#La liberté ou la mort

[roehenstart]

Toussaint L'Ouverture by George De Baptiste.

[azzrael99]

News is coming for thermidor!!! 😜

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Give me the last words of every figure that had a role in the French revolution

(Maybe it will be to many so you can give a little of if you want)

Louis XVI — on January 22 1793, Suite du Journal de Perlet reported the folllwing about the execution that had taken place the day before:

[Louis] climbs the scaffold, the executioner cuts his hair, this operation makes him flinch a little. He turns towards the people, or rather towards the armed forces which filled the whole place, and with a very loud voice, pronounces these words: “Frenchmen, I die innocent, it is from the top of the scaffold, and ready to appear before God, that I tell this truth; I forgive my enemies, I desire that France…” Here he was interrupted by the noise of the drums, which covered some voices crying for mercy, he himself took off his collar and presented himself to death, his head fell, it was a quarter past ten.

Jean-Paul Marat — several people who came to witness during the trial of Charlotte Corday reported Marat’s last words to have been a cry for help to his fiancée Simonne Évrard:

Laurent Basse, courier, testifies that being on Saturday, July 15 (sic), at Citizen Marat's house, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, busy folding newspapers, he saw the accused come, whom citoyenne Évrard and the portress refused entrance. Nevertheless, citizen Marat, who had received a letter from this woman, heard her insist and ordered her to enter, which she did. A few minutes later, on leaving, he heard a cry: ”Help me, my dear friend, help me!” (À moi, ma chere amie, à moi !). Hearing this, having entered the room where citizen Marat was, he saw blood come out of his bosom in great volumes; at this sight, himself terrified, he cried out for help, and nevertheless, for fear that the woman should make an effort to escape, he barred the door with chairs and struck her in the head with a blow; the owner came and took it out of his hands.

The president challenges the accused to state what she has to answer. I have nothing to answer, the accused says, the fact is true.

Another witness, Jeanne Maréchal, cook, submits the same facts; she adds that Marat, immediately taken from his bathtub and put in his bed, did not stir.

The accused says the fact is true. 

Another witness, Marie-Barbe Aubin, portress of the house where citizen Marat lived, testifies that on the morning of July 13, she saw the accused come to the house and ask to speak to citizen Marat, who answered her that it was impossible to speak to him at the moment, attenuated the state where he had been for some time, so she gave a letter to deliver to him. In the evening she came back again, and insisted on speaking to him. Aubin and citoyenne Évrard refused to let her in; she insisted, and Marat, who had just asked who it was, having learned that it was a woman, ordered her to be let in; which happened immediately. A few moments later, she heard a cry: "Help me, my dear friend!” (À moi, ma chere amie !);she entered, and saw Marat, blood streaming from his bosom; frightened, she fell to the floor and shouted with all her might: À la garde! Au secours !

The accused says that everything the witness says is the most exact truth.

Girondins — Number 64 of Bulletin du Tribunal Criminel, written shortly after the execution, reports that, once arrived at Place de la Révolution, the Girondins sang Veillons au Salut de l’Empire together while waiting for their turn to mount the scaffold. Lehardy’s last words are reported to have been Vive la République, ”which was generally heard, thanks to the vigorous lungs nature had provided him with.”

Hébertists — On March 31, a week after the execution, Suite de Journal de Perlet reported the following anecdote, though I’ll let it be unsaid whether it should be taken seriously or not:

Here is an anecdote which can serve to make better known the eighteen conspirators whom the sword of the law has struck. On the day of their execution, several heads had already fallen when General Laumur's turn arrived. Ronsin and Vincent looked at him at the scaffold and said to Hébert: ”Without the clumsiness of this j... f... we would have succeeded.” They were alluding to the indiscretion of Laumur, who would tell anyone who would listen that the Convention had to be destroyed.

In Mémoires sur Carnot par son fils (1861), Carnot’s son also claims that, on the day of the execution, his father got stuck in the crowd witnessing the tumbrils pass on their way to the scaffold, close enough to hear Cloots say: “My friends, please do not confuse me with these rascals.”

