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montagnarde1793Never fear, I'm going to endeavor to answer this question myself. Having looked at every souce I could possibly find that mentions Éléonore Duplay, I must observe that every secondary source that claims she was a student of Regnault's (and cites a source for this) cites the same memoirs, by a certain Albertine Clément-Hémery, who claimed to have been a fellow student of Éléonore's in Regnault's atelier de jeunes filles. No other primary sources mention that Éléonore studied painting, which means that the only real evidence that we have are these memoirs and her alleged self-portrait (which obviously had to have been painted by someone with some technical knowledge).
Now, the chapter of these memoirs concerning Regnault's studio has been published on Gallica and I've been able to read it - and translate the relevant parts for you - and there are a few things I notice about it that make me rather suspicious. The first is that Clément-Hémery spends the whole chapter calling Éléonore Eugénie. Now, since she calls nearly all the other students by their last names, this point alone doesn't necessarily invalidate her testimony; it's quite possible that she didn't know or didn't remember - since they would likely not have been on a first name basis - Éléonore's first name and it's clear that she only refers to her by her first name in these memoirs to keep the reader in suspense as to her real identity, which isn't revealed until the end of the chapter.
Of course, that's not all. Aside from the author's overactive imagination (aside from the fanciful incidents depicted below, Clément-Hémery also informs us that she could see Charlotte Corday and Antoinette pass beneath the windows of the studio on their way to execution, which, as Lenôtre points out, is an impossibility), she's also under the impression that Éléonore was blonde, which tends to tip me off right away that either she had never actually met her or she associated with her so little that that is the kind of detail she could have forgotten. She also thinks that Éléonore and Charlotte Robespierre were friends, though she admits to having that one on hearsay, so we might fairly let it pass.
As for the rest, let me put the relevant text in front of you, and then I'll tell you my hypothesis.
Memories of 1793 and 1794 by Madame Clément née Hémery, of the Royal Societies of the Sciences, Arts and Belles-Lettres of Lille and Arras
From the Presses of Lesne-Daloin, Cambrai.
MDCCCXXXII.
This Chapter is extracted from a Work that the author proposes to publish soon. [To my knowledge, the rest of the work was never published, but I could theoretically be wrong about that.]
Chapter III.
A Studio.
[…]
[Clément-Hémery begins with a description of the studio and several of its students]
To depict Eugénie… it’s impossible; without being pretty, her face was agreeable, her blue eyes harmonized so well with her blond hair, there was such kindness in her rare smile, so much melancholy in her open forehead, so much pride in her eagle’s gaze, so much sentiment in her habitual expressions, and so much frank bluntness in her improvisations, that one had to love or hate her. I liked her a lot without being able to define the sentiment she inspired in me: her kindness attracted me, her gravity imposed upon me, her wise advice electrified me.
Lambin and Henriette [two other students previously described] were Eugénie’s friends, [but] some of the studio’s ladies seemed frightened to look at her; I never thought to ask about her, or to reflect upon the impression that she excited, an impression that manifested itself by obsequious considerations, or by impolite observations. I understood nothing about it, [but] we shall reveal this mystery.
[…]
A word about me. I was classed among the amateurs in the studio, which was not a recommendation to the master, and so my progress was problematic. My companions all cherished me, and I loved them with all the effervescence of an impetuous 14 year-old.
[…]
[Clément-Hémery explains that David somehow only supported the Revolution for the chance to get revenge against Regnault for beating him on one of the contests for the Académie de Rome. Because that's obviously what happened.]
David, irritated, seized a pretext to denounce the good M. Regnault, who had become fearful to the point of no longer daring to leave his studio, again. He trembled even to open its doors to the models he needed, and so he recruited among us, when he needed a fresh and gracious face (11). Needing, for I know not which painting, a classical beard, M. Regnault let his own grow for three years; one could not imagine a blacker, thicker, or curlier one; it was the most imposing, the prettiest of beards; our artist friends were in ecstasies over that beard, which frightened us, young girls lacking in taste to the point of preferring Apollo to Jupiter and to the venerable Homer…. This beard became, for David, a means of persecution; at a session of the Jacobin Club, he denounced this beard, declared it seditious, a rallying sign, at last an entire conspiracy; it was decided that the Committee of Public Safety would be invited to look into this affair without delay. Since most of the members of the committee were present at the session, they drew up the charges and the arrest warrant; David triumphed, he believed he was already grinding red (12), when one of the members cried:
“Might there not be some professional jealousy? Before arresting the bearded man, we must be sure that he has a beard; the beard being denounced is perhaps false, to serve as a model.”
