"That book about Le Bas" and "The Legacy of History"
Saturday, 26 January 2008 16:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
montagnarde1793Other than that, I have a very interesting essay that I've decided to post for you all, one section at a time
FROM MOURNING GLORY: THE WILL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
BY MARIE-HÉLÈNE HUET
The Legacy of History
There are those who let the dead bury
the dead, and there are those who are forever
digging them up to finish them off.
– J. Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End
Portraits
In 1794, a German visitor to Paris wrote this description of Robespierre: “He is over six feet tall and bears himself well….Beneath the dark arches of his eyebrows are eyes of a deep blue that are at once flashing, solemn and reflective and in which the flame of fanaticism is blended with an indescribably gentle expression….His dark hair, which is generally allowed to fall freely in light curls, frames a face whose beauty and agreeable hue are enhanced by the shadow of his beard.”[1] The visitor’s judgment, that “Robespierre’s physique entitles him to be considered a handsome man” (p. 81), is corroborated by various contemporary paintings and engravings. Soon after his death, however, as Thermidorians set out to revise history, they took some pains to disfigure its most recent leader, both his deeds and his features.
By 1802, an Englishman traveling to
History, enraged at the review of the insatiable crimes of Robespierre, has already bestowed upon him a fanciful physiognomy, which she has composed of features which rather correspond with the ferocity of his soul, rather than with his real countenance. From the appearance of this bust, which is an authentic resemblance of him, his face must have been rather handsome. His features were small, and his countenance must have strongly expressed animation, penetration and subtlety. This bust is a real curiosity. It is very likely that not another is now to be found.
The traveler’s naive admiration for the handsome face of Robespierre was as rare as portraits of the revolutionary leader, most of them having been taken out of circulation after Thermidor.[3] But as early as 1802, as Carr noted, the fanciful physiognomy inspired by the “ferocity of his soul” had supplanted images of “his lively and subtle expression.”[4] Indeed, nineteenth-century writers made a point of reminding the reader that, in all cases, the monstrous killers of the king had been monstrous to behold.
One can read in the fate of revolutionary portraits the vagaries of historical interpretations. In a recent essay entitled “Icon and Symbol: The Historical Figure Called Maximilien Robespierre,” Ann Rigney examines Robespierre as “a cultural unit,” interpreting the elaborate construction of his physical appearance as a way to “increase his rhetorical force as a spokesman” and relate him to “the program and the constituency he stands for.”[5] Through such portraits as well, one can find the genesis of historical thought, tightly interwoven with literary legends.
[1] Quoted in Robespierre, ed. George Rudé (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 81.
[2] John Carr, The Stranger in
[3] There were numerous engravings of Robespierre done between 1792 and 1794, now disseminated into the various collections of the Cabinet des Estampes. They show him to have been a rather handsome man. At the end of the nineteenth century, contemplating an image of Robespierre by A. Lefèvre (1792), Hippolyte Buffenoir exclaimed in turn: “One is struck by the nobility of his carriage. Faced with so much dignity…the most biased observer, if he is endowed with sincerity, senses the mountains of calumny and error that still surround the personality of Robespierre.” Les Portraits de Robespierre, Etude iconographique et historique (Paris: E. Leroux, 1909), p. 17. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by Jay L. Caplan.
[4] In 1803, the Abbé Proyard [Proyart], in a book dedicated to Louis XVI, already speaks of Robespierre as a monster: “From this school, [Louis-le-Grand] will emerge a monster with a human face, a monster of a ferocity unknown to barbarian antiquity; a monster who, having brought out his king’s murder more than anyone else, will himself reign over you and your families … will drink the blood of a million men….The name of this monster, his execrable name, is Robespierre.” Quoted by Gérard Walter in Robespierre (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), I: 20. As Walter reflects, Proyard’s “allegations are always more or less inexact, his way of presenting facts reflects and obvious bias” (p. 21).
[5] Ann Rigney, “Icon and Symbol: The Historical Figure Called Maximilien Robespierre,” in Representing the French Revolution: Literature, Historiography, and Art, ed. James A. W. Heffernan (Hanover, N. H.: University Press of New England, 1992), pp. 106-22.
Oh, and about this essay, two things to remember (you'll understand this if you read the passage): apparently German feet were about 11 inches or 27.5 centimetres. And read the footnotes, because some of them are more important than the main text.
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(no subject)
Date: Sunday, 27 January 2008 06:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Sunday, 27 January 2008 20:36 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Sunday, 27 January 2008 22:12 (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Sunday, 27 January 2008 22:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Monday, 28 January 2008 06:36 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Monday, 28 January 2008 18:54 (UTC)At first, I thought it said, "In 1974, a German visitor..." and was confused about why on earth a German in Paris in the 70s was commenting on Maxime's appearance as though he'd actually seen him. XD And good to know how much German inches are, because otherwise...O.o Over 6 feet?
Is Mourning Glory a worthwhile investment? I've seen it on Amazon before and I never knew whether or not I should get it.
(no subject)
Date: Monday, 28 January 2008 18:59 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Monday, 28 January 2008 19:26 (UTC)As to the others, I'll have no problem translating them. After all, if I wasn't translating them, I'd be translating something else, also to be posted, and one is hardly more urgent than another. :D
(no subject)
Date: Monday, 28 January 2008 19:33 (UTC)That would have been amusing. Generally we don't tend to consult random Germans from the 70s on French Revolutionary history though, so that should have been a hint. XD So, in our terms, over 5'6", which is reasonable. He's supposed to be somewhere in there, anyway, and that was about average height. (It kind of reminds me of another article about Maxime's appearance, actually, and how we would recognize him without a detail like, say, his green spectacles, but not if he were "large, jolly, and sanguine." It always amuses me immensely to picture Maxime with those last three attributes--he would be something like Santa Claus, I imagine. XD!)
I've found it one of the most interesting English-language books I've read, in the sphere of "cultural history." Make of that what you will, but I would certainly recommend it. (And once I post the rest of this chapter, you'll have a better feel for it--though in my opinion this one is the best in the book.)
Conventionnel Lebas
Date: Thursday, 14 February 2008 18:34 (UTC)zackste@msn.com
Re: Conventionnel Lebas
Date: Thursday, 14 February 2008 23:33 (UTC)Élisabeth did indeed marry again. She married her first husband's younger brother, Charles-Louis-Joseph (called Charles) Le Bas on 20 Nivôse Year VII, that is, 19 January 1799. And they had two children, Caroline and Charles.