"That book about Le Bas" and "The Legacy of History"

[montagnarde1793]

I already did this a few years ago, but for the benefit of those of you who were not yet on my f-list at that point (and because I just finished typing it up in French), I'm going to repeat my earlier offer to translate any and all chapters from the index of Autour de Robespierre : Le Conventionnel Le Bas, posted here. Also, anyone who wants the whole thing (some 168 pages) in French: let me know and I'll be more than willing to email it to you.

Other than that, I have a very interesting essay that I've decided to post for you all, one section at a time at the risk of breaking copyright laws, since it was originally published in English and in recent years and I obviously haven't applied for permission. The essay is actually the seventh chapter of a book called Mourning Glory: The Will of the French Revolution, by Marie-Hélène Huet. In the first section, which I will now post, we establish Maxime's hotness.

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 Paris was surprised to find in a “valuable and curious cabinet” a bust of Robespierre “which was taken of him, a short period before he fell.” John Carr noted:

 

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. Mons. le G. is permitted to preserve it, without reproach on account of his art.[2]

 

            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 France; or a Tour from Devonshire to Paris (Brattleboro, Vt.: Isaiah Thomas, 1806), pp. 244-45. The book was first published in London in 1803.

[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.

Comments

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Also, on the Le Bas book...it all looks so interesting. *_* Uh...I feel greedy, but you can pick from among I, III, V, VI, VII, and XV for me, as many or as few as you want. Because I can't narrow it down any more than that, apparently. -__-; You can just pick the shortest ones or whatever. *Still feels greedy*

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Well, I've already translated VI (http://estellacat.livejournal.com/13259.html) and XV (http://estellacat.livejournal.com/14060.html) if it helps. XD (There's also fourteen, an entry or two back from fifteen, if you're interested.)

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