❝ demain, je vous raconterai mon roman et ma réalité ❞ @mathildeaquisexta - Tumblr Blog

Also, bonjour.

Reading the Bailly biography and I didn't expect the most comforting quote a struggling 24 yo needs to read

"It is very difficult to suceed before 30 years old in a genre that demands the knowledge of the human world and heart."

#aww <3 #i hate voltaire but i'll let this one pass

theblackrook

mathildeaquisexta

robespierrecadet

Salut et fraternité!!

Welcome to my little corner of the internet dedicated entirely to Augustin Robespierre (Bonbon).

If you've somehow wandered in here by accident: Haallloooo! I'm Abel!!! This blog exists as an archive for my historical writing, source analysis, translations, and ongoing research surrounding one of the French Revolution's most overlooked and underrated figures.

Everything posted here is arranged as is for relatively easy navigation (i'm. still work shopping it). Rather than digging through years of personal posts, memes, and sudden emotional breakdowns because I remembered something from 1794, you'll (hopefully) find a growing collection of organized research in one place!

This is, above all, an attempt to understand Augustin as a historical person rather than a historical footnote.

I try to distinguish clearly between documented history, historiographical interpretation, and my own speculation whenever possible. If I discover that I've misunderstood a source or overstated a claim, I will happily correct it! History deserves that much.

This blog also serves as a home for some translation projects intended to make material more accessible to English readers. I don't believe knowledge should remain inaccessible simply because a source happens to exist only in a select European language.

Above all else.. This is Augustin's space!

You can contact me on Discord, @ 9thermidor

❛ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━･❪ ♝ ❫･━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❜

> A few quick notes… > I am not a professional historian. I'm simply someone who spends an unreasonable amount of time reading and memorizing material, biographies, memoirs, correspondence, and contemporary newspapers because I adore this ridiculous little man. > because of this aforementioned memorization, most of what i post is often first pass thoughts or information detailed right off the dome / noggin. The way that I organize my thoughts and figure out a direct solid defensible line of thought is dialogically, but I don't have anybody to.. engage in dialogue with.. so to remedy this and the unavoidable mistakes that come from my process: > I welcome corrections, additional sources, and discussion with more than open arms. In fact anybody who makes a comment or addition to my post is guaranteed a first-born from me. If you know something I don't, please tell me! I'd much rather improve a post than leave an error, shoddy wording, or bad pacing standing. > correction simply isn’t opposition to me, and it isn’t a challenge to authority or ego; it’s part of the process itself. It’s how history becomes more accurate, more nuanced, and more honest over time. > More than anything, I want this space to reflect a kind of shared curiosity rather than a one-person authority, I am NOT an authority. If that was even an assumption to begin with, assume it no more!!! If you’re here and you know more, or you see something differently, that perspective has value, as part of the same ongoing attempt to understand the past as clearly as we can. > If you're here from my main blog: yes, unfortunately, it's still, by technicality (Functionally?), 'me♜'. Different room, and different voice, and different person: In the same overall house. This account simply exists so our historical work has a proper home without requiring people to sift through unrelated posts to find it, if the yap-fest above didn't make it clear. > If you've somehow become interested in Augustin or those surrounding him in life because of this blog.. > mission accomplished!!! > This blog is ran on EST / GMT-5 + GMT-4

#augustin robespierre #historical blog #frev

plantemane

OCifying my fave historical figures… so peak… I am cringe but free.

theblackrook

every day, I have more n more evidence to personally hc bpd bonbon

theblackrook

the case for bpd bonbon (a deeply unserious but textually supported exercise)/j

the favorite person situation

we'll start with the obvious. "I aspire to no other glory than to share the same tomb as him." "I swear to avenge your death and to deserve it like you." "I am as guilty as my brother: I share his virtues; I want to share his fate."

imo it goes beyond normal sibling loyalty: a man who has organized his entire sense of self around one person to the point where the idea of existing independently of that person's fate doesn't compute. Maximilien isn't just his brother, but the axis around which Augustin's identity rotates. when people try to tell him he's better than Maximilien, he doesn't feel complimented: he feels threatened. you cannot separate him from his FP because he has not maintained enough of a separate self for there to be a "him" to separate.

and then the January 5 rebuke happens. Maximilien stands up at the Jacobins and publicly corrects him in front of everyone. and Augustin simply goes silent and stops making speeches. goes out into society. hangs around with Monvoison. someone whose entire emotional regulation system just got knocked sideways by the one person whose approval structures everything, anyone??

the splitting

the charlotte letter: "my sister does not have a single drop of blood that resembles ours."

not a slow deterioration but a switch being flipped. one moment Charlotte is someone he loves, someone he's writing letters to, someone he traveled with for months — and then suddenly she is "our greatest enemy" and "a woman who causes our common despair." no gradations and nothing in between*. the same move happens with Lebon: close ally and helpful friend, then "suspicious to me for a long time" (retroactively), then effectively a monster: Bernard de Saintes gets the full treatment in a single speech after having wronged Bonbon — Nodier records Augustin mocking his physical existence with "a terrifying calm" that suggests a very controlled fury that had nowhere else to go.

the pattern isn't that Augustin slowly came to view people differently, BUT it's that his assessments came in two temperatures: trusted completely or identified as a threat. warm or cold. there's not much lukewarm in the record.