Dantonists — the famous idea that Danton’s last words were: ”show my head to the people, it’s worth seeing” is, according to Michel Biard, at best backed by a dubious source — Souvernirs d’un sexagénaire (1833) by Antoine Vincent Arnault:

I found there all the expression of the sentiment which inspired Danton with his last words; terrible words which I could not hear, but which people repeated to each other, quivering with horror and admiration. ”Above all, don't forget,” he said to the executioner with the accent of a Gracque, ”don't forget to show my head to the people; it’s worth seeing.” At the foot of the scaffold he had said another word worthy of being recorded, because it characterizes both the circumstance which inspired it, and the man who uttered it. With his hands tied behind his back, Danton was waiting his turn at the foot of the stairs, when his friend Lacroix, whose turn had come, was brought there. As they rushed towards each other to give each other the farewell kiss, a guard, envying them this painful consolation, threw himself between them and brutally separated them. "At least you won't prevent our heads from kissing each other in the basket," Danton told him with a hideous smile.

Biard does however question how reliant Arnault really is, considering his account partly contradicts what earlier, more reliable ones, had to say about the execution. None of the authentic to somewhat autentic descriptions of the dantonist execution I’ve been able to find mention any recorded last words from Danton or his fellow convicts. That has not hindered authors and historians throughout the centuries to let their imagination run wild with the execution — look for example at how many have had Danton say something menacing about Robespierre on his way to the scaffold. Early Desmoulins biographers often have him be a sobbing mess, saying things like "Citizens! it is your preservers who are being sacrificed. It was I — I, who on July 12th called you first to arms! I first proclaimed liberty… My sole crime has been pity...” (Methley, 1915) or ”Thus, then, the first apostle of Liberty ends!” (Claretie,1876) and for Fabre there exists the claim that he hummed his song Il pleut bergère on his way to the scaffold, or muttered his biggest regret was not being able to finish his vers (verses), to which Danton replied that, within a week, he’ll have more vers (worms) than he can dream of. None of these statements do however appear to be backed by any primary sources. Finally, John Gideon Millingen, twelve years old at the time of the execution, reported in his Recollections of Republican France 1791-1801 (1848) that ”[Danton’s] execution witnessed one of those scenes of levity that seemed to render death to a jocose matter. Lacroix, who was beheaded with him, was a man of colossal stature, and, as he descended from the cart, leaning upon Danton, he observed, ”Do you see that axe, Danton? Well, even when my head is struck off I shall be taller than you!” It does however strike me as unlikely for Milligen to actually have been able to hear anything of what the condemned had to say.

Robespierrists — like with the dantonists, we have several alleged last words from more or less unreliable sources. The apocryphal memoirs of the Sansons does for example report Saint-Just’s last words to have an emotionless ”Adieu” to Robespierre, and for the latter we have a story that his last recorded words were ”Merci Monsieur,” which he said to a man for giving him a handkerchief to wipe away the blood coming out of his shattered jaw with (can you even talk under such conditions?). However, here I have again collected trustworthy descriptions, and none of them record any last words. In this instance it’s not exactly strange either, given the fact many of the condemned had been injured so badly they were more or less unconscious by the time of the execution. 

Other alleged final words can be found in this post, among others Madame Roland’s ”Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in your name” and Bailly’s ”I’m cold.” I will however doubt the authenticity of all of them until someone shows me a serious source for them (the author of the post doesn’t cite any at all). Like I wrote above, I doubt anyone actually stood near enough to hear any eventual last words.

[secretmellowblog]

One super funny thing about the French Rev (that Victor Hugo even references in Les Mis) is the way it altered naming conventions, resulting in tons of WILD amazing ridiculous names!

Basically what happened was— during the French Rev the laws around registering names were relaxed, so people started giving extremely revolutionary names to themselves and their babies.

Sadly Napoleon’s government later cracked down on this. When Napoleon came into power he passed a restrictive law mandating that people had to choose among a list of “normal” names, banning the weird revolution ones, because he was a spineless coward afraid of the power these names had. The restrictive naming laws weren’t repealed until late in the 20th century.

