Maximilien Robespierre
EIGHTH CAHIER OF THE FIFTH SERIES
DR. KARL BRUNNEMANN MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE published twenty times per year PARIS 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor
At the same time as this cahier, there appears from Schleicher:
Dr. Karl BRUNNEMANN. — Maximilien Robespierre, translation and notes by L. Lévi, first volume, one volume in-16 at three francs fifty, on sale at the cahiers bookshop.
The German book, which I have in hand, bears the following title:
Maximilian Robespierre, ein Lebensbild, nach zum Theil noch unbenutzten Quellen, von Dr. Karl BRUNNEMANN, [zweite Auflage], Leipzig und Berlin, Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, K. Hofbuchhändler.
It forms an octavo volume of 220 pages.
It has had two editions; the preface to the first edition is dated from the summer of 1879; the preface to the second edition is dated September 1884. The book is today nearly impossible to find. The author is dead.
Authorized by his son, M. Brunnemann, our collaborator Mademoiselle Louise Lévi had long ago begun the translation; the publication of the book translated into French had been impatiently awaited; but the translator, himself long engaged in personal studies on the French Revolution, in particular on Maximilien Robespierre, was not content with a literal transcription; he wished to give us an annotated translation; and these careful, conscientious annotations form no small part of the volume’s interest.
The research necessitated by this personal work thus required of the translator a very long time; it is not in a few years that one acquires competence in the history of the lives and events that are the most considerable, the richest in deeds and facts, the most entangled, complex, the most difficult and the least well known.
The French translation will fill two volumes in-16; only the first volume appears today; the translator and publishers have been kind enough to place at the disposal of the cahiers the proofs of this first volume: at the moment I make this announcement, we cannot say exactly how many pages it has, because we are missing the first and last sheets; we will indicate it as soon as we can.
Having freely to choose within the volume, I have chosen for this cahier the beginnings of Maximilien Robespierre up to the Convention. Nothing is as exciting as the history of these great men in the time and at the age when they are not yet great men, when they are men like everyone else, when they practice ordinary trades, when they occupy ordinary positions, and nothing is as exciting as the beginning of their greatness, their first contact with the reality of a great history.
The corrections, additions, deletions, and emendations noted in the errata of the volume have been incorporated by the translator into the text that served us as copy; we therefore present a clean text.
The translator’s annotations become increasingly abundant as one advances in the work; they are more abundant still in the part of the first volume that we do not reproduce than in the part we do; they will no doubt be even more considerable in the second volume.
Charles Péguy
We publish below the preface to the first German edition:
PREFACE
If anything can furnish proof of human weakness, it is the sad experience, repeated each day and even at every hour of the day, that success is the sole basis of judgment for most individuals. The man who, after the happy coup d’état of December 2, was praised throughout nearly all of Europe as the savior of society; toward whom the potentates of Europe flocked in procession to lay their homage at his feet; that man, I say, had earned, after the affairs of Strasbourg and Boulogne, only universal shrugs, compassionate and mocking smiles, and the scarcely flattering epithets of adventurer and ambitious madman. That same destiny seized him again when he had the small misfortune, at Sedan, of not finding the death he claims to have sought amid the shells; the German chauvinists — those famous patriots who, shortly before, had swarmed eagerly around him, trying to catch in flight a thousand-franc note or the cross of the Legion of Honor — naturally always in the front rank — could not find words strong enough to express their disgust. And if we wish to remain on native soil, have we not seen the valiant men who once shed all the blood of their hearts, in the Palatinate and the Grand Duchy of Baden, for the liberty and unity of Germany, reaping only disdain and sarcasm — when a bullet had not struck them down first? — and he (1) who still nourished within him at that time the noble thought of razing great cities to the ground — when, twenty years later, German unity — and not liberty, for we have not seen much liberty emerge since then — when this unity, then, had fallen like a ripe fruit into his hands, have we not seen him praised and carried to the skies, to say no more, by young and old, by humble and mighty? And did not his monarch make him a count and a prince, not to mention a two-million endowment? It is because success decides precisely, on our poor globe, what must be black or white.
(1) Bismarck. — Translator’s note.
And it is the same with the great man who is the subject of this study. When his personal enemies had succeeded in catching him in their trap, his contemporaries let him be covered in mud with impunity; and coterie historians repeated with levity and without the least critical spirit what his murderers had sown throughout the world to cover their crime.
It is the desire to remedy this and to show Robespierre as he truly was to the German public that puts the pen in our hand. If we were granted to make the name of Robespierre loved and respected, we would feel more than compensated for our trouble; for it is incontestably one of the finest tasks to restore to its rights the merit that has been misunderstood or insufficiently appreciated.
