#1796-1797

[historical-fashion-polls]

submitted by @shilohta ❤️🖤💙

[artschoolglasses]

Gallery of Fashion, vol. III: April 1 1796 - March 1 1797

From the Met Museum

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Bust, 1796-1797, French.

By Joseph Chinard

Portraying a woman with curled hair.

Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon.

[internationalplayboysdotcom]

excited would be an understatement

[armatofu]

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hi there, I’m planning on writing gothic/gothic romance fiction. Do you have any tips?

Do you also have any tips to not make your writing too repetitive? I have a habit of repeating words a lot.

Writing Notes: Gothic Fiction

Gothic Novel

European Romantic pseudomedieval fiction having a prevailing atmosphere of mystery and terror.

Its heyday was the 1790s, but it underwent frequent revivals in subsequent centuries.

Called Gothic because its imaginative impulse was drawn from medieval buildings and ruins, such novels commonly used settings such as castles or monasteries equipped with subterranean passages, dark battlements, hidden panels, and trapdoors.

The Gothic is characterized by its darkly picturesque scenery and its eerie stories of the macabre.

It draws its name and aesthetic inspiration from the Gothic architectural style of the Middle Ages ⁠— crumbling castles, isolated aristocratic estates, and spaces of decrepitude are familiar settings within the genre.

Gothic fiction is rooted in blending the old with the new.

As such, it often takes place during moments of historical transition, from the end of the medieval era to the beginnings of industrialization.

Contemporary technology and science are set alongside ancient backdrops, and this strange pairing helps create the pervasive sense of uncanniness and estrangement that the Gothic is known for.

Past & present fold in on each other; even as man’s technological advancements seem to make him increasingly powerful, history continues to haunt.

Elements of Gothic Literature

The Gothic is a genre of spiritual uncertainty: it creates encounters with the sublime and constantly explores events beyond explanation. Whether they feature supernatural phenomena or focus on the psychological torment of the protagonists, Gothic works terrify by showing readers the evils that inhabit our world.

CHARACTERS

Characters in Gothic fiction often find themselves in unfamiliar places, as they — and the readers — leave the safe world they knew behind.

Ghosts are right at home in the genre, where they’re used to explore themes of entrapment and isolation, while omens, curses, and superstitions add a further air of mystery.

ATMOSPHERE

Eeriness is as important as the scariness of the events themselves.

In a Gothic novel, the sky seems perpetually dark and stormy, the air filled with an unshakable chill.

THEMES

In addition to exploring spooky spaces, Gothic literature ventures into the dark recesses of the mind: the genre frequently confronts existential themes of madness, morality, and man pitted against God or nature.

Physical and mental ruin go hand in hand — as the ancient settings decay so do the characters’ grips on reality.

History of Gothic Literature

The vogue was initiated in England by Horace Walpole’s immensely successful The Castle of Otranto (1765).

His most respectable follower was Ann Radcliffe, whose The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797) are among the best examples of the genre.

A more sensational type of Gothic romance exploiting horror and violence flourished in Germany and was introduced to England by Matthew Gregory Lewis with The Monk (1796).

The classic horror stories Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker, are in the Gothic tradition but introduce the existential nature of humankind as its definitive mystery and terror.

Easy targets for satire, the early Gothic romances died of their own extravagances of plot.

But Gothic atmospheric machinery continued to haunt the fiction of such major writers as:

Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even Charles Dickens in Bleak House and Great Expectations.

In the second half of the 20th century, the term was applied to paperback romances having the same kind of themes and trappings similar to the originals.

Tips on Writing Gothic Fiction

SETTING

Gothic fiction can, of course, be set anywhere – but 2 key components of Gothic settings are as follows:

Gothic settings are isolated – a small community, a rural town, a single-family home on the open moors… wherever your Gothic story takes place, make sure that the setting is in isolation from the rest of the world. Places that are difficult to get to, with small populations, or are only home to one family or small group of people are ideal for weaving a Gothic tale. Even if your characters are not physically isolated – maybe they live in a city, for example – their isolation should be present in some way; maybe emotionally, maybe socially. There are plenty of options therein.

Gothic settings revolve around a home base – not necessarily a home or house, though that is quite common; but, with almost every Gothic tale, a central setting is introduced very quickly and almost all the action takes place inside or around it. This furthers that feeling of isolation, and also helps the house or laboratory or island or whatever else feel alive, as if it is a character itself.

