Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution Read online

  In his essay, Robespierre drew directly on the political theory of the Baron de Montesquieu, who, in his De l’esprit des loix (The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748) argued that honor was the mainspring of a well-ordered monarchy, virtue the mainspring of republican government, and fear the mainspring of despotism. Honor and its opposite—shame—made sense under a monarchical form of government where individuals were closely connected to one another through personal and familial loyalties. But what place was there for honor in a democratic republic of patriotic individuals ready to sacrifice their personal relationships to the public good of the state? This question would return to trouble Robespierre during the Revolution as he tried to put theory into practice, but in this early essay he answered it abstractly, introducing a curious distinction between “philosophical honor” and “political honor.” Philosophical honor, as he defined it, was none other than a pure soul’s exquisite sense of its own dignity—an entirely private sentiment based on reason and duty, existing in isolation, far from the vulgar gaze of mankind—a matter of purely personal conscience. It was, no doubt, Robespierre’s own “philosophical honor” that caused him to suffer so much when passing the death sentence on a murderer. In contrast, “political honor,” of the kind Montesquieu identified in monarchies, was the desire for social distinction, grandeur, and esteem—more to do with vanity than with virtue at an individual level, even if it was useful in producing unintended social benefits. Here Robespierre showed off his learning, echoing Francis Bacon: “No nobles, no monarchy: no monarchy, no nobles.”17 And he made the link between the temptation to respect someone merely because he came from a grand or noble family and the equally irrational or unjust tendency to despise the children of a condemned man.

  As a young lawyer, Robespierre was far from calling for a new social and political system based on philosophical honor. His essay did suggest that there were serious limitations to monarchies founded on political honor, but if he harbored ideas about the kind of system that might one day replace the monarchy in France, he kept them to himself. Like almost everyone else, he argued for incremental reform and insisted that “there is no need for us to change the whole system of our legislation; it is dangerous to look for the remedy for a specific ill in a general revolution.”18 What is more distinctive, however, in this early essay, is the close connection Robespierre envisaged between politics and morality. He regretted politicians’ habitual contempt for moral precepts and instead insisted that:

  The laws of God [l’être suprême] need no other sanction than the natural consequences he himself has attached to the audacity of those who infringe them and the fidelity of those who respect them. Virtue produces happiness as the sun produces light. Crime results in unhappiness as certainly as filthy insects issue from the heart of corruption.19

  The Academy of Metz’s judges had some reservations about Robespierre’s essay, but while they could not bring themselves to award him first prize, they decided to give him a second, equal in monetary value though not in glory. Robespierre spent the prize money (four hundred livres, approximately 230 dollars today) getting his essay printed.20 In retrospect, it is ironic that it was Pierre-Louis Rœderer, an enterprising member of Metz’s supreme court, who donated funds for the prize awarded to Robespierre. Later, looking back on the Revolution, Rœderer would argue that the French, with their love of social distinctions, were “more antipathetic than any other people to democracy.”21 Robespierre, in contrast, would stake his career and his life on the opposite view.

  In his essay, Robespierre ranked the personal purity of philosophical honor far above the social benefits of political honor. But was he deceiving himself? From an early age, social distinction meant a great deal to him. Competitive, determined, ambitious as he was, how else could he hope to measure his own success if not in relation to that of his peers? An incident at the Academy of Arras gave a hint of his competitive streak. After the death of the academy’s permanent secretary, Alexandre Harduin, in 1785, elections were held to select a replacement. Of the twelve academicians present, ten voted for a distinguished local landowning noble, Dubois de Fosseux, one for Robespierre, and one for another candidate. On the same occasion, three other officials were elected, Barometer Buissart among them, but once more, Robespierre was passed over with only one vote. Perhaps he voted for himself.

  Things became tense with the creation of an additional three chairs soon after Dubois de Fosseux assumed his post. Someone proposed Le Gay, a talented young lawyer already winning a reputation as an accomplished poet. At twenty Le Gay had founded his own literary society in Arras, the Rosati; at twenty-four he was a practicing lawyer in the Council of Artois, and it seems that he played some small role on the opposite side from Robespierre in the famous lightning conductor case.22 When Le Gay’s name was put forward, Robespierre and Buissart were strongly opposed. The evening before the vote was to take place Dubois de Fosseux received a visit from Robespierre to discuss the matter in private. The next day, when the vote went ahead, the two friends absented themselves from the proceedings. After Le Gay was elected, Buissart threatened to resign his chair. However, Dubois de Fosseux, proving himself a felicitous choice as permanent secretary, refused to be discouraged by such squabbles and diplomatically restored peace to the academy. Why were Robespierre and Buissart so adamantly against Le Gay? Robespierre’s motive may have been simple loyalty to his chief friend and supporter in Arras. Or it might have been more personal rivalry or irritation over Le Gay’s part in the lightning conductor case. But whatever it was, he showed no reluctance to engage in factional strife. His visit to Dubois de Fosseux the evening before the academy’s vote foreshadows many such personal visits during the Revolution: “If Monsieur Robespierre comes to call, tell him I’m not at home!” said the great political theorist the abbé Sieyès in his dotage, years after Robespierre was dead, still haunted by the fear of a knock on the door.

