Alexander. Pronouns: He/Him/His or Fleur/Fleurs/Fleurself.
Let me know if you want something tagged, I won’t be upset. I am very bad at replying to messages in a timely manner, but I promise I’m not mad at you.
[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over
a part of me dies every time a grown woman in my life uses the terms "girl math" or "girl dinner" or what fucking ever like i don't care if it's silly or ironic because there are people out there who do not see it as silly or ironic and use it to embolden their misogynistic beliefs and you should not have to demean yourself because of a dumb online trend when you are a smart capable talented complex human being can you please treat your mind and body with the love they deserve
(I wonder how you came across it, anon! I kept looking through the biographies I have to figure out who mentioned it and there's a very quick mention by Vinot, but it doesn't talk of a fight per se: he says the woman came to insult him which seems to be the predominant story. Honestly, the only way I remembered is that I had already isolated the original source for the anecdote in Bégis!)
The only anecdote I can think of that matches this description is the one with a woman named Lambert. (She's referred to as "femme Lambert" which would translate to Wife Lambert even though "femme" also means "woman" but if she was widowed they would call her veuve/Widow Lambert. However, in some cases, it might be better to translate it to "the Lambert woman". You'll see below.)
(This is long with many pictures and translations so the rest is under the cut!)
On 3 thermidor year II / 21 July 1794, Collot d'Herbois signed the arrest of Lambert. According to Aulard's Recueil des actes du Comité de salut public, vol. 14, p. 327 n. 4, it came with a note that says "the decree was taken at Saint-Just's request, who said the woman at come to his lodgings no doubt to assassinate him".
The Committee of Public Safety decrees that Wife Lambert, who is residing at the home of Citizen Lepault, a watchmaker, at 959 Rue Thomas-du-Louvre, shall be immediately arrested and taken to the Conciergerie. The individual living with her in Paris shall also be arrested [and] taken to the Conciergerie. Braut, in conjunction with the Surveillance Committee of the Tuileries section, is charged with enforcing this decree. (3)
(3) An attached note explains that this decree was issued at the request of Saint-Just, who claimed that this woman had come to his lodgings no doubt to assassinate him.
Bernard Vinot barely mentions it, merely saying that she came to insult Saint-Just:
(I'm not translating the whole page 😭 it's the second highlighted passage.)
Eugene N. Curtis has a bit more details, p. 277-278 of his biography Saint-Just, colleague of Robespierre:
He also reveals the source to the anecdote is in Alfred Bégis, although he makes a translation mistake and a misinterpretation:
Lambert didn't claim to be Bégis' cousin, but Saint-Just's. Lambert also didn't mention Thuillier and Gateau - that's an assumption Bégis makes, or rather a segue he makes from one topic to the other:
Thuillier and Gateau were also chosen by Saint-Just, because of their perfect knowledge of the region and its inhabitants, to establish the revolutionary government in the department of Aisne. To achieve this, they had terrorized the region; thus they had a large number of the inhabitants of the department arrested and taken to Paris; the entire population was dismayed and filled with anxiety. A relative of Saint-Just, Citizeness Lambert, came to see him in Paris, at the Committee of Public Safety, on the 3rd of Thermidor, Year II, to bring the complaints of her compatriots and to demand the release of those who had been unjustly arrested and were awaiting trial in the prisons of Paris, the outcome of which seemed all too certain. She undoubtedly made her case to him a bit too forcefully and voiced her reproaches in a tone that displeased him.
Bégis does give us a bit more details on the affair. However, you must remember the positives and negatives when dealing with 19th-century sources and early 20th-century sources. In some cases, they will give you a lot of details by citing the actual archives because they can do a great job digging in there (though you should always be wary of mistakes in transcription). On the other hand, they might have an extremely negative bias towards the topic, moreso than in most of the 20th century (though that was obviously not perfect either). It's the case of Alfred Bégis' Curiosités révolutionnaires: Saint-Just, membre du Comité de salut public de la Convention nationale, son emprisonnement sous Louis XVI, Lettres et documents inédits (1890). (That's a mouthful, I know. Common for 19th-century articles. It translates to "Revolutionary Curiosities: Saint-Just, member of the Committee of Public Safety of the National Convention, his imprisonment under Louis XVI, unpublished letters and documents". Note that the one I linked is from 1892, but I also have a copy from 1890.)
