#lindet

[minvio]

If you have to ask me who is the most unknown revolutionary during the French Revolution

[lemurious]

We were there when –

A phrase to start a story. A history, a reminiscence. A choice, often. A survival, by definition.

You were there when. When there were not enough hours in the day and not enough ink in the entire Convention to rush the grain to Paris; and people were hungry, and people were scared, in the middle of a war, two fronts, three fronts, you were there when – and what did you do?

I fed the people, you could say. I was there to feed the people.

You were there in that mad, exhausted spring when hope itself seemed to have faded beyond the horizon, when accusations were falling like apple blossoms and treacheries sprouting like leaves, when you were asked to sign a decree,

I am here to feed the people, and not to kill revolutionaries, you said.

(You will not sign another decree either, in Thermidor; you will choose silence again; after all, the people were still one missed grain delivery away from starvation. We will never know if that was the explanation you gave yourself; we will never know if you wished you’d have chosen differently, condemned yourself, spared yourself from surviving.)

We will wonder if you smiled when you heard the slogan, years later, hungry, empty, broken years later; bread and the Constitution, if you thought it as something that had been yours, as something you’d been trying to give the people for years. You were there when –

and once again, you survived, a veteran of that forgotten army that had been wielding pens, not swords, watching the dawn rise outside their windows, over the endless stacks of orders and accounts, laws and reforms, trying to keep your republic together until a republic was no more.

You did not live to see the next one, and that perhaps was the greatest tragedy of all. But such is the cost of civil service; forging what future we may, one line and one sleepless night and one inevitable defeat at a time; there is little honor and remembrance in it; but the people can only hope to build a better republic if they are alive, if they had been fed, if they have someone else’s legacy to follow, and we are here now, because you were there then.

Happy birthday, Lindet.

[aedislumen]

Lazare Carnot ou le glaive de la Révolution (1978),

A documentary film directed by Jean-François Delassus.

Last Monday with @mathildeaquisexta, I had the great opportunity to finally watch this movie, which was believed to be a lost media for a long time. Indeed, it is not: if you are in France and live close to an archive or library that provides access to INA's stored material, you can see it too on the spot.

The film structure is rather straightforward and nothing new when it comes to this kind of media: there's a narrator, Michel Debré in this case, who describes Carnot's political and military career from his election to the Committee of Public Safety until the coup of 18 Fructidor. His vicissitudes through the Consulate and the Empire are only quickly listed in a couple of minutes at the end - as they are not the focus of the movie - to leave eventually space for M. Debré to draw some conclusions on Carnot's deeds and views on how a democratic state should work.

Considering that it hasn't been uploaded anywhere online yet and that the series, which the movie is part of, Les samedis de l'histoire, was broadcast only once - it didn't have much success apparently - my friend and I didn't have very high expectations, but with our surprise, the film revealed itself to be rather decent and entertaining, with very few serious historical inaccuracies.

I'm no historian and even less a film critic, so, instead of attempting to make - and consequently fail since I'm not trained for such things - a real review, I'll simply write down my personal opinions and impressions, starting with what I didn't appreciate, to proceed with its strong points. At the end of this post, if Tumblr allows it, I uploads some pictures I took with my phone and some others I found online. They aren't of very high quality; nonetheless, I did my best to edit them so that they look decent. Unfortunately, in some instances, removing the glare and other unwanted effects was impossible with the means available. Better than nothing though, since INA hasn't agreed on giving copies of the movie upon request yet.

With that being said, let's begin!

The Bad (historical inaccuracies/bizarre filming choices/general things I didn't like)

The film opens with Barère updating his colleagues at the Committe of Public Safety on the disastrous situation France is in as far as the conflict against the First Coalition is concerned. Someone who's specialised in warfare is thus needed and Carnot's name gets mentioned. Robespierre shakes his head, asking Prieur de la Cote-d'Or why he can't do that instead, given his experience as officier du génie. Here comes the first inaccuracy: in real history, Prieur and Carnot joined the Committee together on the same day and, in particular, it was thanks to the former that Carnot was taken into consideration, because in the beginning Barère turned to Prieur only (I wrote a brief post about that here). So, it wouldn't make sense for the latter to already be a CSP member; not to mention the fact that he's played by an old, overweight, non-disabled actor, so somebody who couldn't be more different that the real Prieur. Usually I'm not picky when it comes to actors' physical appearance, but this one in particular left me quite perplexed, especially if one looks at the rest of the cast, which is on point for the most part, sole exception being Carnot's younger brother who in '93-'94 was 38-39 years old and in the film he looks like he's 20.