Category A

Maximilien

sacred

inseparable

irreplaceable

Category B

allies

trusted

valued

defended

Category C

threats

traitors

enemies

Augustin can tolerate pain from Maximilien because Maximilien is indispensable: Charlotte, however, is not indispensable: So once she becomes associated with danger, she becomes expendable.*

the identity disturbance

"I am somewhat ashamed to be speaking to you, because the brother of Robespierre should be calumniated, and he is not."

Mary Young reads unconscious envy here. and she's probably right. but put alongside the FP stuff it reads a little differently: if your entire sense of significance is organized around being the devoted companion of someone important, then the moment that person is in danger and you're not, you're not just envious. you're experiencing a version of identity threat. the danger is supposed to happen to both of you, because you're supposed to be the same. "I share his virtues. I want to share his fate." when that symmetry breaks, it's not all chillsville

and then on the other side of it: "since Saturday I am almost a great man." "I am astonished to be a hero." the self-image oscillates wildly between "I am nothing, I am just my brother's shadow, I am ashamed not to be targeted" and "actually I'm doing something remarkable here, the incense risks suffocating me." those don't resolve into a stable sense of self but melt into uncomfortable coexistence

the impulsivity

leaving Toulon within hours of entering the city, without telling Barras and Fréron, in the direction of Paris, without being recalled. the Convention declaration — demanding to share Maximilien's arrest warrant without being asked, within minutes of the vote, while everyone else was scrambling. the alleged Barère confrontation: walking into the Committee of Public Safety under pretense of a mission report and instead making direct threats. the charge toward the people he thought were plotting to kill Maximilien at the Convention, requiring his friends to physically restrain him: As well as the same physical restraint being required after Maximilien was shot.

these are a man who, under emotional pressure, acts before he has thought the action through, and then the action tends to be dramatic.

not even mentioning the gambling or drinking or general life style

the emotional dysregulation

the Besançon speech is the most interesting piece of evidence for this. Nodier says the Bernard mockery was delivered with "a terrifying calm — I was about to say a cruel one." that phrasing is doing a lot of work. because that kind of preternatural calm in the middle of what was clearly a situation of intense anger and humiliation — La Saudraye had just been expelled, Bernard had been trying to get him guillotined — isn't the absence of emotional dysregulation. it's dysregulation that has found a very specific, very controlled outlet in the form of devastating wit aimed at one person's physical existence. the affect doesn't match the situation because the feeling and its expression have become unmoored from each other.

compare to the Foutue bête incident on the stairs — "bloody animal, we should only talk about Carnot" — which is the same rage but without the audience and without the performance, and which comes out sideways at someone who just failed to follow a script. two modes of the same underlying thing.

the Charlotte situation (again)

we already established that the rupture probably had less to do with Marguerite Ricord and more to do with a political threat assessment. but the way he handled it is worth looking at through this lens.

he identified Charlotte as a threat. he did not speak to her about it: he routed the problem through Maximilien. he got her removed from his vicinity. he then, when she wrote him a long and emotionally devastating letter explicitly asking him to explain himself, did not respond.

this is a man who:

could not tolerate the situation as it was (she was too close, too visible, too risky)

could not confront it directly (no conversation, no explanation, no face-to-face)

resolved it by having the threat physically removed from his environment

and then maintained total emotional silence in the face of explicit pain from someone he had previously loved

that's not cruelty exactly, it's something more like: the situation became unbearable, the only tool available was escalation and removal, and once the threat was contained there was nothing left to say because there was no script for what came after.

the deathbed

two o'clock in the morning, July 28, 1794. shattered pelvis and a brain bleed as well as a bayonet wound and multiple organ failure in progress.

he tells the doctors his name. he says he never stopped doing his duty, like his brother. he names Panis as a conspirator. he names Carnot as a conspirator: he is not processing what is happening to him. he is processing whether the record is correct. whether the people who need to be held accountable are being held accountable. whether Maximilien is still being defended. his actual physical situation barely registers in his account of himself.

which is perhaps the most telling detail in the entire file. even at the end, the self that shows up is the self-in-relation-to: to Maximilien, to the duty, to the enemies. the independent self, if there was one, doesn't make it into the medical deposition.

#frev #augustin robespierre #case closed

theblackrook

The life of Augustin Robespierre: An Extreme TLDR Timeline

I must've made this some time for my reference in the last few months.. I can't even remember, but i also figured it would be more helpful to people if it didn't just sit in my google docs

CHILDHOOD & EDUCATION

Jan 21, 1763 — Born in Arras, rue des Jésuites (now rue du Collège), 2pm.

Jan 22, 1763 — Christened Augustin Bon Joseph; godfather Augustin Carraut (maternal uncle).

Jul 16, 1764 — Mother dies (Augustin is 18 months old); a newborn sibling dies the same day.

Shortly after — Father abandons the children. Boys sent to maternal grandparents, girls to paternal aunts.

Oct 13, 1769 — Maximilien leaves for Collège Louis-le-Grand, Paris.

~1769–1781 — Augustin studies at the college of Douai.