These settings are often fun to develop and aid the story so, so much by being atmospheric and anthropomorphic.

By creating a strong setting and central location, you are setting up your Gothic fiction for success.

VOICE & CHARACTER

A strong voice, usually in first person, is a staple of Gothic fiction.

Gothic main characters are usually curious, determined, and unable to rest until whatever is going on around them is uncovered.

They are not faint of heart and often have experience dealing with hardship in the past; they are uniquely qualified for whatever disturbing events are going on.

Your character’s voice should be curious, but not paranoid; apprehensive, but not frightened or cowardly; and, above all, interesting.

As many Gothic are written in first person, you want your main character to take action and investigating the goings-on.

ATMOSPHERE

Similar to setting, it’s important to focus on atmosphere. Make sure you appeal to the five senses – let your reader know how it sounds, smells, feels!

The more details, the better; immerse your reader by making them feel as if they are actually in the space.

Often, as mentioned, Gothic novels take place in areas that are remote, experience frequent storms or bad weather, or otherwise have a very ominous environment.

Of course, Gothic novels can take place anywhere, but the takeaway here is to remember to highlight aspects that go beyond the visual.

SUBGENRE

Know what the genre within your Gothic work is or is going to be.

Are you writing a Gothic romance? A Gothic thriller? A Gothic horror? There are even types of books one might categorize as a “cozy Gothic” – taking the elements of a cozy mystery, but with a Gothic setting and characters.

There are some very specific geographical locations and time periods for Gothics, Victorian or Regency-era Northern England being a couple of them; but they are not all set in Europe in the 19th century, nor should they be.

Consider such settings as seen in Southern Gothic in the 2020s, for example, or Canadian Gothic (set anywhere in Canada, but usually southern and rural Ontario) in the late 90s, among many others. These are only a few examples of hundreds!

Dark academia titles can often fall into the Gothic genre as well, and, of course there are Gothic fantasy and sci-fi titles as well.

Carefully consider what sub-genre your Gothic fiction falls under before writing it, or during the early stages of writing as your work gets fleshed out. It may fall under just one category, or multiple! Either way, knowing this will help you write and later market your title.

MARKETING

Think about marketing at an early stage. Make it clear that it is a Gothic novel!

And consider publishing your title at a time when the Gothic genre might be in higher demand, such as during the month of October or the winter in general.

Appeal to fans of grim stories, horror romance, and what have you by theming your marketing.

If writing a Gothic novel is new for you, be sure to highlight that!

It can be exciting when an author tries out a new genre and moves into a new literary space. Be sure to let your readers know of this new venture.

Gothic Romance

As a genre, gothic fiction was first established with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1764. Characterized by a dark, foreboding atmosphere and outlandish, sometimes grotesque, characters and events, gothic fiction has flourished and branched off into many different subgenres in the centuries since its creation.

While Walpole introduced what would later become the definitive tropes of the genre (creepy castles, cursed families, gloomy atmosphere), it was not until Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance in 1790 that gothic romance began to develop as its own legitimate subgenre.

Radcliffe kept many of the same tropes established by Walpole’s work, such as isolated settings with semi-supernatural phenomena; however, her novels featured female protagonists battling through terrifying ordeals while struggling to be with their true loves.

This concept is what separates gothic romance from its cousin, gothic horror.

Female leads would come to dominate gothic romance, especially after the publication of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in 1847.

A young woman struggling to maintain her independence as she falls for a dark, brooding, handsome man became a genre-defining plot of gothic romances published in the decades that followed.

A renewed public interest in gothic romance came on the heels of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca upon its publication in 1938.

Authors such as Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis A. Whitney dominated the gothic romance trade paperback market from the 1960s to the 1990s.

The image of a young woman running away from a darkened castle became a staple of gothic romance novel covers.

In 1983, Gaywyck, by Vincent Virga, became the first published gay gothic romance.

Modern additions to the genre continue to reflect its interest in both terror and romance, while also delivering updated or reimagined versions of familiar tropes.