  ROBESPIERRE’S NEXT ATTEMPT to win a literary prize came in 1784 when, for the fourth year running, the Academy of Amiens announced a competition for the best eulogy of the town’s most famous poet, Jean Baptiste Gresset. None of the submissions had been deemed of high enough quality to merit an award, so Robespierre thought it prudent to solicit some strategic advice from Buissart, who had an influential friend in Amiens. This time the prize was worth twelve hundred livres (approximately seven hundred dollars), and Robespierre doubtless needed the cash as much as he yearned for the glory. Gresset was best known for his mock-heroic poem Ver-Vert, published in 1734 while he was still a Jesuit priest teaching at Louis-le-Grand. Soon afterward he was expelled from the order and led a successful secular life writing for the stage, before retiring to Amiens, where he lived austerely, atoning for the frivolity of his youth. (Voltaire quipped: “Gresset se trompe, il n’est pas si coupable”—Gresset is wrong, he is not as culpable as all that.23) Ver-Vert is about a parrot, the cloistered pet of one convent that is sent on a visit to another, learns profane expressions on the way, shocks the nuns on arrival, and is sent back in disgrace to repent and die. Aside from money and glory there was much to attract Robespierre to Gresset as a subject: the connection to Louis-le-Grand, literature, the theater, birds, and the poet’s celebrated visit to Arras in 1740, when he attended a meeting of the literary society that later became the academy. Robespierre’s essay drew a flattering comparison between Gresset and Alexander Pope, pointing out that The Rape of the Lock relied on the formulas of epic convention, whereas in Ver-Vert Gresset challenged his imagination to slip through the convent grille and animate the sedate life of the cloister. Robespierre also claimed to find Gresset’s verse natural, unaffected, and more appealing than Voltaire’s. He stopped short of placing him on the same level as Rousseau but insisted that he stood far above the crowd of lyrical poets.

  Somewhat wistfully, Robespierre quoted Rousseau’s enthusiastic praise of Gresset earlier in the century: “What marvel in a man of twenty-six years! How dismaying for our supposed modern
wits!”24 Such affirmation from his revered hero is what Robespierre would have wanted for himself—in 1784, he, too, was twenty-six years old. He also praised Gresset’s respect for religious sentiment. Criticizing poets whose work, by unleashing irreligious passions, jeopardized the peace and tranquillity of their own and future generations, he held Gresset up as the exception, the defender of religion in the face of its detractors. Robespierre sincerely approved—the fact that Gresset was expelled from the Jesuit order only added to his admiration: here was a fellow spiritual loner, unafraid to follow his conscience. Nevertheless, with a backward glance perhaps to the beloved library at Louis-le-Grand, he described the Jesuit order in very fond terms as “this famous society…offering such a gentle retreat to men who are devoted to the charms of study and literature,” such as “the poet of the Graces [Gresset].”25

  Despite advice from Amiens via Buissart (overdo the praise since Gresset “is never spoken of here except with veneration, and they think it a crime if one expresses any doubts as to his celebrity”), Robespierre chose to concentrate more on the poet’s outstanding character than on his literary achievements:

  I have counted it a merit in Gresset to have drawn upon himself the sarcasm of a number of literary men; for I have been so bold as to insist upon his virtue, upon his respect for morality, and upon his love of religion. This will undoubtedly expose me to the ridicule of the witty majority; but it will win me two votes which are more than a recompense—that of my conscience and that of yours.26

  Not for the first or last time Robespierre identified with a great man whom he believed to be despised, slighted, and isolated. There was something more than faintly risible in Robespierre’s repeated insistence that Gresset should be admired for choosing duty over glory and eschewing worldly trophies that only the vulgar prize, while striving so hard himself to win a literary competition. Besides which, the judges in Amiens could hardly be expected to view their town’s literary celebrity as a vulnerable victim of sarcasm in need of a valiant and virtuous advocate. Robespierre’s eulogy protested too much and failed to concentrate on the merits of Gresset’s verse. He did not win the prize but paid to have his essay published even so—perhaps in the hope of making some money from it, perhaps out of wounded pride or vanity. On receiving a copy, Dubois de Fosseux wrote to thank Robespierre in lighthearted verse, politely expressing astonishment that he had not been awarded the prize, which may or may not have been a comfort to the sensitive and disappointed author.