“Seconded, seconded,” said some of the Jacobins, David’s enemies, “Let’s just record the denunciation and leave the Committee of Public Safety the task of assuring whether the beard exists and of purging the earth of aristocratic brigands; the more the social body transpires, the healthier it is,” [and] the motion passed despite the murmurs of Marat and the informer.
The next day, when M. Regnault came, at eleven o’clock, to give us his lesson, we all let out a cry of surprise. M. Regnault had shaved [and] I caught a mute exclamation of joy on Eugénie’s lips; this Eugénie, who was so good to me, was not pleasing to all the ladies of the studio, as I have said; the disdainful smile of Longueville [another student], whispers whose meaning escaped me, often intrigued me; I saw well that Eugénie was feared, [but] why?.... Except for four or five students, everyone hastened to please her, to consult her, to foresee her desires; the little favors they offered her, contrasted singularly with the aristocratic pride of certain among us, [but] I paid little attention. Any talk of public affairs was severely forbidden us by M. Regnault. It was impossible for this recommendation to be exactly observed, [for] as young girls with artist’s hearts, [we had] a double sensitivity; all the tumbrels that drove the unhappy victims of the revolutionary tribunal to be executed, passed along the quay, beneath the windows of our studio [and] we shed bitter tears at this sad spectacle, [as] expressions of indignation [and] vehement words against the assassins escaped from our mouths. I paid no attention to the fact that this was always in the absence of Eugénie, who was less than punctual, though one of the most studious among us. When she appeared unexpectedly, the most profound silence spontaneously succeeded the liveliest discussions, [and] the grave Madame Mongez, so sweet, so reserved, so indulgent for our follies, pronounced a severe hush… Eugénie, with worried brow, would sit down in front of her easel, and would work without speaking. Soon she would be surrounded, overwhelmed by questions about her health, etc. I was secretly indignant at these flatteries that Eugénie appeared to despise, [especially] when a moment before, I had heard everyone speak of this girl with disdain and critique her clothing, of an extreme simplicity, which contrasted with our antique belts and tunics. Tornezy, the amiable Tornezy, model of taste and elegance, had created, or rather renewed, the attractive fashions of the classical land where Aspasia and Alcibiades lived. It was from our studio that Greek styles came to replace those shapeless bodices called à la Coblentz.
[…]
The memories of that time crowd so in my memory, that here I am a hundred leagues away from M. Regnault’s beard. I return to it now.
I have said that Eugénie appeared satisfied at the absence of the seditious beard; we, [on the other hand], could not prevent ourselves, after the first moment of surprise, from a movement of hilarity that ended involuntarily in that inextinguishable laughter characterized by Homer. The thickness of M. Regnault’s beard having opposed the action of the air upon the epidermis for three years, his chin and half his face were a dull white, entirely in opposition to the tan and sanguine color of the upper half of his face. One would have said Pierrot’s half-mask.
M. Regnault, though delivered up to a secret terror, having even seemed offended by our noisy laughter, could not prevent himself, when he looked in the mirror that decorated our studio, to join in our gaiety. Eugénie alone did not laugh; she waited for M. Regnault to look at her work to tell him gravely: “Those crazy girls will find echoes; let me finish your toilette.” The seriousness with which she pronounced those words struck M. Regnault [and] recalled us to reason. I don’t know what mixture of indigo and yellowish brown [bistre] she had taken from a box of pastels, [but] she passed her hand over M. Regnault’s chin [and] the color that had provoked our jeers disappeared so well that, at first look, one no longer distinguished the place of the beard. Eugénie seemed to take a secret delight at this. M. Regnault thanked her and said, laughing, that he was going to fix this improvised mask onto his face until the air made the unnatural whiteness disappear.