The final assault in the battle of Wattignies - that one with Carnot leading the troops - is extremely poorly made. I understand that the budget was low, but come on... A bunch of soldiers running chaotically, like high schoolers trying to get the bus to go home, isn't the most flattering way to depict one of the most beautiful battles of the Revolution - to quote Napoléon.

There's no mention of Carnot's involvement in the arrest and consequential execution of Robespierre and associates. The events of 8, 9 and 10 Thermidor just include a clip of Hoche being sad in prison, while the narrator limits himself to mention that Robespierre, Saint-Just etc have been proclaimed outlaws; after their death is announced, the spectator witnesses the release of the young general. All in all, such a missed opportunity to show all the possible reasons - and there are! - why Carnot turned against his former colleagues, something that could have enriched the depiction of his character even more.

The interactions between Carnot and Barras. There's quite a number of testimonies, stating that the two often fought and didn't like each other at all; yet in the movie, not only they walk arm in arm, but they converse in a very friendly way. This is kind of inaccurate; for example: the real Carnot would have never revealed the whole delicate matter concerning his former girlfriend to somebody like Barras, but here in the movie he does.

The good (what I appreciated and thought brilliant)

Apart from the two unfortunate cases presented above, I appreciated each of the casing choices, particularly the actors playing Carnot, Robespierre, Saint-Just and Hoche. Alain Mottet simply is Carnot. Not only his appearance matches fairly well that of the mathematician during the Revolution, but also his way of acting is rather accurate, considering all we know about him from historical accounts, which portrays him as a polite, good-mannered, hard-working person, who acts as a sort of patron for young promising military men. If my still limited knowledge on his life can serve anything, I'd say Mottet's performance comes the closest to the real Lazare Carnot. Something similar can be said for Robespierre and Saint-Just, played by actors who represent them well both in looks and attitude. They aren't depicted as bloodthirsty dictators, not even as Carnot's sworn enemies, but as people of great talent and intellect with whom the former can interact without much issue. As for Hoche... You're going to understand very soon what I liked about his actor.

I found the choice of adding Feulint - Carnot's younger brother - showing his influence and support in the life of Lazare's life brilliant. He gets often - almost all the time, to be fair - forgotten or treated as a marginal character with little importance.

The relationship between Carnot and Saint-Just. Oh, this is gonna be long. Since both @saintjustitude and I have started studying Carnot's life we wondered what exactly the two thought of each other and if their interactions were truly tumultuous as it's always portrayed in French Revolution related media and described in Hippolyte Carnot's memoirs on his father. By checking some CSP decrees and letters, it seems like it wasn't the case at all, at least in the beginning, and that their relationship only started to deteriorate a couple of months prior to the events of Thermidor. Nothing confirms said theory better than this movie: Carnot and Saint-Just interact a lot; the former, in particular, gives the idea of genuinely caring about the latter: he takes time to salutes Saint-Just exclusively before leaving for Northern Austrian border; once Saint-Just and Hoche come back from Alsace, Carnot says enthusiastically how much he's proud of them for what they have achieved military-wise at such a young age. There's also a scene hinting to a certain intimacy between the two, in which Carnot goes to whisper something in his younger colleague's ear, who feels relieved afterwards. Last, but in no way least, when Carnot gets interrogated by Courtois after Thermidor and talks about Saint-Just, he does that smiling in a melancholic way, as if he regretted the death of Louis-Antoine.

