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What do we know about the Ricords?

There actually exists a fairly recent biography on Ricord — La République à visage humain: Jean-François Ricord, maire de Grasse, conventionnel, représentant en mission (2019). If you want to learn about him properly I think the best might be to go consult that book, because I couldn’t really find more substantial info on him than his wikipedia article and some dictionary articles. As for Marguerite Ricord, according to the memoirs of René-Nicolas Dufriche, she was born in Grasse, with her maiden name being Rossignoly. Her father, born in the 1710s or 1720s, was an ex-Oratorian and doctor who had never had much work, ”a lazy and caustic Epicurean, [who] had made himself formidable by the most biting satires in verse. […] Quite an old satyr, because of the fire which still sometimes flashed from his eyes, and the convulsive movements of his lips which revealed two or three threatening teeth.” Marguerite had grown up with a mother — a ”remarkably gentle” woman it is said she ressembled — as well as two sisters, one of which was married by 1793, and a younger one named Thérèse or Théréson. More basic info — such as her year of birth, marriage and death — I’ve however not been able to find (and the only reason I even know her name was Marguerite is because different historians have all called her that).

As for Jean-François, he too had been born in Grasse, in 1759, where he, once the revolution rolled around, founded a local Jacobin Club. On January 6 and 9 1792, its parisian sister club lists someone named Ricord as intervening during their debates. This is ”our” Ricord according to the index, though I do have some doubts about it considering he at this point should still be in Grasse, where he had been elected mayor just two months earlier. Ricord and Marguerite most likely didn’t go to Paris until the fall of 1793, when the former was elected to the National Convention. There, he would go on to vote for the death of Louis XVI, rejecting both an appeal to the people and granting the king a reprieve. One day after Louis’ execution, January 22 1793, Lucile Desmoulins writes in her diary: ”Ricord came to see me. He is always the same, very brusque and coarse, truly mad, giddy, insane.” The next day she tells us about having met Ricord after witnessing the funeral procession of Le Peletier, and a week later about dining with Ricord, Sillery and three others.

The military doctor René-Nicolas Dufriche reported in his Souvernirs de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et du commencement du XIXe (1836) that, two months later, March 15 1792, the following scene took place:

I went to take a leave, on the evening of March 15, at my uncle V... and the rest of his family, by then gathered near him, and I thus embraced for the first and last time my adorable cousin Aimée, who died of grief shortly after the tragic end of our uncle. That day, I found at my aunt's house the wife of a deputy from Var who was attending the conferences held at V... This woman, apparently very shy, probably because she had no use of the world, learning that I was leaving the next day for Nice, told me that she was from Grasse and the daughter of a doctor, and that if I ever went to that city, she urged me to see her family, who would welcome me eagerly.

On July 21 1793 Ricord shows up for the very first time in the Récueil des actes du Comité de Salut Public (I’ve honestly not been able to find any trace of him between Lucile’s diary entry and this, neither in official debates nor anecdotes). On that day, he got tasked with going to the Army of Italy, replacing the representative Pierre Baille who had gotten the mission to go there alongside Augustin Robespierre two days earlier. According to Mary Young’s Augustin: the younger Robespierre (2011), Augustin and Ricord may already have been acquainted with one another, seeing as the latter, according to her, had a flat on 5 rue St Florentin, the same street Charlotte had gotten her brothers to go live on after her fallout with the Duplays.

Ricord decided to take his wife along with him on the journey. According to the memoirs of Charlotte Robespierre, it was when she learned of this fact that she asked her younger brother if she too may tag along, something which the latter agreed to ”with joy.” We don’t know when exactly the group set out, but the first letter from them to the CPS is dated August 16, when they for the moment are settled in Sault. Six days later we find them in Manosque. A week after that, August 28, Augustin writes to his brother from Aix reporting that ”I embraced all the prisoners, Ricord first of all” which might suggest Ricord had for a short time been captured by counter-revolutionaries. Finally, on September 8 they had reached Nice, where they would also go on to stay for more than a month (we have letters dated September 13, 16, 18, 23 and 24, and 5 October 5, 7, 8 and 16). Here, they ran into the military doctor René-Nicolas Dufriche once again who left the following anecdote in his Souvernirs de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et du commencement du XIXe (1836):