Dr. KARL BRUNNEMANN Elbing, summer 1879
Up to His Entry into the National Assembly (1758-1789)
Maximilien-Marie-Isidore Robespierre, or more exactly Derobespierre — for such was the family name, without the family having belonged, however, to the nobility — was born in Arras on May 6, 1758. His father, Maximilien-Barthélémy-François Derobespierre, practiced the profession of advocate at the provincial council of Arras, as the grandfather had done before him. The family, originally from Ireland, had emigrated under the reign of Henry VIII or Edward VI as a result of religious persecution; (1) it had become a landed family in the town of Carvin, on the road from Arras to Lille; and it was there that Maximilien’s father was also born.
(1) According to E. Hamel (History of Robespierre, vol. I), this is merely a tradition given currency by the presence of an uncle of Maximilien in the Constance lodge. By the sixteenth century, the branches of the Derobespierre family were already very numerous in Artois. The eminent historian does not, moreover, contest this tradition, but he has been unable to discover any document establishing it. Whatever the case, there was in the deep and melancholy soul of Maximilien something of the northern races, as Louis Blanc had already remarked. — Translator’s note.
In the struggle for the crown between the Catholic Stuarts and the Protestant house of Hanover, the Derobespierres, faithful to the faith of their ancestors, supported the former; and thus we see an uncle of Maximilien as grand master of the Scottish lodge Constance, founded in 1751 at Arras by the pretender Charles Edward. Like all the Scottish lodges of that period, it had a political aim and specifically pursued the restoration of the Stuart throne. As for Maximilien’s mother, Jacqueline-Marguerite Carrault, she was the daughter of a prosperous brewer from the Rouville suburb. Besides Maximilien, who was their first child, the young couple also gave birth to two daughters, Charlotte and Henriette, and to a son, Augustin.
In 1765, the children had the misfortune of losing their mother, who died of a consumption. The father had already shown a predisposition to melancholy; his wife’s death affected him so deeply that he was advised to take a trip for distraction. He therefore departed, traveled through England and Germany, and died in 1768, in Munich, his heart broken by the loss of his beloved wife. (1)
(1) According to M. E. Hamel, he returned to Arras after an initial voyage to England and Germany, and he tried to resume the practice of his profession; but prey to a persistent melancholy, he could not remain in the city that too vividly reminded him of his wife, a woman of charming grace and wit (Michaud Biography, new edition); and he went to die in Munich. It has been advanced — but without proof — that he committed suicide. — Translator’s note.
Maximilien had inherited somewhat of his father’s melancholy. After the death of his parents, he became very serious and thoughtful, conscious of his duties toward his sisters and his brother. Two paternal aunts, not yet married, took charge first of the two little girls’ education; then they were placed in the convent of Tournay, where they grew up among the noble girls of the province. The maternal grandfather took the sons into his house; but Maximilien continued to attend the courses of the Arras college, where he passed in everyone’s eyes for a model student. In his leisure hours, instead of amusing himself with games like other little boys, he raised birds, pigeons in particular.
His application and good conduct earned him, at the age of eleven, a scholarship at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. This scholarship was at the disposal of the Abbot of Saint-Vaast of Arras, who had been struck by the extraordinary aptitudes of the child. Robespierre kept in Paris the promises of Arras. He threw himself in particular into the study of Antiquity, for which he had a predilection, thanks to the teaching of the rhetoric professor, the learned Hérivaux, who, esteeming his work highly, liked to call him his “Roman,” and who designated him as orator during a visit the King paid to the college after his coronation. (1)
(1) On this address to the young King Louis XVI, see E. Hamel, History of Robespierre, vol. I. Robespierre, “whose compositions always breathed a sort of Stoic morality and a sacred enthusiasm for liberty,” was chosen as the best student on this solemn occasion. “His speech, full of biting allusions, was filled more with remonstrances than with praises, and pointed out to the monarch the numerous abuses of his government. Submitted to the principal, it was, as one may imagine, profoundly modified, and the royal visitor appeared, it is said, satisfied.” — Translator’s note.