This incident had prolonged the lesson; it was still going on when Madame Regnault ran in, alarmed, crying out, telling her husband to run, that they had been to his studio to arrest him, that not finding him there, an armed force had surrounded the Rue Froid-Manteau, that they had been ordered to open up for a domiciliary visit. M. Regnault, as frantic as his wife, begged us to hide him. We were all given up to despair.
“You are wrong,” said Eugénie proudly, “it is doubtless a mistake. No one would dare arrest an artist such as you.” Her prophetic air reassured us and restored the heart of man to M. Regnault.
“I am of your opinion,” he said, with the gesture and the dignity of a Roman; “I will deliver myself up to David’s henchmen [and] we will see if they dare prevent me from finishing the painting that the Convention has ordered from me (*).” Without listening to the cries of his wife, who [then] fainted, M. Regnault descended into his apartment, which I have described; we were preyed upon by cruel trances. Eugénie alone left, while we took care of Madame Regnault. After a quarter of an hour, which seemed to us a century, Eugénie came back up precipitously, face aglow, which was unusual.
“Be reassured, Mesdames, they were only after our master’s beard; he won’t be arrested.” Indeed, he entered almost immediately, joined us to revive his wife, who, in recovering her senses, seeing herself in her husband’s arms, believed she had had a bad dream.
M. Regnault thanked us collectively for the interest we had taken in his fate: “I don’t know who rendered me the service of engaging me, by an anonymous note, to have my beard cut, but without Mademoiselle Eugénie’s ingenious idea, it is likely that I would not have been able to fool them; while it was well observed that I am not the bearded man designated in the arrest warrant, though the names were mine, the appearance prevailed. The brigadier assured me politely that I will not be exposed to such a mix-up again.”
We celebrated M. Regnault’s deliverance by a little improvised ball, [and] he was not troubled again.
[…]
Two months after Marat’s death, the execrable law called the law of suspects appeared under the auspices of Merlin of Douai; several of our companions were submitted to that revolting ostracism. Young girls, understanding neither the Revolution, nor insidious politics, occupying themselves with their education and the arts, were driven out of Paris, from their houses, forced to live far from all their affections – what barbarity! Longueville was on the list of suspects…. At 16 years old, with only her mother left to her…. Shame on the men of 1793!
Longueville’s manners were perhaps too aristocratic for the period; she spoke with emphasis of her family portraits, of the doings and sayings of her ancestors; her elegance was not on par with sans-culottisme. She knew of the abyss in which people of nothingness [probably the term she’s looking for is nihilists] wanted all the glories of France to be swallowed up; what [France] contained of superior geniuses, of learned men, of artists, of rich men, groaned in dungeons. Longueville spoke of this sometimes in a little committee; we shared her horror for the juridical assassinations, the number of which grew every day; but this chattering of young girls, interspersed with plans for parties, the creation of fashions, with clever sketches, with vaudeville refrains, had no offensive character and deserved neither death nor exile.
It was in the first days of October, [when] we learned that Longueville had to leave Paris in virtue of the satanic law. The desolation was generalized in the studio, especially among those closest to her; I was exasperated, Vallière burst into tears, the cheerful Tornezy gave herself up the expansion of her sensitivity. Eugénie came upon us in one of these moments, when a just indignation made us speak indiscriminately of the leaders, [and] particularly against Robespierre, who was already being accused of France’s ills. At the sight of Eugénie, Tornezy went pale [and] Madame Mongez made the studio resound with her terrible hush. Eugénie gave a glance that made those who noticed it shudder; alone, perhaps, of the studio, I was unaware of the reason for the terror that Eugénie inspired; I was of such insouciance for that which had no direct relationship to my tastes and habits that I only saw Eugénie’s kindness, her friendship for me, without worrying about her existence outside the study. Her arrival did not prevent me, despite the repeated hushes, from repeating that it was awful to force people to flee their homes. I told the story of Forbès (14), one of my friends from boarding school, who had been taken from us on pretext of being suspect; I heatedly expressed my indignation.
