Can anyone verify this for me?

[montagnarde1793]

M. Cottret claims (Tuer le tyran ? p. 344) that Robespierre was out sick on the day of Saint-Just's first speech calling for Louis Capet's execution, but she doesn't give a source. (It's possible that it also comes from Vinot, since she cites him a few lines previously, but it's hard to tell.) Does anyone know what the source might be?

Because if it's true - and I doubt M. Cottret would say so if she at least didn't have good reason to believe it - then that rather puts a damper on all those awful, cliché scenes in fiction where Robespierre is either putting him up to it or suddenly inspired to turn into an evil fanatic while hearing the speech. And anything that would prove the logical impossibility of such scenes, would make my evening.

Comments

[eleonored.livejournal.com]

It's well known - Robespierre was absent from the Convention and Jacobins after November 5 and till November 30. Look, for example, Robespierre by Thompson, J.M. (http://library.du.ac.in/xmlui/search?query=robespierre&submit=Go)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Hm, the link doesn't work. What sources does Thompson give? (Since, after all, just the fact that he didn't speak during those sessions doesn't prove that he wasn't present...)

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

I read this elsewhere as well, although I can't quite remember where right now. I could check Vinot once I sobered up. However, it does bring another awful cliché in which Saint-Just's first, amazing, epic speech was in fact... Robespierre sending him to say it. That it was "his" suggestion and that Saint-Just was thus replacing him. :/// Yeah, you get why that upsets me.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

It's probably in Vinot (I still haven't gotten around to reading it >.>;).

And yes, I get why that would upset you; it upsets me too. To be honest, I hadn't thought of that, since all the representations I've seen that want to make it look like Robespierre was really the one behind the speech show him being present. Either way, people really ought to know that Robespierre wasn't the type of person to use someone else as a mouthpiece and that even if he were, Saint-Just wasn't the type of person who would have complied.