The arrest and interrogation of Charlotte Robespierre
13 thermidor. Citoyennes Laporte, Canone, Gérard, Widow Gérard, Carraut, the Robespierre sisters. Arrest.
Arrest warrant for Charlotte and others found on the same adress, cited in Charlotte Robespierre et ses amis (1961) by Gabriel Pioro and Pierre Labracherie.
13 thermidor, year two of the Republic, one and indivisible
There was brought before us citoyenne Carraut, found on rue du Four, section du Contrat Social n. 482, at the house of citoyenne Béguin.
She was asked her name, age and residence.
Marie-Marguerite-Charlotte Robespierre, 28 years old, living on her income, residing with citoyenne Laporte, rue de la Réunion n. 200, and this since about a month back.
She was invited to tell us why she didn’t live with the Duplays on rue Honoré where the conspirator Robespierre lived and what motivated her to leave this residence.
To which she answered that she used to live there, but that her brothers and femme Duplay had told her to leave her apartment, and that femme Duplay reproached her for seeing counter-revolutionaries, among which was Guffroy, representative of the people; that her older brother resented her because she had the courage of letting him know the danger he ran by being sourrunded so badly, and that the Duplays had taken up the case to lose him, and that this was what motivated her to go live with citoyenne Laporte.
She was asked if she knew who had nominated Laporte to the Revolutionary Tribunal and what she thought of his job there.
She said she didn’t know Laporte had been nominated to the Revolutionary Tribunal, that she knew said Laporte neither on a direct nor indirect level, that she had heard it said before that he had been nominated to the Revolutionary Tribunal by her unfortunate older brother, because she had known that, in the public spirit, her older brother passed for having appointed [people to] the Revolutionary Tribunal, of which she had almost been the victim.
She was invited to declare if she had been aware of the infamous conspiracy that her older brother had been hatching and if she knew which were the men who frequently visited him.
She responded that she loved her country so much that she had the courage to lament this diabolical conspiracy, that every time she had met him she had found the occasion to tell him that the men around him were trying to deceive him, that if she had suspected the infamous plot that was being hatched, she would have denounced it rather than seeing her country lost.
She read her interrogation and said it contained the truth and signed while observing that she sometimes saw at the Duplays a man named Didier, who for a period of time served as secretary to her older brother, that through that position, he had been appointed juror to the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Robespierre.
Charlotte’s interrogation held on July 31 1794, cited on page 86-87 of Charlotte Robespierre et ses mémoires (1910) by Hector Fleischmann (tysm! for sharing it with me, @monimarat)
The same 13 thermidor there then appeared before us citoyenne Béguin, wife of citizen Béguin, employed as secretary at the Commission of Representatives of the People at the Army of Italy, rue du Four-Honoré, n. 482.
She was asked who had appointed her husband and if she hadn’t received a letter her husband had written to her and if there wasn’t one for the infamous Robespierre, and if she knew what it contained.
To which she responded that there did exist a letter for Robespierre the younger but that she didn’t know what it contained, that she had given it to him and that it was Robespierre the younger who had appointed Béguin when he was (illegible word), in quality of idiography professor.
She was asked if she had visited the infamous Robespierre the older, which were the people who frequented him and if she had known about his infamous conspiracy.
To which she answered that she had never visited Robespierre the older, that the infamous Duplays didn’t leave his side, that a man by the name of Daillé (Daillet), that she thought had been employed either at the Revolutionary Tribunal or at the military commission at Arras, that an individual like Le Brun (Topino-Le Brun), juror at the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, had told citoyenne Lavaux, a friend of citoyenne Béguin, that she had to stop seeing Robespierre’s sister, given that Le Brun knew that all those who came to see citoyenne Robespierre would be guillotined, given that Dumas and Fouquier received a list of people that had to be guillotined, that he had also said this to citizen Merimey, rue Chantereine n. 11. As for the conspiracy, she had been unaware of it, she had however heard it said that if Robespierre came out victorious they would all be lost, that at another time she had heard it said that Fouquier, the public prosecutor, frequently went home to Robespierre the older, that Le Brun, judge at the tribunal, had said that one sent him lists of those one wanted to have guillotined, what she can and believes she must assure is that Le Brun feared Robespierre.
