#Grand Saint Antoine

[philoursmars]

Nouveau retour à mon projet de présenter la plupart de mes 55500 photos (et des brouettes).  Plus trop loin du présent....  

Le Musée d’Histoire

- Pomone en proue - XVIIIe

- Pierre de Libertat 1600

- “Le Cours de Marseille pendant la Peste", Rigaud d'après Serre

- ancre du Grand Saint-Antoine, le navire qui amena la Peste à Marseille en 1720

- chambre de studio en poirier de l'atelier Nadar - début XXe s.

- maquette du Pont Transbordeur

- Fortuné Lavastre - maquette en bois de Marseille pendant les insurrections de 1848

- Fortuné Lavastre - maquette en bois de Marseille pendant les insurrections de 1848

- François Ferry-Duclaux - maquette de Marseille en 1824, en liège

[artspaume]

Janet Werner - Spiders and Snakes / Galerie Bradley Ertaskiran (ca)

Janet Werner / Feathers and fold Spiders and Snakes Jusqu’au 4 mai 2024 Bradley Ertaskiran a le plaisir de présenter Spiders and Snakes, une exposition solo de nouvelles peintures de Janet Werner. Ce corpus d’œuvres poursuit les explorations uniques et hybrides de l’artiste dans le genre du portrait, dans lesquelles elle crée ses propres règles en réunissant des représentations concurrentes de…

[marinabaycircuit]

lewis, seb, and something bigger than themselves —

antoine de saint exupery, wind, sand and stars / mercedes amg formula 1, 'lewis hamilton reacts to iconic moments from 10 years with mercedes' (2023) / sports illustrated, lewis hamilton celebrates sebastian vettel 'not yet seen a driver as brave as him' (2023) / attitude magazine, sebastian vettel: formula 1 is ready for an out gay driver (2022) / planet f1, lewis hamilton claims 'no one in f1 history have done what vettel and i have done' (2022) / spanish grand prix (2020) / sebastian vettel, sebastian vettel: formula 1 is ready for an out gay driver (2022) / saudi arabian grand prix (2021) / lewis hamilton (2023) / pre japanese grand prix (2023) / jean paul sartre

[petaltexturedskies]

All grown-ups were once children, but only few of them remember it.

Toutes les grandes personnes ont d'abord été des enfants, mais peu d'entre elles s'en souviennent.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince / Le Petit Prince

[amateurvoltaire]

The Deputy of Humanity

In August 1790, Robespierre, then deputy in the National Assembly, received a letter from a young man in Aisne. The subject of the letter was of little consequence in the grand scheme of things: the author was expressing his concern that the free monthly markets for grain and sheep in his village of Blérancourt might be moved to the rival village of Coucy.

The subject of the letter may have been trivial, but its author was not. Louis Antoine Saint-Just, not yet twenty-three, was quickly outgrowing local politics and had his eyes on debuting on the national stage. In around two years’ time, he would become one of Robespierre’s closest allies. But back in 1790, the young man only knew him “like God, through miracles” ("comme Dieu, par des merveilles"). This would be the first contact between the two men.

The letter has been widely translated, quoted, and speculated on. It is very well-written, with the effusive admiration and almost hero worship of the young man practically jumping off the page. Whether Saint-Just was entirely genuine or not is hardly consequential. Robespierre clearly found his admiration touching because he kept the letter until the end of his life.

The fact that Robespierre kept the letter is a sweet gesture that can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways. Perhaps he enjoyed the flattery, or maybe he wanted to keep a memento of the beginning of their friendship with Saint-Just. Maybe he simply forgot to throw it away. In my opinion, it's not very important.

What I find more interesting and revealing about Robespierre's character is that a young lieutenant colonel of the National Guard of the department of Aisne felt empowered to raise his provincial concerns to a deputy who wasn't even representing his constituency. Why would he do that? Setting aside Saint-Just's audacity and desire for recognition, the simple reason is that he knew he would be heard.

Since the days of the Estates General, Robespierre had not only been gaining popularity but was also notorious for standing up for the interests of the common man beyond his own province (later on department). For all the flattery, Saint-Just was right: Robespierre wasn’t only the deputy from Arras; he was “[the deputy] of humanity and the Republic (1)”. He frequently weighed in, as a dissenting voice, on matters of national importance, maintaining a consistent stance that always favoured the underdog. This was nothing new. His entire career in Arras had been built on helping the common man. On a national stage, he vocally continued that work.

He opposed the king's veto power over constitutional laws and emphasized the sovereignty of the nation over monarchical traditions. He also opposed the exclusion of "passive" citizens (2) from the National Guard and advocated for extending voting rights. All this, along with his defense of civic equality for various groups, including actors, Protestants, and Jews, solidified his position as a defender of the people.

Despite facing mockery from royalist publications and some of his peers, he remained steadfast in his dedication to the universal principles of the Revolution, with the most crucial principle being the sovereignty of the people. If the people are sovereign, then their grievances are significant. It's understandable that Saint-Just would reach out to him regarding the issue with the village market. He wasn't the only one.

For what it's worth, Robespierre probably didn’t intervene in the matter, but Blérancourt ultimately did retain its markets.

Translation (3)

Blérancourt, near Noyon, August 19, 1790

You who support the faltering homeland against the torrent of despotism and intrigue, you whom I know only, like God, through miracles; I address you, sir, to ask you to join me in saving my sad country.

The town of Coucy has transferred (so the rumour goes here) the free markets from the village of Blérancourt. Why should the cities swallow up the privileges of the countryside? Then, nothing will remain for the latter but the taille (direct tax) and taxes! Please, support with all your talent a petition that I am sending by the same mail, in which I ask for my inheritance to be joined to the national domains of the district so that my country may retain a privilege without which it must starve.

I do not know you, but you are a great man. You are not just the representative of a province; you are that of humanity and the Republic. Please ensure that my request is not scorned.

I have the honour of being, sir, your humble and obedient servant,

Saint-Just,

elector (4) in the department of Aisne.

Notes

(1) Here Saint-Just doesn't refer to Republic as a form of government, but uses the word as a substitute for nation/country. In 1790 France was a constitutional monarchy.

(2)Passive citizens were those who, for a variety of reasons (mostly tax related), were not allowed to vote. (3) The parts that are in bold, are underlined in the original . As usual, this is my own translation and you can surely find much better ones out there!

(4) Touchy subject...

(BONUS) The letter is Recto-Verso. The small red arrows in the image indicate where the back page starts. I edited the two sides in one image for ease of reading.

Source

I really like Saint-Just but his handwriting is just as bad as mine (yes. I can barely read mine either). The french text of the letter comes from:

Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon. Œuvres. Paris: Gallimard, 2014

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Were Danton and Camille really as close as almost every biography/novel/movie, etc. makes them out to be? For a long time I believed they were best friends, but I realize that I don't know much about what really happened (only that Camille mentioned him as a friend several times in his letters).

Sorry if a similar question has already been asked, and thank you for all your wonderful posts. I read each one with great interest.

Thank you! I’m throwing in their wives too for good measure.

As popular as the idea of Danton and Desmoulins being friends already before the revolution is among novelists (A Place of Greater Safety (1992) by Hilary Mantel, The Gods Are Thirsty (1996) by Tanith Lee) and even biographers (Danton (2012) by David Lawday, Georges-Jacques Danton (1987) by Frank Dwyer) I have not been able to discover any evidence indicating this to actually have been the case. The very first connection I’ve found between the two dates to December 12 1789, when Desmoulins for the very first time mentions Danton’s name in his recently founded journal Révolutions de France et de Brabant:

As I do not have the advantage of being from the illustrious Cordeliers District, I am addressing this motion [to make it forbidden to use the term Queen of the French in public acts] to it through this journal. I beg its worthy President M. d'Anton to propose it to the honorable members, to discuss it in their wisdom and address it to the fifty-nine others; I leave my motion on their desks, and I sign it... A Frenchman.

The second time Camille mentions Danton’s name in Révolutions de France et de Brabant is eleven numbers later (March 1 1790). In the number, Camille describes how he on February 24 for the very first time enters the Cordeliers club and enrolls himself as a member. The very same session, he, alongside Danton, Fabre d’Eglantine, Paré and Dufourny de Villiers are named commissioners for the editing of a report by the club requesting the construction of a building ”worthy the National Assembly” on the place of the destroyed Bastille. This is the earliest confirmed meeting between Danton and Desmoulins that I’ve been able to find.

By the end of the same month, in number 17 (March 20) and number 18 (March 29) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Camille loudly protests against the fact Danton (”this lustrous president of the Cordeliers district”) has been decreed under arrest by le Châtelet de Paris, accused of having threatened to ring the tocsin in order to mobilize the Faubourg Saint−Antoine for the defense of his district when the National Guard came by:

If you put on trial a citizen who has put forward an extravagant opinion in his district, you will therefore also have to put on trial, with much more reason, the judge who, in his company, has opined in an extravagant manner; it will therefore be necessary to hang the judge who will have sentenced to death an accused whom the majority will have absolved, since this judge will have approved the death of an innocent person, which is much worse than making an extravagant motion in a district.

Desmoulins brings up Danton in Révolutions de France et de Brabant a few more times throughout the rest of 1790, calling him both ”the lustrous Danton” (number 31, June 28, number 35, July 26) as well as the more bombastic ”the most robust athlete of the patriots, the only tribune of the people who could have been heard in the Champ-de-Mars, and with his voice rally the patriots around the tribune, the only man whose veto the aristocracy had to fear, and in whom it could have found both the Gracchi brothers and a Marius.” (number 44, September 27). When Danton in the fall is appointed judge at Saint-Germain, Camille celebrates (number 47, October 18):

The Philoctetes of Hercules, d’Anton, is also appointed judge at Saint-Germain. He is well worthy of sitting next to M. Le Grand de Laleu. Honor to the city of Saint-Germain! Based on these two choices we can only augur well for the others. I would be tempted to believe that our patriarch Robe did so many readings of his poem on the revolution there, that he inflamed all the voters with a patriotism which dictated to them these excellent choices. The Parisians, ungrateful, forgot in the elections Danton, and Abbé Fauchet, and Brissot, and Carra, and Manuel; but it seems that the surrounding districts were responsible for the recognition.

On December 27 1790 Danton, alongside twelve other well known ”patriots,” signed the Desmoulins couple’s wedding contract. He was however not present for the actual wedding ceremony two days later, something which I suppose could be read as implying he and Desmoulins were not that close yet. On the other hand, the way Desmoulins does describe his wedding witnesses in a letter to his father written five days later (”Péthion [sic] and Robespierre, the elite of the National Assembly, M. de Sillery who wanted to be there, and my two colleagues Brissot de Warville and Mercier, the elite among the journalists”), it almost sounds like he’s chosen them less out of friendship and more out of prestige, so maybe this doesn’t have to mean that much either… After the wedding, Camille and Lucile moved to Rue du Théâtre 1 (today Rue de l’Odeon 28) roughly a ten minute walk from the Dantons’ apartment on 20 cour du Commerce-Saint-André (today destroyed). The ease with which they would come and go between these two apartments will be seen through Lucile’s diary 1792-1793.

In number 63 (February 7 1791) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Camille celebrates the fact that ”the excellent patriot Danton” has become a member of the department of Paris — ”If there is only one patriot of this caliber in the 83 departments, all the projects of our enemies from within and without will fail against his firmness, his ascendancy, his vigilance and his incorruptibility.” In a letter to La Marck dated March 10 1791, Mirabeau claimed to ”have evidence Danton was behind (a fait faire)the latest number of Camille-Desmoulins,” which, regardless of whether the charge was true, suggests a certain closeness between the two at this point. In number 72 (April 11) Camille exclaims: ”how the true jacobin Danton made blush the adulators that his excellency had already found.” Two numbers after that (April 25), he celebrates Danton’s actions the 18th the same month, the day the royal family tried to leave for Saint-Cloud but was stopped by a mob. In the number, Camille writes that Danton told him how he on the day in question had found himself at the Departemnt when Bailly and La Fayette came there to demand permission to proclaim martial law and order the National Guards to fire on the crowd surrounding the royal family if necessary. Danton had successfully intervened and reduced them to silence. Camille praises this move in the number:

Courage, dear Danton! how much the patriotic writers must congratulate themselves today, who fought with obstinacy to praise you, and constantly nominated you for the votes of the people. By the parallel of your tribunitian eloquence, of your incorruptibility, of your masculine courage, with the academic and lachrymatory sentences of the courtier Bailly and his telescope which would have made us fall into the well with the astronomer in a scarf, continue to cover with shame all the citizens who gave him votes due to your patriotism.

In the same number, Camille also attributed to Danton and Kersaint an address placing the blame on what had happened on the 18th not on the people, but on the king: ”The same day the department of Paris presented the king with an address, the first, perhaps, which was written in the style of a free people. Also, it had been written by Danton and Kersaint: [transcription of the address].” According to Danton (1978) by Normann Hampson, Camille is however mistaken here, as the adress had actually been written by Talleyrand and Pastoret…

In the next number (May 2 1791) Camille writes the following, which I’m not sure how to interpret, but which Hervé Leuwers reads as assassins having been after both Camille, Danton and Fréron when the three were walking home a week earlier: ”I have learned that four assassins waited for me Tuesday evening (April 26), until midnight. Me, D’anton [sic] and the Orator of the People (Fréron).” In number 81 (June 18 1791) he lifts Danton, Garran de Coulon and Manuel as ”the candidates whom I would most strongly recommend to the 83 departments, for the next legislature.”