But anyway here are some of my favorite French Rev baby names (taken from this list):

Mort Aux Aristocrates -“Death to Aristocrats”

Amour Sacré de la Patrie l’an Trois -“Sacred Love of the Fatherland Year III”

Lagrenade —“The Grenade”

Droit de l’Homme Tricolor “Right of Man Tricolor”

Égalité — “Equality”

Régénérée Vigueur— “Regenerated Strength”

Marat, ami du peuple -“Marat, friend of the people”

Marat, défenseur de la Patrie—“Marat, defender of the Fatherland”

La Loi-“The Law”

Philippe Thomas Ve de bon coeur pour la République — “Philippe Thomas ‘Go with a good heart for the Republic’”

Raison —“Reason”

Simon Liberté ou la Mort —“Simon “Freedom or Death””

Citoyen Français—“French Citizen”

Sans Crainte— “Without Fear”

Unitée Impérissable— “Imperishable Unity”

Victoire Fédérative— “Federal Victory”

Vengeur Constant —“Constant Avenger”

[czerwonykasztelanic]

La Liberté ou la Mort! Acrylic on canvas. Somehow managed to exceed my own expectations.

[papillondusublime]

En ce Jour du Souvenir, portons le coquelicot et accordons une minute de silence pour tous les soldats qui se sont sacrifiés pour notre liberté! N'oublions pas non plus d'honorer nos vétérans et ceux qui servent le pays car ils le méritent. En espérant que l'avenir nous apportera des temps de paix, voici un poème de Paul Eluard:

Sur mes cahiers d’écolier Sur mon pupitre et les arbres Sur le sable sur la neige J’écris ton nom Sur toutes les pages lues Sur toutes les pages blanches Pierre sang papier ou cendre J’écris ton nom Sur les images dorées Sur les armes des guerriers Sur la couronne des rois J’écris ton nom Sur la jungle et le désert Sur les nids sur les genêts Sur l’écho de mon enfance J’écris ton nom Sur les merveilles des nuits Sur le pain blanc des journées Sur les saisons fiancées J’écris ton nom Sur tous mes chiffons d’azur Sur l’étang soleil moisi Sur le lac lune vivante J’écris ton nom Sur les champs sur l’horizon Sur les ailes des oiseaux Et sur le moulin des ombres J’écris ton nom Sur chaque bouffée d’aurore Sur la mer sur les bateaux Sur la montagne démente J’écris ton nom Sur la mousse des nuages Sur les sueurs de l’orage Sur la pluie épaisse et fade J’écris ton nom Sur les formes scintillantes Sur les cloches des couleurs Sur la vérité physique J’écris ton nom Sur les sentiers éveillés Sur les routes déployées Sur les places qui débordent J’écris ton nom Sur la lampe qui s’allume Sur la lampe qui s’éteint Sur mes maisons réunies J’écris ton nom Sur le fruit coupé en deux Du miroir et de ma chambre Sur mon lit coquille vide J’écris ton nom Sur mon chien gourmand et tendre Sur ses oreilles dressées Sur sa patte maladroite J’écris ton nom Sur le tremplin de ma porte Sur les objets familiers Sur le flot du feu béni J’écris ton nom Sur toute chair accordée Sur le front de mes amis Sur chaque main qui se tend J’écris ton nom Sur la vitre des surprises Sur les lèvres attentives Bien au-dessus du silence J’écris ton nom Sur mes refuges détruits Sur mes phares écroulés Sur les murs de mon ennui J’écris ton nom Sur l’absence sans désir Sur la solitude nue Sur les marches de la mort J’écris ton nom Sur la santé revenue Sur le risque disparu Sur l’espoir sans souvenir J’écris ton nom Et par le pouvoir d’un mot Je recommence ma vie Je suis né pour te connaître Pour te nommer Liberté.

[alchemyfire]

Have any of you read this yet?

I just downloaded this e-book. My heart is beating faster with excitement, already. :-)

[nietzsche813]

@octavodecimo I just saw your post and I'm actually writing some saintspierre right now. It starts with the trial of Louis Capet and its long nights of work, as well as with the problem of subsistence which I think Robespierre and Saint Just must have discussed at length between them and even bonded over (their respective discourses on the subject were two days apart and clearly a conjoined effort)! I'm calling it La liberté ou la mort for now.