Tips for Avoiding Word Repetition

While repeating a word or phrase can add emphasis and rhythm to your writing, it can also make your writing awkward and difficult to read. When you’re not using repetition as a rhetorical device, repeating words can get in the way of good writing. Here are some tricks for avoiding unnecessary repetition of words:

Read your work aloud. Reading aloud will help you avoid unintentional word repetition. Reading your work aloud is an excellent way to both hear the sonic effects of your prose and catch awkward repeated sounds or other unintended effects.

Read your work backward. Reading your work backward is an editing trick that forces your brain to slow down and pay close attention to the individual sentences. Start at the end of a chapter, paragraph, or page and read the last sentence of that section. (Don’t read the sentence itself backward—it won’t make any sense.) Next, read the second-to-last sentence, and so on. This will allow you to work at the sentence level, catching any unintended repetition or other small mistakes that your brain naturally skims over.

Consult a thesaurus. So you’ve found a repeated word. Now what? You can try rearranging your sentence to get rid of the repeated word, or you can keep the sentence the same and plug in a different word in its place. If you’re at a loss, consult a thesaurus for a list of synonyms. You want your writing to sound like you, and to be accessible to your audience, so it’s best to avoid using words you aren’t familiar with. But if you find yourself unintentionally repeating the same word over and over, a thesaurus can help you identify another word that more precisely captures your meaning.

Some Writing Strategies to Avoid Repetition

Excerpts from writing tips on repetition by Dr. Ryan Shirey:

While repetition is not an inherently bad thing (and can quite often be used to great effect as in the classical rhetorical technique of anaphora), most of us want to make sure that we’re not boring our readers by saying the same things over and over again without any variation or development.

If you’re worried about repeating ideas, then one of the easiest and most illuminating things that you can do is to reverse outline your draft. When you reverse outline, you take your draft and distill each idea and piece of evidence back into an outline. Some writers like to do this in the margins and others prefer a separate sheet of paper. Whatever your preference, a reverse outline will let you see rather clearly whether or not you’ve returned to the same idea or piece of evidence multiple times in the same essay. If you find that you have, you can think about rearranging or cutting paragraphs as necessary.

Another strategy if you’re worried about repeating ideas is to use different colored highlighters, colored pencils, or coloring tools in a word processing program to mark areas of your text where you’re working on specific ideas. If I’m writing a paper on the history of the run up to World War I, for example, I might decide to mark all the areas where I discuss treaty arrangements in green, all the areas where I discuss colonial expansion in blue, the parts that discuss arms manufacturing and trade in red, and so on. Once I’ve visualized these ideas with color, I can see more easily whether or not I keep returning to the same topics or whether I need to restructure any portions of my essay. Be careful, though–you don’t want to create artificial distinctions that might negatively impact your overall point. For instance, if a conflict over colonial expansion leads to a treaty arrangement, I would need to be very careful about using the context in which I’m discussing that treaty dictate how I code that sentence or paragraph.

If you’re worried about repeating words or phrases, you can use the “find” feature in your word processing program to highlight all of the instances where you’ve used it. Once you’ve identified the problem areas, you can look for ways to combine sentences using coordination or subordination, replace nouns with pronouns, or (very carefully) use a thesaurus to diversify your vocabulary.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Hope this helps with your writing!

[weirdlookindog]

Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) - A caza de dientes (Out hunting for teeth), 1796-1797

Plate 12 from 'Los Caprichos'

[ltwilliammowett]

Memorial Brooch to Rear Admiral McKerlie, Died 12th Septr 1848. Aged 74 years, 1848

Rear Admiral John McKerlie (1774-1848) entered the Royal Navy as a volunteer in April 1794 having been at sea in the Atlantic and Baltic merchant service from a young age. Rated Able Seaman, he was sent from the receiving ship Royal William to join the elite frigate force based at Falmouth that cruised the Channel countering the activities of French commerce raiders. McKerlie was assigned to the frigate Arethusa (38) commanded by one of the most successful frigate captains of the day, Captain Sir Edward Pellew. 

In early 1795 McKerlie followed Pellew into the 44-gun heavy frigate Indefatigable with the rate of Quarter-Gunner. Owing to a sound Scottish education and his knowledge of the sea McKerlie was soon acting as Indefatigable’s schoolmaster instructing the other eighteen ‘young gentleman’ of the gunroom in the specifics of their profession, having himself been appointed a midshipman.  Throughout 1795 and 1796 he participated in the capture of the numerous French prizes which brought further fame and glory to Sir Edward Pellew. It was however early the next year that Indefatigable fought what is generally regarded as one of the boldest frigate actions of the French Revolutionary War.