In number 82 (June 27 1791), Camille writes that, eleven o’clock in the evening of June 20, ”I was walking home from the Jacobins together with Danton and other patriots. We only saw but one patrol the whole way. Paris seemed so abandoned to me that night that I could not help but remark on it. One of us (Fréron according to Leuwers) who had in his pocket a letter which I will speak about, which warned him that the King had to leave that night, wanted to observe the castle, he saw M. Lafayette enter it at 11 o'clock.” The next morning, Paris woke up to the discovery that the royal family had indeed left the capital during the night. The very same day, Camille goes to the Jacobin club and arrives in the middle of Robespierre holding a speech about the current situation which moves him deeply. After him, Danton mounts the rostrum, and about the same time Lafayette enters the club. Danton delivers a speech blaming him for the king’s flight and asking he explains himself that Camille records in the journal. At the end of the speech, Alexandre Lameth rises to support Lafayette, recalling that he has always thought Lafayette would fall at the head of the patriots in case of a counter-revolution.

Danton came back to sit down next to me. Is it possible? I said to him. Yes, [he answered], and rising up, he confirmed that M. Alexandre Lameth had always said this to him about M. La Fayette. My blood boiled. I was tempted to cry out to Alexandre Lameth: you used very different language with me; and I declare that almost everything I wrote at La Fayette, I wrote, if not under your dictation, at least under your guarantee. But Danton held me back.

While all of this was going down, Lucile Desmoulins and Gabrielle Danton was staying at the apartment of the latter, something which we know through a letter Lucile wrote her mother on either June 24 or June 25, when the royal family had been captured and was on their way back to Paris. Unfortunately I have not been able to transcribe it in its entirety, but these are all the places mentioning Gabrielle that I could find:

…Ever since papa came with [warnings?] to us madame Danton and I have not left each other. I would have [gone crazy?] had I remained alone. These three days we have left [her place?] only at 9 o’clock [in the evening?] Sometimes people came to tell us that we were lost, and when we were told good news, madame Danton, her eyes filled with tears, threw herself around my neck. I’ve supped at her place during this time and [with?] all the patriots. […] Oh God o God, I’m going to send your beautiful  [p..?] to madame Danton.

On July 15 the Jacobins entrusted Brissot with writing a petition asking for the abdication of Louis XVI. The session was closed at midnight. Afterwards, Camille, Danton, Brune and La Poype all went over to Danton’s house to further discuss the petition (this was revealed by Brune in an interrogation held August 12 1791, published in number 34 (August 26) of the journal Gazette des nouveaux tribunaux). Two days later, the two were there once again, this time together with Fréron, Fabre, Santerre, Brune, Duplain, Momoro and Sergent-Marceau, and discussing the lynching of two men at the Champ-de-Mars the same morning, when, at nine o’clock, Legendre arrived and told the group that two men had come home to him and said: We are charged with warning you to get out of Paris, bring Danton, Camille and Fréron, let them not be seen in the city all day, it is Alexandre Lameth who engages this. Camille, Danton and Fréron follow this advice and leave, and were therefore most likely not present for the demonstration and shootings on Champ-de-Mars the very same day (this information was given more than forty years after the fact by Sergent-Marceau in volume 5 of the journal Revue rétrospective, ou Bibliothèque historique : contenant des mémoires et documens authentiques, inédits et originaux, pour servir à l'histoire proprement dite, à la biographie, à l'histoire de la littérature et des arts (1834)).

In the aftermath of the massacre on Champ de Mars, arrest warrants were issued against people deemed guilty for them. On July 22, the Moniteur reports that the journalists Suleau and Verrières have been arrested, and that the authorities have also fruitlessly gone looking for Fréron, Legendre, Desmoulins and Danton, the latter three, the journal assures, having already left Paris. Camille hid out at Lucile’s parents’ country house in Bourg-la-Reine together with Fréron, while Danton went to Arcis-sur-Aube, where he was sheltered by his friend Courtois, and then to Troyes (it’s also commonly stated he went to England during this period, but Hampson expresses some doubt over it). If Camille’s fellow journalist Louis Marie Prudhomme’s Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution (1797) is to be believed, on August 14, Danton told Camille and Fabre d’Églantine: the ”b.... won't have me; rather they will all be exterminated first.”

The rather flimsy charges against Danton and Camille — Danton was accused of having cheered on a crowd demanding Lafayette’s head on June 21, Camille of having made incendiary remarks at Café Procope café, saying that it was necessary to shoot the national guards — were however dropped after about six weeks, and in September 1791 they were both back in Paris to stand for election to the Legislative Assembly. Neither did however get in. Camille had also had to resign as journalist in the aftermath of the massacre on Champ-de-Mars.

In Histoire des Montagnards (1847) Alphonse Esquiros writes that Albertine Marat had told him that her brother, Danton and Desmoulins ”liked to come together, from time to time, to rest their souls in the sweet serenity of nature”:

In this contrast of the noise of revolutions with the silence, with the serious serenity of a sunset, under the trees, at the water's edge, a league from Paris, the three friends then had before their eyes the two faces eternal aspects of the world, history and nature, God in movement and God at rest. Danton, this eloquent thunderbolt, this large head of a genius on which smallpox had left big marks, Danton ordered dinner. Whatever efforts one agreed to make during the frugal meal, to keep irritating subjects out of the conversation, one was obliged to go there at dessert; because the company was too preoccupied with the dangers of the State not to mix public affairs with their most personal conversations.

When the question of war in December 1791 became the main topic of discussion, both Danton and Desmoulins joined the minority that cautioned against it. Already on December 16, right after Brissot had held his very first speech in favour of the idea, Danton, while praising the speaker as an excellent patriot, objected to the thought of a war right at the moment — ”I want us to have war; it is essential. We must have war. But above all, we have to exhaust the means that could save us from it.” Ten days later, December 26, Desmoulins did him too deliver a speech against war. Four days after that, after Brissot had just finished his second speech on the subject, Danton and Robespierre both demanded a change be made to a passage when it got printed. Following this moment, it would however appear Danton abandons the question. Camille on the other hand released the pamphlet Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué in February 1792, mocking Brissot and painting him as a fool. Danton’s name got mentioned three times throughout, Camille calling him and Robespierre ”the best citizens.” Danton also got mentioned a total of eight times in the journal La Tribune des Patriots Camille and Fréron published from April to June the very same year, but not in any way that could give us more insight into their relationship.

In her memoirs, Manon Roland claims that Danton and Fabre d’Églantine in the summer of 1792 often came home to her. At one point Fabre told her that “We have a newspaper project which we will call Compte rendu au Peuple souverain, and which will present the picture of the last revolution. Camille Desmoulins, Robert, etc, work on it.” Manon suggested they bring it to her husband for him to subsidise it, something which the two apparently never did, and there was no more talk of the journal again.

On June 23 1792 Lucile starts keeping a diary. The first time any of the Dantons show up in it is already on Wednesday June 27 — ”Madame D(anton) came, we played music.” A few days later Lucile gives this rather odd account: ”My head is spinning. I was madame D(anton) after dinner.” The day after that, July 6, she gives birth to her first child, and a week later, Camille writes to tell his father that said child ”was immediately sent to a wetnurse in Isle-Adam, with the little Danton” (François-Georges, born February 2 1792). If Camille and Lucile made a conscious choice of sending their son to the same wetnurse as Georges and Gabrielle’s (perhaps on the suggestion of their friends) one can only speculate in.

A week after Camille wrote his letter, Lucile traveled to her parents’ country house in Bourg-la-Reine. On July 25 Camille writes to tell her that ”I was brought to Chaville this morning by Panis, together with Danton, Fréron, Brune, at Santerre’s” (letter cited within Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république). Lucile returned to Paris on August 8. In a diary entry written four months later she reveals that she, in the afternoon of August 9, together with others went over to the Dantons. ”Her mother was crying, she was sad, her father looked dazed. D(anton) was resolute. As for me, I was laughing like a madwoman! They feared that the affair [the insurrection of August 10] would not take place; although I was not at all sure, I told them, as if I knew it well, that it would take place. “But can we laugh too?” mde D(anton) said to me. ”Alas, I said to her, that presages to me that I will perhaps shed a lot of tears this evening!” At the end of the day, Lucile, Gabrielle (and others?) go home to Gabrielle’s mother to go for a walk and eventually sit down next to a cafe with her. When groups of sans-culottes and troops on horseback pass by, Lucile gets scared and tells Gabrielle that they should go. ”She laughed at my fear, but by dint of telling her, she too became scared and we left. I say to her mother: ”Farewell! You will soon hear the toscin sound!” The two go back to Gabrielle’s apartment, where a scared Lucile eventually admits to Camille she doesn’t want him to get involved in the dangerous insurrection — ”He reassured me by telling me that he would not leave D(anton).” Lucile and Gabrielle are soon left alone in the apartment with Louise de Kéralio-Robert, but after only a little while Danton returns home and goes to bed. This eventually upsets Louise who tells Lucile that if her husband dies in the insurrection she will stick a knife in Danton. ”From that moment on I never left her. What did I know what could happen? To know what she was capable of…” Some additional time later Camille returns to the apartment and falls asleep on Lucile’s shoulder. Louise tells her that “I can’t stay here any longer! Madame D(anton) is unbearable to me, she seems to be calm, her husband does not want to expose himself!” Lucile therefore suggests she come with her and Camille to their apartment to get some rest. When they around noon go back to the Dantons’ place again ”Madame D(anton) ran up to us to see how we were, she was soon informed when she saw the silence of one and the tears of the other. We waited long enough without knowing anything. Finally they came to tell us that we were victorious.” In a letter to her mother penned down the very same day, Lucile, similarly to how she described them during the Flight to Varennes, writes: ”Mme Danton and I do not leave each other, when I would have liked to flee it would have been impossible, the women are kept from going out.” The following night Camille and Lucile sleep over at the Roberts. When Lucile returns home on the 12th she learns that Danton has been appointed minister of justice. ”These news gave me great pleasure, especially when C(amille) came to tell me that he was secretary.” One day later Camille writes a letter revealing the very same news to his father:

My friend Danton has become minister thanks to the canon. This bloody day could only end, for the two of us especially, in being raised or hoisted together. He said to the national assembly: If I had been defeated, I would have been a criminal. The cause of liberty has triumphed, and Danton has associated me to his triumph.

According to Prudhomme’s Histoire générale et impartiale… (1797), it was Camille and Fabre themselves who three o’clock in the morning announced to Danton that he had been named minister of justice, after which they demanded he make them his secretaries:

”But, are you sure that I am appointed minister?” [said Danton].  “Yes,” replied the two midshipmen; and we will not leave you until we have your word for these two places.” ”Right on time,” said Danton. And everything was arranged according to the wishes of the two revolutionary patriots; but all this does not praise their disinterestedness.

After Camille and Danton had gotten their new occupations, both families briefly went to live at Hôtel de Bourvallais. Lucile writes:

I really liked it there, but only one thing bothered me, it was Fréron. Every day I saw new progress and didn’t know what to do about it. I consulted Maman, she approved of my plan to banter and joke about it, and that was the wisest thing to do. Because what to do? Forbid him to come? He and C(amille) dealt with each other every day, we would meet. To tell him to be more circumspect was to confess that I knew everything and that I did not disapprove of him; an explanation would have been needed. I therefore thought myself very prudent to receive him with friendship and reserve as usual, and I see now that I have done well. Soon he left to go on a mission. I was very happy with it, I thought it would change him. But many other cares to be taken… I realized that D(anton)… Oh, of that one, I was suspicious! I had to fear the eyes of his wife with whom I did not want to be hurt. I did so well that one did not know that I had noticed it, and the other that it might be. We spent three months like this quite cheerfully. At the end of this time C(amille) was appointed deputy and we returned to our first home.

Somewhere during Camille and Danton’s time in the ministry we find the following undated letter ”from the minister of justice to citizen Desmoulins, national commissioner in Vervins” (Camille’s father). Charles Vellay, who published the letter in 1792, did however find it more likely for the author of the letter, unlike what the header leads you to believe, was Camille, seeing as it is in a secretary’s handwriting and the letter was found among his and not Danton’s papers:

I am pleased to learn, Citizen, that yielding to the wishes of your compatriots, you have accepted the position of Natal Commissioner at the Vervins District Tribunal. You could undoubtedly desire some rest after the long fatigues you have had and the feeling which invited you to retire was very legitimate; but it was worthy of your good citizenship to still make the sacrifice for your country, and I am convinced that it was not in the midst of the agitations which precede the most beautiful of centuries that you would have left without regret a career where you you still have services to render to public affairs for a long time to come. It is not fair, however, to forget that the more you redouble your efforts, the more it is in your fellow citizens' interest to prescribe reasonable limits for yourself, and it is also your duty to moderate your zeal and not to forbid you these considerations which can be reconciled with public service and the care of your health. Your colleagues will themselves urge you to give nature the moments of relaxation it needs; a few temporary absences can be infinitely useful to you, and certainly they will not harm the interests of business if some attention is given to the circumstances and replacement measures. I will approve the first of wise precautions which I feel the necessity of and sure of my attachment to your duties I will rely with confidence on your respect for this moral responsibility as sacred as the will of the laws to true republicans.

Danton would however not remain minister of justice for a long time, already on August 26 Camille reported to his father that:

It seems that several departments will nominate me and especially Danton [to the National Convention], and he will not hesitate for a moment to leave the ministry to be representative of the people. You can imagine that I would follow an example that I would have given him, if I were in his place. Danton is from Paris no more than I am, and it is a remarkable thing that among all the principal authors of the revolution and among all of our friends, we perhaps do not know a single one who was born in Paris.