But it will take me some time because I want to be very throughout with my research. And I'm writing it in French and will have to translate it into English as well...

[talonabraxas]

La Liberté ou la Mort, Jean-Baptiste Regnault

[sabinerondissime]

Journal

Il y a 20 ans, tout commençait entre nous. Nous nous sommes connus sur un site de discussion, comme il y en avait beaucoup au début des années 2000. J'étais en vacances dans le sud et nous avons dialogué jusqu'à mon retour en Normandie. Mon divorce venait tout juste d'être prononcé. Nous nous sommes rencontrés au début du mois d'aout et cela a tout de suite fonctionné entre nous. Mais ce mois ci, il y avait les jeux olympiques et ta passion pour le sport est passé avant ton envie de me voir. Vexée, je t'ai dis que je préférais qu'on en reste là. Le 29 aout, tu m'as envoyé un message pour me souhaiter ma fête et le dialogue a reprit. Tu es venu me voir le 6 septembre et nous ne nous sommes plus jamais quitté. Les premiers mois ont été superbes. Nous sortions beaucoup, tu m'emmenais faire des choses que je n'avais jamais faites comme voir un concert d'artiste que je ne connaissais pas (Mes souliers sont rouges) aller à La nuit du Zapping au Zenith de Caen, ou voir des matchs de Hockey sur glace. Nous aimons les choses simples alors nous faisions des pique niques en bord de mer, avec juste du pain et du camembert. Nous allions aussi dans pas mal de restaurant découvrir la cuisine du monde. Et comme je vivais toujours sous le même toit que mon ex-mari, nous allions dormir à l'hotel régulièrement. Tu prévoyais toujours une surprise. Un soir, je suis arrivée après toi et tu avais pavé le couloir de l'hotel de pétales de roses, jusqu'à la chambre ou je devais te retrouver. Quelques mois plus tard, j'ai emménagé dans ta ville, dans la même rue. Mais comme mes 3 enfants vivaient avec moi et que toi, tu n'avais jamais eu d'enfant, nous avons préféré garder chacun notre appartement au cas où. En 2007, nous avons eu notre fils mais nous avons tout de même conserver nos appartements. La naissance de notre fils a changé beaucoup de chose dans notre couple et 3 ans plus tard, afin d'éviter la rupture, nous avons pris la décision de nous laisser la liberté de vivre d'autres choses. Nous avons vécu ainsi quelques années. En 2020, mes 3 premiers enfants étant partis de la maison et le confinement arrivant, tu es venu t'installer chez moi. Nous avons continuer à faire chambre à part. De toute façon, il y avait déjà quelques années qu'il n'y avait plus de relation sexuelles entre nous. Nous sommes des amis, des parents mais plus des amants et probablement plus des amoureux. Nous aimons la façon de vivre de l'autre, le calme, la tranquillité et l'âge venant, nous avons décidé de nous marier, pour mettre à l'abri celui de nous deux qui restera en vie le plus longtemps. Demain, je porterai ton nom. Même si nous sommes très différents dans nos gouts et nos passions, nous en avons une qui nous lie depuis près de 18 ans, notre fils ! Je sais, parce que tu me l'a prouvé, qu'en cas de coup dur, mes enfants et moi nous pouvons compter sur toi. Désormais, nous avons un petit-fils qui, même s'il est le fils de mon fils t'appelle Papi et se moque bien qu'il n'y ait pas de lien du sang entre vous. Alors oui, il me manque la tendresse, la passion, l'amour, les mots doux, les compliments, les câlins, la sensualité, le sexe, la séduction, les projets, les voyages à deux et tout ce qui se rattache au sentiment amoureux. Mais je sais à quel point les sentiments sont éphémères. On dit "Marriage plus vieux (et non pas pluvieux) mariage heureux" parce que justement, on a souvent fait une croix sur la folie de la passion que recherche encore les plus jeunes. Ce qui est important désormais, c'est la stabilité et la confiance et cela, tu me l'apporte jour après jour depuis 20 ans. Merci d'avoir pris soins de moi et de mes enfants. Merci d'être l'homme que tu es, avec tes qualités et tes défauts. Demain, ce sera OUI, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, jusqu'à ce que la mort nous sépare.

