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montagnarde1793) wrote2008-05-15 09:45 am
The Return of That Book About Le Bas
From the same [Philippe Le Bas].
Finally, my dear father, the tyrant is no more; the execution took place this morning with the greatest order. The people, delivered from this chief conspirator, cried after his head fell: “Vive la Nation! Vive la République!” But a tragic event took place on the eve of the execution. Pelletier, one of the most patriotic deputies, one who had voted for death, was assassinated. One of the king’s guards gave him a saber wound three fingers wide: he died this morning. You must judge the effect that such a crime has produced on the friends of liberty. Pelletier had six thousand livres in rents; he had been président à mortier in the Paris Parlement; he was barely thirty years old; to his many talents he joined more estimable virtues. He died happy; he brought to the tomb the idea, consoling for a patriot, that his demise would serve the chose publique. – There thus is one of those beings that the despicable cabal that wanted to save Louis and bring back slavery in the Convention, designated in the departments as a Maratiste, a disorganizer, factious… But the reign of those rogues is finished. You will see the measures that the Assembly has taken all at once to avenge the national majesty and to give homage to a generous martyr of liberty. Several other deputies have been insulted, attacked; but let the traitors tremble! The arm of the people can rise again. It is now that its representatives will deploy a great character; we must be victorious or die; every patriot senses the necessity of this. Let our enemies reappear; they will see what men they have dared to attack.
My health is much disturbed by this rough week’s continual work; but I hope to reestablish myself.
I am sending you a speech of Marat’s; you will see that this man sometimes reasons well.
I embrace you.
LE
From the same.
25 January.[2]
I received your last letter yesterday.
LE
From the same.
I am sending you the follow up on the roll calls in Louis’s trial, my dear father. I have received news of François; he is in Ath; he is doing well. – We are working for the next campaign. We will have many enemies, but I hope that it will be all right.
LE
From the same.
Since I see that it makes you happy to receive a bulletin, I will continue to address them to you; besides, they are above all very interesting for the addresses that arrive en masse for us, all congratulating us on the great act of justice that we have exercised. For myself, I believe that this act has saved the Revolution, and speaks for the energy of the majority of the Convention. I know there are men who blame us, who doubt that a king may be punished: we have some of this kind among us, but they have obtained the contempt they deserve. Feuillantisme and false moderation are no longer on the order of the day, despite the fine explanations with which a few simpletons in the provinces as in
We have just been read a constitution; I will send it to you when it is distributed. I believe that it is stillborn, though it is the work of these Brissotins who have so long lead the Convention. One can say at first glance that it exaggerates democratic principles, and that nothing is better suited to make the republican regime hated. Perhaps they are recalling that the means that the enemies of one of the Gracchi, a tribune known for his attachment to the popular cause, used in Rome, to depopularize him, was to overstep his principles and be excessively democratic; but we can see through that today.
I have received what you addressed me for Citizen Delforge.
François has written me twice since his departure from
I congratulate my sister Roode; I wish her good health especially. A thousand compliments to the whole family.
LE
Already almost the totality of the sections has accepted the constitution. The rest will follow today. – The departments will doubtless follow so fine an example, and will share the patriotic enthusiasm animating the Parisians at this moment.
Here are a few bulletins that you will not read without pleasure. I embrace you.
LE
From the same.
I have not written you for a few days because of the little time I have been able to give to my correspondence. I spent a great portion of the day at the Assembly; the rest and a large part of the night at the committee of general defense. There, I heard of all the treasons of Dumouriez. We are occupied with remedying all the ills he has done us. We are also seeking to repair the effects of that infernal modérantisme which has so toughed all the counterrevolutions; but I tremble that it might be too late, and it might be that only the people can still save themselves. This Mountain, so calumniated, is yet wholly full of courage. Fear is foreign to it. I have always considered it my glory to sit there, and I will die there, if need be, faithful to my patrie. I embrace you.
LE
From the same.
We have learned, my dear father, by yesterday evening’s courier, that the despicable Dumouriez and most of the hussars of Berchigny have gone over to the enemy. All the rest of the army, all the artillery, the military coffers are ours. This news has spread joy among the patriots. But it would have been much more satisfying to get hold of the traitor. Égalité père is being kept hostage, along with all the Bourbons. The deliberations were unanimous in this regard. There are still men therefore who think that the French republicans can be put back in irons! The fools!