Walking one evening on the beautiful terrace which borders the sea, I came face to face with the representatives Barras and Fréron, who both flanked Madame Ricord, the wife of their colleague, who followed them a few steps away, chatting to Robespierre the younger. A swarm of young staff officers surrounded the national representation at a respectful distance. I was forced to greet the first group and approach madame Ricord, to ask her for news of her family, who had received me so cordially in Grasse. “Monsieur,” citoyenne Ricord said to me, “aren’t you a bit of a Girondin?” “No, madame, I’m simply a doctor.” Then, slowly retreating, I went to see the husband, who affectionately held out his hand to me and took a few steps away from Robespierre so that we could talk more at ease. “Citoyen representant,” I said to him, “your wife just asked me a very inappropriate question.” And I repeated what she had said. “Certainly, very inappropriate, and it does not surprise me, because my wife compromises me every day… Forget what she told you… I am counting on your silence.” "Admit, however, citoyen representant, that if Madame Ricord's question could cause me some grief, I could not help saying that your wife's suspicions infallibly relate to what she saw me do in Paris at my uncle V... She was waiting for you there, as you well know, chatting with my aunt and my cousin, while you deliberated in the neighboring salon... Isn’t that how it is?” "Certainly; I repeat to you that my wife does not have any common sense. Be calm, and whatever may happen, you will find in me a warm friend who will make use of your services.” While complying with the somewhat interested words of M. Ricord, a loyal man, I was not completely reassured. I had humiliated self-esteem and swallowed too much the ridiculous pretensions of a few Figaros, exclusive patriots and aesculapian servants of the proconsuls, so as not to apprehend the denigrations. Confining myself therefore into a clientele which increased every day, I avoided with extreme care the national representation and all its entourage.

According to Charlotte’s memoirs, it was also while in Nice that Marguerite caused her to fall out with Augustin:

Public spirit in Nice was no better than in all of Provence. But there we had nothing to fear from the counterrevolutionaries; there was a division of French troops. The general in chief, Dumerbion, and his general staff protected us, Madame Ricord and I, when her husband and my brother went out, which happened often. During my stay in Nice I went to the theatre only three times. The first time we were respected; the second time, the box that we had reserved had been taken over; the third time they threw apples at us, which did not reach us. General Dumerbion saw this and sent his aides-de-camp to pray us to come to his box. Then they no longer dared to throw anything at us, but after a few minutes, we left the theatre, and never set foot in it again.

Robespierre the Younger and Ricord had found that Army of Italy, which was soon to become illustrious by its great exploits, in a disastrous destitution. While they visited the different divisions and substituted everywhere order for disorder, abundance for famine, we kept occupied, Madame Ricord and I, in making shirts for the soldiers. In the evening, to relax, we walked in the country around Nice, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback. Our equestrian outings made people talk, and fed the viciousness of our enemies. It was written in Paris that we acted like princesses; several journals paid by the aristocracy propagated this absurd accusation, and Maximilien Robespierre wrote me to let me know. My younger brother spoke to me about it too, and I promised him to refuse myself the pleasure of riding from then on.

Madame Ricord, who was the most frivolous and inconsiderate person in the world, made the same promise but with the resolution not to keep it. Here I must give an idea of her character. For long I had believed her to be only coquettish and flighty; but I saw at last, through my own experience, that she was malicious and sought every means to make my younger brother quarrel with me and send me back to Paris. My presence was unbearable to her; a passionate lover of pleasure, and often of pleasures not permitted to respectable women, she found me a strict and rigorous witness who was getting in her way. Indeed, a lady who interested herself in me, and who saw in Madame Ricord’s household that I was displaced in her society, and in that of a lady she spent her time with who was no better than her, told me once: You are too virtuous to remain her; your presence alone criticizes them. I did not at first understand the meaning of those words; later, and when I had been the victim of the blackest treason, I recalled them, and I admired the simplicity with which I had been unable to understand them.

To return to the rides on horseback, which had been formally forbidden me by my two brothers: one day when Robespierre the Younger and Ricord were out, Madame Ricord proposed that we go on one such ride, and here is the occasion: we had been invited, she and I, to dine with some persons of her acquaintance. After dinner, and when the horses were ready as well as a coach for those who did not know how to ride, Madame Ricord said: Let’s go; the coach and the horses are ready; absolutely as if it had been agreed in advance that the ride would take place. I approached her and reminded her in a whisper of my brother’s prohibition; she did not listen to me and left me, laughing. I did not dare to explain myself more fully before the rest of those present; I resigned myself and got into the coach.