Oct 11, 1781 — Augustin takes over Maximilien's scholarship at Louis-le-Grand (Maximilien had graduated May 15).

1787 — Augustin finishes at Louis-le-Grand, joins Maximilien and Charlotte in Arras.

ARRAS & EARLY REVOLUTION (1789–1792)

1789 — Beaumetz's pamphlet campaign against Maximilien during Estates-General elections.

May 1789 — Maximilien elected to the Estates-General, departs for Versailles.

Sep 3–10~, 1789 — Augustin visits Maximilien in Paris; brief quarrel and reconciliation.

1789–91~ — Augustin shuttles between Arras and Paris repeatedly; chronic financial difficulty for all three siblings.

Jun 6, 1790 — Augustin urges Maximilien to publish his response to Beaumetz.

1791 — Maximilien moves into the Duplay household after the Champs de Mars massacre (Jul 17).

Sep 1791~ — Death of Mme Deshorties, Augustin's aunt/godmother; Augustin signs burial certificate.

Sep 30, 1791 — National Constituent Assembly dissolves.

Oct 1791 — Maximilien briefly returns to Arras.

Nov 1791 — Maximilien leaves for Paris; never returns to Arras again.

1792 — Augustin serves as administrator of Pas-de-Calais, then procureur-syndic of Arras.

Sep 16, 1792 — Augustin elected to the National Convention for Paris.

Sep 1792 — Augustin and Charlotte move to Paris, lodge with the Duplay family, rue Saint-Honoré 366.

THE CONVENTION & THE GIRONDIN PURGE (1792–1793)

Oct 29, 1792 — Louvet publicly accuses Maximilien; Augustin's agitated Jacobins speech ("ashamed... to be calumniated").

Dec 31, 1792 — Augustin complains at the Jacobins about Vergniaud's attacks on Maximilien.

Feb 2–3, 1793 — Dinner with Rosalie Jullien; her letter describing the three siblings.

Apr 20, 1793 — Augustin's speech favoring the Paris Municipality; writes to Buissart about feeling "almost a great man."

May 31–Jun 2, 1793 — Purge of the Girondins; Augustin reportedly points a pistol at Lanjuinais.

FIRST MISSION: ARMY OF ITALY (Jul–Dec 1793)

Jul 19, 1793 — Convention appoints Augustin Representative on Mission to the Army of Italy, paired with Ricord.

Late Jul 1793 — Departs for Nice with Ricord, Marguerite Ricord, and Charlotte.

Aug 1793 — Manosque incident: flee federalist forces, abandon carriage at Manosque.

Early Sep 1793 — Arrives in Nice.

Sep 25 – Nov 7, 1793 — Series of supply/logistics decrees in Nice (grain monopoly, soap prices, bread rationing, etc.)

Mid-Nov 1793 — Arrest of officer Escudier in Nice.

Dec 16, 1793 — Fort Balaguier falls to French forces.

Dec 18, 1793 — Letter to Maximilien: "I am astonished to be a hero."

Dec 19, 1793 — Convention troops enter Toulon.

Dec 20, 1793 — Five representatives' dispatch on mass executions at Toulon.

Dec 24, 1793 — Convention renames Toulon "Port-la-Montagne."

Dec 25, 1793 — Augustin abruptly departs Toulon for Paris.

INTERLUDE IN PARIS (Dec 1793–Jan 1794)

Late Dec 1793 – mid-Jan 1794 — Stays with the Ricords rather than the Duplay household; refuses to see Charlotte.

Jan 5, 1794 — Jacobin Club speech during the Hébert–Desmoulins conflict; publicly rebuked by Maximilien ("rendered great services at Toulon, but...").

Jan 1794 — Associates with Monvoison and other "questionable" Parisian company.

SECOND MISSION: FRANCHE-COMTÉ (Jan–Mar 1794)

Mid-Jan 1794 — Committee of Public Safety sends Augustin to the Haute-Saône via Vesoul, alongside Viennot, Sauli, and La Saudraye; lodges at Humbert's house.

Jan 25 – Feb 17, 1794 — Wave of release decrees across Vesoul, Gray, Faverney, Menoux, Luxeuil (the "Day of Compassion" on Jan 31/12 Pluviôse is the peak).

Feb 1794 — Besançon incident as recounted by 12 y/o Nordier: La Saudraye expelled from the Jacobin Club; Augustin's confrontation with Bernard de Saintes.

Feb 24, 1794 — Letter to the Committee of Public Safety from Lyon, defending his conduct.

Feb 25, 1794 — Personal letter to Maximilien asking him to receive La Saudraye.

~Early Mar 1794 — Sauli departs for Genoa; Augustin and La Saudraye travel on to Nice via Lyon.

THIRD MISSION: RETURN TO THE ALPES-MARITIMES (Mar–Jun 1794)

Mar 5–13, 1794 — Series of administrative decrees in Nice: gendarmerie reorganization, Tobacco Factory corruption annulment, émigré property protections.

Apr 5, 1794 — Letter to Maximilien first mentioning "citizen Buonaparte."

Apr 22, 1794 — Appoints Philippe Buonarroti commissioner for Oneille/Loano.