It's an article of about 44 pages (p. 49-92) that's most useful for transcribing all the documents related to the 1786-1787 affair when Saint-Just was supposedly imprisoned by a lettre de cachet for - and that's important to mention - having "escaped from his mother's house, taking with him a considerable quantity of silverware, other personal effects, and loose change" (p. 79):
On this letter, Mr. de Crosne, Lieutenant General of Police, signed on March 30, 1787, the provisional order to release Saint-Just and to formalize this order, he wrote to Baron de Breteuil:
"Monsieur de Saint-Just was taken to the home of Madame Marie de Sainte-Colombe, pursuant to the King's order of September 30, 1786, because he had escaped from his mother's house, taking with him a considerable quantity of silverware, other personal effects, and loose change."
Note that the word stealing isn't used because it was not theft. (Read also: this and this.)
(I say "supposedly" because some people, like Albert Ollivier, believe the whole affair was fabricated, mostly by d'Évry as revenge for his imprisonment during the Terror. Bégis is very adamant in the introduction of his article about how Ernest Hamel denied it ever happened. Charles Vatel first published documents about the affair in 1872, and Bégis said he found copies in the Archives nationales. The issue is that many of the originals burnt in 1871. I'm not entirely convinced that it was fabricated but I thought I should mention this as Bégis does go into the Archives for this story, p. 50-51.)
After discussing the affair, the article goes on to talk about how this humiliation fed his desire for a "cruel revenge" once he had achieved "absolute power", and that Saint-Just had only substituted the lettres de cachet for his own arbitrary justice. So, yeah, that's the angle we're going for, and that's the context for the Lambert anecdote. It's used to explain how he sought revenge against people from his region who had wronged him, and "terrorized his country" via Gateau and Thuillier. Bégis claims Lambert was a relative who had come to him to complain about their compatriots who had been unfairly arrested. Thankfully for us, he doesn't stop there: he gives us archives!
First, the note Aulard mentioned. According to Bégis, it was written by Augustin Lejeune, one of Saint-Just's friends who oversaw the (controversial) Police Bureau of the Committee of Public Safety:
Saint-Just asked Citizen Collot d'Herbois to have the Lambert woman and the man living with her arrested, telling him that she had come to his house, no doubt to assassinate him.
Collot then asked Lejeune to write the arrest decree previously mentioned, which he signed.
Bégis claims that the Lambert woman living at this address wasn't the only woman with this name who was arrested. That, because no first name was given (something that's common in arrest decrees), several other women named Lambert were also arrested, like one whose maiden name was Anisson-Dupérom, and that it was done to make sure the one who targeted Saint-Just was caught. Bégis doesn't give proof of this though (no other decree or list of arrest is cited), and it could be an assumption he makes. After all, her address was written in the arrest decree, and that was usually sufficient.
A few months later, on 5 germinal year III, Collot was defending himself from accusations and brought up the anecdote with more details:
Later, in response to an accusation brought against him by Clauzel on 5 Germinal Year III, from the rostrum of the Convention and in connection with that order, Collot d'Herbois stated that Saint-Just might have lied to him; that he came to the Committee to tell him how people had come to his home to assassinate him; and that, after making a few remarks to him, he replied:
"If Paris had been arrested that morning, Lepelletier would not have been assassinated that day. Those words gave me pause to think, he said, and I ask my colleagues: if Saint-Just had been assassinated that day, would I not have borne the blame for that crime?"
Lambert was reportedly imprisoned for 5 months. She is the primary source telling us she was related to Saint-Just and giving us a bit more details on the altercation:
Citizens,
Citizeness Lambert, who was arrested on the 3rd of thermidor and taken to the maison du Plessis on the orders of Saint-Just, her cousin, for having had a quite lively quarrel (querelle) with him over the atrocities being committed at the time, demands her freedom. She notes that she lost two of her children during the attack on Dunkirk and that her submission to the decrees of the Republic gives her hope that she will receive prompt justice.
Wife LAMBERT.
Considering this was written in her plea to the Thermidorian Comittee of General Security in order to be released (she was on 14 nivôse year III), it should be taken with a grain of salt. We'll never know what actually happened between them, and if Saint-Just had reason to feel threatened. Yes, paranoia was at its peak but there had also been assassination attempts.
To conclude, the "fight" was most likely a heated verbal argument. Words he might have interpreted as threats could have been said. She also came to his home, which is inherently more threatening, and not at the Committee - that's something Bégis mistakenly said despite having access to the note Saint-Just sent to Collot.
POV ur Florencio The Sailor Guy being flirted with by a guy about to roll a 6 on his persuasion check (with advantage. And a buff) (and it still worked)
dededos
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
izzy806
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