[roehenstart]

Portrait of Henri Christophe, King of Haiti. By Richard Evans.

[leparfumdesreves]

MA FRANCE ET MOI

"C’est celle de 1789, une FRANCE qui se lève, celle qui conteste, qui refuse !

La FRANCE qui proteste qui veut savoir, c’est la FRANCE joyeuse, curieuse et érudite, la FRANCE de Molière qui tant se battit contre l’hypocrisie, celle de La Fontaine celle de Stendhal, de Balzac, celle de Jaurès, celle de Victor Hugo et de Jules Vallès !

La FRANCE de l’invention, des chercheurs, celle de Pasteur, celle de Denis Papin et de Pierre et Marie Curie !

La FRANCE des Lettres, celle de Chateaubriand, de Montaigne, la FRANCE de la Poésie, celle de Musset, d’Eluard, de Baudelaire, de Verlaine et celle d’ Aimé Césaire !

La FRANCE qui combat tous les totalitarismes, tous les racismes, tous les intégrismes, l’obscurantisme et tout manichéisme !

La FRANCE qui aime les Mots, les Mots doux, les Mots d’Amour, et aussi la Liberté de dire des gros Mots !

La FRANCE qui n’en finira jamais de détester le mot "SOUMISSION" et de choyer le Mot RÉVOLTE !

Oui ma FRANCE à moi c’est celle des Poètes, des Musiciens, celle d’Armstrong, celle de l’Accordéon, celle des Chansons douces, des Chansons graves, des Espiègles, des Humoristiques, des Moqueuses ou celle truffée de Mots qui font rêver d’un Amour que l’on n’osera jamais déclarer à celle qu’on aime.

Ma FRANCE à moi c’est celle de Picasso, de Cézanne et celle de Soulages, celle d’Ingres, celle de Rodin !

La FRANCE des Calembours, des "Bidochons", celle de la Paillardise aussi bien que celle du "Chant des Partisans".

Ma FRANCE c’est celle de Daumier, celle de l’ "Assiette au beurre", du "Sapeur Camembert", celle de Chaval, celle de Cabu, de Gottlieb, de Siné, celle du "Canard", de "Fluide Glacial" et de "Charlie", drôles, insolents, LIBRES !

Ma FRANCE, c’est aussi celle des dictées de Pivot celle de Klarsfeld et celle de Léopold Sedar Senghor, la FRANCE des "Enfants du Paradis" et des "Enfants du Veld ’hiv", celle de la Mode libre, celle de la Danse, des flirts et des Câlins, celle de la Musique douce et des Rocks déjantés, celle de la Gourmandise !

Ma France à moi c’est une FRANCE capable de renvoyer dos à dos la Bible et le Coran s’il lui prend l’envie d’être Athée !

Eh oui ! Ma FRANCE est une FRANCE LIBRE, FRATERNELLE et éternellement INSOUMISE aux dictats de la "bien-pensance" !

Il n’est qu’en respectant toutes ces diversités qu’on arrive un jour à vivre la "DOUCE FRANCE" de Trenet.

Celle qui m’a toujours plu et que notre jeunesse lucide et combative fera perdurer par-delà les obscurantismes.

Figure révolutionnaire, emblématique, durant "La Commune", le "Père Duchêne" écrivait au frontispice du Journal qu’il publiait en 1793 ,

"LA RÉPUBLIQUE OU LA MORT !"

Son journal coûtait 1 sou… mais on en avait pour son argent !"

Pierre Perret

C'était aussi ma FRANCE...

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Was suicide really seen as noble during the French Revolution? Was there any recorded tension regarding this cultural shift with more religious or less revolutionary people/groups? Thanks!

In the book La liberté ou la mort: mourir en député 1792-1795 (2015) can be found a list of all the deputies of the National Convention that died unnatural deaths between 1792 and 1799. Of the 96 names included on it, 16 were those of suicide victims, and to these must also me added a number of botched suicide attempts as well. 