However, before the opening of the National Convention, the so called September Massacres took place. In l’Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs… (1797) Prudhomme attributed big responsibility for the prison killings to both Danton and Desmoulins, portraying them as aware of what was going to happen already on September 2, the day before they began:

September 2, at midday, I go, hearing the noise of the tocsin and the cannon of alarm, to my section de l'Unité.  People came to announce that the barriers had been closed. A general consternation was painted on all faces. At the news of the arrival of the Prussians in Paris, as well as of a conspiracy of the prisoners against the patriots (a vague rumor had been circulating about it for fifteen days), a number of citizens questioned me on this subject.  ”Your profession as a journalist should enable you to know something,” one said to me.  ”I know nothing,” I responded, ”but I’m going to visit someone who could tell me.” As I knew Camille Desmoulins since a long time back, I thought it a good idea to go to his house. I didn’t find him anywhere, one assured me that he was at Danton’s, minister of justice. It was about half past two in the afternoon, I went home to the minister, and told him: ”I have come, in the quality of pure patriotism and in my own name, to ask you what this canon of alarm, this toscin and the arrival of the Prussians to Paris.”  ”Calm down, old friend of liberty,” Danton responded, ”it’s the toscin of victory.”  ”But,” I told him, ”people talk about slitting throats.”  ”Yes,” he told me, ”we were all about to have our throats cut this night, starting with the most patriotic. All those arisocrat rascals, who are in the prisons, had been provided with firearms and daggers. At a specified time next night, the gates were to be opened to them; they would have spread in different quarters to cut the throats of the wives and children of the patriots who will leave to march against the Prussians. We addressed ourselves principally, above all, to those who had demonstrated the principles of freedom.” ”All this comes off as a bit made up to me,” I responded, ”but what means are to be employed to prevent the execution of such a plot?” ”What means?” he said. ”The People, irritated and instructed in time, want to do justice themselves to all the bad subjects inside the prisons.” At these words I was seized with horror; I told him that such a measure appeared to me unworthy of a people who claimed to be free. At this moment, Camille Desmoulins entered.  ”Hello there!” Danton said to him. ”Prudhomme just asked me what is to be done.  ”Yes,” I said, ”and I am heartbroken after what I have just heard. ”So you (tu) didn’t tell him that one won’t mix up the innocent with the guilty? Camille said to Danton. ”All those who will be claimed by their sections will be returned.”  ”Seems to me that we could take a less violent measure,” I responded. ”Spilling blood is an abominable act of which those who govern are responsible. The people will one day make those who make them commit this crime pay dearly. Let Paris march en masse against the Prussians. Send the wives and children of those who are to march at the enemy out of Paris to avoid them getting massacred by the prisoners, let us lock them up in fortified castles.”  ”Any kind of moderate measure is useless,” Danton said. ”The anger of the people is at its height, there would even be danger in stopping it.” His first anger assuaged, one could make him listen to reason.  ”But,” I say, ”if the Legislative body and the constituted authorities spread themselves through Paris, and harangued the people?” ”No, no,” replied Camille, ”that would be too dangerous; for the people, in their first wrath, might make victims in the person of their dearest friends.” I withdrew filled with pain. 

Exiting Danton’s house, Prudhomme adds:

As I passed through the dining room, I saw the wives of Camille, Danton, Robert, etc, Fabre-d'Eglantine, and other guests. I did not know what to think of the tranquility that reigned at the house of the Minister of Justice; everything led me to believe that it was indeed impossible to stop the resentment of the People, at the news of a conspiracy hatched by the nobles and priests. 

The next day, Prudhomme also claims that Théophile Mandar went over to Danton’s place, where he saw ”all ministers, with the exception of Roland, Lacroix, president [of the Assembly], Pétion, mayor of Paris, Robespierre, Camille-Desmoulins, Fabre d’Églantine, Manuel and several members of the so-called Commune of August 10. The presidents and commanders from each of the 48 sections had come as well.” Half past seven in the evening everyone sat down in Danton’s salon to discuss the means to save Paris, Danton staying firm in his conviction of what had just happened and was still happening as necessary.

On September 8, two days after the end of the massacres, the time had come for Camille to be elected to the National Convention. He did at first come under question for his friendship with the royalist journalist François Suleau, killed in the Insurrection of August 10. The journal Gazette nationale de France does however report that Camille after this ”was defended with a lot of energy and eloquence by M. Danton and his election was almost unanimous.” With that, Desmoulins became the sixth elected deputy representing Paris (Danton was the second).

In December 1792, Lucile returns to keeping a diary. On the 22nd she writes: ”I went to supper with little Brune at mde D(anton’s). How detestable she is!” It’s hard to tell if it’s Gabrielle or madame Brune she designates as detestable, and even harder to know what she had done in order to get called that… Two days later, December 24, Lucile documents the following:

We had dinner at mde D(anton's), mde R(obert), B(rune) and B(oyer) were there. After dinner the men asked themselves if they should go to the Jacobins. They said yes. We were asked if we would go. We say no. Madame D(anton) said to me: ”do you (vous) want to spend the evening with me?,” I said yes, but soon I did not know what to do. Brune suggested I go to the theater! It was very embarrassing. Madame Brune said aloud: “I have never been to the Jacobins, I would be very happy to go there.” "Well, I'm going with you," I tell her. Finally, here we are, all ready to leave, when I see Mme Brune and Boyer whispering in each other’s ears. I, like a fool, go to ask them what they’re saying to each other. Mde R(obert) told me that she was very embarrassed, that she would like to go with us to the Jacobins. I was very kind, I said a few words to her that meant nothing, then I went into the antechamber. She came there soon and told me to wait for her, that she was going to follow me, she came back near madame D(anton). Brune came and told me “let’s go”. I followed her saying: ”but mde R(obert) who wants to come?” Finally, we are hardly in the middle of the staircase when we hear someone who says “here they are, here they are!”, then we descend with astonishing speed, and when we are in the street we run even harder. We took a fairly long detour. God knows how we laughed! Nothing, too, was more comical.

Throughout the first two halves of January, Lucile goes to the Convention to follow the trial of Louis XVI every single day. If Gabrielle went with her to these sessions is not confirmed, but not disproven either. Danton was absent on a mission in Belgium for most of the trial, but on January 14 he returned to Paris and two days later he voted for death, just like Camille. One day after the execution of the king, January 22 1793, Lucile writes: ”I went to Robert’s. Danton came there. His jokes are as boorish as he is. Despite this, he is a good devil. Madame Ro(bert) seemed jealous of how he teased me…” Two days later she witnesses the funeral procession of the recently assassinated Michel Peletier from the window of Jeanne-Justine Boyer, an event which moves her deeply. Once all her guests have left for the evening ”I felt that I could not be alone and bear the horrible thoughts that were going to besiege me. I ran to D(anton’s). He was moved to see me still pale and defeated. We drank tea, I supped there.” A week later, January 29, Lucile reports that ”we had dinner at D(anton's), where I just laughed, because I was preventing Brune from eating by saying "poa, poa, poa". D(anton) too couldn't keep himself from laughing.” Four days after that, February 3, Lucile writes ”I went to see madame Danton. Sick.” Three days later, she goes back to see her friend — ”I went to see madame Danton… She is very ill.” Yet another three days later Lucile writes ”Madame Danton is ill. She has given birth to a girl.” and at last, the day after that: ”I had dinner with Maman. Madame Danton is dead.” Two days after the death of her friend, Lucile goes to visit Gabrielle’s mother together with madame Brune and Robert. Shortly after that, she and Camille do however leave for Essonne, the latter having been apointed to a mission there, while Georges returned to Paris after another mission in Belgium to receive the sad news. Lucile did however not forget about him, in a letter to her mother Annette dated February 16 she asks her to ”give us news regarding Danton.” Apropos of Annette eventually joining them in Essonne Lucile adds: ”I forgot to mention a facility that could be of use for you, it’s Danton’s carriage. No doubt he could still have it.”

On March 26 1793, Desmoulins and Danton were both elected for the so called Commission of Public Safety, alongside 23 others. The commission, which consisted of both fervent montagnards and fervent girondins, was however off to a rocky start, and already on April 6 it was put to death and replaced by the Committee of Public Safety. A little more than a month later, May 17, Desmoulins announced the release of his new pamphlet l’Histoire des Brissotins to the Jacobins. Danton’s name gets mentioned eleven times in it, but only one can be used to really say something about their relationship, and it’s when Camille on page 54 writes: ”Jérôme Pétion told Danton in confidence that ”what makes poor Roland saddest is the fact people will discover his domestic sorrows and how bitter being a cuckold is to the old man, troubling the serenity of that great soul.” This implies Danton went and shared Roland’s secret with Camille after Pétion had confided it to him. Two weeks later, on June 7, a ”member” is recorded to have voiced suspicion on Danton’s current sentiments — ”This deputy isn’t as revolutionary as he used to. He doesn’t come to the Jacobins anymore. He left me the other day to approach a general.” In response, Camille is recorded to have ”advocated Danton’s good citizenship.” In Lettre de Camille Desmoulins, député de Paris à la Convention, au général Dillon en prison aux Madelonettes released a few months later, Camille calls Robert Lindet, Robespierre and Danton ”the best citizens of the Convention.”

On October 30, 22 girondins were sentenced to death. In Les mysterès de la mère de Dieu dévoilès(1794) Joachim Vilate described a dramatic reaction from Camille’s part upon hearing the final verdict: ”hearing the juror's declaration, he suddenly threw himself into my arms, agitated, tormenting himself:”ah my god, my god, it's me who kills them: my Brissot dévoilé [sic], ah my god, it’s that which kills them.” If Dominique-Joseph Garat’s Memoirs of the revolution; or, an apology for my conduct, in the public employments which I have held (1795) are to be believed, Danton too was deeply moved by the fate of the girondins, to the extent it motivated him to, on October 12, ask for a leave of absence to go to Arcis-sur-Aube in order to recruit his health:

I could not convince myself that among all those who, since May 31, had retained great popularity, there was not one who did not still retain a little humanity, and I went to Danton. He was ill, it only took me two minutes to see that his illness was above all a deep pain and a great dismay at everything that was coming. ”I won't be able to save them (the girondins)”, were the first words out of his mouth, and, as he uttered them, all the strength of this man, who has been compared to an athlete, was defeated, big tears strolled down his face, whose shapes could have been used to represent that of Tartarus. […] When the fate reserved for the twenty-two [girondins] seemed inevitable, Danton already heard, so to speak, his death sentence in theirs. All the strength of this triumphant athlete of democracy succumbed under the feeling of the crimes of democracy and its disorders. He could only talk about the countryside, he was suffocating, he needed to escape from men in order to be able to breathe.

Danton’s absence did not go unnoticed. In a letter from Toulon written October 18, Fréron tells Lucile that ”I have been really worried about Danton. The public papers announce that he is ill. Let me know if he has recovered. Give him 1000 friendships from my part.” Through the next letter Fréron writes Lucile, dated December 11, we learn that Danton had a nickname within this inner circle of friends — ”I would like to have news of Patagon (Brune), Saturne (Duplain) and Marius (Danton).” It can be observed that Camille, as seen above, had likened Danton to Marius in Révolutions de France et de Brabant already in 1790.

Danton was however back in Paris again on November 22, when he is recorded to have spoken of ”the relief to be granted to abdicated priests” at the Convention. Two weeks later, December 5, he was accused of ”moderatism” by Coupé d’Oise for having opposed the suggestion of sending a group with a portable guillotine to Seine-Inférieure in order to deal with rebels fleeing the Vendée. Robespierre did however rise to defend Danton, saying that he had always seen him serve his homeland with zeal and ending by asking that everyone says what he sincerely thinks about Danton. Aside from Merlin de Thionville, who hailed Danton as the saviour of the republic, no one said anything, and Momoro therefore concluded this meant no one had anything to accuse Danton of. The discussion therefore ended with Danton embracing the president of the club amidst loud applause. Just two days later, the first number of Camille’s new journal, the Vieux Cordelier, was released. In the number, Desmoulins designates the session at the Jacobins on the 5th as the event that caused him to return to the journalistic pen: 

Victory is with us because, amid the ruins of so many colossal civic reputations, Robespierre’s in unassailed; because he lent a hand to his competitor in patriotism, our perpetual President of the “Old Cordeliers,” our Horatius Cocles, who alone held the bridge against Lafayette and his four thousand Parisians besieging Marat, who now seemed overwhelmed by the foreign party. Already having gained stronger ground during the illness and absence of Danton, this party, domineering insolent in society, in the midst of the most sensitive places, the most compelling justification, in the tribunes, jeering, and in the middle of the meeting, shaking its head and smiling with pity, as in the speech of a man condemned by every vote. We have won, however, because after the crushing speeches of Robespierre, in which it seems that talent grows in pace with the dangers of the Republic, and the profound impression he has left in souls, it was impossible to venture to raise a voice against Danton without giving, so to speak, a public quittance of guineas of Pitt. […] I learned some things yesterday. I saw how many enemies we have. Their multitude tears me from the Hotel des Invalides and returns me to combat. I must write. 

If Danton had a bigger role in the Vieux Cordelier than simply being part of the event that caused Camille to start writing it is debated. When Robespierre a little more than three months later was working out the dantonists’ indictment, he claimed that Danton had been the ”president” of the Vieux Cordelier, whose prints he had corrected and made changes to, and that Camille had been his and Fabre’s ”dupe.” In Memoirs of the revolution; or, an apology for my conduct… (1795) Garat claimed that Danton during his stay in Arcis-sur-Aube had been cooking up a ”conspiracy” with a goal to ”restore for the benefit of all the reign of justice and of the laws, and to extend clemency to his enemies,” and to which ”all of his friends,” including Desmoulins, entered into. In Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs… (1797) Prudhomme claimed that Danton, Lacroix, Camille-Desmoulins and Fabre-d'Églantine made up a secret party wishing to overthrow the Committee of Public Safety, and that Camille, as part of this plan, got charged with a ”moral attack,” leading to the creation of the Vieux Cordelier. Danton’s friend Edme-Bonaventure Courtois wrote in Notes et souvenirs de Courtois de l’Aube, député à la Convention nationale (cited in La Révolution française: revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1887), that ”it was in these painful moments that [Desmoulins] put to paper (in his Vieux Cordelier) the reflections that his indignation could no longer contain, and whose acrimony Danton, through his advice, softened in many places.” Finally, in  his Camille Desmoulins And His Wife: Passages From The History Of The Dantonists (1876), Jules Claretie included the following passage:

I know, through information given to me by M. Labat the elder, that one evening in that mournful summer of 1793, Danton and Camille Desmoulins had walked to the Cour du Commerce, along the Seine, by the quay des Lunettes, and, thinking of that 31st of May, which was to end in the events of the 31st of October, Danton pointed out to Camille the great river in which the rays of the sun, setting behind the hill of Passy, were reflected so vividly that the river looked like blood. ”Look,” said Danton — and, like Garat, Camille saw the tribune's eyes fill with tears — ”see, how much blood! The Seine runs blood! Ah! too much blood has been spilt! Come, pick up your pen again; write and demand clemency, I will support you!”