For the whole length of the ride I was upset and had a heavy heart, so much was a affected to be disobeying my brother. Assuredly I took no part in the others’ pleasure, and I would have preferred a thousand times to not have left the house. One idea consoled me. If my brother, I said to myself, learns of this ride, as it is inevitable that he will, at least he will know that I was not the one who wanted it; he will know that I protested to Madame Ricord, and that she did not want to take account of them; he will know at last that she was the one who wanted this ride and that I could do nothing other than follow her; Madame Ricord will have to assume the responsibility.

Two days later my brother returned. The day of his arrival he did not speak to me of the ride we had taken, and I believed that, knowing that I had been forced, so to speak, he did not hold it against me. But the next day I was quite surprised to hear him reproach me. I wanted to explain myself; he replied that I was the one who had wanted us to take that ride; so I called Madame Ricord to witness. What became of me and what was my surprise and my indignation when that woman, instead of declaring the truth, reinforced with an imperturbable effrontery that it was I, effectively, who had wanted the ride and had taken her along against her will? I was floored; I lacked the words to respond; those who were present could believe that I was guilty to see the assurance of Madame Ricord and my stupefaction. But should my brother have believed this odious lie? He knew me: he knew I was incapable of lying. Why then did he not want to believe me? When I was alone I wept much. That scene had made the most painful impression upon my heart. But I resolved to hide my distress, not to show it to anyone, especially not my brother. He no longer spoke to me of it, and it would have been possible to believe that nothing had happened, if he had not kept a certain coldness in regard to me that caused me to despair. There is the result of Madame Ricord’s lie. As for her, she had neither more cares nor less gaiety because of it; she still had her laughing and frolicking humor: one might truly have dad, to see her air of satisfaction, that she was happy with herself, and that she had done the world’s greatest act.

It will rightly be supposed that after having been so cruelly played by Madame Ricord, I could no longer have for her either esteem or respect; that is, at least, if I had had any for her before the scene I have just described. In effect, how should one esteem a woman who knows so little of the rules of propriety and her duties as a wife to commit the gravest offenses against them? How should I have loved a person who continually compromised my younger brother with her advances, to which he believed it essential to his honor and duty not to respond? In truth, if modesty did not hold back my pen, I would say some things which would not be to Madame Ricord’s advantage. She was young and charming; but her coquetry was at least equivalent to her beauty. She wanted to shine and be adored at any price, and would do anything to get attention.

Ricord loved his wife, and had unlimited confidence in her. Absorbed as he was by numerous occupations, he did not see her offenses, and could never have suspected them. Ricord had every public and private virtue; he could be equaled but not surpassed in patriotism; he was one of the most ardent and intrepid Montagnards. A faithful and trustworthy friend, a tender husband, he deserved a different wife, and never was a couple, in my opinion, less well matched. Probably he had always been unaware of his wife’s actions regarding me; she would set him against me, and, since he saw only by her eyes in these matters, he believed everything she said.

My departure from Nice was approaching, though I did not suspect it. I did not know then, and I have only learned since, that Madame Ricord unceasingly abused me to my brother, inventing a thousand lies in order to make him lose his friendship for me. My brother’s coldness redoubled with each passing day and I knew not what to attribute it to. Doubtless I should have asked Augustin for an explanation concerning this change; but I saw him so busy, so overwhelmed with work, that I could not resolve myself to do so. We were both victims of the cruelest of hoaxes.

Madame Ricord, who perhaps hoped that my brother would be less insensible to her advances in my absence, plotted my removal. She set a trap for me, and right away I fell into it, so little was the ability to resist that woman in my character. My brother having left Nice on a six-day trip, Madame Ricord proposed that we should spend that time in Grasse, with one of her friends. I accepted, without suspecting anything, and we left. We had hardly arrived in Grasse when a letter was brought to Madame Ricord which had been, it was said, addressed to Nice. Madame Ricord told me that this letter was from my brother and that he prayed me to return as promptly as possible to Paris.

Judge of my shock! My brother, without coming to see me, without bidding me farewell, was sending me away like a reprobate. Nothing could have been more incredible, and yet I let myself fall into this crude trap. Listening for the moment only to my indignation, I reserved a place in a private coach departing for Paris, and I left the next morning.

I have since much reflected, sadly, on this precipitated departure. I should have had the letter where my brother supposedly ordered me to leave shown to me; I should have returned to Nice, waited for him, and asked him whether it was true that he was banishing me, so to speak, from his presence. I would have gotten proof of the contrary from him directly; my eyes would have been opened upon the abyss that had been dug before me, and his eyes would have been opened about a woman whom he had believed until then—all her calumnies and all her lies.