There are various CSP-related scenes, but fundamentally they are of two kinds: those told by the narrator happening prior to Thermidor and those by Carnot himself after Thermidor. What's the difference between them? The former show a rather calm interactions among all the CSP members: despite their diverging opinions on certain matters, they always manage to come to an agreement in a civil way; this applies to the Carnot-Robespierre-Saint-Just trio too, of course. When the main character is interrogated by Courtois though, a complete different version of the events get revealed: here Saint-Just and Robespierre are constantly at odds with him, they are suspicious of him to the point of wanting to get rid of him; in return Carnot calls them ridiculous dictator. To sum up, what he says to Courtois is nothing different from what's reported in Hippolyte's memoirs on the various altercations occurring in the CSP in the last months right before Thermidor. The way it's all presented makes the spectator wonder whether Carnot is actually telling the truth or a skewed, exaggerated version of the events in order to save himself from the reaction that after hitting his former colleagues - Collot, Billaud, Barère - is coming for him too, something that the movie puts a lot of emphasis on. I want also to point out that none of the scenes narrated by Carnot during the interrogatory is shown in the first part of the movie, so one never knows whether they truly happened, or whether they are fabricated by the latter. I found it brilliant, because it shows in a clever way how memories and written mémoires can be biased and unreliable.

It's given importance to Carnot's role in the Napoléon's climb through military ranks, something which Barras usually gets an unfair amount of credit for.

I appreciated the final comments by Debré on the fact that, according to Carnot, a real democracy in which citizens are truly free can only be achieved through a strong central government and not a weak one as it's commonly believed at the time the historian is talking.

Despite the movie being favourable to Carnot, it doesn't exaggeratedly praise him; in fact, it shows that he too committed mistakes as anybody else at the time and that also whatever he said about his former colleagues who got executed in Thermidor - notably Robespierre and Saint-Just - might not be the whole story.

Some pictures (those for which there's no external link are mine)

Carnot (Alain Mottet)

Sources for the first two pictures: 1, 2 (from this one I removed the watermark)

Robespierre (Michel Favory)

Saint-Just (Maxence Mailfort)

These two above are from antoine-saint-just.fr

Bonaparte (Daniel Mesguich)

Saint-Just, Robspierre and Couthon (Michel Modo)

Prieur (Igor Tyczka), Lindet (Roland Monod) and Carnot

Hoche (Manuel Bonnet)

Bonus: Hoche with a merveilleuse (Christine Locquin), who later in the movie will present herself to him dressed as hussar for some reasons:

Yes, I took an embarrassing amount of pictures featuring him.

Collot (Christian Bouillette) and Billaud (Bernard Salvage)

I'll add some more in a reblog since Tumblr doesn't allow more than 30 pictures per post.

[at-times-i-get-a-little-cruel]

Concept: one single 'this is our get along shirt' shirt for everyone in the CSP

[reflectiverecursion]

Wow, Lindet really didn't care.

[nesiacha]

The Pache Family: Forgotten Revolutionaries of a Tumultuous Era (From the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration)

The Pache family has gradually faded into relative obscurity (except among historians), even though they were once prominent and well-known revolutionaries, comparable to the Duplays and the Robespierre for example.

In addition to the text below, I’ve included links to posts about this revolutionary family. These posts will introduce you to their stories, political paths, and the relationships they may have had—particularly with figures such as Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre, Manon Roland, Camille Desmoulins, Brissot, Dumouriez, Jean-Paul Marat, Hébert, Gaspard Monge, Lazare Carnot, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Lindet, and others.