Upon leaving Louis-le-Grand, Robespierre, following the example of his father and grandfather, devoted himself to the study of law. At the same time, in order to perfect himself in the practice of this science, he worked in the office of the procurator in Parliament, Nolleau, and in the company of Brissot de Warville, with whom he was later to clash on a different field. But the law did not make him abandon literary culture. His admiration went particularly to Voltaire and even more to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom he once visited in his retreat at Ermenonville. We unfortunately know nothing precise about this encounter. (1)
(1) Charlotte Robespierre has preserved for us in her Memoirs a dedication that her brother planned to address to the shades of Rousseau: “I saw you in your last days, and this memory is for me the source of a proud joy; I contemplated your august features, I saw in them the marks of the dark sorrows to which the injustices of men had condemned you. From that time I understood all the sufferings of a noble life that devotes itself to the worship of truth: they did not frighten me. The consciousness of having wished the good of one’s fellow men is the reward of the virtuous man; then comes the gratitude of the peoples, which surrounds his memory with the honors his contemporaries denied him. Like you, I would wish to purchase these blessings at the price of a laborious life, at the price even of a premature death.” — Laponneraye edition, vol. II. — Translator’s note.
His studies completed, he left Paris in 1781, having been the object of an extremely flattering distinction, as the following document attests:
“Session of January 19, 1781. On the account rendered by the principal of the eminent talents of the sieur de Robespierre, bursar of the Arras college, who is on the point of completing his studies; of his good conduct during twelve years and of his successes in the course of his classes, both at the University prize-givings and at the philosophy and law examinations:
“The bureau has unanimously granted to the sieur de Robespierre a gratuity of the sum of 600 livres, which shall be paid to him by the grand master of the funds of the Arras college, and said sum shall be allowed to the grand master in his account, upon producing an engrossment of the present deliberation and the receipt of said sieur de Robespierre.”
Returning to his native city after a twelve-year absence, Robespierre established himself there as an advocate. He lived with the elder of his sisters, Charlotte — the younger had died of the same disease as their mother shortly after Robespierre’s arrival in Paris, in 1769 — in a small house in Arras that was the sole remnant of the paternal inheritance. He devoted himself entirely to his profession, and his clientele very quickly became considerable.
Rising regularly at six, he was in the habit of working until eight; then he attended to his toilette, being shaved and coiffed, and went to the tribunal to note his hearing days. On returning, he dined in the company of his sister, but always with the greatest sobriety, drinking virtually no wine; he was, on the other hand, a great friend of fruit and coffee. After dinner he took a walk, then worked until evening. He spent his evenings in the circle of his friends or his aunts, who liked, as old people do, to play a hand of cards, though he himself never touched a card. And yet they idolized him, as the following words that one of them pronounced around this time attest, words that were to come true: “He is an angel, and so he is made to be the dupe and victim of the wicked.” He also frequented very assiduously the Society of the Rosati, a circle of young men whom a shared taste for poetry and the joys of friendship had brought together, and among whom Robespierre was admitted in 1782. There he made the acquaintance of his future colleague on the Committee of Public Safety, Carnot, who was then in Arras as an engineer officer.
It is very characteristic of Robespierre to see him, already at this period, the supporter of the oppressed and the avenger of innocence unjustly pursued, as he always was during his short existence. The proof lies in a series of cases argued by him from the first days of his return to Arras. Thus he preserved for an old servant of his friend Carnot a legacy that was disputed by a powerful and high-ranking party; he successfully took up the defense of a young seamstress against a monk of the very powerful convent of Saint-Sauveur d’Anchin; he attacked, in the name of tolerance, the will of a man who, having become Protestant, wished to disinherit his Catholic relatives in order to give his fortune to a pious foundation; and he argued, finally, for a person condemned by the Saint-Omer tribunal to remove a lightning rod placed on his house: he sustained this case despite the ill will of the inhabitants, narrowly bigoted, who saw in the establishment of this lightning rod an affront to divine wisdom. (1) In a word, Dubois de Fosseux does not exaggerate when he thus sings of Robespierre in 1784:
Into my arms fly with assurance, Support of the wretched, avenger of innocence, You live for virtue, for sweet friendship, And you may claim of my heart the half.
(1) On all these trials, many interesting details may be found in the well-documented book of M. E. Hamel (History of Robespierre, vol. I). M. Hamel also mentions the case argued by Robespierre in favor of poor peasants against their powerful lord, the bishop of Arras. — Translator’s note.
This humane and truly philanthropic spirit, which led him to undertake painful tasks with no hope of material reward, was seconded by a compelling eloquence. He knew how to win hearts and succeeded, in the purest language, in convincing everyone of the correctness of his views. One of his companions from the Society of the Rosati wrote, around this time, the following stanza:
Oh! Redouble your attention! I hear the voice of Robespierre! This young rival of Amphion Would soften a panther!
