - it definitely leans towards a more favourable perspective, especially when the authors can choose between multiple explanations and scenarios, but he is flawed in his own right. It does a pretty good job illustrating the mix of admirable conviction and frustrating self-assurance (eg. he is both very right and very arrogant when explaining why Eléonore is wrong about he war), the limits of his role in the Revolutionary government, not shying away from his growing paranoia (or indeed generally that of revolutionaries), while at the same time doing a good job of making the reader understand it under the circumstances.
For the most part it is also pretty nuanced on a great variety of players at least on the broad revolutionary "left". We can see a Danton who can be frustrating, offensive, vulgar and corrupt but also warm and humane and perhaps a bit more conventionally sympathetic but also naive Desmoulins. We get at first a little distant but increasingly sympathetic Saint-Just and see a lot more of his human side once him and Eléonore warm up to each other. We get sympathetic portrayls of women from the Citoyennes Republicaines Révolutionnaires as well as wives of other revolutionaries like Lucille or Simonne Éverad (who becomes a bit of an older advisor/friend). We even get a couple of sympathetically portrayed Hébertist sympathisers (though usually fictional), which is otherwise pretty rare in FREV media. And it even has a few quite well written interactions between Eléonore and her royalist former teacher, who is portrayed with some human sympathy but is also clearly wrong, not both-siding the issue.
Finally, the relationship between Eléonore and Robespierre is handled generally well – probably better than in any other FREV novel I read. The author goes for a romantic interpretation of the relationship, which is obviously not universally shared and can at times seem a bit overstated, but the relationship itself is reasonably good. You have an element of friendship, admiration, interest so that the relationship does seem natural but also hardly idylic with its arguments and tensions.
Also has some great moments - some more serious personal or political conversations but also funny ones. Eg. when Eléonore and Robespierre eventually start sleeping together (which is again handled a lot better than in most other FREV media), she gets very excited by the fact that she can finally improve her skills with drawing male bodies while he sleeps, only for him to wake up and start panicking what would happen if someone leaks it to the press or if god forbid (!) their children or grandchildren would find it one day.
The controversial/ mixed bag
The whole book is from Eléonore's POV which sometimes creates a tensions between when the author is trying to authentically represent her perspective and when to present a more objective analysis of situations or push her own view. For example, the Girondins basically come of as self-serving hypocrites - which may well be authentic in terms of Eléonore's perpective but is clearly reductionist if it is the author's own. By contrast, Eléonore seems to hold a lot of understanding and even sympathy for the Dantonists until the end (and while she comes to treat the trial as a political necessity, she knows they are not actually foreign agents) - which may be a more nuanced view, but not one that would represent Eléonore's opinions.
As is a bit of a tradition with women in FREV literature the author has decided to make Eléonore a lot more interested in women's rights that we have any indication she would be. Now, given how little we actually know about her, there is certainly some space to do this. In some cases it can be just fairly natural frustration about the limitations imposed on her as a woman in society - whether in the expectations of marriage or the limits on her artistic pursuits, which seems quite realistic. Her interest in issues like family law reform or education or the fact that she attends some meetings of the mixed Société des Amies de la Verité and later even of the SCRR (though she eventually parts with them), don't seem implausible either. But eventually this is simply pushed too far with the author attributing her proto-feminist views that she almost certainly did not have, especially support for womens' right to vote and even repeatedly arguing with Robespierre over the issue (as if that was something widely supported even among revolutionary women). And yes, technically all those conversations happen behind closed doors, but it seems like an instance of the author projecting views she would like the heroine to have.
While the book does a lot of good in constantly reminding the reader that Robespierre is not some bloodthirsty dictator but a member of a collective government in the middle of war, it can sometimes come off as if the burden of blame for things that go wrong is shifted to a couple "extremists" - especially Billaud, Collot, Vadier and Amar – rather then having to explain the variances and complexities of revolutionary violence.
While most characters are quite nuanced, Madame Duplay and Charlotte Robespierre clearly get the short end of the stick - with Eléonore's mother coming of a bit like a kind of Madame Bennet obsessed with securing her daughters' future and Charlotte being pretty much reduced to the jealous sister trope (though again, its Eléonore's POV).
And perhaps most controversially, the author decides to include a plot-point just before Thermidor, where Eléonore with the support of Le Bas (concerned both for the revolution and the fate of their families) try to convince Robespierre to eliminate his enemies by force and temporarily take on the role of dictator. It makes for good tension and Robespierre does quite categorically refuse the suggestion but it is certainly a very 19th century drama/dubious mémoires inspired invention.
The bad
Even apart from the final corrections (usually to do with simplifications, cutting out characters etc), there are at least two strange moments with outright incorrect descriptions of political events. Once it is claimed that appart from baning women's clubs the Convention also banned women from its galleries and from gathering in the streets in 1793, even though that only happened after the Insurrection of Prairial in 1795. It is also implied that the Law of 22 Prairial did away with any judicial process entirely, which is simply an overstatement whatever objections one can have to it.
In a bit of a Hilary Mantel-esque moment the author decides that Robespierre could not simply have come to signing the arrest warrant over Desmoulins of his own volition. Fortunately we are spared fake SA stories (indeed Danton's harasment of Elisabeth is mentioned and taken seriously). Instead, Eléonore makes some politically unsound comments criticising the repression in the Vendée and Vadier then threatens Robespierre that the CPS could issue an arrest warrant for her if he does not agree to add Desmoulins to the list. While I can take overplaying the romantic element elsewhere, this seems simply like a cop-out of a morally uncomfortable decision.
But overall, I would definitely recommend the book - it was in some respects a bit like Piercy's A City of Darkness, a City of Light with occasional modernisation or simplification, but still a well informed and nuanced book, especially in the context of FREV media.
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