Jean Nicolas Pache: The Swiss Minister of War During the Revolution, Then Mayor of Paris Part I Part II

Xavier Audouin: From Convicted Hébertist Republican to Neo-Jacobin Facing the Directory, Then a Devout Royalist Under the Restoration https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/776762458733002752/the-life-of-the-revolutionary-xavier-audouin-from?source=share

The Revolutionary Path of Sylvie Audouin, Daughter of the Hébertist Revolutionary Mayor and Minister of War Jean-Nicolas Pache, and Wife of the Famous Revolutionary Xavier Audouin https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/776418727578189824/the-revolutionary-path-of-sylvie-audouin-daughter?source=share

The Career of Jean Pache: From Soldier in the Service of the Revolution, Baron under the Empire, to Fervent Royalist during the Restoration https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/779573958449168384/the-career-of-jean-pache-from-soldier-in-the?source=share

Jean-Nicolas Pache, the most famous of them all, was born on May 5, 1746, in Verdun, the son of Nicolas Pache, a Swiss doorman in the service of the Castries family, and Jeanne Lallemand, who would faithfully follow her son throughout his life. He attended the Royal School of Engineering in Mézières, where he met and became one of the best friends of Gaspard Monge. His rise was facilitated by Castries, who recognized his potential, and when Castries became Minister of the Navy, Pache became the secretary-general of this ministry and even held the position of royal controller under Necker. After becoming a widower, he withdrew with his two young children (Sylvie and Jean) and his mother to Switzerland. He would only return in 1789-1790, where he began his revolutionary journey alongside his friend Monge. He founded the Patriotic Society of Luxembourg.

At first, Jean-Nicolas Pache befriended the Roland couple (especially Manon Roland), whose intelligence and abilities led to him becoming their secretary and later the Minister of War. However, their friendly relations soured for political reasons. Brissot attacked him, and Pache aligned himself with the Montagnards, notably supported by Maximilien Robespierre (although Augustin Robespierre apparently held him in high regard as well), Jean-Paul Marat, and Hébert. He was categorized as an Hébertist (although the situation was more complex). Despite losing his position as Minister of War due to the efforts of some Jacobins, he quickly became popular and was elected Mayor of Paris. He would align himself more closely with the Hébertists, face significant issues such as riots, famine, and participate in the events of May 31 and June 2, according to his own account. He supported the Law of the Maximum and was involved in the execution of Marie-Antoinette. A fervent advocate for dechristianization, he survived the fall of the Hébertists and was arrested on May 10, 1794, with his mother, daughter, and son-in-law, leading to his removal from office. Contrary to what is often said to perpetuate the black legend of Carnot, their arrest was not due to a dispute that went awry, but due to more complex reasons, such as their affiliation with the Hébertists, as well as suspicions arising from their connection to the former Minister of War Bouchotte, who was seen by some as allied with the faction of the Exagérés.

Jean-Nicolas Pache, along with other left-wing prisoners (including Xavier Audouin, Bouchotte, Rossignol, Marchand, Héron, and others), was dragged from prison to prison, facing imminent death as the right-wing regained power. They would only be saved on 4 Brumaire Year IV (October 26, 1795). Afterward, he withdrew to Thin-le-Mouthier, wrote works, became a member of the Agricultural, Arts, and Commerce Society of the Ardennes, and contrary to popular belief, did not immediately abandon political life. He published a manifesto in defense of the Babouvistes, which also criticized Lazare Carnot. It was only after the Brumaire coup, which brought to power a man he despised, Napoleon, that he withdrew from politics and rejected his friend Monge's offer to work for the First Consul, although he parted from him on good terms.

Xavier Audouin was a defrocked priest who began his revolutionary career in 1790. He quickly founded the Journal Universel in 1790, became a member of the Fontaine-de-Grenelle section, and participated in the August 10, 1792, insurrection. He befriended, among others, Hébert. After a month-long mission, he entered the Ministry of War under Pache, where he became the secretary-general. He married Pache’s daughter, Sylvie, who was 16 at the time. After Pache’s departure, Audouin became Bouchotte's deputy in the 6th division. He played a role in one of the most famous measures of the time, judicial reform: “We propose to relieve the Revolutionary Tribunal from the forms that stifle conscience and prevent conviction; 2) to add a law that gives jurors the ability to declare they are sufficiently informed. Only then will traitors be deceived, and terror will be the order of the day."