But, to my unhappiness, it was not so. I credulously believed what Madame Ricord told me, and still I do not dare think of all the conjectures that Robespierre could have drawn from my brusque departure. She would have told him that I wanted to leave without seeing him, because I did not care for him; what would she not have told him! She would have embittered him against me in every way. It was easy for me, upon his return to Paris, to judge the effect that the venomous words of the Madame Ricord had had on him. He no longer wanted to see me, and the events of the Thermidor took place before I could explain myself to him. Thus, to the grief of having lost my two brothers is added that of having had this misunderstanding with one of them, who took the idea that I had wronged him to the grave. Is it possible for one to be unhappier than I? Madame Ricord congratulated herself for what she did; she could not have known that she was preparing me an entire life filled with tears and regrets!

(I myself have already speculated on whether this really is the (full) story behind Augustin and Charlotte’s fallout in this post).

On October 17, Augustin writes from Nice that Ricord has gone to Lyon and only he remains in the city (Mary Young speculates that Margueite might have stayed in Nice too and it was now, with her husband out of the way, that the love affair between her and Augustin really blossomed out). One day later, Fréron writes from Marseilles, where Ricord’s made a stop, to Desmoulins and tells him that ”Ricord is going to tell you about so many things. […] [he] will give you my adress,” The same day Fréron also wrote to Lucile Desmoulins exclaiming: ”How lucky Ricord is! So he is going to see you again, Lucile, and I, for a century, have been in exile.” […] He is leaving, this fortunate mortal, and I venture to give him this letter for you, the content of which he is unaware about.” Fréron you f:ing creepo. This instead suggests Ricord had been given a leave and was on the road to Paris. Eleven days after Fréron’s letters were penned down, October 29, Ricord presented himself at the parisian Jacobin club where he, after having denounced a spy hiding in said club and provoked a decree to arrest the man in question, complains about the dragged out trial against the Girondins, saying that Brissot should only need to answer the following two questions: Are you Brissot? and Are you the deputy of the National Convention? If the answer is yes, Ricord argues, he shall be shot, citing as examples similar judgments he has seen in Marseille, ”which have done the greatest good.” His suggestion was however not received by any hearing, with the deputy Renaudin rising to state that these measures may be suitable in Marseilles, but that in Paris, it must still be the law that condemns, and Ricord being met by murmurs when wanting to justify his opinion. He had to content himself with giving news regarding the south, praising Barras, Fréron and the Committee of Public Safety and encouraging the idea of purging Paris of aristocrats, and this time he was met by a warmer response.

Ricord presented himself at the Jacobin club again on November 23 (this is the last time he’s recorded as speaking there) where he again praised Fréron and Barras and asked that Marseille be left to them. Six days later we find him at Toulon together with Augustin, Barras, Fréron and Saliceti. On December 11 they get the order to march on the city from the Committee of Public Safety, and nine days later, they could report that they had entered it.

In his memoirs, Barras writes the following regarding the Ricords in Toulon:

Bonaparte, after the siege of Toulon, was appointed brigadier-general, with orders to join the Army of Italy, under the orders of General Dumerbion; it was then, through the patronage of Aréna, that he became intimate with Robespierre the younger and Ricord and his wife, afterwards his protectors. From the time Bonaparte joined the first Army of Italy, holding very low rank, he desired and systematically sought to get to the top of the ladder by all possible means; fully convinced that women constituted a powerful aid, he assiduously paid court to the wife of Ricord, knowing that she exercised great influence over Robespierre the Younger, her husband's colleague. He pursued Mme Ricord with all kinds of attentions, picking up her gloves, handing her her fan, holding with profound respect her bridle and stirrup when she mounted her horse, accompanying her in her walks hat in hand, and seeming to tremble continually lest some accident should befall her.

Augustin, who had taken a bullet to the knee during the taking of the city, left for Paris just two days afterwards. According to Charlotte’s memoirs, her brother went to lodge with ”his collegue Record” (she probably means Ricord) during his stay in the capital, no longer wanting to see her after their fallout. Barras’ memoirs similarily contains an anecdote about Augustin and Ricord meeting up with a boy whose mother (who Augustin had known) has been guillotined, and giving him clothes and food while on a stay in Paris together. But this sounds unlikely to be true, considering Augustin and Ricord never went on leaves to Paris at the same time.