Eugénie, approaching me, as if to look at my drawing, said to me in an undertone: “What has happened then?”
“They want Longueville to leave Paris as a suspect.”
“Ah…… it is true she calls herself noble.”
“Is that her fault?”
“To say so, yes, and besides, she is so impertinent.”
“That’s not true.”
“She’s jealous of your relationship with Vallière.”
“What does that matter? Vallière doesn’t only love me, we both love Longueville.”
“I don’t like her, for my part.”
“You are wrong not to, and whatever happens, I will go see Monsieur Tronson Du Coudray, he has great affection for me (15), and he will surely find a means of preventing Longueville from leaving.”
“Fine protection,” said Eugénie with a singular tenseness: “the man who is to defend Madame Veto.”
“Eugénie, what an expression! Leave that phrase to the women who knit [tricoteuses] at the Jacobins;” (she blushed).
“You would be very sorry then, if your dear Longueville, who doesn’t care at all for you, stopped flaunting her luxury and her arrogance here?”
“Very…. One could, moreover, make an exception in favor of a young person whose mother is a widow, who occupies herself with painting and who doesn’t meddle at all in public affairs.”
“Come now,” said Eugénie, who seemed to have taken a resolution…. “Urge her to stay with her mother, to see that she is forgotten [and] she will not be troubled…., unless she herself, as a result of the vanity that has her in its grip, wants to leave, so that no one revokes her illustrious birth.”
The ironic tone of this phrase displeased me, however I made no observation; I repeated Eugénie’s advice to Longueville [and] she followed it with success.
[…]
One day Vallière arrives at the studio, with face distraught, her eyes red; she runs to me, kisses me, tells me farewell: that she is going to die. Frightened, I question her, she tells me, sobbing, that the revolutionary committee of her section has sent her parents the order to have her mount a chariot, that she had been designated to represent the Goddess at the festival of Youth; if she didn’t obey, her family would be declared suspect and incarcerated. Vallière’s despair was communicated to all our companions; her parents had said that they would rather see her dead than playing the Goddess [and so] Vallière had persuaded herself that she had to die. A thousand ideas, each more extravagant than the next, were given out for warding off the fatal blow. Gui** [another student] proposed that she should disfigure herself like the daughter of the bourgeois of Manosque (16); which made us laugh, despite our chagrin; another urged her to hide. Eugéine arrived during this conversation [and] – this was my good advice – I explained to her the subject our debates. I knew that she cared for Vallière, her tears proved it.
“I’m surprised they haven’t thought of it earlier, she is so pretty…. I see only one means of warding off this absurd order. Vallière, tell you mother to seem enchanted by the committee’s choice; let her go ask the president what costume you are to wear, have this costume made in your shop, show it to all the neighbors, pretend to be joyful, have your workers sing the Marseillaise, then, Décadi morning, take two grains of an emetic; when the cortège comes to get you, it will be easy to prove that you are sick; for the rest, don’t worry; they will not ask for you again.”
Everything was done according to Eugénie’s advice. Our kind companion stayed in bed for two or three days without being sick. The revolutionary committee was completely taken in by the ruse, and an honest girl was not exposed to the immodest gaze of the immoral republican mythologists.
[…]
At our gathering at the studio, 11 Thermidor, everyone was talking about the events that had changed the destiny of France in so few hours. Poor Eugénie, said Vallière, [but] she won’t die, so I am happy.”
“What has happened to our good Eugénie then?” I cried.
“You don’t know.”
“No, tell me quickly.”
“What, you don’t know that her mother has hanged herself and that she has been arrested with her friend Mademoiselle Robespierre?”
“What does Eugénie have in common with those people[?]”
I was shocked by the universal laughter [and everyone] looked at Mademoiselle G**, my mentor, with surprise.
“It’s true, she doesn’t know what they say about Eugénie, [though] perhaps they slander her because of the terrible personage who was staying with her parents. I didn’t want to familiarize my pupil with the possibility of vice, [but] today it would be difficult to hide the truth from her, or at least what is generally said.”
