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Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
montagnarde1793I have a paper to write: on how various African countries with despotic governments could develop democracies. I have a feeling that if the solution was so obvious that a high school-student could come up with it, it would have been put into effect by now. But that's just me. At any rate...
To Robespierre the elder
Strasbourg, 24 Frimaire, Year II of the French Republic
We arrived here yesterday, having surprised more than one person. But we have found here much ill to repair, and we are more than ever convinced that the exercise of power needs much wisdom. As to the army, we saw Pichegru; affairs, without having advanced much, are in a good enough state. Landau has not returned, as has been announced, and we hope that he will soon be delivered. We have attacked often: this system has sent the enemy into retreat. It would be ill to know the character of the army; it would be to leave the Republic naught but to adopt a defensive system. It has often been said, and it must never be forgotten.
We’re sending the accuser close to the revolutionary tribunal of Strasbourg to the Committee of Public Safety. He’s a ci-devant priest, born a subject of the emperor. He will be exposed on the scaffold of the guillotine before his departure. This punishment, which he has earned by his insolent conduct, has been as commanded by the necessity to crack down on foreigners. Let us not believe these cosmopolitan charlatans, and confide in none but each other.
I embrace you with all my heart.
Le Bas
In Saint-Just’s hand:
Too many laws are made, too few examples: you punish naught but outstanding crimes, hypocritical crimes are not punished. Punish a light abuse from each party; it’s the method to discourage the malicious, and to make them see that the Government has an eye on all. Hardly does one turn one’s back, than the aristocracy mounts the day’s pitch, and perpetrates evil under the colors of liberty.
Engage the Committee to give much clout to the punishment of all the faults of the Government; you will not have acted thus one month, than you will have lit this maze in which the counterrevolution and the revolution walk pell-mell. Call, my friend, the society’s attention to the strong maxims of the good public; let it occupy itself with the great methods of governing a Free State.
I invite you to take measures to know if all the factories and manufactures in France are active, for our troops in a year have found themselves without uniforms; the manufacturers of fabric are not patriots, they do not want to work; they must be forced to, and not left to fell any useful establishment.
We work here for the best. I embrace you and our common friends.
Saint-Just
The literal meanings of the last lines of each part of the letter are "I kiss you with all my heart" and "I kiss you and our common friends," but "embrace" made more sense in translation. Do forgive the general badness of the translation..
To Robespierre the elder
Strasbourg, 24 Frimaire, Year II of the French Republic
We arrived here yesterday, having surprised more than one person. But we have found here much ill to repair, and we are more than ever convinced that the exercise of power needs much wisdom. As to the army, we saw Pichegru; affairs, without having advanced much, are in a good enough state. Landau has not returned, as has been announced, and we hope that he will soon be delivered. We have attacked often: this system has sent the enemy into retreat. It would be ill to know the character of the army; it would be to leave the Republic naught but to adopt a defensive system. It has often been said, and it must never be forgotten.
We’re sending the accuser close to the revolutionary tribunal of Strasbourg to the Committee of Public Safety. He’s a ci-devant priest, born a subject of the emperor. He will be exposed on the scaffold of the guillotine before his departure. This punishment, which he has earned by his insolent conduct, has been as commanded by the necessity to crack down on foreigners. Let us not believe these cosmopolitan charlatans, and confide in none but each other.
I embrace you with all my heart.
Le Bas
In Saint-Just’s hand:
Too many laws are made, too few examples: you punish naught but outstanding crimes, hypocritical crimes are not punished. Punish a light abuse from each party; it’s the method to discourage the malicious, and to make them see that the Government has an eye on all. Hardly does one turn one’s back, than the aristocracy mounts the day’s pitch, and perpetrates evil under the colors of liberty.
Engage the Committee to give much clout to the punishment of all the faults of the Government; you will not have acted thus one month, than you will have lit this maze in which the counterrevolution and the revolution walk pell-mell. Call, my friend, the society’s attention to the strong maxims of the good public; let it occupy itself with the great methods of governing a Free State.
I invite you to take measures to know if all the factories and manufactures in France are active, for our troops in a year have found themselves without uniforms; the manufacturers of fabric are not patriots, they do not want to work; they must be forced to, and not left to fell any useful establishment.
We work here for the best. I embrace you and our common friends.
Saint-Just
The literal meanings of the last lines of each part of the letter are "I kiss you with all my heart" and "I kiss you and our common friends," but "embrace" made more sense in translation. Do forgive the general badness of the translation..