On the dark and stormy night of 13 January 1797 the French 74 Droits de l’Homme was sighted off the Brittany coast. Pellew, recognizing that he was heavily outclassed, saw that the waves prevented his opponent from opening the lower gun ports and that the severe weather had caused the loss of the enemy’s topmasts. Seizing the initiative, Indefatigable closed followed by the frigate Amazon and raked the French ship of the line at every opportunity. The enemy replied with 4,000 canon balls over the next few hours until finally driven in to Audierne Bay irreparably damaged by British gunfire and the unabated gale. The sight of distant breakers however threatened the destruction of all three ships. Indefatigable, though with masts damaged and with four feet of water in her hold, alone just had time to alter course and escape.

For Pellew the action was a triumph, Lord Spencer at the Admiralty acknowledging that for two frigates to destroy a ship of the line was ‘an exploit which has not I believe ever before graced our naval Annals’. For McKerlie the action was a trauma, costing him his right arm and a severe wound to the thigh. McKerlie's sacrifice was deeply felt Sir Edward Pellew whom he followed to his subsequent command, the mutinous ship of the line Impetueux. While serving aboard the Impetueux, McKerlie participated in numerous boat actions during the Quiberon expedition in 1800, and was present during the planning of a proposed attack on Belleisle. Marshall’s Royal Naval Biography relates how McKerlie ‘…not having heard how he was to be employed, went up to Sir Edward, interrupted him in a conversation with Major-General Maitland, and asking what part he was to act in the event of a debarkation taking place? The answer was “McKerlie you have lost one hand already, and if you loose the other you will not have anything to wipe your backside with; you will remain on board with the first lieutenant and fight the ship as she is to engage an 8-gun battery.”’

The loss of an arm did little to impede McKerlie’s career. He was regarded as a talented surveyor and draftsman, working at onetime with the celebrated civil engineer Thomas Telford. He was also considered a first class shot. He received his lieutenant’s commission in 1804 and served in H.M.S. Spartiate at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. He was present in the capture of Flushing and the Walcheren expedition, and commanded a squadron of ships stationed off Heligoland; oversaw the defence and retreat from Cuxhaven; and was responsible for destroying enemy shipping on the Braak. 

Unable to get a command after 1813, McKerlie returned to his native Galloway where he married, Harriet, daughter of James Stewart of Cairnsmuir, had one daughter, Lillias (1821-1915), to either or both of whom the present brooch no doubt belonged. In a post service career McKerlie served as a local magistrate and operated commercial vessels from the port of Garlieston. After almost twenty years ashore, he made an unlikely returned to the Royal Navy as captain of the experimental frigate Vernon between 1834 and 1837. He was awarded a Pension for Wounds on 8 May 1816.

Despite the ever growing kudos that was accorded to Trafalgar veterans in the early  Victorian age, it is perhaps with greater pride that Admiral McKerlie recalled his service under Pellew (or Lord Exmouth, as he became); and in 1847 was one of only eight surviving veterans who had lived long enough to apply for the Naval General Service Medal with a clasp for the Droits de L’Homme engagement.  The following year, in 1848, he died at Corvisel House, Newton Stewart, at the age of seventy-three.

[itz-skyline]

"Back to another time" historical fanfic

a question to all napoleonic fans out there:

What should be changed or improved if a time travel were to travel back into the Napoleonic era?

So it's no secret of mine that I've been planning of writing a historical fanfic of a surgeon leonard dunard who's a pretty big napoleonic era nerd travels back in time during 1794 the siege of toulon. I've been kind struggling piecing this story together because of the not so many sources that I can go off

I just have alot of questions and not so many answers.

Now of course I'm not really thinking about giving napoleon the biggest W of all time there are going to be struggles but I think we can all agree that the peninsular wars and the attack to Russia can be avoided.

But I'm not only thinking of the way of how napoleon could've won but I was also think of how our modern surgeon Leonard could improve the medical field more.

I know that our boy larrey is definitely going to be involved since he was in most of the campaigns.