He was arrested at the same time as his father-in-law and shared the same fate until the amnesty of 4 Brumaire Year IV. Later, he founded Le Publiciste Philanthrope, becoming one of the most famous neo-Jacobins and opponents of the Directory (alongside figures like Félix Le Peletier, Topino-Lebrun,Antonelle, Victor Bach, Antonelle, Drouet, Jorry, René Vatar, etc.), and predicted Napoleon's rise. After the Brumaire coup, Xavier Audouin was included in a list for deportation, but this decision was quickly revoked. He became an historiographer at the War Depot and attempted, unsuccessfully, to rehabilitate the administration of Year II. He temporarily withdrew from political life in 1802 to become a lawyer. After the definitive Restoration of Louis XVIII, he became a royalist, a lawyer at the Royal Court, advocated for the abolition of the death penalty in political matters, and made proposals for better organizing the administration. He also wrote several books throughout his life. He always had an aversion to Camille Desmoulins, which seemed to be mutual.

Sylvie Audouin, born Pache, was just a teenager when her father took the family to Paris in 1790. She was a musician and played the harp like him. However, she already had a political consciousness when, in 1792, she signed alongside her future husband, Xavier Audouin, and other well-known revolutionaries like Pauline Léon. This suggests that she regularly attended the Luxembourg Patriotic Section. She also dined with her father’s collaborators such as Carnot-Feulins, Meusnier, Audouin, Vincent, Vergne, Hassenfratz, etc. According to historian Mathilde Larrère, Sylvie was already known during this period.

She married during the same period that Louis XVI was judged. According to her husband, she did not hesitate to discuss politics publicly or privately despite her young age. She showed great strength of character during the imprisonment of her father and husband, to the point where she was awarded a civic crown in Year IV. It can only be assumed that she continued to care about the politics of her husband while publicly supporting her father, remaining loyal to him even during the worst times. According to Pierquin, she did not become a royalist during the Restoration (unlike what Wikipedia said but also Tornare as he may not be reliable at times ) unlike her husband, her childrens and her brother.

Jean Pache, the youngest son of Jean-Nicolas Pache, made his career primarily in the military. As a young man during the French Revolution, he campaigned but returned to try to help his imprisoned father. He would continue his career under the Empire and was titled Baron. During the first Restoration, he became a fervent royalist and was awarded the Saint Louis Medal, while maintaining his noble title.

Debunking the "Black Legend": Accusations and Defences

There is a great black legend surrounding this family. Jean-Nicolas Pache, due to his secretive nature, has been seen as a traitor by the Girondins, and it is true that he did not make any gestures to assist some of his former friends, such as Manon Roland. However, as seen in the posts dedicated to him, the blame is shared. While he testified against them and did not react during the highly questionable executions of Madame Roland or other Girondins, this was not to his credit. Moreover, although he did not join his Hébertist colleagues in the attempted insurrection for valid reasons, he did not testify during the mock trial that sentenced them to death, despite their requests. He also did not intervene during the trial and execution of Chaumette, despite having worked closely with them and Hébert being one of those who had come to Pache’s aid against the Girondins. Additionally, the false testimony he gave about Marie-Antoinette’s son was atrocious. Some described him as a power-hungry man behind his discreet appearance. Even if, with his secretive nature, it is impossible to know his regrets, the only public remorse he displayed, according to Pierquin, was for failing to reconcile the Dantonists with the Commune (thus the Hébertists), as he believed that could have saved the revolution.

However, if it is true that he betrayed his former allies, he did defend Garin, who was harshly attacked. He showed great courage during his imprisonment, where he narrowly escaped the guillotine when the right regained power. He did not complain, especially not in the fortress of Ham, and did not throw his colleagues under the bus, particularly Bouchotte. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, after his release, he risked imprisonment or deportation again by writing in favor of the Babouvistes.

His lifelong friendship with Gaspard Monge endured, and he parted from him on good terms in 1803. Regarding his thirst for power, there is a strong counter-argument: he refused Napoleon’s offer to work for him on principle.

Xavier Audouin was occasionally accused of incompetence (his fortune was considered greater than his merit according to Adrien Sée) and cowardice, especially for not testifying in favor of his Hébertist friends, for having worked under the Consulate (potentially for the Empire) after denouncing Bonaparte during the Directory, and for being royalist during the Restoration.