The Revolutionary Tribunal had a ci-devant guillotined yesterday.
I have been worried about François. When he finally has a position I will learn of it with pleasure.
I have taken out a subscription to the Republican for you; you should now be receiving it. I embrace you.
LE
From the same.
Paris, 12 April.[7]
I am addressing you Citizen Engramelle’s papers, my dear father. You will please ask him for a discharge for me. I do not desire to be charged with such a commission from now on: you cannot imagine back at home how slowly business gets finished here.
The current situation of the Convention is anything but beautiful. The party of those who call the most ardent patriots anarchists, those that Dumouriez calls the healthy portion of the Convention, are dominating us at this moment. They have just removed an inconvenient monitor by having Marat arrested. I do not know what will happen with this.
I embrace you.
LE
From the same.
Paris, 21 April.[8]
You will obtain a delay that much more easily if you cannot be constricted to giving account without employing the judiciary forms that would themselves lead to a longer delay than you need. But, I must tell you, I see you as the presenter of a certificate whose validity they will not fail to contest with pain. I feel how much your fortune will suffer by the loss of this receipt; and I do not see how it will be possible for you to make up for this loss, and least immediately; nevertheless, I would prefer an indisposition that would leave you without reproach, and that would deliver you from the necessity of having relations with certain people which would inevitably result in being greatly disagreeable to you. There is not a single one of your children, there is not a single good citizen who senses the price of this sacrifice, who is not disposed to compensate you for it by all possible means; and I, especially, I believe that a good action does not remain unrecompensed, and no one, believe me, my dear father, is more devoted to you, is more strongly attached to you than I am.
I have written to François. I have authorized him to have Citizen Legrand-Leblond procure him the money that he needs. I will explain the reasons to Citizen Legrand here. The Convention is about to render a decree compensating officers and soldiers for the loss of their equipages anyway.
For some time we have led an extremely fatiguing life, by the length and agitation of our sessions. I do not rightly know what one is to think of those who, for the last dozen days, have dominated us. They are those that Dumouriez calls the healthy part of the Convention.
In truth, one is tempted to think that they have an accord together. The Parisians, who observe them up close, and whose opinion is thus not spoiled by their journals, no longer dissimulate their discontent. Also, some are seeking to depict the Parisians in the most odious manner to the departments. It is thus that for some time dikes are being opposed to public opinion; but it will break them, and the torrent will sweep away the works and those who made them. The finest movements of patriotism, the expressions of civic indignation, consigned in the writings of the Jacobins, are called conspiracy by certain men; and when, to pronounce on these dreadful conspiracies, these writings are read, no power is capable of holding back the applause which is so many slaps applied to the denouncers’ cheeks. It will be much worse, when the eighty-two commissaries, sent into the departments for recruitment, return. Then I hope, we will see that majority that overthrew the tyrant again. Here I perhaps contradict the discourse you hear at home; but I speak to you frankly; and it is up to you to choose between the versions presented to you.
Yesterday a very extraordinary scene took place. The Commune of Paris, which has been so calumniated, so persecuted, especially since it denounced the two Gensonnés, Brissot, etc., made a very vigorous decree on the 18th, in which its patriotism showed in a very salient manner. A great conspiracy, in consequence. The municipality is called forth, and it is ordered to bring its registers. It comes, reads the fatal decree. Robespierre the younger demonstrates that it contains nothing that is not laudable. The honors of the session are asked for the municipality. Two tests are doubtful according to the bureau stuffed with men of state. The indignant patriots ask for the roll call. Then the right wing consents to admit the municipality to the honors of the session. But the roll call is called for to instruct the departments. The men of state struggle for three hours, but in vain, to prevent it. We precede to it. Then all the cowards flee, the indifferent ones imitate them; and the patriots are countered by only five or six deputies. All the rest vote for admission to the honors of the session. It was one o’clock in the morning when I returned home.
I embrace you. A thousand sentiments of friendship to the whole family.