However, considering Robespierre’s notes had an interest in wanting to paint the ”dantonists” as a unified grupp (and perhaps also to absolve Desmoulins of some responsibility), while all the other testimonies were reported after the fact, its hard to be sure of anything. 

Danton went unmentioned in the rest of number 1, as well as number 2 (released December 10) of the Vieux Cordelier. When Camille on December 14 passed through the Jacobins ongoing scrutiny test, he regrettingly admitted that ”a well marked fatality willed that, among the sixty [sic] people who signed my wedding contract, I only have two friends left — Danton and Robespierre. All the others have emigrated or been guillotined.” In the Vieux Cordelier’s third number (released December 18), he wrote the following about Danton, apropos of underlining he was not asking for moderation:

In this duel between liberty and servitude, and in the cruel alternative of a defeat a thousand times more bloody than our victory, overruling the revolution therefore had less danger and was even better than remaining behind it, as Danton said, and it is necessary, above all, for the republic to secure the battlefield. […] Despite so many guineas (guinées) said Danton, name for me a single man strongly pronounced in the revolution, and in favor of the republic, who has been condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal?

Danton went unmentioned again in number 4 (December 21), but in number 5 Camille brings him up seven times, writing that ”I said with Danton, that to outrage the revolution was less dangerous and even better than to remain within it; that, on the course taken by the vessel, it was better to approach the rock of exaggeration, than the sandbar of moderation,” insisting he has never ceased to ”conspire against the tyrants with Danton and Robespierre,” denouncing Hébert for having attacked him, Danton and nine other deputies and claiming to have heard Danton say that ”[Hébert’s] pipe resembles the trumpet of Jericho, when he has smoked three times around a reputation, it must fall of itself.” At one point he also accuses Barère of having discussed the arrest of Danton on June 2.

On January 7, Camille and Robespierre got into a fight at the Jacobin club after the latter had denounced the fifth number of Vieux Cordelier as counter-revolutionary, but insisting that its author had been ”led astray by bad company,” and therefore proposing that the Society forgive him and ”just” burn the latest numbers of the Vieux Cordelier. When Camille refused that ultimatum, exclaiming that ”burning isn’t answering,” the fight worsened until Danton stepped in to act as meditator between the two:

Danton: Camille mustn’t be frightened by the rather severe lessons Robespierre’s friendship has just given him. Citizens, let justice and cold-headedness always preside over our decisions. In judging Camille, be careful to not strike a deadly blow against the liberty of the press.

In a letter to Fréron dated January 13, Lucile regretfully reports that ”Marius is not listened to anymore, he loses courage and vigour.” Around the same time, her father was arrested and locked up in the Carmes prison due to a few objects decorated with fleurs-de-lys having been found in his home. On January 24 Camille protested against his arrest at the Jacobins, gaining the support of Bourdon d’Oise who asked that the Committee of General Security make a report about the case in three days. Danton did however object to this, but did make the more vague suggestion that ”the Convention consider ways to do justice to all the victims of arbitrary measures and arrests, without harming the action of the revolutionary government”:

I oppose the kind of distinction of privilege which would seem to be granted to Desmoulins' father-in-law. I want the Convention to deal only with general affairs. If we want a report for this citizen, we also need one for all the others. […] My colleague's complaint is fair in itself, but it would give rise to a decree unworthy of us. If we were to give priority, it would belong to citizens who do not find in their fortune and in their acquaintance with members of the Convention hopes and resources in the midst of their misfortune: it must be to the unfortunate, to the needy, that you should first hold out your hands. I ask that the Convention consider ways to do justice to all the victims of arbitrary measures and arrests, without harming the action of the revolutionary government. I would be careful not to prescribe the means here. I request the referral of this question to the consideration of the Committee of General Safety, which will consult with the Committee of Public Safety; that a report be made to the Convention, and that it be followed by a broad and in-depth discussion; because all the discussions of the Convention have resulted in the triumph of reason and liberty.

When Robespierre about two months later was preparing the dantonists’ indictment, he wrote that ”during this last visit [to my place], [Danton] spoke of Desmoulins with contempt. He attributed his deviances to a vice that is private and shameful, but absolutely foreign to the crimes of the conspirators to the Revolution. Laignelot was witness.” Robespierre used this as evidence Danton had ”an ungrateful and dark soul,” as he previously had ”highly recommended the last productions of Desmoulins.”

Both Danton and Camille were arrested in the night between March 30 and March 31. They were taken to the Luxembourg prison and placed in solitary confinement. On April 1, in his very last written letter, Camille regrettingly tells Lucile: 

How to believe that a few jokes in my writings, against colleagues that had provoked me, have erased the memory of my services! I do not disguise the fact that I die as a victim of these jokes and my friendship with Danton. I thank my assassins for letting me die with him and Philippeaux. And since my colleagues have been cowardly enough to abandon us and listen to calumnies that I don’t know, but must be the most vulgar, I can say that we die as victims of our courage to denounce traitors, and of our love for the truth. We can well carry this testimony with us, that we die as the last republicans.

It would however appear Lucile wanted to do something about the situation. We have the following anecdote published in Histoire de la Révolution française (1850) by Nicolas Villiaumé, which, as far as I’m aware, is the only known connection we have between the Desmoulins couple and Danton’s second wife Louise-Sébastienne Gély (married June 14 1793):

[After the arrest of Danton and Desmoulins] Lucile ran to Madame Danton to suggest that she come with her to go find Robespierre, ask him for an explanation, and recall the feelings of friendship which had attached him to their husbands. Madame Danton refused, saying that she wanted nothing from a man who had showed himself to be the enemy of her husband. (I obtained this particularity from Madame Danton herself, who was then pregnant. She gave birth fifteen days after Danton's death, but her child did not live.)

On April 2, Danton, Desmoulins and seven other deputies were brought from the Luxembourg to the Conciergerie prison. If Mémoires d’un detenu pour servir à l’histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre(1795) by Honoré Riouffe are to be believed, the accused were kept in seperate cells here as well. He writes:

Danton, placed in a cell next to Westermann, didn’t stop talking, less to be heard by Westermann than by us. […] Here are some phrases I retained: […] ”What proves Robespierre is a Nero, is that he never spoke as kindly to Desmoulins as on the day before his arrest.”

Their trial began the very same day. For three days, the accused defended themselves (or at least tried to) against the charges of ”complicity with d'Orléans and Dumourier, with Fabre d'Eglantine and the enemies of the Republic, of having been involved in the conspiracy tending to re-establish the monarchy, to destroy the national representation and the republican government” side by side. It did however not go that well, and on April 5, Danton, Desmoulins and thirteen others were sentenced to death. The execution took place the very same afternoon. Contrary to the myth of Danton and Camille sitting next to each other in the same tumbril as they were driven to Place de la Révolution, number 561(April 6 1794) of Suite du Journal de Perlet reports that ”they were in three tumbrils: in the first was Danton, next to Delacroix; Fabre near the executioner; Hérault opposite Chabot. In the second, Phelippeaux [sic], Westermann, Camille Desmoulins, Basire and Launai d’Angers [sic]. […] Danton […]seemed to pay little attention to the crowd around him: he was chatting with Lacroix and Fabre. […]Desmoulins spoke almost continually to the people; the courage he affected seemed like a painful effort, he was an actor who was studying to play his last part well.”

After the death of Camille and, eight days later, Lucile, their son Horace was taken in by his maternal grandparents and aunt, who then permanently retired to their country house in Bourg-la-Reine. Danton’s sons Antoine and François-Georges were they too adopted by their maternal grandfather and uncles. In 1805, the two moved from Paris to Arcis-sur-Aube where they instead got looked after by their paternal grandmother. I have not been able to find anything indicating the families stayed in touch to process the grief or let the children come together, something which we on the other hand know Lucile’s mother did with Philippeaux’s widow.

[armagnac-army]

OOC: The Napoleonic Askblog/Roleplay Scene Directory

Here's an Out Of Character post listing the blogs I'm aware of in the Napoleonic RPF Roleplay Scene! It's OOC because Lannes would want to make sarcastic remarks with typos.

If you want (or don't want) your blog on this list, message me and whether you want a main/other blog associated with your name or whether you want to be anonymised! Also happy to include non-Frenchmen and Frev folks.

Doubles or multiple versions of people are welcome, this is a varied afterlife. We all have our different ideas for what this afterlife is like as well.

Feel free to reblog or link to this!

And now we have a OOC discord server to chat about all of this! Feel free to join if you'd like!

The Marshalate

armagnac-army - Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello - played by cadmusfly

murillo-enthusiast - Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, and ADCs - played by cadmusfly

@le-brave-des-braves - Michel Ney, Prince of the Moskva, Duke of Elchingen, and ADCs - played by @neylo

@your-dandy-king - Joachim Murat, King of Naples - played by @phatburd

@chicksncash - André Masséna, Prince of Essling, Duke of Rivoli, and others - played by @chickenmadam also playing as his ADC, with appearances from Marshal Augereau, the Cuirassier Generals d'Hautpoul and Nansouty, and the Horse Grenadier General Lepic

@your-staff-wizard - Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel and Valangin, Prince of Wagram - played by @chickenmadam, as above

@perdicinae-observer - Louis-Nicolas Davout, Prince of Eckmühl, Duke of Auerstaedt - played by @mbenguin

@bow-and-talon - Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr

@france-hater - Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, or Karl XIV Johan of Sweden, played by @deathzgf also includes the Duke of Wellington and Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration

@simple-giant-ed - Édouard Mortier, Duke of Treviso, played by @isa-ko

@bayard-de-la-garde - Jean-Baptiste Bessières, Duke of Istria

@le-bayard-polonaise - Prince Józef Poniatowski of Poland

@oudinot-still-alive - Nicolas Charles Oudinot duc de Reggio, played by @spaceravioli2

@beausoleil-de-bellune - Claude-Victor Perrin, Duke of Belluno

@commandant-des-traitres - Auguste de Marmont, Duke of Ragusa

The Grande Armée

@general-junot - Jean-Andoche Junot, Duke of Abrantes - played by @promises-of-paradise

@askgeraudduroc - Géraud Duroc, Duke of Frioul, Grand-Marshal of the Palace - played by @sillybumblebeegirl, also with cameos from Marshal Bessières shared with your-dandy-king

@trauma-and-truffles - Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, Surgeon to Napoleon and the Imperial Guard - played by @hoppityhopster23 who also plays his modern assistant

@generaldesaix - Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux, most likely would have been a marshal if he lived - played by @usergreenpixel

@messenger-of-the-battlefield - Marcellin Marbot, aide-de-camp of maréchal Lannes - played by @a-system-of-nerds (Inactive)

@le-dieu-mars - Jean-Baptiste Kleber, General - played by @chickenmadam

@puddinglesablonniere, Charles-Étienne César Gudin de La Sablonnière, Gemeral of Davout's Corps

@francoislejeunes, Baron Louis-François Lejeune, ADC to Berthier, Artist and Engineer

@troboi1806, Jacques de Trobriand, ADC to Marshal Davout

@cynics-and-cynology, Captain Elzéar Blaze

The Bonaparte Family

@carolinemurat - Caroline Murat née Buonaparte, Queen of Naples - played by @usergreenpixel

@alexanderfanboy - Napoleon Bonaparte, The Big Cheese

@frencheaglet - Napoleon II, also known as Franz, Duke of Reichstadt, played by @usergreenpixel

@rosie-of-beauharnais - Rose Beauharnais, also known as Josephine Bonaparte, once Empress of the French

@le-fils - Eugène Beauharnais, Prince of the Empire, Bonaparte's stepson, played by @josefavomjaaga

@jbonapartes - Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, Prince of Montfort

@napoleon-bonapartee - Napoleon Bonaparte, The Head Honcho

Other Notable Personages

@askjackiedavid - Jacques Louis David, neoclassical painter - played by @sillybumblebeegirl

@lazarecarnot - Lazare Carnot, mathematician, military officer, politician and a leading member of the Committee of Public Safety

Not French

Russians

@the-blessed-emperor - Tsar Alexander I (Inactive)

@loyal-without-flattery - General Aleksey Andreevich Arakcheev, who runs His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (Inactive)

@misha-wants-to-go-home - Count Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich, played by @spaceravioli2

@catherinesucks - Tsar Paul I of Russia, father of Alexander I

@ask-tsaralexander - Tsar Alexander I, played by @goddammitjosef

British

@the1ronduke - Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, played by @spaceravioli2

@banasstre - Banastre Tarleton, Major-General

@pakenham-kitty - Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington

Spanish

@headlessgenius - Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Painter and proud Spaniard

Original Characters and Friends

@the-adventures-of-lydia-brown - Lydia Brown, a jack of all trades and problem solver finding herself in this strange realm with all these dead Frenchmen

Hopster, trauma-and-truffles's modern time travelling assistant

Madam DuQuay, ADC who takes no nonsense, helping out chicksncash, your-staff-wizard and le-dieu-mars

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

Friends, enemies, comrades, Jacobins, Monarchist, Bonapartists, gather round. We have an important announcement:

The continent is beset with war. A tenacious general from Corsica has ignited conflict from Madrid to Moscow and made ancient dynasties tremble. Depending on your particular political leanings, this is either the triumph of a great man out of the chaos of The Terror, a betrayal of the values of the French Revolution, or the rule of the greatest upstart tyrant since Caesar.

But, our grand tournament is here to ask the most important question: Now that the flower of European nobility is arrayed on the battlefield in the sexiest uniforms that European history has yet produced (or indeed, may ever produce), who is the most fuckable?