So I will just write down my questions under here and hope that some of yall can answer it I'll even organize it from which battle/chapter it would be used for you can ask me to explain further if some of it doesn't make sense.

Siege of toulon:

-how would a young surgeon inlist themselves into the medical field of the army?

-what was expected from a chirurgien sous aide major?

-what were the major issues the in the 18th century medical field? And how can they be fixed?

- how could dunard(oc) meet larrey? (So in what way could they have met eachother and stay in contact without napoleon introducing them to eachother)

Italian campaign 1796-1797:

-was is it common practice for surgeons to be in the midst of an active battle rescuing patients ?

-could a surgeon be given command to a battalion if it was needed?

-were nurses a thing in that time? And if not how could dunard incorporate them in the medical field?

-why wasn't there symbol for the medics to indicate that they're medical staff?

Egyptian campaign:

-how did the French army handle the spreading of the plague and could it be more improved?

-if the French fleet would have won at the battle of the nile against the British fleet would the British do more to sabotage the French army? Or would they just give up?

-> and would the Egyptian campaign only have taken 1 year to finish? Instead of 3 years

Italian campaign 1800

- what if desiax lived would he and davout been a unstoppable duo?

-if messena got navy support would he have continued fighting?

-should napoleon not have split his army that much in the battle of marengo?

Napoleons reign 1804-1812

-would it have been better if napoleon didn't become emperor?

-is it possible for a surgeon to become a marshal?

-could alot of the coalitions have been avoided if napoleon took the right steps?

Now I'm asking these questions because I struggle to find answers to these questions and I genuinely want to discuss more about my history fanfic so that I can maybe make fun fic to read that doesn't completely go of the rails i do kind what to keep it "realistic" if you know what i mean. so if your interested in it as I am I would love to talk about it more ^^

[zombilenium]

Protestant church, Zeliszow, Poland,

Build in 1796-1797 and designed by Karl Gotthard Langhans.

Christian Richter Photography

[historical-fashion-polls]

submitted by @shilohta ❤️🩶🤎

[artschoolglasses]

Satan Summoning His Legions, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1796-97

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Beige Silk Dress, 1796-1799, French.

Met Museum.

[whencyclopedia]

Napoleon's Italian Campaign

The Italian campaign of 1796-1797, waged by a young Napoleon Bonaparte, was a decisive campaign in the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). It led to the defeat of Austria, the beginning of French control of northern Italy, and the end of the war, but most importantly, it launched Bonaparte himself to new heights of fame and power.

The War of the First Coalition, the first of the Revolutionary Wars, had been ongoing since 1792, fought between the French Republic and a coalition of anti-French powers. Yet most of the fighting had taken place in Flanders and Germany, leaving the Italian front as more of a sideshow. Upon taking command of the Army of Italy in March 1796, Bonaparte would make the Italian theater the most important operation in the war, stunning all of Europe as he beat every Austrian army sent against him and redrew the map of northern Italy. His brilliant campaign led Austria to sue for peace and end the war in October 1797 and made Bonaparte one of the most influential men in France.

To Destiny

On 27 March 1796, General Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Nice to take command of the French Army of Italy. It had been a whirlwind of a month for the young general, who had received the command on 2 March, only seven days before marrying the attractive Joséphine de Beauharnais. Joséphine was the former mistress of Paul Barras, a member of the French Directory and one of the most powerful men in France, leading to rumors that Bonaparte had only received his command as a favor from Barras to his old paramour. Yet, by this point, Bonaparte had already built a reputation in the French army, having distinguished himself at the Siege of Toulon in 1793 and by crushing the royalist revolt of 13 Vendemiaire in 1795. Whatever the true reasons for his appointment, Bonaparte left for the front after a honeymoon of only 48 hours; as a wedding gift, he left his bride with a golden medallion inscribed with the words 'To Destiny'.

Upon arriving at Nice, General Bonaparte's first order of business was to hold a troop inspection. He was met with a ragged, demoralized force on the point of mutiny. The men were starving and malnourished, given only meager rations provided by corrupt contractors who charged extortionate prices. They lacked the most basic supplies; muskets, bayonets, and uniforms were all rare commodities, and entire battalions went without shoes. The army had not been paid for months, and when pay did arrive, it was in the form of the nearly worthless banknotes called mandats territoriaux, which was all the practically destitute French Directory could provide. Disease, desertion, and battlefield casualties had whittled the army down from an initial strength of 106,000 men in 1792, to only 37,600 men and 60 guns in March 1796, with no new replacements on the way. Bonaparte had his work cut out for him.