May 1794 — Undated letter to Maximilien denouncing Charlotte as the siblings' "greatest enemy."

May 14, 1794 — Maximilien recalls Joseph Lebon to Paris.

May 17–19, 1794 — Charlotte escorted back to Arras by Lebon.

Jun 10, 1794 — Law of 22 Prairial passed in Paris.

Jun 19, 1794 — Last dated decree of the mission (judicial salaries).

RETURN TO PARIS & THERMIDOR (Jun–Jul 1794)

Late Jun – early Jul 1794 — Augustin returns to Paris for the final time.

~Jul 1, 1794 — Charlotte also returns to Paris.

Jul 5, 1794 — Buissart writes: "When will the much-desired Bonbon come?"

Jul 6, 1794 — Charlotte's letter to Augustin (18 Messidor); goes unanswered.

~Jul 10, 1794 (22 Messidor) — Committee of Public Safety orders Lebon's definitive recall, reportedly after Augustin's pressure.

Jul 11, 1794 — Augustin's Jacobins speech: "I aspire to no other glory than to share the same tomb as him."

Jul 22–23, 1794 — Augustin brings Leblond to meet Maximilien re: Carnot; the "Foutue bête" incident on the stairs afterward.

Jul 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor) — Augustin demands inclusion in the arrest decree against Maximilien; both brothers arrested, taken to separate prisons, reunited that night at the Hôtel de Ville.

Jul 28, 1794, ~2am (10 Thermidor) — Augustin jumps from a window of the Hôtel de Ville; medical deposition taken at the civil committee.

Jul 28, 1794, evening — Executed at the Place de la Révolution alongside Maximilien, Saint-Just, Couthon, and others.

Also see : Decree Timeline

#thanks for your service soldier #frev #augustin robespierre

drinkthemlock

FOUCHÉ JUMPSCARE

#les misérables #chéché jumpscare

city-of-ladies

British women served at the same guns with their husbands, and during a contest of many hours, never shrank from danger, but animated all around them.

—Admiral Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, reporting on the Battle of Algiers

"Not all women living in naval vessels disembarked when the crowds of prostitutes were sent ashore shortly before the ships sailed. From the late seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, it was customary for wives of warrant officers to go to sea. A warrant officer was assigned to a particular ship “in constant employ,” unlike both commissioned officers and seamen, who were signed onto a vessel only for a single commission, and who were often transferred to another ship before the commission was completed. A warrant officer and his wife might continue to live in a ship even when she was taken out of commission.

The wives of the ancient triumvirate of warrant officers—the boatswain, the gunner, and the carpenter—went to sea as a matter of course. So did wives of the purser and the master, who associated with the commissioned officers on the quarterdeck, as well as those of lower rank: the cooper, the sailmaker, and the cook. Petty officers—men who were selected from among the able seamen to direct the less skilled—and a few seamen, usually experienced men who made the navy their career, also sometimes brought their wives to sea.

#history of women #british history

I wasted ten years of my life fighting for something greater than myself. I have forgotten the contours of my wife’s face, and my son has never seen mine. I myself no longer know who I am. My hometown was annihilated by an Austrian division; my pay isn’t enough to make ends meet; I’m marching toward Moscow without any food or water or hope for glory, my feet in the snow, unable to see the path, not even sure if I’m still following it.

And then, I fall through the ground.

[Art credit : r/backrooms, LeonardoInk2’s post. It inspired me to write the text]

#backrooms #personal writing #napoleonic era

sacredwhores

Abel Gance - Napoleon (1927)

#napoléon 1927

idefilarate

which French revolutionary are you

This was actually better than I remembered…it just gets weirder as it goes on idk what I was thinking 😂. No one but @anotherhumaninthisworld is getting all the references

mathildeaquisexta

i mean yeah, my superiors indeed are imbeciles and ive contemplated staging a coup in my workplace

#frev #uquiz link

ic-napology

Napoleon's alleged admiration for his mother and his relationship with women

Note: this is the finished version of a previous post I've accidentally published before it was finished.

Finally your long-awaited rant about Letizia! Italics are used for parts meant to be digressions, because I am a woman of many gifts, but conciseness isn't among them.

So, have you ever found weird that Napoleon put his "headstrong", "man-like" mother on a pedestal, but despised all women with a similar personality? While his treatment towards Luise of Prussia may be partially explained by political reasons, his animosity towards people like Madame de Stael felt much more personal.

Usual disclaimer: the following is my own personal interpretation of mostly psychological dynamics around these characters, something almost impossible to extract from sources, hence why it's rather based mostly on emotional intuition.

I want to break down many things here: Letizia's image, Napoleon's relationship with her and how it influenced his views on assertive women.

First, obvious reason why mom was okay if she was tough while the rest of the women weren't: Napoleon was painfully partial to his family. It was a fatal and crystal-clear weakness of him, so everything was more forgivable if it came from his family. But that would be too simple for an answer for an overthinker like me, so let's elaborate.

No matter how everyone believes he did, I don't think Napoleon sincerely liked her, despite openly praising her as a tough woman and mother. Doesn't mean he didn't love her, but he didn't genuinely like the way she was.

But why would he lie about his mother's opinion? Because he mostly declared things based on what was required by the situation and/or his own public image's needs, especially as an Emperor.