Only a single one of these suicides appears to have been driven by something outside of politics, that of the deputy Charlier, who shot himself in his apartment on February 23 1797, two years after the closing of the Convention. The rest of the suicides are all very clearly politically motivated, more specifically, deputies killing themselves just as the machinery of revolutionary justice was about to catch up to them. There’s those who killed themselves while on the run and unsheltered from the hostile authorities — the girondin Rebecqui who on May 1 1794 drowned himself in Old Port of Marseille, Pétion and Buzot who on June 24 1794 shot themselves after getting forced to leave the garret where they for the last few months had been hiding out, Maure who shot himself while in hiding on 3 June 1795 after having been implicated in the revolt of 1 Prairial, Brunel, who on May 27 shot himself after failing to quell a riot in Toulon, and Tellier, who similarily shot himself on September 17 1795 due to a revolt directed against him in the commune of Chartres. Barbaroux too attempted to shoot himself on June 18 1794 but only managed to blow his jaw off. He was instead captured and guillotined. There’s those that put an end to their days once cornered by said authorities — Lidon, who on November 2 1793 shot himself after having been discovered at his hiding place by two gendarmes (he did however first fire three shots at said gendarmes, one of whom got hit in the cheek) and Le Bas who shot himself in the night between July 27 and 28 1794 as National guardsmen stormed the Hôtel de Ville where he and his allies were hiding out (according to his wife’s memoirs, already a few days before this he had told her that he would kill them both right then and there wasn’t it for the fact they had an infant son). In an interrogation held two o’clock in the morning on July 28 1794, Augustin Robespierre too revealed that the reason he a few hours earlier had thrown himself off the cordon of the Hôtel de Ville was ”to escape from the hands of the conspirators, because, having been put under a decree of accusation, he believed his death inevitable,” and there’s of course an eternal debate on whether or not his older brother too had attemped to commit suicide at Hôtel de Ville that night or if he was shot by a guard (to a lesser extent, this debate also exists regarding Couthon). There’s those who committed suicide in prison to avoid an unfriendly tribunal — Baille who hanged himself while held captive in the hostile Toulon on September 2 1793, Condorcet who took poison and was found dead in his cell in Bourg-la-Reine on 29 March 1794 (though here there exists some debate on whether it really was suicide or if he ”just” died from exhaustion) and Rühl, who stabbed himself while in house arrest on May 29 1795. On March 17 1794, Chabot tried to take his life in his cell in the Luxembourg prison by overdosing on medicine (he reported that he shouted ”vive la république” after drinking the liquor) but survived and got guillotined. Finally, there’s those who held themselves alive for the whole trial but killed themselves as soon as they heard the pronounciation of the death sentence —  the girondin Valazé who stabbed himself to death on October 30 1793 and the so called ”martyrs of prairial” Duquesnoy, Romme, Goujon, Bourbotte (in a declaration written shortly before his death he wrote: ”Virtuous Cato, no longer will it be your example alone that teaches free men how to escape the scaffold of tyranny”), Duroy and Soubrany who did the same thing on June 17 1795 (only the first three did however succeed with their suicide, the rest were executed the very same day).

To these 24 men must also be added other revolutionaries that weren’t Convention deputies, such as Jacques Roux who on February 10 1794 stabbed himself in prison, former girondin ministers Étienne Clavière who did the same thing on December 8 1793 (learning of his death, his wife killed herself as well) and Jean Marie Roland who on November 10 1793 ran a sword through his heart while in hiding, after having been informed of his wife’s execution, Gracchus Babeuf and Augustin Darthé who attempted to stab themselves on May 27 1797 after having been condemned in the so called ”conspiracy of equals,” but survived and were executed the next day, as well as two jacobins from Lyon — Hidins who killed himself in prison before the city got ”liberated,” and Gaillard who did the same thing shortly after the liberation, after having spent several weeks in jail.