The bracket is here: full bracket and just quadrant I

Want to nominate someone from the Western Hemisphere who was involved in the ever so sexy dismantling of the Spanish empire? (or the Portuguese or French American colonies as well) You can do it here

The People have created this list of nominees:

France:

Jean Lannes

Josephine de Beauharnais

Thérésa Tallien

Jean-Andoche Junot

Joseph Fouché

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Joachim Murat

Michel Ney

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (Charles XIV of Sweden)

Louis-Francois Lejeune

Pierre Jacques Étienne Cambrinne

Napoleon I

Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet

Jacques de Trobriand

Jean de dieu soult.

François-Étienne-Christophe Kellermann

17.Louis Davout

Pauline Bonaparte, Duchess of Guastalla

Eugène de Beauharnais

Jean-Baptiste Bessières

Antoine-Jean Gros

Jérôme Bonaparte

Andrea Masséna

Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle

Germaine de Staël

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

René de Traviere (The Purple Mask)

Claude Victor Perrin

Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

François Joseph Lefebvre

Major Andre Cotard (Hornblower Series)

Edouard Mortier

Hippolyte Charles

Nicolas Charles Oudinot

Emmanuel de Grouchy

Pierre-Charles Villeneuve

Géraud Duroc

Georges Pontmercy (Les Mis)

Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont

Juliette Récamier

Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey

Louis-Alexandre Berthier

Étienne Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre Macdonald

Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier

Catherine Dominique de Pérignon

Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune

Jean-Baptiste Jourdan

Charles-Pierre Augereau

Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais

England:

Richard Sharpe (The Sharpe Series)

Tom Pullings (Master and Commander)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Jonathan Strange (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)

Captain Jack Aubrey (Aubrey/Maturin books)

Horatio Hornblower (the Hornblower Books)

William Laurence (The Temeraire Series)

Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey

Beau Brummell

Emma, Lady Hamilton

Benjamin Bathurst

Horatio Nelson

Admiral Edward Pellew

Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke

Sidney Smith

Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford

George IV

Capt. Anthony Trumbull (The Pride and the Passion)

Barbara Childe (An Infamous Army)

Doctor Maturin (Aubrey/Maturin books)

William Pitt the Younger

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh)

George Canning

Scotland:

Thomas Cochrane

Colquhoun Grant

Ireland:

Arthur O'Connor

Thomas Russell

Robert Emmet

Austria:

Klemens von Metternich

Friedrich Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza

Franz I/II

Archduke Karl

Marie Louise

Franz Grillparzer

Wilhelmine von Biron

Poland:

Wincenty Krasiński

Józef Antoni Poniatowski

Józef Zajączek

Maria Walewska

Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Antoni Amilkar Kosiński

Zofia Czartoryska-Zamoyska

Stanislaw Kurcyusz

Russia:

Alexander I Pavlovich

Alexander Andreevich Durov

Prince Andrei (War and Peace)

Pyotr Bagration

Mikhail Miloradovich

Levin August von Bennigsen

Pavel Stroganov

Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna

Karl Wilhelm von Toll

Dmitri Kuruta

Alexander Alexeevich Tuchkov

Barclay de Tolly

Fyodor Grigorevich Gogel

Ekaterina Pavlovna Bagration

Ippolit Kuragin (War and Peace)

Prussia:

Louise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Gebard von Blücher

Carl von Clausewitz

Frederick William III

Gerhard von Scharnhorst

Louis Ferdinand of Prussia

Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Alexander von Humboldt

Dorothea von Biron

The Netherlands:

Ida St Elme

Wiliam, Prince of Orange

The Papal States:

Pius VII

Portugal:

João Severiano Maciel da Costa

Spain:

Juan Martín Díez

José de Palafox

Inês Bilbatua (Goya's Ghosts)

Haiti:

Alexandre Pétion

Sardinia:

Vittorio Emanuele I

Lombardy:

Alessandro Manzoni

Denmark:

Frederik VI

Sweden:

Gustav IV Adolph

[la-pheacienne]

Me: Hugo isn't obsessed with details, you are just lazy fucks

Hugo: In the dining-room, a long and superb gallery which was situated on the ground-floor and opened on the gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My Lords Charles Brulart de Genlis, archbishop; Prince d'Embrun; Antoine de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendome, Grand Prior of France, Abbe of Saint Honore de Lerins; Francois de Berton de Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; Cesar de Sabran de Forcalquier, bishop, Seignor of Glandeve; and Jean Soanen, Priest of the Oratory, preacher in ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of Senez.

[o-link]

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Né à Lyon le 29 juin 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry rêvait de voler dès son plus jeune âge. À seulement 12 ans, il réalise son premier vol à bord d’un Berthaud-Wroblewski piloté par son créateur, Gabriel Wroblewski. Dans les années 1920, c’est un véritable pionnier de l’avion pour l’Aéropostale (en 1918 à Toulouse par Pierre-Georges Latécoère et officiellement appelée « Lignes Latécoère Aéropostale », il s’agit de la première compagnie d’aviation postale française à réaliser des liaisons transatlantiques), opérant au Sahara occidental et en Amérique du Sud.

Saint-Exupéry a également effectué des tentatives de record spectaculaires qui ont failli lui coûter la vie à de multiples reprises, à l’image d’un Paris-Saïgon (Vietnam) en 1935 ou d’un raid entre New York et la Terre de Feu (Patagonie) en 1938.

Son autre grande passion était l’écriture et il fut de son vivant un auteur reconnu internationalement. Son œuvre la plus célèbre est Le Petit Prince, qui a été traduit dans plus de 440 langues ce jour. À travers l’histoire de ce petit prince, le livre s’intéresse aux thématiques de l’isolation, de la solitude et de l’amitié et cherche à déterminer l’essence même de la nature humaine.

Le 31 juillet 1944, le commandant Antoine de Saint-Exupéry a décollé de Borgo, en Corse, à bord d’un Lockheed P-38 Lightning, pour son dernier vol de reconnaissance au-dessus de la France occupée, dont il n’est jamais revenu. Les débris de son P-38 Lightning n’ont été retrouvés qu’en 2000 dans la mer Méditerranée. Pour préserver l’héritage spirituel de ce pionnier de l’aviation, ses descendants ont créé en 2009 la Fondation Antoine de Saint-Exupéry pour la jeunesse. Principalement dédiée à la lutte contre l’illettrisme, l’organisation soutient des projets scolaires et éducatifs spécialement destinés aux enfants et aux jeunes défavorisés dans le monde entier.

[pompadourpink]

Le Petit Prince

Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

Chapter 1.

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing. 

Lorsque j’avais six ans j’ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image, dans un livre sur la Forêt Vierge qui s’appelait « Histoires Vécues ». Ça représentait un serpent boa qui avalait un fauve. Voilà la copie du dessin.

In the book, it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that, they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion."

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a coloured pencil, I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked something like this:

On disait dans le livre : « Les serpents boas avalent leur proie tout entière, sans la mâcher. Ensuite, ils ne peuvent plus bouger et ils dorment pendant les six mois de leur digestion. »

J’ai alors beaucoup réfléchi sur les aventures de la jungle et, à mon tour, j’ai réussi, avec un crayon de couleur, à tracer mon premier dessin. Mon dessin numéro 1. Il était comme ça :

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

J’ai montré mon chef-d’œuvre aux grandes personnes et je leur ai demandé si mon dessin leur faisait peur.

Elles m’ont répondu: «Pourquoi un chapeau ferait-il peur ? »

Mon dessin ne représentait pas un chapeau. Il représentait un serpent boa qui digérait un éléphant. J’ai alors dessiné l’intérieur du serpent boa, afin que les grandes personnes puissent comprendre. Elles ont toujours besoin d’explications. Mon dessin numéro 2 était comme ça :

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.

Les grandes personnes m’ont conseillé de laisser de côté les dessins de serpents boas ouverts ou fermés, et de m’intéresser plutôt à la géographie, à l’histoire, au calcul et à la grammaire. C’est ainsi que j’ai abandonné, à l’âge de six ans, une magnifique carrière de peintre. J’avais été découragé par l’insuccès de mon dessin numéro 1 et de mon dessin numéro 2. Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications.

J’ai donc dû choisir un autre métier et j’ai appris à piloter des avions. J’ai volé un peu partout dans le monde. Et la géo- graphie, c’est exact, m’a beaucoup servi. Je savais reconnaître, du premier coup d’œil, la Chine de l’Arizona. C’est très utile, si l’on est égaré pendant la nuit.

*

In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.

Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say: "That is a hat." Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

J’ai ainsi eu, au cours de ma vie, des tas de contacts avec des tas de gens sérieux. J’ai beaucoup vécu chez les grandes personnes. Je les ai vues de très près. Ça n’a pas trop amélioré mon opinion.

Quand j’en rencontrais une qui me paraissait un peu lucide, je faisais l’expérience sur elle de mon dessin numéro 1 que j’ai toujours conservé. Je voulais savoir si elle était vraiment compréhensive. Mais toujours elle me répondait : « C’est un chapeau. » Alors je ne lui parlais ni de serpents boas, ni de forêts vierges, ni d’étoiles. Je me mettais à sa portée. Je lui parlais de bridge, de golf, de politique et de cravates. Et la grande personne était bien contente de connaître un homme aussi raisonnable.

Fanmail - masterlist (2016-) - archives - hire me - reviews (2020-) - Drive

[applepiesupreme]

American Apple Pie

Pairing: Low/Mid Honor Arthur Morgan and female OC.

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Savigne Ricci is a temporary guest at the Van der Linde camp. Her path crosses with the enforcer of the gang, Arthur Morgan, and despite their differences, a relationship develops between them. Whole lot of smut and fluff, slow burn-ish.

AOC link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54945853/chapters/146337121

Chapter 23

Antoine's was renovating and they were supposed to be closed for five to seven days, depending on how the construction went. 

Savigne decided, no better time to get rich.

The restaurant allowed them to prepare and store their own meals if they used their own ingredients and most people used that offer to make themselves lunch or dinner for their breaks. She did, too, but now she took out the pizza dough balls she had left to cold marinate ahead of time so they can warm up by the time she arrived at camp. Chef Ecco sauntered over, curious what she was doing and nearly lost his god damn mind when he saw she had prepared pizza dough, praising her to high heaven and exchanging recipes with what he thought was the best dough and best pizza recipe. He shared with her the shops he acquired his cheese from, then even gave her a pizza peel from the kitchen as a gift. 

Ruth and her flock watched from a distance with scowls and Savigne basked in their disapproval.

She went to the open market in Saint Denis to shop for ingredients, strolling around, sniffing and tasting the vegetables, cheese and spices. It was no Grand Bazaar but Saint Denis was becoming more metropolitan by the week and she was impressed with the new, “exotic” food that was sprouting in the market.  

When she arrived in camp it was early afternoon, most folks were out to do whatever they did during the day, so she prepared the fire for the oven – it needed to be very hot for the pizza - and changed into comfortable clothes. 

She prepared the sauce and the toppings, then poured herself a glass of wine and sat at the table, watching the water. Mary Beth came over and Savigne poured her a glass, too. Mary Beth shared the story of the latest novel she was reading and she listened.

“That makes no sense.” 

“What makes no sense?” Mary Beth asked. 

“The man’s too perfect.”

“That’s the point” was the amused reply.

“No I mean it’s not realistic. He’s gorgeous. Strong. Clever. Rich. And a gentleman. And apparently also…you know…a great…lover,” Savigne concluded.

“And?”

“And – so he’s too perfect.”

“Ya saying men like that don’t exist?” Mary Beth grinned. 

“Have you ever met one? I know I haven’t.”

“Haven’t you?” was the teasing question.

“Are you trying to say that Arthur is perfect?” Savigne snorted. “Or that I am?”

“Perfection is boring," Mary Beth shrugged. "Besides, you’re perfect for each other, no?” Savigne shrugged. “Perfect” wasn’t the word she would use, but she had to admit that this was a relationship that should have failed and yet somehow didn’t. Who knew that she could fall into co-habitation with someone this easily, this comfortably? And someone like Arthur, too! Nobody would argue that both of them were difficult people to be around and yet, bizarrely it somehow worked. 

“You know how many bets I won thanks to you guys?” was Mary Beth’s gloating question.

“Bets?!”

“That’s right. Folks around here don’t understand you the way I do,” Mary Beth sighed. Savigne rolled her eyes. “Hey now, don't underestimate me. Ain't I the one who knew before either one of you did?”

“Hmmmmm…What else do you know, oh sage one?”

“I know the man is ensnared," Mary Beth pursed her lips, her eyes shifting to the oven. “Getting him hooked up proper, are we?”

“Why? Because I cook?” Savigne laughed. “It’s just food, what’s the big deal?”

“Just food,” she mumbled teasingly. “I don’t think Arthur has ever been spoiled like this before. It's not that you cook, it's that you cook for him.” She paused for a moment, then quickly retrieved her notebook to scribble in it. "Need to use this in my novel."

"You're writing a novel?"

"I am," she said smugly. "You're craftier than you look, you know. Maybe I should get some pointers from you."

“Right,” Savigne huffed, secretly pleased. “All I do is cook dinner. Happens to be my job anyway. You could even call it self-serving practice.”

The other woman hummed with a smirk. “Ain’t just dinner. It’s being cared for that he’s addicted to.”

“Not going to apologize for that!” Savigne mumbled, but her grin grew just a little wider. 

They watched Arthur arrive at camp and stroll over to talk to Dutch. Mary Beth drank the rest of her wine, gave her a knowing look and left. 

Savigne saw him walk over a few minutes later, eyeing the ingredients on the table. She got up and came around to hug him and kiss him on the cheek - a ritual she still stubbornly followed and he still stubbornly endured.

"You cookin' dinner?"

"Only if you're hungry," she said lightly. He grunted in affirmation and went to wash the sweat and dust off his hands and face.

She quickly flattened a ball of dough on the peel, spread the sauce, added the ingredients and pushed it into the hot oven. Few minutes later she placed it on the wood vegetable chopping block, cut it by pressing her palm on the spine of the knife and slapped his hand away. 