That was his attitude in general: since he was a child, I believe he had learned to rationalise very painful situations as useful for the greater good (= the sake of his family), like enduring several years in military college abroad, or his renounciation of a life and career back in Corsica. He wasn't used to see what he genuinely wished for as valuable, even less realistic; so he dealt with it by embracing rationality and pragmatism and dismissing his sincere feelings about things, losing much connection with his more spontaneous, emotional side through the years.

Doesn't help that he faced deep failures as a young man, like his dreams of building a political career - and moreover a life - back home in Corsica. And then the fall of Robespierre whom his military career was tied right after Toulon. I genuinely believe that young Napoleon had been naive and idealist, and that behind his obsession for rationality he hided a deep disappointment.

(Even if Napoleon's the epitome of ego, that's what makes his so called ambition much more complex than a simple Dr. Eggman-style thirst of power in my interpretation; I've already talked about it several times, not sure id I ever did a proper post about it, let me know if you're interested).

Family was a fundamental value of the bourgeois society he was in; praising your mother who had struggled and made sacrifices to raise you was a good thing, as it made him appear as a devoted and grateful son. Despite all the stuff he did in order to be comparable to nobility, Napoleon always made a show of taking pride in his humble origins, and displaying his mother's tough character was functional to that intent. Her toughness was justifiable by their past's struggles.

This brings me to a debunking of Letizia's image.

Napoleonic historians and biographers have been conditioned by Napoleon's words about her and have always tended to idealise her as well. She's usually depicted as this pious, frugal, tough, prideful yet honourable matriarch who did and was nothing but the best for her successful son. So loyal, so supportive.

Mmm.

NO.

Much of her hardened attitude wasn't rooted in honour and pride, it was something much less romantic. Michel Vergé-Franceschi is the best Corsican historian and he proved several times that Letizia had once been the reasonably rich daughter of an officer and that she had been a very normal girl, used to shopping and pampering herself. Had she always been so modest, I doubt she would have been seen as the most beautiful girl in Corsica.

I'm surprised by how many serious Napoleon biographies still believe to the legend of her joining the guerrilla against the French while pregnant. Even I fell for it and made it the prologue of my graduation comic😭

After enduring a marriage with a financially irresponsible husband and a life as a widow and refugee, Letizia must likely had suffered from poverty trauma. She likely couldn't feel safe anymore, no matter how successful her children became, because she just couldn't see accomplishments, but only bigger cliffs to fall from. Anything could be taken from them in any moment, as it had already happened once. So she never enjoyed anything.

Sadly she was right in the end.

One of the reasons she didn't come to Napoleon's coronation was probably because of this, other than his feud with Lucien and the humiliation of the Pope. It was a slap in the face of all lessons poverty had taught them.

I do feel some degree of sympathy towards her for these reasons. Since she was 14 she gave birth to 12 children, lost four (the fact that it was normal back then doesn't erase the individual trauma of any case) and raised them basically alone and under a precarious financial situation. Her husband was often absent and financially irresponsible. No wonder she was harsh, severe, demanding and prone to anger.

Letizia also was the figure who mostly trained Napoleon in seeing his own emotional needs as expendable in front of reality, as his value in the family depended on his ability to bring money as an officer as soon as possible.

She doesn't come off as particularly nurturing and unconditionally loving to me, I'm sorry.

First, everyone know about that apalling episode where child (?) Napoleon mocked his grandma's walk, thus Letizia lied him about an incoming event in order to send him to change his clothes, so that she could beat him. God that's traumatizing, coming from a parent (AKA the main source of your safety for the animal brain). You learn you can't trust your mother. And infact I know he was upset about her lying to him.

Doesn't mean she didn't care for Napoleon per se, but I don't think she ever expressed a strong concern for his safety and personal happiness over his ability to do the duty who made him bring money home.

I remember reading a letter from her to Napoleon written during a period while he was involved in a dangerous situation, where all she wrote was something in the lines of "you must profit as much as possible for this situation!". Like girl, I get you trust your son and want to motivate him, but aren't you going to show you care about his safety at least a little? Especially given his line of work!

And even if she did express concern over his safety, given how they all depended on Napoleon's salary and social standing, it makes you really think it wasn't just about motherly concern. It was quite about her own survival as well. I can't help but see her affection for Napoleon as quite transactional.

Not to mention her opinion on Napoleon's first wedding.

You may think she was angry because Josephine was allegedly a slut older than Napoleon, or because she was a jealous petty possessive boy mom like those who ruin their daughter-in-law's baby showers.

Hell no. A woman like Letizia was much more pragmatic than that. She hated Josephine because Napoleon was his family's main breadwinner and a strong, socially powerful woman like her wouldn't likely bend against the Bonaparte's needs. Letizia - and her children- hated Josephine because they would have to share Napoleon's money with a woman (and TWO children! Who weren't even his own!). Joséphine's reputation was just an excuse to make Bonaparte's greed look less crystal-clear.

But he was happy with Josephine. Didn't it matter? Have you ever heard of Letizia expressing anything about Napoleon's happiness? No. Clearly she didn't particularly care.

