More on Luzzatto's biography of Augustin

[montagnarde1793]

I know I'm overly sensitive to these issues, so I'm going to lay it out for those of you who might judge with a cooler head than mine, but it seems to me that, like with the quote on the bookmark, this little half-paragraph that I just found in that same biography of Augustin by Luzzatto, while not false - it leaves out certain accounts that I think tend to tip the balance away from his conclusions, but of course this is a question that's extremely peripheral to the topic of the book and Luzzatto is hardly obliged to agree with my interpretations - is at least unnecessarily nasty in tone:

"Ils côtoyaient là le demi-monde [seriously?] de la maison Duplay, fourmillant de silhouettes féminines : la maîtresse de maison, Françoise, en conflit avec sa locataire Charlotte dès les premiers jours, ainsi que les quatre filles, toutes à marier [this is, in fact, not the case, since Sophie was already married and no longer present]. La plus jeune, Élisabeth, n'allait pas tarder à épouser le député montagnard Lebas ; quant à l'aînée, les parents Duplay la considéraient comme fiancée à Maximilien, lequel, pour sa part, ne semblait pas impatient d'obtenir ses faveurs [!]. Un témoignage tardif et perfide de Charlotte (dans un livre de souvenirs publié à titre posthume en 1835, Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères) assure que Maximilien efforça même de se décharger d'Éléonore sur Augustin : "Tu devrais épouser Éléonore. - Ma foi, non, répondit mon jeune frère."

"There they mixed with the demi-monde [seriously?] of the Duplay house, swarming with feminine silhouettes: the mistress of the house, Françoise, in conflict with her lodger Charlotte from the beginning, as well as the four daughters, all unmarried [this is, in fact, not the case, since Sophie was already married and no longer present]. The youngest, Élisabeth, would soon marry the montagnard deputy Lebas; as for the eldest, the Duplay parents considered her betrothed to Maximilien, who, for his part, didn't seem impatient to obtain her favors [!]. A late and treacherous account by Charlotte (in a book of memoirs published posthumously in 1835, Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs on Her Two Brothers) assures that Maximilien even tried to off-load Éléonore onto Augustin: "You should marry Éléonore. - Faith, no, replied by younger brother."

So yes, he calls it "perfidious" testimony, but on the other hand, Charlotte is the only one allowed to speak. With no counter-argument from other sources, this leaves us to infer that even if Charlotte was being malicious, she was probably more or less right. Luzzatto, of course, has every right to this interpretation, but he seems almost as maliciously pleased by it as Charlotte himself... at least to me. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it just seems so unnecessary.