“You just watched me pull it out of the oven. It’s hot. Give it a minute.”

He grumbled a little and poured himself a shot of whiskey. She adjusted the corners of his napkin just so. “How was your day?”

“Fine.”

He finally noticed the side-eye she was giving him as he was staring at the steaming pie and took the cue: “Yours?”

“Glad you asked!” she started with enthusiasm. “Antoine’s is renovating. So I’m going to have a few days off.”

She slid the chopping block over and announced: "Pizza Margarita from Italy! Bon appétit!"

“So I was thinking…” she said, getting up to prepare the next pie on the peel, “…we can do something. If you have the time.”

By the time she sat down he had already eaten half of it. She knew that expression on his face and smiled with satisfaction. “Good, huh?”

“It’s from Italy, course it’s good,” he shrugged, grinning at his own cleverness. 

She pulled out the second pie, cut it and put it on a separate plate. He eyed the plate with some resentment as she took it to Jack.

When she returned, to nobody's surprise, he was finished. 

She sat down and sipped her wine. 

"That it?" He was looking the rest of the dough balls. 

“Do you have the time to do something together?”

“I got time,” he admitted carefully, possibly already guessing where this was heading.

Satisfied, she jumped up to make the next pie. Her fingers, quick and nimble with practice threw on the ingredients and slid the pie into the oven with the peel. 

She sat back down as he served himself another shot of whiskey. 

"We can...I don't know...go to Strawberry."

He gave her a look. “Lemme guess…ya wanna go treasure huntin’.”

She slid the second pie onto the block, cut it, then snatched it from his grasp. “You’re going to burn your tongue, wait a minute, Jesus!” She sat back down and sipped her wine. “And yes, that’s the idea.”

“Savigne…” he started, exasperated, but before he could say more Jack ran over and asked if there was more. 

"How the hell did ya eat that whole pie so fast?" Arthur protested and she rolled her eyes at the irony. Jack admitted that his mom and dad had each taken a slice, too. Arthur grumbled darkly at that. She pushed the block in front of him and prepared the next one while the two of them argued. 

"Five minutes, Jack. Did you like it?" 

“I loved it!”

"Can't have loved it if ya gave it away," muttered Arthur as he chewed. 

"Don't listen to him.” she quipped. She cut the next pie and placed it on his plate. "Be careful, it's hot." He ambled away carefully. 

She sat back down to sip her wine and met his gaze. 

"Well what about me?" 

"You had two pies," she teased. 

He glanced at the last ball of dough. "You want me to take ya, that it?”

“Pffft. I want to know if you’re coming along,” she said as she got up to prepare the pie. After she slid it into the oven: “I’m going either way. It’ll be an adventure.”

“That so?” he said, eyebrows raised as he poured himself another shot. 

“That so,” she confirmed, pulling out the pizza a few minutes later and sliding it on the chopping block. "I can do everything on my own just fine, thank you very much," she added as she cut the pie.

He was clever and waited until it was pushed in front of him before he said “Y’ain’t goin’ alone." 

"Don't tell me what to do!" Savigne growled with some heat.

He was expecting that and there was clear amusement to his tone when he spoke over the chewing. "Or what?"

"Or I'll do it," she grumbled, taking another mouthful of wine. 

He finished his pie, drank the rest of his shot, pushed the empty block aside and put his elbows on the table, leaning in.

"Well then," he sighed, his eyes twinkling, "I might have to…you know…punish ya." He watched the red blotches blooming on her cheeks. “Think yer overdue for a lesson.”

“Thanks to you we can never go back to the bath in Valentine!” she hissed. “I’m pretty sure the entire hotel heard us.”

“Course we goin’ back,” he grinned, leaning back in his chair and pulling out a cigarette. “And wasn’t us they heard, was you.”

"I wasn't there by myself, was I?"

"I got no problem with it," he shrugged smugly. 

She ran her palms over her face, annoyed how quickly and violently she blushed. Also annoyed how pleased he was with himself. Arthur had strutted out to the lobby that day like he had conquered Rome while she had run straight for the exit, not even attempting to pay the bill that week, mumbling that she was going to retrieve the horses.

“God, I can never look Bill in the face again,” she whined.

“The man works in a hotel,” he drawled. “‘M sure he’s used to it. ‘Sides…I liked it.”

"You know what - we’re doing separate baths from now on."

He hummed to himself, inhaling the smoke. "Ya actually think a door's gonna stop me," he mused, leaning on the table, the muscles in his wide shoulders rounding up. 

"You wouldn't dare.” He just chortled at her disbelief. "I think you're missing the bedroll, Mr Morgan.”

"That how you treat yer guide?”

A smile bloomed on her face. “So we’re going?”

He sighed. “Reckon findin' a pile of rocks gonna spare me years of naggin’.”

This stumped her because it implied that he thought they would be together for years to come. It’s just a figure of speech you fool, she mused and it was, but that didn’t matter much to her heart. 

She lied awake for a long time thinking on that, annoyed that her mind would start writing an epic novel because a few uttered words but unable to stop it. What would life be outside the gang with Arthur? What could a man like that do? He was good with horses, she thought, he could breed horses. Or maybe train them. He was good with a lot of animals, so maybe he could be a rancher. Or - twist of fate - bounty hunter. She scratched that possibility off the list. Too dangerous. Farmer? No, didn't seem fitting. It was hard to imagine him outside of his current environment, as if being an outlaw was part of his identity and this life was his natural habitat. What if he missed the social interaction with the gang? Sure, they had a fine time now but that's because he still had that. Removing the gang would rob him of all his friends and family and she couldn't picture him enjoying life without all that. Then again, he did enjoy solitude in nature, didn't he? Maybe he was more of a loner than she assumed. 

She jumped when he spoke up. "What ya cookin' in yer head?"

"I'm just excited," she said, irritated how much of a light sleeper he was and how, even with his back turned, he always knew when she was awake. "I'm going to be rich tomorrow."

He turned to face her and shifted closer. "Might have to rob ya then," he whispered.

"What if we really find a treasure?" she said more seriously a while later. We could do anything we wanted. We could both just pack up and go away. Start somewhere new. Together. She thought on how to ask these things and couldn't make the words come out. 

"I'll eat my hat, tell ya that," he mumbled sleepily. 

"Wouldn't mind seeing that" she sighed and settled into his chest before she drifted off.

The next morning they set out early. It was a long ride to Strawberry and they wanted to arrive before they lost the daylight. Arthur watched with fascination as Savigne whipped out a list and rattled off all the items she had decided they needed. He shot down half of them saying they're not traveling to Canada and there are towns in between, also game to shoot. There were some things on the list he just listened to incredulously like "extra matches, extra soap, extra boots, extra sling in case Cricket's basket sling got ripped etc" and dissuaded her only by reminding her how much Cricket would suffer under this "extra" weight and added that this was not how adventures worked. She relented. 

She prepared the horses as Dutch called him over, saying there is a job he needs Arthur to be on and when Arthur said that he will take care of it when he returns, Dutch’s eyes sought out and blazed at Savigne as if she had said it. She took some satisfaction in that.

They trotted out in the brisk morning air and she was unreasonably excited. 

"You know, this is my first time doing anything in the countryside," she remarked. "Are we going to camp under the stars?"

"Course we are," he said from ahead, "or was you aiming for a hotel, Princess?"

"I prefer the camping."

"Won' be glamorous, I tell ya that," Arthur grunted, sounding unsure what she was so excited about. 

"That's the point," she quipped. 

He waited patiently as she stopped several times to watch animals through her binoculars and then wanted to get off to look at some flowers she hadn't seen before. 

Overall it was a pleasant ride, cool and relaxed. There was a lady by the road who needed help and Savigne gave him a questioning look but he rode on as if she wasn't there and later said that she's always there and it's an ambush. This sobered her a little to dangers she wasn't aware of and she was glad he was with her.

Late afternoon they arrived to the outskirts of Strawberry but instead of heading into town, Arthur aimed north and a mile or so out said they needed to rest the horses by a stream. He told her not to go too far, that there were wolves and cougars around and Savigne didn't need to be told twice. 

An hour after they broke rest they arrived at a hill and for the first time she saw the three rock formations in the distance, reaching to the sky. 

Unfortunately her good mood turned when they arrived to the foot of a bridge. Arthur went right over it with Frost and she lingered behind, preparing. On the other side he noticed she wasn't following and came back. 

"What's the matter?"

"I need to prepare," she told him, locating her blindfold. 

"For?"

"Crossing the bridge."

He watched her put the blindfold on. "The hell ya doin'?"

She pulled it off, exasperated. "Why don't you go ahead, Arthur, I'll be there in a few minutes."

He didn't move, intrigued. She put the blindfold back on, arranged it just so and took a couple of deep breaths. 

She was about to lean over Cricket's neck when he spoke up, startling her: "Savigne, y'afraid of heights?"

"So what if I am?" she said, frustrated and pulled down her blindfold again. 

"Nothing," he said, his voice somewhat softer. "Just didn' know.'"

"You go ahead," she said, "Cricket will take me over, he knows what to do."

He looked like he was going to argue, then decided against it and left. She swallowed, tightened the blindfold and leaned over Cricket's neck, whispering for him to go. She felt him walking, slow and easy. The timbre of his hoof beats changed as they mounted the bridge and she shuddered. Slight sweat broke over her brow and she ignored it and instead, mentally went through the ingredients of chocolate pudding.

Cricket stopped once he was over and she took a deep shaky breath, sat back up and took off her blindfold. 

Arthur was waiting on her and he didn't comment further, just gave Cricket an appreciative look which she felt very proud about and they continued. When dusk set, he said they were camping there for the night because the rest of the way was too steep and treacherous to navigate in the dark. 

He prepared the fire and said he will see if he can hunt something even though they had food and left. She fished out the canned beans, canned tomatoes, vegetables and her spice set and prepared vegetable chili. 

He came with a rabbit and cleaned it and she prepared to grill it with salt, pepper and thyme while he washed off the blood on his hands.

When he returned they waited for the rabbit to cook, then she served him a bowl of grilled rabbit, chili and a slice of the sourdough bread she had baked in preparation the day before. He ate the whole thing in his usual hungry, no-nonsense manner and wiped the bowl with the bread, saying this was some fancy camp food and asked for more. After, the lighted his cigarette and pulled out the whiskey and she took a small glass, warming it in her hands.

The stars were out and it was a warm night, slightly breezy but overall calm and beautiful. 

"You know, I envy you," she said at some point. "You live like this all the time."

"I like being out here, that's true," he said, gazing at the sky. "Quiet."

"You can camp wherever you want, you can travel the whole country if you want to. Must feel very free."

He scratched his beard. "Yeah, it does."

"You think I could do it?"

"No."

She blinked at his short answer. "Why, because I'm a woman?" she asked evenly.

"Cause ya can't shoot," he said with a grin. 

She huffed. Then, carefully: "You ever think of life outside the gang?"

"Sure," he said, the campfire dancing in his eyes.

It had its challenges, to be with someone like Arthur. She couldn't read him, he was wildly different in his upbringing and values, and worst of all - he rarely expressed his opinions or his plans for the future. Sometimes - most times - he acted like he deeply enjoyed her company and that was all it was. Other times he made her think she was profoundly underestimating her importance to him. It was like being in a dark room and trying to feel her way around.  

"What does that life look like?" was her careful question.

He gave her a long look. "Hope to find out soon."

They were quiet for a while, watching the Moon move up. She was happy to be there, happy to be with Arthur, happy to be outdoors, in the country. Away from of camp he seemed more at peace, calmer, more balanced.  

"Ready for bed?" he said finally. 

She was tired from riding all day and nodded. She crept into his arms in the tent and was almost immediately asleep.

The next morning she was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking up at Arthur's amused face, then back down at the ravine. Then at the ledge across, then back at him. She took a step back, her palms sweaty. 

"Ughh...let's check the map again."

She took it out and spread it with trembling hands. 

"I'm not sure..."

"Clearly says we gotta jump over," he interjected smoothly.

She bit her lip, looked back at the ledge. "That can't be right, it's too far."

"Ain't that far," he lazily scratched his beard. 

She glanced back at the ravine. Her foot started tapping. The day felt unnaturally hot, so she loosened the top button on her blouse. 

"I'm thinking..."

A grunt of ‘go on’. 

"…thinking..."

He shifted on his feet, unperturbed. 

"…that maybe we should come back another time."

His eyebrows rose at that. 

"Clearly we don't have the equipment we need for this."

His gaze shifted to the ledge, then back at her. "What equipment ya need?"

"You know...climbing equipment. I can read a book. In fact, let's go to the library in Saint Denis! I can look it up and we probably need some pins and foot gear and hooks and a rope of course, scratch that, several ropes, then we need to practice somewhere, can't just start he-"

"Ain't comin' back here," he said casually. She opened her mouth to argue and he added: "Y’ain't either."

"But..." she sputtered.

"It's a jump. Ain't that far." The corners of his lips curled up.

"It's really high though."

He took off his hat, fanned himself a bit. "Thought you said you can do everythin' on yer own."

She pressed her lips together. "I can!"

"'Cept that," he said, pointing his hat to the ledge. 

"I can do that, too! I just need to learn-"

"How to climb the Rockies?"

She wanted to slap him so bad, her palm itched.

He put his hat back on. "I can do it." A thoughtful palm on his chin, "But..."

"But what?" she asked, annoyed. 

"Why would I?" The hint of a grin. The brute. 

"What do you mean, why? I told you we'll share the treasure!" She flapped the map shut with a huff. 

"And if there ain't any?"

"Well we won't know until we look."

"Hmmm..."

A few moments passed. Who knew when she might get time off again from work? He was such a prick, using her fear of heights against her.

"Need more'n that if I'm riskin' my neck," he sighed in a regretful tone.

"What, you want the whole thing?"

A dismissive shrug. "A whole of nothin' is nothin'."