Later in life, Napoleon often lamented how his siblings shamelessly profited from him without being reliable in the slightest in turn. He must have felt used all the time, expected to give and give without receiving much in return. A textbook parentified brother and golden child.

But as he said himself, "A child's future entirely depends on their mother". Who educated those little siblings who never had to go through the same expectations and trials as their elder brother to see him as the breadwinner? Their mother.

Napoleon must have been conscious about this. He must have been somewhat conscious of being seen first and foremost as a resource, whose individual and emotional needs were irrelevant or even in the way.

Can't help but think he inwardly resented his mother for having allowed him to go through all that hell, even supporting all of that, instead of protecting him.

OF COURSE it was another era, OF COURSE mothers were expected to be severe and demanding and OF COURSE children were expected to be useful as soon as possible. Napoleon's instruction was normal per se and many other children went to Brienne then Paris too. But the added toll of being on a scholarship among rich kids, a stranger from a "defeated" faraway country, with no chance to travel back home instead of everyone else, struggling with the language and no help... that's something that made Napoleon's condition far worse and singular.

Napoleon also knew his mother and the whole situation he loathed were like this because they were poor, and because his father wasn't always reliable. He probably aknowledged her pain and her hardships, deslite hating the consequences of it.

My theory is that he learned to associate a woman with a strong character with those bad conditions. In his mind, a woman with a strong character was like that because a man in her life providing security was missing, and he hated that as it reminded of his family situation.

So he projected his childhood over every strong woman he met. Which is totally wrong, I know. Also because Napoleon was used to see himself - a male, a soldier - as the one who had to provide for everything, especially as his father had not been good enough for that. So a woman who did "a man's work" was likely a fastidious reminder of a neglectful man to him, whom he hated.

That is very wrong and irrational to do, of course.

Uff, I just shared the wildest among my takes on Napoleon! If you feel to dismiss every I've said as bullshit, I wouldn't be surprised. That's why I used the terms theory and opinion.

Not that Napoleonic historians/biographers have never projected wild things on his character, like conquering everything because he was frustrated with Josephine and women.

Please share your thoughts as well on this, I'll be glad to chat about this topic and learn more! I know many waited for this and I'm so glad you trust me, but remember, I'm not a historian so dialogue, fact-checking confrontation is always important!

#good stuff #napoleon bonaparte #letizia bonaparte #napoleonic history

anotherhumaninthisworld

Frev Friendships — Robespierre and Danton

@misscalming I guess this one can be for you… 😉

The first known meeting between Robespierre and Danton is one we know about through the notes the former prepared against the latter, meant to serve as groundwork for the indictment Saint-Just was to write against him and his alleged faction:

I remember an anecdote to which I attached too little importance at that time: In the first months of the Revolution, finding myself at dinner with Danton, Danton reproached me for spoiling the good cause, by digressing from the line where Barnave and the Lameths marched, who then began to deviate from the popular principles

These notes, which were published for the first time in 1843, provide a lot of insight regarding all the things Robespierre felt about Danton’s personality, actions and political views during the five years that followed. It is however hard to tell just how much of them are to be interpreted as what he truly felt as things we’re going down, and how much of them are afterthoughts he came up with once arrived at the conclusion Danton has in fact been a conspirator for a considerable amount of time.

The next connection I’ve found between the two is from June 20 1790, when both are recorded to have been present for yet another dinner, this one held on the anniversary and in commemoration of the Tennis Court Oath, together with among others Romme, Desmoulins, Charles de Lameth and Barnave. On December 25 the very same year Danton and Robespierre also both signed the wedding contract of their mutual friend Desmoulins, alongside twelve others. Only Robespierre was however present for the actual wedding ceremony held two days later.

What gets Robespierre to completely change his opinion of Danton sometime following this session is harder to figure out than what one at first might think. If we look at interventions made by the two at the jacobins and the Convention in the weeks that follow, no big ideological differences between them can be spotted. They get into no public arguments, and instead appear rather united in urging their fellow deputies and jacobins to stand together, trust in the government committees, and not be led astray either by ”moderation” or ”extremism.” On December 21, none other than Hébert exclaimed to the jacobins: ”There are two men who have all my esteem and all my confidence: Danton and Robespierre, the two columns of the Revolution. […] Let them be alone, they will be great, and may they crush with us these reptiles which have vowed to lose liberty!” Hébert asked that the two not allow themselves to be mislead by Fabre d’Églantine, Philippeaux and Desmoulins, whom he called ”pygmies who want to rise in the shadow of their patriotism.” Indeed, Robespierre and Danton can at first been seen taking a rather similar stance on these men (who three months later will of course get labeled as Danton’s accomplices and executed alongside him) as well. Already two days later, on December 23, both of them intervened in the Jacobins’ tumultuous discussion about Philippeaux’s recent publication Philippeaux, représentant du peuple, au Comité de salut public, a critique of the French army’s brutality in the war in the Vendée. Neither did however try to defend or denounce the writer, instead just limiting themselves to asking that the debate be kept calm. Two weeks later, January 71794, Desmoulins and Robespierre got into an argument at the Jacobins after the latter had denounced the fifth number of Desmoulins’ new journal Vieux Cordelier as counter-revolutionary, but insisting that its author had been ”led astray by bad company,” and therefore proposing that the Society forgive him and ”just” burn the latest numbers. When Desmoulins refused that ultimatum, the fight worsened until Danton stepped in, again not to defend the accused or his writings, but rather to call for calm and act as meditator:

In Principaux évènemens, pour et contre la Révolution, dont les détails ont été ignorés jusqu’à présent: et prédiction de Danton au Tribunal révolutionnaire, accomplie (1794) Louis-Marie Villain d’Aubigny reports about a meeting that took place a fortnight before Danton’s death, at the house of Humbert, head of the office of foreign relations. Convention deputies Legendre and Panis, minister of foreign affairs Deforgnes, administrator of military subsistence Jeannet Boursier, secretary general of the same administration Saintin, Villain d’Aubigny himself, and ”several other people” were also present. Arriving at the house, d’Aubigny writes he told Danton and Robespierre, who had both come before him, that their misunderstanding, which couldn’t be grounded in anything but self-love, jealousy or wounded pride, caused harm to the homeland. Danton then took to the floor and regretted that Robespierre had shown himself so indifferent towards him for a time, suspecting this was due to ”the intrigues and the hatred that several members of the Committee of Public Safety have dedicated to me, notably Messieurs Saint-Just and Billaud-Varennes,” and also to the gossip Robespierre’s constantly surrounded with, which ”fills his imagination with a thousand chimeras, by maintaining him only with conspiracies, the guillotine, poison and daggers ready to tear his chest.” He therefore encouraged Robespierre to ”reveal the intrigue, unite with the patriots [and] all walk in good faith, on the same path, […] punish the culprits, the leaders, but pardon error,” while also ensuring him he had not increased his fortune due to the revolution. Robespierre, who up until this point had stayed silent, now opened his mouth and asked Danton: ”But with your principles and your morale, would one ever find culprits to punish?” To this, Danton replied: ”Would you be angry, Robespierre, if there were no culprits to punish?” After this, the reconciliation was seemingly complete and the two embraced. Villain d’Aubigny notes that Danton ”put frankness into it” while Robespierre ”remained cold like marble.”

The picture Robespierre’s notes otherwise paints of Danton is that of an immoral man who has in fact been a false patriot since day one of the revolution, and whose supposed reputation for civism has been built on nothing but ”the work of intrigue.” Danton has ”never defended a single patriot, never attacked a single conspirator,” ”chosen retreat in all crises,” and come across ”no liberticide measure which he hadn’t adopted.” Among the more concrete things Robespierre accused him of included having been too soft on the girondins and always willing to hold out an olive branch to them, having wanted an amnesty for ”all guilty people,” and having enriched Fabre with 10 000 francs from the treasury while serving as Minister of Justice. He also assigned him part of the blame for the massacre on Champ-de-Mars due to having been the editor behind the petition presented there alongside Brissot, as well as for not having had his back enough during the time of the Convention: ”Robespierre was accused; he didn’t say a single word if it wasn’t for isolating himself from him.” A lot of the other charges Robespierre directs at Danton are things that, it should be said, could just as easily be used against himself. For example, he accuses Danton of having been ”seduced” by Mirabeau when it was he himself who had suggested putting the latter’s body in the Panthéon on April 3 1791, of being a false friend to Desmoulins by first praising the Vieux Cordelier and then speaking ill of the author in private, when he too had encouraged Desmoulins to keep write the journal on December 14 1793 only to then turn his back on him a month later (and, it should perhaps be underlined, is writing this charge while at the same time working out Desmoulins’ actual indictment), of having wanted to sleep through the Insurrection of August 10, when he is not recorded to have played any active role in it either, and of along with Lacroix getting a decree passed abolishing slavery on February 4 1794, when he too had lobbied for abolishing it back in 1791.

#frev #maximilien robespierre #georges danton

ic-napology

Napoleon and Maria Walewska

This is how I would write Napoleon and Maria Walewska's relationship for a fictional telling (but also some serious debunking about the topic).

But first some premises.

I know I already expressed my dislike for such couple and I still do in some measure. First of all, there's a great gap in their ages, experience and social power which I don't find great; but I especially dislike how this couple came as an obstacle for my favourite couple and even contributed to end it.

Whom I really despise is not Naps and M themselves though, it's the historians and biographers who put Maria on a pedestal like she was a saint, the same ones who tend to demonise Joséphine as a frivolous, unfaithful slut. Yet while Joséphine's affairs are alleged, this "saint" committed adultery knowingly destroying two families for her own interest (and lust).

That's not what I actually think of her, but it should be the opinion these biographers should have of her according to this mentality. I'm quite convinced that if she had never given him a much needed son, Maria wouldn't be held in such high regard among Napoleon's lovers.

Lately I became curious about Maria as her portrayal is very stereotyped and flat, because of the Memoirs people attribute to her. I wanted to find more nuance in her figure.

I also have an issue with the narrative behind Napoleon's "love" stories. Because of the way they are told, you don't really get why people like Josephine or Maria received love from him more than the rest of his lovers. It's just and intense lust. But I need to find something deeper between them in order to see these relationships as loves.

That's the purpose of this post.