With all that said, I think you could say taking your life was considered ”noble” in a way, if it allowed you to die with greater dignity than letting the imposition of revolutionary judgement take it instead did. It was at least certainly a step up compared to before 1789, when suicide (through the Criminal Ordinance of 1670) was considered a crime which could lead to confiscation of property, opprobium cast on the victim’s family and even subjection of the courpse to various outrages, like dragging it through the street. To nuance this a bit, it is however worth recalling that this was only in theory, and that in practise, most of these penalties had ceased to be carried out already in the decades before the revolution, a period during which suicide, in the Enlightenent’s spirit of questioning everything, had also started getting discussed more and more. The word ”suicide” itself entered the French dictionary in 1734. Most of the enlightenment philosophes reflected on suicide and the ethics behind it. There’s also the widely spread The Sorrows of Young Werther that was first released in 1774. Furthermore, most revolutionaries were also steeped in the culture of Antiquity, where suicide was seen as an admirable response to political defeat, perhaps most notably those of Brutus and Cato the younger, big heroes of the revolutionaries. Over the course of the revolution, we find several patriotic artists depicting famous suicides of Antiquity — such as Socrates (whose death is considered by some to have been a sort of suicide) (1791) by David, The Death of Cato of Utica (1795) by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, and The death of Caius Gracchus (1798) by François Topino-Lebrun. According to historian Dominique Godineau, the 18th century saw ”the inscription [of suicide] in the social landscape, at least in large cities: it has become “public,” people talk about it, it is less hidden than at the beginning of the century,” and she therefore argues that the decision to decriminalize it in the reformed penal code (it didn’t state outright that suicide was now OK, but it no longer listed it as a crime) of 1791 wasn’t particulary controversial.

Furthermore, that committing suicide was more noble than facing execution was still far from an obvious, universal truth during the revolution. In his memoirs, Brissot does for example recall that, right after the insurrection of August 10, when he and other ”girondins” discussed what to do was an act of accusation to be issued against them, Buzot argued that ”the death on the scaffold was more courageous, more worthy for a patriot, and especially more useful for the cause of liberty” than committing suicide to avoid it. The feared news of their act of accusation did however arrive before the girondins had reached a definitive conclusion on what to do, leading to some fleeing (among them Buzot, who of course ironically ended up being one of the revolutionaries that ultimately chose suicide over the scaffold) and some calmly awaiting their fate. In her memoirs, Madame Roland did her too consider going to the scaffold with her head held high to be an act of virtue — ”Should I wait for when it pleases my executioners to choose the moment of my death and to augment their triumph by the insolent clamours of the mob to which I would be exposed? Certainly!” In his very last speech to the Convention, convinced that his enemies were rounding up on him, Robespierre exclaimed he would ”drink the hemlock,” a reference to the execution of Socrates. The girondin Vergniaud is also said to have carried poison on him but chosen to have go out with his friends on the scaffold, although I’ve not yet discovered what the source for this is. It can also be noted that the number of Convention deputies who let revolutionary justice have its course with them was still considerably higher than those who attempted to put an end to their days before the sentence could be carried out.

According to Patterns and prosecution of suicide in eighteenth-century Paris (1989) by Jeffrey Merrick, there was indeed tension regarding the rising amount of suicides in the decades leading up to the revolution. Merrick cites first and foremost the printer and bookseller Siméon Prosper Hardy, who in his journal Mes loisirs ou journal des evenements tels qu'ils parviennent a ma connaissance (1764-1789),  documented a total of 259 cases of Parisian suicides. Hardy saw these deaths as an unwelcome import from the English, who for their part were led to kill themselves due to ”the dismal climate, unwholesome diet, and excessive liberty.” He also blamed the suicides on "the decline of religion and morals," caused by the philosophes, who in their ”bad books” popularized English ways of thinking and undermined traditional values. He was not alone in drawing a connection between the suicides and the new ideas. According to Merrick, the clergy in general ”denounced the philosophes for legitimizing this unforgiveable crime against God and society, which they now associated with systematic unbelief more than the traditional diabolical temptation.” In practice, many parish priests did however still quietly bury the bodies of persons who killed themselves. The future revolutionary Louis Sébastien Mercier did on the other hand blame the government and its penchant for inflated prices and burdensome taxes for the alleged epidemic of suicides in his Tableau de Paris (1782-1783).