I was on pins and needles; Madame Lebreton, a sweet and sensitive young woman, said, blushing: “Everyone assures that Eugénie Duplay was Robespierre’s mistress.”
“Ah! My God! Is it possible that that good and generous creature should have so degraded herself?” I was aghast.
“Listen,” cried Henriette, “don’t judge on appearances. The unhappy Eugénie was not the mistress, but the wife of the monster, whom her pure soul decorated with every virtue; they were united by a secret marriage of which Saint-Just was the witness.”
Mademoiselle Robespierre, the perfect opposite of her brother, a pious girl, resigned, a friend of Eugénie, demanded that a priest sanction the alliance of virtue and crime. Eugénie ceded to the fascination of an unequalled love. Robespierre was in her eyes the model of honor and delicacy; she believed him calumniated, a victim of faction, and such is the privilege of virtue that this man, soiled by so much blood, esteemed Eugénie to the point of hiding from her the part that he had in the crimes of the revolutionary tribunal; the ascendancy that she had over the man who made France tremble, manifested itself in regard to all the people in whom Eugénie took an interest; M. Regnault, several of us, of our relatives, owe her our lives, “you in particular (that is to say me), whose liaisons with the Paris and Saint-Chamans families had attracted the surveillance of the committee, you owe Eugénie the tranquility you enjoyed despite your frequent visits to the Conciergerie, and when you lately travelled to Arras and Cambrai (17) where you were to be arrested by Joseph Lebon, Eugénie is the one who prevented this misfortune by having the orders of her husband intervene, for you would have invoked your 15 years of age in vain, Lebon would have pursued his vengeance.”
“I believed, Mesdames, that I had to exculpate Eugénie from all complicity with the one whom fatal destiny offered to her eyes, who seduced her by taking on the appearance of virtue. It is a homage that he rendered to that unhappy woman.
When she learned of the execution of her husband, she still doubted his crimes and wanted, like Madame Duplay, her mother, to put an end to her days; she was happily prevented early enough to leave no fear for her existence. I hope that her imprisonment and that of Mademoiselle Robespierre will not be long. Lambin and I have been to speak with Tallien; he has assured us that justice will be done, that the innocent Eugénie will soon be returned to her friends; there, Mesdames, is the exact truth.”
My heart, so oppressed, expanded; it would have been hard to revise the opinion that I had had of that good creature, subjugated by a power to which so many submit.
I never saw Eugénie at the studio again, but when, not long after, I returned to my family, I received several letters from her that I have conserved; they make no allusion to the past and contain the most noble and delicate sentiments.
I don’t know what became of her, or of my other companions; they’re memory still makes my heart beat in thinking that I owed to them the cheeriest days of my existence.
(*) It was the genius of Liberty hovering over France. This painting was exposed at the salon of 1794.
Notes.
[…]
(11) Diana and Calisto, Mars disarmed by the Graces, and other easel paintings reproduce the pretty heads of Mesdemoiselles V**, T**, L**, M**, H**, etc.
(Author’s note.)
(12) Let’s grind some red, David would cry when he signed the warrant for some victims to be sent to the revolutionary tribunal.
(Historical.)
[…]
(13) It is relevant to recall that this liberty-killing law, that the republicans of 1832 have not studied enough, was a reminiscence of the Edict of Blois of 1560 […]
(14) The episode relative to this beautiful and interesting creature can be found in the first chapter of this work, entitled: A boarding school.
(Author’s note.)
(15) I had often seen M. Tronson du Coudray in the house of Madame de Saint-Chamans, in the house of Mademoiselle de Paris […]
(16) In 1516, François I passed through Manosque on his way to Italy; the keys of that city were presented to him by the daughter of a bourgeois in whose house he went to stay; this young person pleased the King, he could not hide it from her, but as she had as much virtue as attractiveness, to save her honor, she had sulfur burned on live embers [and] the smoke to which she exposed herself was impregnated in her face to the point of rendering her unrecognizable. A rich dowry was the price of this act of courage.