Usual disclaimer: Now since I'm a creative and not a historian, this has to be seen as the concept behind a hypothetical fictionalised version of their love story. It's very hard to extract from sources aspects like a character's feelings, their state of mind or the full extent of their intentions behind any action; so what I'm writing has no pretense of being accurate, it's more of a creative exercise and character exploration.

So I like to think that Napoleon and Maria mostly bonded a lot over patriotism as a way to project your own feeling of oppression.

I am all for giving a woman something more than sex appeal as a valuable trait in the eyes of a man. She can't be reduced to a sexual object.

Hard to believe, but there was a time where Napoleon was an idealist, fueled by a sense of isolation. I'm quite convinced that, as a young boy, he projected his own wish to be free from all his responsabilities in the obsession for Corsica's independence. The fact that the island was de facto annexed to France by the time he was born must have enforced his connection to it. Both were tied to and have been oppressed by France. He even wrote fanfiction about Corsican freedom fighters and wanted to write a history of his island.

(I know this because Napoleon's youth and Corsican shenaningans are MY obsession in turn. And I also projected my own experience with bullying and feeling different in his early life. I know what it means to pour all your feelings in creative projects. He was always featured in mine)

Then he had to grow up and the very brutal end of his experiences in Corsica must have contributed building his trademark pragmatism and cynicism.

By the time he met Maria, he was weighted down by several years of political intrigue and not to mention wars. Even his closest relationships have been conditioned by his political role and he had become quite distant and formal with most of his relatives. For example, @thiswaycomessomethingwicked made this excellent post about his brother Joseph and him where they quote a meaning letter exchange from 1806 about "still recognizing the Nabulio in the Emperor". His relationship with Josephine had also been compromised by his several (and most of all PROVEN) affairs and the issue of children, which was a private and a State matter at once. There was almost no clear line between his private and public sphere.

As we said, the main source about Maria as a person is her alleged Memoirs, which @suburbanbeatnik demonstrated me they are most likely 1) not hers and 2) very fictionalised in this post.

She's a very Victorian heroine, no mild feeling, just pure, unadulterated passion, enthusiasm, or suffering for anything. Her patriotism is downright extreme but inconsistent.

But as I said, I'd still like to see it as an important aspect of her true personality. She might have expressed it by managing the Count's household and lands, or giving shelter to Polish soldiers. It might have been a way to bond with an otherwise very old husband who may have seen a portion of Polish history she might have just heard about.

Since she was young and sheltered, her idealism and patriotism were likely very strong and pure; she shared a great deal of it to Napoleon and that might have reminded him of himself as a young man. He might have empathised with her, no matter how pragmatic he always wanted to be about everything.

She's said to have been devoted to Count Walewski before meeting Napoleon; of course she's portrayed as obedient and pious. But given how much older he was, it's impossible not to assume that a late teen wasn't in love with him. At least in the most physical sense. He may have treated her well and respectfully, but those unfamous "unhappy bride" paintings from the XIX century still come to mind. Considering how he was her first and only partner, she might have been sexually unaccomplished, no matter how mature and rational she was about the whole deal.

Even Napoleon must have looked like a boy compared to her husband, not to mention how energetic and headstrong he was. So I like to think his true appeal to Maria's eyes was the promise of a free life where passion and dreams could be a driving force. To her, Napoleon represented all of that, whom a part of her must have craved all her life instead of settling down in a forced marriage with an old man. Again, projecting.

I'd like to remind everyone she was a late teen when she met Napoleon, not to mention she had a sheltered life until then; she was immature, and that's not an insult, but an explanation behind her behaviour. It could explain how she might have seen her own feelings for Napoleon as true love, instead of rather a wish to feel free and relevant by proxy projected in a man.

I'm not undermining her feelings by the way. And I sympathise with her, in the same way I sympathise with young Napoleon. She's also a woman, albeit a countess.

I recognize her courage in abandoning her original support system and living as a lover in such an era, despite how her class privilege still has likely allowed her not to completely fall from grace, Lydia Bennet-style.

And of course I don't believe that Maria intentionally wrecked Napoleon's and Josephine's marriage by keeping up with the former as a lover. I don't think she wished for Josephine's fall. She likely didn't think much about that and only focused on her happiness with Napoleon and their incoming baby, always because she was still a little immature and unexperienced relationship-wise.

Else Josephine would have never offered her friendship later, nor Maria would have accepted it. Josephine could be a very sympathetic (albeit selectively) and forgiving person; she had already financed the education of her first husband's illegitimate children, and now she would support a foreign young and naive mother whose lover had abandoned her.

When it comes to affairs though, I'd argue that Maria wasn't naive. I don't remember who noted that, but by the time she visited Napoleon at Elba, she also held some business on her own and certainly didn't rely only on Napoleon for money. That proves you can be naive and intelligent at the same time, and money and love are separate matters.

#napoleon bonaparte #maria walewska #napoleonic era #napoleonic history

edgysaintjust

Les liaisons dangereuses illustrated by George Barbier.

#les liaisons dangereuses

miffy-junot

Was Junot bisexual?

(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 😭

#thanks for the treat !#jean andoche junot #napoleonic era #napoleonic history #pride month

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