In La liberté ou la mort: mourir en député, 1792-1795 it is also established that there weren’t that many participants of the king that killed themselves once the wind started blowing in the wrong direction, but that is not to say they didn’t exist. As example is cited the case of a man who in April 1793 shot himself on the Place de la Révolution, before having written ”I die for you and your family” on a gravure representimg the head of Louis XVI. There’s also the case of Michel Peletier’s murderer Philippe Nicolas Marie de Pâris, royalist and former king’s guard, who, similar to Lidon, blew his brains out when the authorities had him cornered a week after the murder.

Sources:

Patterns and prosecution of suicide in eighteenth-century Paris (1989) by Jeffrey Merrick 

Pratiques du suicide à Paris pendant la Révolution française by Dominique Godineau

La liberté ou la mort: mourir en député, 1792-1795 (2015) by Michel Biard, chapter 5, ”Mourir en Romain,” le choix de suicide.

Choosing Terror (2014) by Marisa Linton, page 276-279, section titled ”Choosing how to die.”

[caseyzhang1996]

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort”

.

Long white hair cascades around Camille's visage like a veil of moonlit silk as he calmly aims his guns.

[iranondeaira]

La mort d’un amour est comme la mort d’une personne bien-aimée. Elle laisse le même chagrin, le même vide, le même refus de se résigner à ce vide. Même si on l’a attendue, causée, voulue par autodéfense ou bon sens ou besoin de liberté, lorsqu’elle arrive on se sent invalide. Mutilé. Il nous semble être resté avec un seul œil, une seule oreille, un seul bras, une seule jambe, un seul poumon, un demi-cerveau, et nous ne faisons rien d’autre qu’invoquer la moitié perdue de nous-mêmes : celui ou celle avec qui on se sentait entier.

- Oriana Fallaci

[coovieilledentelle]

Je ne changerai jamais mes amis fantastiques, ma vie merveilleuse, ma famille bien-aimée pour des cheveux moins gris ou un ventre plus plat. En vieillissant, je suis devenue plus amicale envers moi-même et moins critique envers moi-même.Je suis devenu mon ami…Je ne me blâme pas d'avoir mangé des biscuits supplémentaires, de ne pas avoir fait le lit ou d'avoir raté quelque chose de stupide dont je n'avais pas besoin. J'ai le droit d'être désordonnée, d'être extravagante. J'ai vu beaucoup de chers amis quitter ce monde trop tôt, avant de réaliser la grande liberté du vieillissement Qui m'en voudra si je décide de lire ou de jouer sur mon ordinateur jusqu'à quatre heures du matin et de dormir jusqu'à midi? Qui me critiquera de rester au lit ou devant la télé aussi longtemps que je le souhaite. Je vais danser avec ces merveilleux tubes des années 60 70 et 80 et si en même temps je veux pleurer pour un amour perdu …Si je veux, je marcherai le long de la plage en short trop allongé sur un corps en décomposition et plongerai dans les vagues avec abandon, malgré le regard pénalisant des autres . Ils vieilliront également. Je sais que parfois j'oublie, mais il y a des choses dans la vie qui devraient aussi être oubliées. Je me souviens des choses importantes. Bien sûr, au fil des ans, mon cœur s'est brisé. Mais les cœurs brisés nous donnent force, compréhension et compassion. Un cœur qui n'a jamais souffert est immaculé et stérile et ne connaîtra jamais la joie d'être imparfait. J'ai la chance d'avoir vécu assez longtemps pour avoir mes cheveux gris et mon rire juvénile gravés à jamais dans les sillons profonds de mon visage. Beaucoup n'ont jamais ri, beaucoup sont morts avant que leurs cheveux ne deviennent argentés.

En vieillissant, il est plus facile d'être positif. Vous vous souciez moins de ce que les autres pensent. Je ne me remets plus en question. J'ai gagné le droit de faire des erreurs. Donc, pour répondre à votre question, j'aime être vieux. J'aime la personne que je suis devenue. Je ne vivrai pas éternellement, mais tant que je serai encore là, je ne perdrai pas de temps à regretter ce qui a pu être ou à s'inquiéter de ce qui sera. Et si je le veux, je mangerai un dessert tous les jours. Avec du Champagne.

Que notre amitié ne soit jamais séparée, car elle vient du cœur !