Having read over her questions and answers she said that they contain truth and signed.
Femme Béguin.
Cited in Ibid, page 87-88
Section du contrat social
Revolutionary Committee
13 Thermidor, Year 2 of the Republic
There appeared before us citoyennes widow Girard, residing on rue du Doyéné, section of Thulieries n. 289, and Canone, residing in the same house, arrested at the home of citoyenne Béguin, residing on rue du four Honoré. When asked what had urged them to go to citoyenne Béguin, they replied that they had learned that citoyenne Robespierre was with citoyenne Béguin and that they were going to congratulate her on the happiness she was currently enjoying when she was finally free from the infamous tyrants Robespierre who had never had another purpose but to sacrifice their sister. When asked to tell us if they knew people who more usually frequented Robespierre, they responded that they did not know the people who habitually associated with the infamous Robespierre, that they had never seen him, that they only knew their unfortunate sister;
Reading to them the protocols made of their requests and answers, they said that they contained the truth and signed:
Canone
Widow Girard
Cited in Charlotte Robespierre et le 9 Thermidor (1920) by Albert Mathiez. Citoyenne Canone could possibly be Isabelle Canone, who the Robespierres’ step-cousin Régis Deshorties talks about courting in a letter to Augustin dated July 18 1794.
The next day, on 10 Thermidor, I ran through the streets, my mind troubled and despair in my heart; I called out, I sought my brothers. I learned that they had been taken to the Conciergerie. I ran there, I asked to see them, I asked with hands joined; I begged on my knees before the soldiers; they repulsed me, laughed at my tears, insulted me, struck me. A few persons, moved to pity, led me away. I had lost my reason. I did not know what was happening, what became of me; or rather I learned it several days later; when I returned to myself I was in prison. A lady was with me. She affected to take the greatest interest in my fate. She told me that several people had been arrested at the same time as me and because of me and that they would probably mount the scaffold with me. Destroyed as I was by sorrow, my hold on life was weak; I would have regarded death as a kindness; but the chagrin devouring me redoubled at the idea that I would drag with me to the tomb several persons whose entire crime was to have interested themselves in my misfortune or to have known me before 9 Thermidor. My cellmate then demonstrated to me that it depended on me to save them, and to save myself; that I had only to write to the members of the committees who had left the last struggle victorious, to implore their pardon. I repulsed this advice with indignation. “Then,” said my false companion, who fulfilled the sheep’s office with me, “then you will perish, and with you, twelve or fifteen victims, of whose number I shall be.” For fifteen days she tormented me to write. “If not for yourself, do it at least,” she would repeat, “for the unfortunate ones who have been taken from their families, from all that is dear to them, uniquely because of you, and who will perish by your will.” Vanquished in the end by that woman’s obsessions, and believing her my friend, after all her protesting, I told her: “Well then! Write, I will sign.”She hastened to write I don’t know what; she presented me with the paper and I apposed my signature to it without reading its content, so beaten down and desolate was I. The letter was sent, and the next day I was freed, along with my cellmate, who I never saw again. What can she have written in my name? I had been imprisoned, my persecutors said, because I had joined in my brother’s conspiracy against the republic; what arguments will she have invoked to justify me? Alas! I fear only too much that, profiting form my dreadful situation, from my despondency, from my despair, and from the distraction of my spirit, she made me sign a document containing things unworthy of me and that my heart reproves. I do not know if the craven Thermidorians will have made use of this document; in any case, they are quite capable of doing so, they who destroyed Maximilien’s papers and substituted other papers fro them in which they made him say what they wanted. This was the height of all their attempts.
Charlotte describes her arrest in her memoirs (1834)
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