"God! What then?"

He gave her a look. A long moment passed. She would have laughed if she wasn't so frustrated. 

"Seriously?"

He shrugged. "It's my price." Then a smug "Ma'am."

"This here isn't Cricket, you know."

He turned away. "Well then, let's head back while we got the light."

"Stop!" she laughed, defeated. "Stop! What do you want, a promise?"

"That'll do."

"You're insufferable, you know that?"

"What'll be, miss?"

"Alright, fine, I promise," she chuckled.

"Promise what?"

"I promise whatever. Christ, get over here already!"

He sauntered over, obnoxiously proud of himself. "Give it here."

She handed him the map and he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. She grabbed his arm before he could set off. "You better be careful," she added somberly. 

"Yes ma'am."

"I'm not kidding, be care-"

He jumped the gap and landed casually on the ledge. "God dam it!" she gasped, hand on heart. She ran as close as she dared. "What do you see?"

"Another ledge."

"Seriously?"

"Why, this here suppose t'be the only one in America?"

She cursed under her breath at how impossible he was today. "How far?"

He didn't answer and just jumped out of sight. Her heart flipped. "Arthur!"

"Calm down woman! You'll hear me if I fall, believe me."

"Very funny," she called over, but then decided it was better not to break his concentration. 

She sat down at a comfortable distance from the ledge, pulled up her knees and started to tap her foot. Should have gone for that climbing gear, she thought, waiting and reminding herself to breathe. The minutes ticked by so slowly on her pocket watch, she was starting to believe it was damaged. She jumped to her feet, went over to Cricket, petted him anxiously. Then she repeated it with Frost because you can’t just pet one horse and not the other. Then she went back and sat down again. Then she jumped up, checking her watch. It had only been five minutes. 

Five minutes after that she was so restless that she crept to the edge of the ledge and called out to him. He didn't answer which made her really nervous. Now she was running between the horses and the ledge and doing the same actions over and over again. Sitting down, getting up, petting Cricket, petting Frost, calling out to him, sitting down, getting up - she knew she was being stupid, but the compulsion was so strong, she couldn't resist. 

After what seemed like hours he called back. The relief that washed over her made her knees buckle. 

"What took so long?" she called, trying to calm her heart that was galloping in her chest. 

"Ain't easy hoppin' around with all this gold!" came the answer. 

"What?!! You serious?!!"

He jumped into view. Empty handed. He gave her a grin and she was compelled to find a gun and shoot him. 

"I fucking hate you!" she yelled. Then: "Be careful!"

He jumped back to her side and she swung her arms around his back. 

"Whoa woman," he chuckled, "y'alright?"

"I was worried," came her muffled response. 

Then she stepped back and slapped his chest. "You're enjoying this way too much!"

He clicked his tongue in amusement. 

She bent down, hands on knees, trying to regain her breath. "All that and we got nothing."

"Didn' say we got nothin'." 

"What!?"

He fished out a piece of paper. When she unfolded it, it turned out to be another map. 

Her eyes widened and she got all jittery. "Oh my god, ohmygod I knew it! The treasure map is real!!"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "No it ain't. Just someone's idea of a prank."

"You telling me somebody jumped around these ledges here just to set up a prank?" she said with clear disbelief.

He threw out his arms. "Clearly."

She looked at the map, her excitement undimmed. "Only one way to find out! Where's this, I wonder?"

"I know where it is and we ain't goin' there," he said, wiping his brow. 

"Why not?"

"Dangerous."  

"You say that about everything!" He gave her a side eye. "Just tell me where it is, then."

"The hell I am," he huffed and walked away. "Knowin' you, you'll just run off there first chance."

"You're such a brute," she hissed. Then, calmer: "Charles might know." She saw the slight tensing of his shoulders as he was walking towards Frost. "He might even take me," she added with a drawl. 

"He ain't takin' ya if I say not to." He was fishing for his water canteen in the saddle, trying to hide his annoyance. 

"I might cook him a prize," she quipped, sauntering over. "If he hunts a rabbit, I can make him kouneli stifado. Greek rabbit stew." She knew she was pushing it because Arthur was irrationally possessive of her cooking and pettily disinclined to share it. The only person he made an exception for was Jack.  

"Woman..." he gave her a hard glare. 

"What?"

He huffed and stuffed the canteen back in, then gave her a long, intense look, walked over to the side, squared his feet and said "Come here."

Her eyebrows rose. "Don't think I wi-"

"Ain't you promised?" was the low growl. 

She blinked. "You're collecting now?"

"I am. Come here."

She eyed him head to toe to gauge if he was being serious. 

"Now, Savigne." he said, his tone more serious, less playful. 

She walked over and stood in front of him, suddenly excited. He cupped her chin and gave her a long crushing kiss. When he broke it, she was breathless. His eyes crawled over her body. "Strip." He said with a low voice.

"Here?!"

"Here."

"But..."

"Ain't nobody 'round for miles." She almost shivered at the way he was looking at her. Then again the command: "Strip!"

She stepped back and started to unbutton her blouse. She glanced around nervously, there was nothing but rocks and trees. But it was daytime and in the open and he had asked her to take off her clothes, this was way outside her comfort zone. She stripped out of her blouse, her boots, her jeans, then her underwear, standing stark naked in front of him, resisting the urge to tap her foot. He watched her with hooded eyes, hands on gun belt. She hugged herself with the instinct to cover her nakedness but he waved an arm.

"None of that."

She bit back her argument and dropped her arms to her side, twitching nervously on her feet. He would take any objection as a challenge and enjoy squashing it, so the best thing to do was to comply completely. 

He came to stand in front of her, then slowly circled her, his left hand gliding over her leg, her stomach, a breast, a shoulder blade, her spine, a butt cheek, waist. Despite the urge to cover herself, she felt her exhilaration still present, pulsing in the background. His other hand smoothly slid off her tie and he ran his fingers through her hair to loosen it over her back. After a full circle he kissed her again, aggressively. 

"On your knees," he whispered into her ear. 

She sunk down, feeling herself getting wet. She looked up at him. His face was unreadable but his eyes were dilated and full of want. 

He dropped his gun belt to the ground, then very slowly unbuttoned his jeans, watching her. She didn't break eye contact and kept very still. His cock sprang to his hand, eager and ready but he was calm and calculating as the fingers of this other hand glided over her jawline and his thumb pushed between her lips. She suckled at it without looking away and his jaw muscles clenched at the action. He moved closer and she didn't need to be told, she leaned in and closed her lips on the head, twirling her tongue. 

A low moan fell from his lips. He had never asked her again after the first time she had done this and she hadn't offered, curious how long he would go without asking. She knew he had enjoyed it greatly that night. But that night she had initiated it and she had been in control. Today he wouldn't allow her that. 

His hand cradled the back of her head and he urged her to take him in further and she relaxed her throat and did that, moving up and down his shaft. His eyelids fluttered and he moaned again, whispering her name as he kept their gazes locked. She moved slow and suckled gently when she reached the head, then back down, taking him in further and getting more and more wet herself, the tingling between her legs now clouding her mind with need. His lips fell apart and he started panting louder, a slight tremble to his legs. Her hands crawled up to his thighs, resting on his hips and she finally sheathed him completely in her throat and he cursed softly, his eyes gliding to his cock disappearing and reappearing between her lips. She felt him harden even more and swallowed, feeling another shudder go through his legs with it. 

He inched closer, moving against her now, gently pushing in and out as he held her head in place. She continued to hold the eye contact as he increasingly became more excited, a flush creeping up his face, the fingers on the back of her hand curling into a fist on her hair, his peals of moans more lustful. There was a look of dominance on his face, a look of power and it turned her on immensely. But in the back of her mind, suddenly the urge to rebel. To turn the tables. 

She tasted his precum and felt him slowing down. His legs trembled as he fought the urge to come. Given that he had told her to strip, she imagined he had other things in mind. Well but so did she. She raised her tongue to increase the friction and he moaned absentmindedly at that. Then she removed one of her hands from his hip and slowly moved it to her breast. His eyes glided over, fascinated as she gently brushed and cupper her breast, then continued moving her hand over her stomach. His breathing gained pace again and despite himself, so did his pumping. She hummed and his eyelids fluttered with pleasure, but his eyes were glued to her hand as she moved it lower still, over her upper leg, the inside of her thigh, then back up, up until she separated two fingers and glided them further, over her folds, then curled them at the knuckle and pushed them in. 

He hardened in her mouth and bent forward with a gasp. She thought she had him but suddenly her hair was pulled back with a sting and he slipped out. “Gettin’ bold, are we?” he growled, dropping on his knees in front of her. He bent her head with the grip in her hair before he crushed her lips, then left a trail of kisses down her throat before a suckled on a breast hard enough to make her arch and whimper.

”Turn around,” was the rough command. She scrambled to turn her back to him, remaining on her knees. The slap on her buttocks felt like someone had pressed a sheet of fire against her skin. She took a sharp breath and his left finger slid into her and her intended gasp turned into a moan. His cock pressing against her back was rock hard and distantly she marveled at his self control. She squirmed against it and he groaned with the friction. The harder slap that followed made her jump. The finger in her curled and she moaned so loudly, she could have sworn that she heard and echo of it bounce around. His large hand fondled her sensitive cheek as he curled his finger again and she whimpered, torn between pleasure and pain.

There was something obnoxious about doing this in a clearing in broad daylight, stark naked while he was completely dressed behind her. Obnoxious and exciting at the same time. The things this man could make her do! He removed his finger and pushed his cock into her. She was so wet, he slid in comfortably despite his size. His left hand found hers and pressed it flat on her belly, keeping it there as he pulled out and bucked back in.

”Feel that?” he whispered against her ear. “Feel me takin’ ya?”

She felt him under her palm, moving in and out, splitting her and moaned again. “Yes.”

His right hand squeezed her inflamed butt cheek, his left hand still on hers as he continued his slow pumping. She whimpered with excitement and pain and he hardened in her. He pushed her left hand down to her folds, placing his fingers on hers to make her caress herself as his bucking sharpened. She panted when he suckled her earlobe. She felt herself getting closer and he knew her well enough to notice it. His right hand flew up to her chin to turn her face. “Wanna see it,” he whispered as she moaned uncontrollably under the assault of his fingers, moving her own.

He must have seen her crest that peak dozens of times by now but his appetite for it never slackened. The hunger to see her vulnerable, naked, completely at his mercy, in submission to his power and to the need only he could grant her was voracious.

Suddenly, just at the verge, his fingers forced hers to still and his bucking slowed down. She moaned with frustration. “Ask me for it,” was his low command.

Savigne flustered at his self control to pull back even now, when he was as close as she was. It was freakish compared to hers. Her muscles clamped around his cock, trying to force him on. “Please,” she whispered when he wouldn’t relent.

”Please what?”

A distant part of her rebelled and he must have seen it on her face because he slowed even further and removed her left hand from her folds. She panted with need, stuck between the primal need to scratch that itch and her pride. His right hand dropped to her breast, fondling it as he glided in and out of her with agonizing slowness. This was his new thing now - forcing her to ask him for things. Breaking that wall brick by brick. 

”Please…” she swallowed, “…let me…oh..." she shuddered and whimpered.

"What's the word, little bird?" he sighed into her ear, kissing the cheek that was turned to him, his beard scratching her shoulder.

"...sing." she gasped. 

He hummed with approval and pushed her to fall on her hands, jerking her ass towards him. He pulled on her shoulders, arching her back as he increased his pace. In the back of her mind, the notion of how she had started off the year not understanding what the big deal about sex was only to become a woman who let herself be stripped and taken in broad daylight in a clearing. You think you know yourself, she thought dimly but all her thoughts scattered like smoke in the wind when he leaned over her, beard scratching her back, fingers gliding over her folds. He relentlessly brushed, caressed, massaged until her moans turned into guttural gasps and her final cry bounced between the walls of the chasm. A moment later a rumble on her back, a stuttering of grunts in her ear and the wetness of his warm seed inside her. They remained like that for a few moments, panting and baking under the sun. He sat back and pulled her with him to sit in his lap, his hands circling her waist and pressing her into his chest. She lied against him, trying to come down from her peak, her nakedness completely forgotten.

”Enjoyed this trip more than I thought I would,” he drawled and kissed her neck.

"So…about this next spot..." she panted.

He chuckled darkly. “Tell ya what. You make me some of that kuneli stuff, maybe I'll think 'bout it."