Ricord stayed in Toulon throughout the rest of 1793 (we have letters confirming this dated December 23 and 28 and January 5). On December 29 he got tasked with going back to Nice by the CPS, where we find him on January 20. Six days later, the CPS wrote to inform him that he had been the subject of several denounciations:

…Have you studied the men around you enough? Right now, it’s the aristocrats that make up your société habituelle in Marseille. You have moved in with one of these suspicious men, named Saint-Mesme. The patriots making up the Supervisory Committee were molested by you. […] The Committee has also been informed that you plan to decide alone who are those who, placed under arrest by the representatives of the People and the Supervisory Committees, must be detained. And here the Committee reminds you that you are powerless in Marseille. Your mission is limited to the army of Italy and the department of Var; everywhere else your authority ceases, it is null. Finally, you claimed that the law against emigrants was too rigorous, that the Convention would be obliged to revoke it. Isn't this frightening, isn't it putting off auctions? Does this not call for alarm and distrust in the pledge of national wealth? The Committee of Public Safety, fellow citizen, would have liked to spare itself the painful duty of pointing out such errors, so as not to indulge in the memory of the good you have done. It likes to think that this is only a momentary aberration of yours. […]

Ricord nevertheless remained away on missions up until the fall of Robespierre (I’ve however not found any anecdotes/interesting information regarding him during the rest of the period). We know Marguerite was still together with him up until at least April 5, when Augustin wrote to his brother: ”Ricord and his wife embrace you.” But two days after the brothers’ execution, July 30, a CPS decree signed by Collot d’Herbois ordered Ricord to immidiately return to the Convention. Ricord understood he was under suspicion for his ties to Augustin, and on August 5 he authored the following letter (cited in Young’s Augustin: the younger Robespierre , page 174) from Nice:

Monsters that the Republic still has in its bosom have plotted new assassinations. An unbelievable conspiracy has found place in the hearts of traitors… But their authors have received the just punishment that they merited. It is that you should be aware of this that I publish the proclamation of the National Convention to the people of France... This event will only augment your zeal and make you more vigilant in seeking out the guilty. The Constitution needs all your zeal in unmasking and pursuing the enemies of liberty and equality.

And one day later, still in Nice, he also wrote this letter to the CPS, confirming he had received theirs:

Upon reading, citizens and collegues, your letter and the proclamation of the National Convention, I regretted not being at the Convention to vote for the death of the infamous scoundrels who had the criminal audacity to conspire against freedom. The perfidious! as they had deceived the people! I blush to have been the friend of Robespierre the younger. It is true that I thought him honest; but from the moment of his treason he had no more implacable enemy than me. You will learn without surprise that all hearts are entirely for liberty, the National Convention and the government. The army, the popular societies, the administration, all have sworn once again the annihilation of all kinds of tyranny. In accordance with your decree of the 12th, I am leaving in two hours to travel to the heart of the National Convention. Salut et fraternité, Ricord.

On August 6 we find a letter to the CPS sharing suspicions regarding Ricord. According to wikipedia, Ricord was also accused by Cambon on August 24, though I’ve not found the minutes for the session which he does so… Regardless, Ricord was lucky and these denounciations never went anywhere.

In her memoirs, Élisabeth Lebas claims that Ricord and several other men unsuccessfully tried to seduce her sister-in-law Henriette shortly after thermidor:

Our position was so dreadful that my sister-in-law had to return to her family. It sufficed that, young and pretty, and having lost her mentor, she could not solicit my liberty; those curs, like Ricord and others, pursued her, seeking every means of seducing her, even promising her my liberty. Though she was young, she saw well that those monsters were seeking ways to corrupt her and dishonor her family. She preferred to leave, guessing rightly that they would do nothing either for me or for my brother-in-law François Le Bas, adjutant-major.

After this, it’s not until the following year I’ve found any info on Ricord. But in the aftermath of the Insurrection of 1 prairial (May 20 1795) we find a decree ordering the arrest of ”Charbonnier, Escudier, Salicetti and Ricord, for having fomented movements in Marseille and Toulon whose history belongs to the era which followed the days of Prairial.” We have a defence written by Ricord dated July 30 the same year, as well as another from October 14, but he nevertheless remained in prison until November 1795, when he benefited from an amnesty issued at the closing of the National Convention. But just a few months later he came under suspicion again for participation in the conspiracy of equals. I’ve however not been able to find much info on his role in this affair besides the fact that he again got off the hook.

Finally, in 1816 Ricord was exiled to Belgium as a regicide where he died on 21 February 1818, at the age of 58. I don’t know what became of Marguerite. As of now, I’m also unaware whether or not they had any children.

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