  ROBESPIERRE’S LITERARY INTERESTS also led him to try his hand at poetry. Surviving examples reveal his talent as modest and his sensibility as effete, even silly on occasions. His sister evidently thought so when she advised against publishing a poem about spitting and nose blowing that might undermine his growing reputation as a lawyer.27 Most of his poems are addressed to women. The only one published in his lifetime was a madrigal to “young and beautiful Ophelia.” It exalted innocent modesty and ended with the unworldly, indeed positively misleading, piece of advice: “You will only be better loved / if you fear you are not.”28 Another began, “Do you want to know, O charming Henriette / Why Love is the greatest of gods?”29 There were melancholy lines concerning the marriage of a girl named Emilie to someone else, and more of the same addressed to the shy beauty Sylvie. Unless Robespierre was using a number of synonyms for the same woman or simply addressing figments of his imagination, the young lawyer was busy composing gallant poetry for any and all—he was either frivolously self-indulgent, narrowly focused on improving his poetic skill, or far cooler at heart than his words imply. An early portrait depicts him with a rose in one hand and the other on his heart, above the motto All for my love. “Which one?” a cynical recipient of his missives might ask.

  Beyond the safe allusiveness of verse, Robespierre’s interaction with women was markedly stilted and formal. In December 1786, for example, he wrote this letter to accompany a copy of one of his professional speeches—not everyone’s idea of a courting gift:

  Madame

  I have dared to think that a speech dedicated to the defence of the oppressed would be an homage not unworthy of your acceptance, so I have decided to present this to you. The interest you were kind enough to take in the matter that is the subject will suffice to justify this homage, were justification required. In the midst of the painful labors necessitated by this work, you, Madame, were with me during some moments that I shall never forget, and your presence renewed my courage. Today, when I have finished my work, I seek the reward that is its due, and find it in offering this to you.30

  There is considerably more in this letter about the sender than about the recipient. His gratitude is well expressed, but the woman concerned is not invoked personally; her contribution is defined solely in relation to Robespierre’s own work. And yet, if he was emotionally self-absorbed, his theoretical views were egalitarian and feminist far ahead of the times. A woman’s contribution to academic discussion, he argued in one of his papers to the Academy of Arras, was the natural complement to a man’s and of equal value. For this reason he thought members of both sexes should be admitted to the academy.31

  Shy and reserved in character, busy and ambitious at work, socializing primarily with other men, Robespierre must have had limited opportunities to build friendships with women, romantic or otherwise. One friend of Charlotte’s bred some canaries for Robespierre and received in return a letter of thanks that was both mildly flirtatious and faintly disturbing:

  What was our surprise when, approaching their cage, we saw them dash themselves against the wires with an impetuosity that made us tremble for their lives! That is what they do whenever they see the hand that feeds them. What plan of education have you adopted with them, and from where have they acquired their wild character?…A face like yours, has it not reconciled the canaries to the human countenance? Or is it that they can support the sight of no other, having once seen it?32

  According to Charlotte, many women were interested in her brother and he could have easily made an advantageous marriage with one of the local heiresses. But at the time there was only one girl he wanted to marry, his sister claims. This was Anais Deshorties, the stepdaughter of one of their aunts on the de Robespierre side of the family. Perhaps Robespierre, being sensitive and awkward, found it easier to contemplate intimacy with a member of his extended family. Even so, he courted Anais for two or three years without making much progress, in strong contrast to his father’s conduct at a similar age. Two letters sent in June 1787 to an unnamed girl, who may have been Anais, show Robespierre sad and dejected. The first alludes to a rejection:

  As to the cruelties that your letter contains, I will respond by honestly exposing my feelings. The interest I take in people does not have a fixed term, when they are people like you. That which you inspire in all those who know to appreciate you will not cease in me until I do, because I do not know anyone more deserving of it than you. In addition, the goodness that is always clear in your dealings with me places me under a sort of obligation, and to abjure such a feeling would make me unjust and ungrateful, and I wish to be neither.33

  This is the letter of someone with rather contorted emotions. The undying fidelity in response to the beloved’s perceived cruelty, the peculiar sense of duty, the self-righteous integrity, and, above all, the self-regard, are all highly reminiscent of the love letters in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse.34 Published in Paris in 1761, this astonishingly popular novel—in France alone there were seventy-two editions before the end of the century—tells the story of Julie, who loves the unsuitable Saint-Preux but in the end renounces passion in favor of a virtuous life of marriage and motherhood. Rousseau described the process of writing it in his Confessions:

  Forgetting the entire human race, I invented for myself whole companies of perfect creatures, whose virtue was as celestial as their beauty, and of true, tender, and faithful friends such as I had never known here below.35

  Rousseau projected his own romantic passion
s onto Saint-Preux, whose letters could have served as models for Robespierre’s:

  An indefinably sweet and consoling idea eases my suffering in being far from you, when I think that you have commanded it. The pain you cause me is less cruel than if fortune had sent it. If it serves to make you happy, I would be sorry not to have felt it. It is the guarantee of its reward, for I know your soul too well to believe you capable of cruelty for its own sake.36