It is not surprising that so rich a nature, in both the intellectual and the moral sense, should have made upon women the deepest impression. The testimonies of contemporaries expressly confirm it. He was, indeed, in social and epistolary relations with the most distinguished women of the city. We still possess a madrigal of delicate thought written by him around this period:
Believe me, young and fair Ophelia, Whatever the world may say and despite your mirror, Content to be beautiful and to know it not, Keep always your modesty. Over the power of your charms Remain forever uneasy: You will be all the better loved If you fear not to be loved at all.
His reputation as an advocate earned him from the bishop of Arras a well-paid position as judge at the patrimonial and episcopal tribunal; but he sacrificed it some time later to his convictions, the day after he had been obliged to condemn to death, according to existing laws, a criminal whose offense was not in doubt. Indeed, he was already, at that period, an adversary of the death penalty.
On April 21, 1784, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arras; it was a free association of men distinguished intellectually. The subject of his inaugural address is characteristic: Origin, Injustice, and Inconveniences of the Prejudice That Reflects upon the Relatives of Criminals the Infamy Attached to Their Punishments. He then sent it to the Royal Society of Metz, which crowned it and awarded him a medal of 400 livres. A passage from this address characterizes too well the way in which Robespierre already conceived of legislation for us not to reproduce it here in full:
“Every unjust law, every cruel institution that offends natural right, openly contravenes their purpose, which is the preservation of the rights of man, the happiness and tranquility of citizens.”
Oh! Why are these fine words not engraved, in every country, above the presidential chair, in the assemblies of legislators, so that they may always have them before their eyes!
In 1785, Robespierre competed with an Éloge de Gresset for the prize offered by the Academy of Amiens. The greatest praise he offers Gresset is for having remained honorable and pure amid the seductions of Paris: “You were a great poet! You were far more — you were an honest man! In praising your works, I shall not be obliged to avert my eyes from your conduct!” But this manner of placing the honest man above the poet displeased the Academy; Robespierre did not receive the prize; (1) it is also possible that he offended the academicians by speaking against the classics and praising the bourgeois drama.
(1) No one was judged worthy. — Translator’s note.
A speech he delivered on April 27, 1785, at the Academy of Arras, on the rights of natural children, created no less a sensation than his inaugural speech, because he was combating deeply rooted prejudices. It was the same for a speech on the advantages of the admissibility of women to the academies, a speech delivered in the name of the Academy of Arras in response to M. de Courcet and Mademoiselle de Kéralio, upon their reception. (2) A third speech, on the reform of the criminal code, is unfortunately lost.
(2) Robespierre is clearly in favor of the admission of women to all learned societies. — Translator’s note.
Such active collaboration in the Academy’s work was rewarded. It named Robespierre president for the year 1789. In greeting in this capacity the Duc de Guînes, the new governor of Artois, he expressed the wish to see in him a citizen-governor.
At that moment, preparations were being made for the elections to the Estates-General, to the convocation of which the government could no longer evade. Although the Bastille was still standing and lettres de cachet had not ceased to be the order of the day, Robespierre launched an address to the Artesian nation, in which he demonstrated the necessity of a fusion of the three orders into a single assembly; but it was to be feared, he said, that these orders might become the blind instruments of the government, as the Artois Estates had been in 1787 when they had added to the already crushing burden of taxes amounting to eight million a new contribution of 300,000 livres to endow the governor’s daughter, while the people were almost dying of hunger. (1) His candidacy was naturally opposed with bitterness and fury by the privileged. He defended himself against their attacks in a second address to the Artesian people. But his election was no longer in doubt when he succeeded in getting out of prison a certain Dupond who had been thrown into irons because he wished to assert his rights to an inheritance. (1)
(1) There are fine accents in this address. Thus, after describing the misery of the province: “And we still find immense sums to furnish for the vain expenses of luxury and for largesses as indecent as they are ridiculous! And I could contain the grief that such a spectacle must excite in the soul of every honest person! And while all the enemies of the people are audacious enough to make sport of humanity, I should lack the courage necessary to reclaim its rights! And I should maintain before them a cowardly silence, in the sole moment when for so many centuries the voice of truth has been able to make itself heard with energy, at the moment when vice, armed with unjust power, must itself learn to tremble before triumphant justice and reason!…” He already demands for the people education and bread, encouragements for talent, etc. — Translator’s note.
[The text continues with Robespierre’s election to the Estates-General, his early career in the National Assembly, his growing influence and his role as advocate for the people, his struggles against the established powers, and his philosophical development as a political figure up to the Convention.]