Regarding the first accusation, it’s important to remember that he worked for Pache before he became his son-in-law and served as general secretary. Jean Nicolas Pache liked to surround himself with competent people, and therefore, Audouin must have had the qualities required for such an important position. He continued in this role as Bouchotte’s assistant. Furthermore, he was far from a "yes man," opposing certain matters, especially those related to his beloved father-in-law or his friend Vincent, particularly regarding the case of François-Siméon Chauvet. I also doubt that an incompetent person could have been part of the most important neo-Jacobins or predicted that Bonaparte would come to power if there wasn’t more vigilance. Not to mention that he was highly skilled at organizing certain administrations, a talent that would surface again when he became a lawyer at the Royal Court. He proposed interesting ideas regarding administrative reforms and the reorganization of ministries.

As for the accusation of cowardice, it is true that although testimonies show that Audouin was deeply affected by the death of his Hébertist friends, there is no written record of his opposition to the mock trials (even though Audouin claimed he had conflicts with the Committee of Public Safety). However, when he was arrested along with his father-in-law Pache and the guillotine was near, he openly requested in his letters that he share Pache’s fate, whatever it may be. He ends some of his letters with the republican saying “Liberty or death.” Furthermore, he remained a neo-Jacobin during the Directory at a time when it was very difficult for them, showing a form of courage. As for the fact that he rallied to Bonaparte for a time, it is unfortunate that he found himself caught in a contradiction between his attitude during the Directory and under the Consulate. However, he sought to rehabilitate the administration of Year II, even if it was in vain. I also believe that the reason he left the Consulate in Year II, according to some sources, may have been due to the persecution of Jacobins (after all, Topino-Lebrun, his colleague under the Directory, was executed under the Consulate following a mock trial, and the mass deportations of Jacobins led to the deaths of, among others, his colleague René Vatar, his former printer, and Rossignol, whom he knew well when they were imprisoned together). If Drouet, who had an impeccable revolutionary career until the era of Bonaparte, supported Napoleon and was "pardoned," why not Audouin?

When he became a staunch royalist under the Restoration, he did not renounce his revolutionary past, which could be seen as a defense in his favor.

Sylvie Audouin also has a certain dark legend that persists. Some historians, including Adolphe Thiers (although, given Thiers' political views, it’s no surprise he acted in bad faith), perpetuated the claim that she was part of the “lower Jacobinism,” and Taine even invented an imaginary sister for Sylvie, claiming that Pache “took pride in sending his daughters to the club to give the fraternal kiss to drunken Jacobins.” One of the most demonizing quotes about Sylvie came from Dumouriez, one of Pache’s sworn enemies, who said that “as ugly as she was wicked, this girl went to all the clubs to demand the head of the King.” Although Sylvie Audouin was known for openly discussing politics, signing manifests, she was too young to speak at a podium, even Lenôtre (who clearly was not a supporter of the French Revolution and partially criticized Pache) contested Dumouriez’s statement and defended Sylvie. Furthermore, one must consider Sylvie's actions: would a wicked girl have been friends with the daughters of Monge, as Louis de Launay stated? Would she have openly supported her husband and father in prison when their fate was uncertain, asking for forgiveness once freed, to be free before them? Would she have defied the guards’ insults, especially during the period of the White Terror, passed messages through the prison bars to Pache and Audouin, shared a tough winter in prison with her husband, and comforted other prisoners , notably Foussedoire, and written letters to try to secure her husband’s release? Would she have remained faithful to her father even during the Restoration? Between these facts and Dumouriez’s words, the choice is clear in my view.

Another point is that even in the memoirs of Pierquin, who conducted detailed research on Pache (although Pierquin often criticizes other revolutionary figures such as Carnot), it is said that Sylvie Audouin liquidated some of her father’s assets in 1825, even though she passed away in 1820 (unless she left posthumous instructions).

What is sad is that even the very small biographies (other than Louis de Launay's) that defend her or try to make her known focus solely on the prison aspect she endured, without mentioning her political actions, such as the manifest that she signed in 1792 against Louis XVI, for example, before her marriage.