(Historical.)
(17) This trip, one of the most singular events of my life, is the title of the second chapter, of the memories of the 1793 and 1794.
(Author’s note.)
End of notes.
So here are my thoughts: Does this chapter prove absolutely, even in conjunction with her alleged self-portrait, that Éléonore really studied under Regnault? No. To really affirm that absolutely we would need other outside evidence. Perhaps it exists somewhere; apparently someone wrote a thesis on Regnault (which is unfortunately only available in a hard to access art library in London) which lists forty-one of his female students, but I don't know if Éléonore is listed there and even if she is, the source might once again be Clément-Hémery.
However, I'm not convinced that it disproves Éléonore's art student status either. If you leave aside all the obviously made up incidents (I haven't read every session of the Jacobin Club, but I'll eat my hat if any of them turns up a denunciation of Regnault for wearing a beard) and the errors mentioned above (name, hair-color, etc.), it's not at all impossible that Éléonore and Clément-Hémery were in the studio at the same time.
Let me explain my reasoning by starting from what we know. First, to clarify, it seems likely enough that Clément-Hémery really was a student of Regnault's; several of the students she mentions are known to have been Regnault's students because they went on to have careers. It's theoretically possible that she invented the whole story out of whole cloth, but let's assume for the sake of argument that she didn't - especially since these kinds of memoirs usually have a least a grain of truth in them. Clément-Hémery tells us herself that in 1793-1794, she was 14 and then 15 years old, which would make her a full decade younger than Éléonore. It seems unlikely that they would have had much to do with each other, especially if Clément-Hémery and her friends were the bunch of giggling aristocratic idiots she depicts them as - which I have no reason to doubt. It's quite likely that they would have taken no notice of each other.
Now, at a later point in time, it's quite possible that someone who did know Éléonore or who was at least aware of her presence in the studio, mentioned to Clément-Hémery that she had been there - perhaps even in a similar conversation to the one depicted at the end of the memoirs where "Eugénie"'s identity is revealed. That would explain her knowledge of the rumors regarding Éléonore (oddly, this isn't the only source to allege that Éléonore and Robespierre were secretly married with Saint-Just as a witness, as absurd as the idea might seem) as well as certain errors, particularly regarding her appearance. If this hypothesis is correct, then Clément-Hémery filled in the traits she would have imagined Éléonore to have had and added details on the "Terror" to make her account more interesting.
These memoirs ring most true when Clément-Hémery talks about knowing nothing about politics and about these years being the happiest of her life - in those moments they recall Élisabeth Le Bas's memoirs, and if Élisabeth Le Bas, while being married to a Conventionnel and living in the same house as Robespierre could be as little affected by political questions as she seems to be in her memoirs, how much more true is that likely to be for a 14 year-old boarding school student who, even as she peppers her account with your standard Romantic fantasies on the "Terror", admits to having been ignorant and sheltered?
In short, my supposition is that Clément-Hémery and possibly Éléonore studied under Regnault without interacting with each other in particular, that someone later informed Clément-Hémery (rightly or wrongly) that Éléonore had been in Regnault's studio in 1793-1794, and that Clément-Hémery then made up everything in her memoirs concerning Éléonore and anything political. At least part of what she recounts of herself and her circle of friends may be true, as well as some variant of the final conversation presented here, but that's about it.
EDIT: It should also be noted that neither the famous passage about Éléonore's believing she was loved when really she was feared nor anything about her fellow students' supposedly explicitly calling her Mme Robespierre are anywhere to be found in these memoirs. The first is a summary by Lenôtre, the second, while I supposed it could be considered to be implied if we are to believe that some of the students thought that Éléonore and Robespierre were married, simply isn't there. (Which, btw, makes Hilary Mantel's statement that "'Eléonore thought she was loved,' said a fellow-student, 'but really she only scared him.'" doubly erroneous, since not only did Clément-Hémery never say this, but even Lenôtre's summary isn't referring to Robespierre's relationship with Éléonore, but to the fear of Éléonore among her fellow students alleged by Clément-Hémery.)