[jogallice]

Aujourd’hui, vendredi 05/07/24, une journée sans Journée qui va ravir celles et ceux qui ne les aiment pas, qu’elles soient locales, territoriales, nationales, européennes, internationales ou mondiales 👌⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Soirée de lancement du Mikado Plage (de ce vendredi 05/07/24 jusqu’au samedi 24/08/24) au Parc de la Colline (quartier des Teppes) de 16h30 à minuit avec cinéma en plein air à 22h (Le Petit Nicolas - Qu’est-ce qu’on attend pour être heureux) 📽️

Bal de danse contemporaine (spectacle participatif, performance) avec l’association Améa ce soir (vendredi 05/07/24) de 18h à 22h à l’espace guinguette des Jardins de l'Europe. Accès libre, annulation en cas de mauvais temps 🩰

2e Petit bal de l’été ce soir (vendredi 05/07/24) avec le DJ Tibo Brtz (musique électronique) place Gabriel Fauré (juste à côté de l’église Saint-Laurent d’Annecy-le-Vieux) à partir de 20h30 💃 Soirée festive et dansante (ambiance guinguette, buvette et petite restauration) 🕺

Marinette : ciné en plein air de 22h à 23h40 place de l’Hôtel-de-ville de Seynod. Installez vous et profitez d'une soirée en plein air en famille ou entre amis. Pour votre confort, pensez à apporter vos chaises, plaids et pique nique. Site accessible 30 mn avant la projection ��

Qualité de l’air (indices ATMO) : la dégradation entamée la veille devrait se poursuivre. Les concentrations d’ozone devraient augmenter sur une grande partie du centre de la région et du Puy-de-Dôme. La qualité de l’air devrait être moyenne à dégradée 💨

L’indice de risque pollinique à Annecy reste élevé, au niveau 3 en ce qui concerne les graminées (indice communal valable du 29 juin au vendredi 05/07/2024 inclus) 🤧 Personnes allergiques : lavez-vous régulièrement le nez avec du sérum physiologique pour éliminer les pollens 😷

Trois dictons du jour pour le prix de deux : « À la saint Antoine, toujours du temps doux. » 🌡 « À la saint Antoine, on peut compter son avoine. » 🌾 « Quand il pleut le jour de la saint Antoine, pomme de terre prospère. » 🥔

Trois autres dictons du jour pour la route : « Saint Antoine sec et beau, remplit caves et tonneaux. » 🍷 « Saint Antoine ouvre le derrière des poules. » 🐔 « Saint Antoine au raisin coupe la queue, si ce jour-là il pleut. » 🍇

Pour celles et ceux qui aiment les moines : « Au treize juin, le jour croît du repas d'un moine. » 🌄 « Qui sème sa salade à la saint Antoine en a comme la barbe d'un moine. » 🥬 « Pour la saint Antoine, les jours croissent comme la barbe d'un moine. » 🧔🏻

Bonne fête aux Antoine et demain aux Mariette 😘 À cause ou grâce à Antoine de Padoue les Antoine sont donc fêtés deux fois chaque année, leur précédente fête ayant eu lieu le 13 juin dernier ℹ️

Bon cinquième jour de la semaine à tous et à toutes 🎲

📷 JamesO PhotO à Annecy le lundi 01/07/24 📸

[thebrickinbrick]

An Attempt to Console the Widow Hucheloup, Part 1

BAHOREL, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted: "Here's the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!"

Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to console the widowed proprietress.

"Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window?"

"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going to put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic window into the street, that the government collected a fine of a hundred francs. If that isn't an abomination, what is!"

"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you."

Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit which she was to derive from these reprisals made on her account. She was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain to her father, and cried for vengeance, saying: "Father, you owe my husband affront for affront. The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" "On the left cheek." The father slapped her right cheek and said: "Now you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter's ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife's.”

The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought under their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket filled with fire-pots, "left over from the King's festival." This festival was very recent, having taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pépin.

They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondétour, du Cygne, des Prêcheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie.

Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting on the Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondétour, on the side of the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was constructed only of casks and paving-stones. There were about fifty workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop.

Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols, another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-horn siung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who was shouting: "Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the point of our bayonet." This man had no bayonet. Another spread out over his coat the cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman, the cover of the cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription in red worsted: Public Order. There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed longshoremen. All were in haste; and as they helped each other, they discussed the possible chances. That they would receive succor about three o'clock in the morning, that they were sure of one regiment, that Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of cordial jovialty. One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.

A fire had been lighted in the kitchen, and there they were engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of the establishment. In the midst of it all, they drank. Caps and buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with glasses of wine.

In the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and making lint; three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble.

The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making himself useful there.

Gavroche was working on the larger one. As for the young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned.

[selidren]

Printemps 1921 - Champs-les-Sims

1/10

Chère Eugénie,

Premièrement, je suis navrée pour vous car si je n'ai pas pu vous lire, j'ai lu entre les lignes du courrier que nous avons reçu de Jules. Je devine que son retour a été pour vous source de tensions, et au vu de sa réponse, il n'a sans doute pas admis grand chose et semblait même craindre ce que vous avez pu me dire. Je vous réitère ma confiance et c'est d'ailleurs Constantin qui répondra à votre mari. J'espère que, malgré tout, vous vous portez bien.

Dès réception de sa lettre, nous avons cependant fait savoir à nos relations que nous cherchions une certaine Liliane Le Bris. Rose a entendu parler d'une certaine Liliane Le Bris, mais il s'agissait (après de plus amples recherches) d'une veuve très âgée de Saint-Brieuc, où elle est également née, et qui n'avait jamais été plus loin que Dinan toute sa vie durant. Je me dois donc de vous dire que nous avons fait chou blanc. Madame Eugénie a ajouté que si il y avait eu une Liliane Le Bris en France qui nous soit apparentée, elle le saurait.

Je me réjouis néanmoins d'apprendre que vos enfants se portent à merveille. De notre côté, Antoine est devenu un brillant lycéen qui n'obtient que d'excellentes notes. Il rentre assez peu souvent car la vie parisienne semble lui réussir au plus haut point et contrairement à son père, il s'est fait des amis au pensionnat. Notre petite Noé n'est pas moins brillante, elle s'est quand à elle rapprochée d'Adelphe ces derniers mois, où elle est plus que déterminée à tout apprendre de l'affaire familiale. Auparavant, je ne la savais pas si passionnée de viticulture.

Transcription :

Arsinoé « Allez, un peu de courage. Ce n’est pas comme si j’allais demander une faveur à Papa... Hum… Oncle Adelphe ? »

Adelphe « Tiens, Noé. Quel bon vent t’amène ? »

Arsinoé « Je… enfin, je me demandais ce que vous faisiez. »

Adelphe « Le pressoir hydraulique est déjà en panne. Et je n’ai que quelques outils et de l’huile de coude comme nous sommes dimanche. »

Arsinoé « Le pressoir que nous avons acheté à l’automne ? Le foulograppe Coq ? »

Adelphe « Je vois que quelqu’un est allé fouiller dans mon bureau. »

Arsinoé « Je n’ai pas vraiment fouillé, je vous jure. La facture était en haut de la pile. Je n’aurai jamais osé vous savez, j’avais peur de mettre la pagaille. »

Adelphe « Le bureau est déjà en pagaille. Je n’ai pas le talent de tes parents quand il s’agit de ranger, ce n’est pas pour rien que c’est ta mère qui vient y mettre de l’ordre régulièrement. Ce n’est vraiment pas grave, c’est même bien que tu t’intéresse à la production. »

Arsinoé « Justement. Je me disais que je pourrais remplacer Maman et ranger à votre place. C’est moi qui range toujours la chambre. Bon, c’est vrai que ça n’a pas grand-chose de comparable, mais je suis assez douée pour classer. »

Adelphe « Tu n’es pas vraiment obligée. Vraiment pas. Les jeunes filles devrait consacrer leur temps à leurs études et à profiter du temps qu’elles ont, pas à suppléer les adultes. Cela viendra bien assez vite. »

Arsinoé « Mais si ! C’est quelque chose que je dois apprendre mon oncle ! Vous même vous étiez jeune quand Grand-Père vous a enseigné les ficelles. Je veux être prête quand ce sera mon tour ! »

Adelphe « Ah, mais je ne savais pas que tu t’intéressais à... »

Arsinoé « Si, bien sûr ! Je suis l’héritière des Le Bris, bien sûr que je m’intéresse à l’entreprise familiale ! Je suis une fille, mais j’en ai les capacités. Je connais bien mon latin et mon grec, Grand-Mère trouve que mon allemand n’est pas mauvais et je suis travailleuse. Je peux apprendre tout ce que vous jugerez important, même la mécanique, je n’ai pas peur de me salir les mains. »

Adelphe « Et bien, quel enthousiasme ! Allez, prends une chaise, je vais te montrer quelques petites choses pour commencer.»

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

How many relationships did Robespierre have and who were they? if you can tell a little about it

I’m currently working on compiling as much information as possible about Robespierre’s different relationships. Those I’ve done so far are:

The relationship between Robespierre and Saint-Just

The relationship between Robespierre and Desmoulins (btw, comparing the notes on this post and the SJ one, I think it’s pretty clear who has already won the shipping contest currently on…)

The relationship between Robespierre and Brissot

The relationship between Robespierre and Marat

The relationship between Robespierre (and his siblings) and the Duplay family

The relationship between Robespierre (and his sister) and Fouché

The relationship between Robespierre and Pétion (planning to remake this one)

I’m not an expert on any relationship beyond these yet, but when it comes to people of which it is established Robespierre was the personal friend (bc were we to talk about people he is confirmed to have had any form of contact/relationship at all with we would of course be here all night) this is basically what I’ve got so far (feel free to send an individual ask about those you consider more interesting, then it will be easier to give a more satisfying answer):

Pre-revolution

Robespierre and his five years younger brother Augustin grew up together at their grandparents’ house, but from 1769-1781 and 1781-1787 respectively the two spent the majority of the year studying in Paris and consequently saw very little of one another. Once the revolution rolled around Augustin came to visit his brother two times before being elected a deputy and permanently moving to Paris in 1792. We have several letters from Augustin in Arras to Maximilien in Versailles/Paris (but none the other way around). The two were evidently close, and when Maximilien was ordered arrested on July 27 1794, Augustin asked to share his fate.

After the death of their mother and disappearance of their father in 1764, Robespierre and his two years younger sister Charlotte grew up seeing each other only once a week until the former headed to Paris in 1769. After he graduated in 1781, he and Charlotte lived with each other up until the opening of the Estates General, after which Charlotte didn’t see him again for three years (save a short trip he made to Arras in 1791). According to Paul Villiers, who served as Maximilien’s secretary for a time, he sent a quarter of his fees to ”a sister in Arras whom he held a lot of affection for” during this period. In 1792 Charlotte moved to Paris with her younger brother where the two moved in with Maximilien’s host family. The three siblings got into a conflict and were seperated as enemies, different sources giving us different answers regarding exactly what for.

During his time as a lawyer in Arras, Robespierre and his siblings were close to his fellow lawyer Antoine Buissart and his family. They kept this contact up during the revolution, and we have several letters exchanged between Maximilien, Augustin and Antoine conserved. They did however eventually fall out with one another due to ”the terror” carried out in Arras in the spring of 1794, and after Robespierre’s execution Buissart was quick to abandon and denounce him. 

During his time as a student at the college of Louis-le-Grand it would appear Robespierre gained a friend/school rival in the future dramatist and man of letters Beffroy de Reigny. In 1786 Robespierre sent him two of his most recent works to insert in his journal, Beffroy responding by celebrating his success and saying he ”perfectly remembers the role played at the College by his amiable study companion; a talent like his is not meant to be forgotten.” He did however quickly grow to dislike the revolution, and in works written in the years following Robespierre’s death he claimed to have never been his friend.

The Revolution

Robespierre and Danton were good friends, or at least good brothers in arms. In 1792 Danton offered his ”dear friend” a job at the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the next year Robespierre adressed what is probably the most sentimental of his conserved letters to Danton, consoling him over the loss of his wife and telling him ”I love you (tu) more than ever, until death.”

Robespierre had a good relation with the Roland couple, Mme Roland writing in her memoirs that she thought him ”an honest man” and that they sometimes dined together. They eventually fell out with each other over the war question, but not before Manon had written Robespierre a letter asking for a meeting so that they could sort out their differences.

Robespierre was also at first good friends with the ”girondin” and fellow National Assembly member François Buzot, who in his memoirs wrote that Robespierre had told him ”I esteem you, because I know you well” even in 1793. In his defense (1793), the girondin Gensonné wrote that ”In 1791 and 1792, Robespierre had the most intimate liasons with Pétion, Buzot and Roland, how can he accuse them today without accusing himself?”

Robespierre and Georges Couthon quickly got to know each other after the latter’s arrival in Paris in September 1791, although it’s possible they started out on less than friendly terms. We have a letter from Robespierre to Couthon dated August 9 1792 where he tells him he ”anxiously await news of your (votre) health.[…] May you soon return to your homeland and we await with equal impatience your return and your recovery.”

Robespierre was also good friends with Philippe Le Bas. The best source for their relationship is the memoirs of the latter’s wife Élisabeth, where she numerous times has the two say flattering things about one another. On 9 thermidor, Le Bas, like Augustin, volonteered to share Robespierre’s fate.

Robespierre was good friends with Collot d’Herbois, who also knew his host family (this can be observed via letters from Collot to Robespierre dated November 23 and December 1, and a letter from him to Maurice Duplay dated December 5). They eventually fell out with each other in 1794, but it’s unclear exactly when and why. 

Robespierre had a friend in his doctor Joseph Souberbielle. In his Histoire de la Révolution française (1869) the historian Louis Blanc reported Souberbielle to have spoken warmly about him even decades after his death.

During his time on the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre wrote a list containing the names of around 115 men he described as ”patriots with more or less talent,” many of which held (thanks to his list?) important functions. On first place on the list we find Martial Hermann, president of the revolutionary tribunal and later chairholder of the Commission of Civil Administration, Tribunals and Claude-François Payan, head of the Paris commune, who are both proven to sometimes have turned directly to Robespierre regarding things that concerned the entire Committee of Public Safety (1, 2, 3, 4), as well as François Dumas, president of the Revolutionary Tribunal April-July 1794 and Jean-Baptiste Coffinhall, judge at said tribunal, who both public procecutor Fouquier-Tinville and Barère, Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois after thermidor would claim to everyday have gone home to Robespierre to discuss the tribunal’s upcoming affairs. If Robespierre was the personal friend of the four is harder to say, but all of them would nevertheless be executed as his ”accomplices.”

Another person on the list is the young Marc-Antoine Jullien who served as representative on mission 1793-1794 and often turned to Robespierre directly when reporting about things going on (according to From Jacobin to Liberal: Marc Antoine Jullien 1775-1848 (1993) by R.R Palmer: ”of Jullien’s known letters written during this period twenty-one were addressed to Robespierre, but eighteen were addressed to the CPS as a whole, and twenty-nine to four other members of the Committee.”) He was arrested right after thermidor and would deny having had any association with Robespierre, but it would still be more than a year before he was released. His mother Rosalie Jullien was her too a big admirer of Robespierre and dined with him a couple of times.

Another one of the people on the list is Jean Charles Guislain Mathon, an arragois childhood friend of Robespierre who, after the siblings fell out with each other, offered Charlotte asylum at his house ”in spite of [the brothers’] protests.” She moved in with him after their execution and stayed there for the rest of her life.