Jean Pache also suffered his share of criticism. The first accusation is that after serving as a “soldier” and engineer during the French Revolution, he accepted a title under the Empire. Furthermore, during the first Restoration, he became a fervent royalist, adopting the title Baron Jean, renouncing his family name, and abandoning his father, who had just lost his mother, daughter, and granddaughter. However, one must also remember that during the French Revolution, he did everything he could to defend his father until his release in 1795. He did not espouse any significant ideology during this period (making it difficult to accuse him of being opportunistic), and the reason Jean Nicolas Pache was left alone despite his role in the trial of Marie-Antoinette was that his son had good relations with the royalists.

The last family member subject to these preconceived ideas is Jeanne Lallemand, Jean-Nicolas Pache’s mother. Described by Lenôtre as “a simple woman born in the time of the Regency, whose entire life had been spent in the humblest of circumstances, she certainly never understood the reasons for her son’s sudden rise or the disasters that followed,” (excerpt from Paris révolutionnaire: Vieilles maisons, vieux papiers). Nevertheless, a letter from Xavier Audouin disproves this view. He writes that Jeanne Lallemand always supported and applauded her son's revolutionary journey.

In conclusion, I make some suppositions and observations. I believe that Sylvie Audouin was always torn between the ideals of her father and her husband. According to Louis de Launay (although this is debatable because he provides an incorrect reason for the arrest of the Pache family), she was much more Hébertist than her father, as she allegedly argued over the executions of Prieur de la Côte d’Or and Lazare Carnot. Moreover, she engraved her husband’s name on her chest both out of loyalty and, for some, ideology (which Lenôtre compares to Bernadotte, who had the phrase “Death to kings” engraved on his arm). On the other hand, it seems that Xavier Audouin had little animosity towards Carnot, as according to Aulard, while he did not hesitate to admit that he had argued with Vadier, Collot, and Robespierre (who opposed the arrest of the Pache family), he claimed that his wife had argued with a governor (implied to be a member of the Committee of Public Safety) without naming them, which is strange. I believe it was Carnot or Prieur de la Côte d’Or (although Prieur was also one of those who refused to sign the arrest warrant for Pache). If this is true, then Sylvie's aversion to Carnot was shared with her father. Moreover, according to Pierquin, Sylvie did not become royalist like her husband and brother, a trait she shared with her father. I also wonder whether, given her background as the daughter of a Minister of War, who clearly taught her about politics and allowed her to interact with his collaborators, and as the wife of a former general secretary at that ministry, she understood some aspects of military operations or at least the workings of a ministry (within reason).

It is interesting to note the evolution of Xavier Audouin, who moved from judicial reform during the harsh three-day rule (which I mentioned earlier regarding the Revolutionary Tribunal) to, during the Directory, advocating “an emotional amplification of the country’s woes” and pleading for fraternity, forgiveness, and general reunification (though the context in 1793, when France was in a dire situation, explains this, while under the Directory, the Jacobin and Pantheon clubs disappeared). Finally, as a royalist, he became a man opposed to the death penalty in political matters. However, when his wife passed away, he ceased all political activity as if he had lost his political advisor and source of strength. Lenôtre says, “When he (Xavier Audouin) was no longer under the influence of his Cornélie (...), he softened permanently. He died a royalist in 1837.”

In any case, I believe it is time for a serious historian of our time, with all the updated information, to write a biography of this family of revolutionaries, once well-known but now forgotten.

[filipinawritcr]

Something tells me that this committee needs help with the amount of Earth signs here.

[quercusfloreal]

On the night of 15 to 16 Ventôse (year II), the members of the revolutionary committee of la section de l'Indivisibilité, when making their rounds, noticed on a poster of the CSP that "anthropophagus" has been written above the name of Robespierre. Above those of Prieur, Lindet and Barère : "deceivers of the people who are always stupid and foolish and thieves and murderers".

Translated from : Le procès des hébertistes - Actes du tribunal révolutionnaire - Gérard Walter.