LE
Le Bas, who had a true talent as an orator, could have taken an active part in the Convention’s debates; but – here is yet another trait of his character – he was essentially modest. We have seen it in the declaration contained in one of his letters: “listen well to opine well, and speak only when one has a truth to tell that without you would escape the others,” such is his motto. He is self-effacing; he places himself voluntarily in shadow, waiting the hour of strong resolutions and great devotions.
Well too, his silence does not prevent him from being distinguished by his colleagues: he was to be attached to the Committee of General Security[9] from 14 September 1793, and, from before that time, he was sent on mission to the Army of the North, with his relation Duquesnoy, who was his colleague in the Convention (2 August 1793).
But an event of rather insignificant appearance came, at this time, to give a new food for his sentiments: he was introduced to the Duplay family by Robespierre and, form that day, Le Bas, devoted son, enthusiastic patriot, faithful friend, was moreover in love.
[1] Arch. Nat., A. B., XIX, 179 (gift of Le Bas).
[2] Collection Le Bas.
[3]
[4] Collection Le Bas.
[5] Arch. Nat., A. B., XIX, 179 (gift of Le Bas).
[6] Arch. Nat., A. B., XIX, 179 (gift of Le Bas).
[7]
[8] Arch. Nat., A. B., XIX, 179 (gift of Le Bas).
[9] The Procès-verbaux de la Convention nationale bear, on the subject of Le Bas, the following indications:
16 October, member of the Committee of Petitions and Correspondence (II, page 50.)
19 June, member of the Committee of Petitions and Correspondence (XIV, page 125.)
26 June, member of the Committee of Legislation (XIV, page 339.)
11 September, substitute for the Committee of General Security (XX, page 301.)
13 September: “On the proposition made to name a Commission of six members to revise incoherent, obscure, or vague laws written against the émigrés, the Convention names Merlin de Douai, Le Bas, Duhem, Bourdon de l’Oise, Eschasseriaux the younger, and Lebon.” (XX, page 323.)
Finally, on
I may be able to do more translating/writing/art/etc. around here now, since I've finished my last major exam as of yesterday. (It was Art History, by the way, and it wouldn't have been so bad if one of the major essay questions hadn't been on art after 1960. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find anything to write about for that one, but I managed to scrape something together. >__>) Then again, I still have projects and other things, so it might be another month or so yet. :/
In other news, has anyone encountered this site? It seems to be fairly new... And it has, among other things, a rather impressive bibliography of works on Saint-Just.
Re: the site.
However, I have to prove to be a ruthless bitch again: to the question "Is it possible to make Saint-Just look even more effeminate than ever?" this film answers "Yes". >______>
http://www.antoine-saint-just.fr/photos/film_29.jpg
http://www.antoine-saint-just.fr/photos/film_23.jpg
HONESTLY?
And, obviously, it's the movie in which Maxime and Antoine are omg!rivals. Naturally. Because otherwise it'd be painfully obvious to know what the film would be hinting at.
*grumbles*
Re: the site.
That would explain a lot--especially appearance-wise. (Why Maxime is so ugly and why Saint-Just looks like Michael Jackson. Srsly. It's a bit scary, actually.) Of course, it's not as if I've ever seen the film, so I can't really judge further than that. Though of course any film that makes Maxime and Saint-Just rivals is obviously grossly mischaracterizing their relationship.
The bibliography is still pretty useful, at least...
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This Mountain, so calumniated, is yet wholly full of courage. Fear is foreign to it. I have always considered it my glory to sit there, and I will die there, if need be, faithful to my patrie.
;_______________; LE BAS.
But an event of rather insignificant appearance came, at this time, to give a new food for his sentiments: he was introduced to the Duplay family by Robespierre and, form that day, Le Bas, devoted son, enthusiastic patriot, faithful friend, was moreover in love.
Aw, such a nice little note to end this segment on. :3
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I KNOW. It's so adorable and tragic. ;_____; Poor Le Bas.
Yes, it has the advantage of being both very sweet and very accurate. And we have Paul Coutant-Le Bas to thank for it this time, since this is his transition to the next chapter, rather than my random mid-chapter cut. XD
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;_______________________;
I came across that site the other day, but I couldn't read much of it. >.>;
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The most useful part of it is probably the bibliography in any case. >.>
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That's good to know.
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Though I think they misclassify a few things...
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