Saint Just and Pastries: a Family Story or Another Legend?
While we hear that Maximilien Robespierre once lived in a bakery and declared his love for tarts in a poem, we find out that his friend, the other elegant Jacobin, Louis Antoine Léon de Saint Just, seemed to have some much more serious links with pastries. Indeed, Saint Just's maternal lineage, the Robinot, was from the Nivernais, today's Nièvre in Burgundy. According to the historian Jean Hanoteau, the Robinot family had passed on a bakery and pastry business for many generations in this place. That being said, we know for sure that Léonard Robinot, his maternal grandfather was actually the royal notary, prosecutor of the castellany of Decize, and seed merchant. So, is it true or not? It is always difficult to trace such ancient family lineages with accuracy. But is it correct to undervalue the works of a Decize native historian too? The tart mystery remains.
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Source: Jean Hanoteau, "Les ascendances nivernaises de Saint-Just", Nevers, 1935, (Bibl.Nat., L n27/80.665)
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