Bonaparte was also introduced to his officers, many of whom would become major players in the Napoleonic story. Bonaparte's chief of staff was Alexandre Berthier, an administrative genius whose ability to work 20-hour days and keep up with Bonaparte's rapid-fire orders kept the army's staff running like clockwork. The division commanders included Jean Sérurier, a gloomy general with 34 years of experience in the old Royal Army; Pierre Augereau, a former mercenary, dancing master, and duelist, who once killed an officer over an insult; and André Masséna, a talented general whose appetites for loot were only matched by his lust for women. Other soon-to-be famous officers under Bonaparte's command included Joachim Murat, Jean-Andoche Junot, Jean Lannes, Barthélemy Joubert, and Auguste Marmont. As David G. Chandler notes, "rarely had such a galaxy of military talent served together at one time and place" (57).

At first, these officers were unimpressed with their new commander-in-chief. At only 26, the short and wiry Bonaparte "looked more like a mathematician than a general", and the pleasure he took in showing off the portrait of his new wife made him seem juvenile. The generals would soon realize they had underestimated him. Immediately, Bonaparte reorganized the commissariat and threatened the venal contractors. He recalled the cavalry from winter quarters and quietly secured a loan of 3 million francs from Genoese financiers. He reintroduced discipline by disbanding mutinous battalions and court-martialing two officers for singing anti-revolutionary songs. Within days, Bonaparte had won the respect of his subordinates; as Masséna famously remarked, Bonaparte "donned his general's cap and seemed to grow by two feet" (Roberts, 75).

Bonaparte next tried to win over the rank-and-file soldiers, promising them the victories and riches that had hitherto only been afforded to their comrades in Germany and Flanders:

Soldiers! You are hungry and naked; the government owes you much but can give you nothing. The patience and courage you have displayed among these rocks are admirable, but they give you no glory-not a glimmer falls upon you. I will lead you into the most fertile plains on earth. Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be at your disposal ... soldiers of Italy! Will you be lacking in courage or endurance?

(Chandler, 53)

It was a bold promise, especially for a general who was yet to lead an army into battle. On 10 April, five days before Bonaparte intended to launch his campaign, he received word that 53,000 Austrian and Piedmontese troops were already bearing down upon him. The time had come for Bonaparte to meet his destiny.

Continue reading...

[oncanvas]

Gallery of Fashion, vol. III: April 1, 1796 - March 1, 1797, Nicolaus Heideloff, 1794-1802

Hand-colored etching and engraving 13.38 x 10.44 in. (34 x 26.5 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

i'd like to know how bi (bisexual or biromantic) paul barras could be said to be.

The best evidence of Barras being attracted to men I’ve found in the hostile pamphlet Les Brigands démasqués, ou Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du temps présent, etc (1796) by Auguste Danican. On page 103 of said pamphlet we can read the following:

[Before the revolution] Barras, finding himself without resources, joined all the Greeks, and was himself an excellent Greek (although he understood neither Homer nor Lucian). He was seen a lot at the Hôtel d'Anglais, the usual meeting place for a crowd of swindlers; he lived modestly on a fourth floor, rue Champ-Fleury; went from time to time to core two imperial écus, and found himself in terrible distress.

The work Sodome à Paris: protohistoire de l’homosexualité masculine fin XVIIIe - milieu XIXe siècle (2009) by Thierry Pastorello, besides bringing up Danican, also mentions that ”Talleyrand tells the story of the drowning of Raymond Valz on July 15 1797, Raymond was Barras’ young lover. Raymond drowned himself under the eyes of Barras who would have shown signs of pain so big that one said he had just lost his mistress.” However, checking what Talleyrand actually writes about this incident in his memoirs, at least I have a hard time reading this as evidence Barras was romantically attracted to Valz, nor can I find the exact formulation that Barras mourned him like a mistress:

Whilst I was engaged in reading I don’t recollect what work, two young men came in to ascertain the time by the drawing-room clock, and seeing that it was only half-past three, they said to each other: ”We have to go for a swim.” They had not been gone twenty minutes, when one of them returned asking for help; I ran, with all the persons of the house, to the riverside. Facing the garden, between the high road and the island, the Seine forms a kind of whirlpool in which one of the young men had disappeared. The watermen of the neighbourhood soon rowed to the spot, and two of them most courageously dived to the bottom. However, with all the efforts they made to save the unfortunate fellow proved vain. I went back to the house. The corpse of the young man was only found the next day caught in weeds, at a spot distant more than six hundred yards from the place where he disappeared. The drowned was named Raymond, Lodève was his birthplace. Barras was very fond of him; he had brought him up and, since he had been appointed a Director, he had made him his aide-de-champ. I was alone in the drawing-room, not knowing exactly what to do. Who was to tell Barras the misfortune that had just befallen him? I had never seen the Director. My position was really unpleasant. A carriage drove up. On opening the door, the gardener said: ”M. Raymond has just been drowned, yes Citizen Director, he has just been drowned.” Barras crossed the front yard, and rushed upstairs to his room, crying out aloud. After waiting some little time, one of his servants told him I was in the drawing-room. He sent word to excuse his not coming down, and requesting me to sit down to dinner at once. The secretary who accompanied him remained upstairs. Thus, I was alone at Barras’ table. A quarter of an hour having elapsed, a servant came to request me to go up to the Director’s room. I felt thankful for his supposing that, under the circumstances, the dinner served to me could have no attraction. I felt quite upset. As I entered his room, he took hold of both my hands and embraced me; he was weeping.

Pastorello’s work also brings up historian Oliver Blanc, who in L’amour à Paris au temps de Louis XVI(2002) apparently notes ”that in 1793, Barras, finding himself in Draguignan, meets a young barber that he finds to his liking, Victor Grand.” Here we can again return to the original source, which is Barras’ memoirs (though do enlighten me if there’s more info on Grand and Valz) and see what he writes about, as he calls him, his aide-de-camp. This is the only interaction described between them that I’ve been able to find:

[After escaping from prison] Victor Grand came in haste to throw his arms about me; it was with pleasure that I once more beheld this young man, who had already won my entire confidence, and was one of the few who never ceased to be worthy of it. 

Other than that, Pastorello only cites more historians that claim Barras was attracted to men — Michel Larivière who in Homosexuels et bisexuels célèbres (1997) ”notes that Barras has the reputation of loving boys,” Michel Missofile who in Le cœur secret de Talleyrand (1956) notes ”that Barras lived in absence of any female presence with his man of trust François Roland, his piqueur Louis Copillon and his aide-de-camp Raymond Valz” and claims he was ”this seducer without a mistress, this husband without a home.” On Barras’ wikipedia we can also read that historian Jacques-Olivier Boudon apparently qualifies Barras as ”one of the best-known homosexuals of the time” whose “interest in young men was common knowledge at the time” in his Le sexe sous l'Empire (2019). I don’t have access to any of these books, so I unfortunately can’t check if these people use any more primary sources to argue their case.

In this post @tierseta does however bring attention to a part in Fouché’s memoirs, where he writes Barras had both ”courtiers (a masculine word) and mistresses”:

The exaggerated disparagement of his behavior and moral principles was precisely what attracted to him a court of swarming schemers (intrigants et intrigantes) and vampires. He was then in rivalry with Carnot, and maintained a favorable public opinion only by the idea that, if need be, he would be seen on horseback, defying, as on the 13th of Vendémiaire, any hostile attempt; as a matter of fact, he contrasted with [his image of] the Prince of the Republic, occasionally going hunting, having trained dog packs, courtiers and mistresses.

Finally, according to this anon, Barras had sex with and raped both women and men but only felt affection towards the latter group, and also got raped by his father on several occasions as a child. As the best source for this is given Barras’ biographer Henry Monteagle, whose work unfortunately has never gotten published and is extremely hard to obtain, but Barras apparently also talks about his attraction to men and abuse committed by his father in his memoirs. I have to admit I failed to find anything when searching for the word ”father” in the version of the memoirs linked within the post, and I don’t have time to read the entire memoirs to check if he says anything about his relation to other men in them (and I’m probably not the best person to do either since I’m pretty bad at reading subtext), but there might be something in there…