#Mucius Scaevola

[illustratus]

Mucius Scaevola in the Presence of Lars Porsenna by Matthias Stom

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (1/19/23) Matthias Stom (Dutch, fl. 1615–1649) Mucius Scaevola in the presence of Lars Porsenna (c. 1642) Oil on canvas, 167.5 x 220 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

In the dazzling comet's tail of painters called the Caravaggisti - the admirers of Caravaggio who kept alive his flame for more than a century - Matthias Stomer stands out for his considered temperament and cool execution. Almost an academic of the movement, though never an imitative hack, Stomer built a body of work on the basis of subjects like this. Antiquity in general and Roman history in particular were his primary source material, reflecting a classicism which had little to do with Caravaggio's own almost exclusively biblical interests. Stomer's 'Mucius Scaevola in the presence of Lars Porsenna' could be seen to anticipate the high moral tone, and consequent sober rendition, found in the works of later neoclassical figures such as David. 

[richo1915]

I am a Roman,' he said to the king; 'my name is Gaius Mucius. I came here to kill you - my enemy. I have as much courage to die as to kill. It is our Roman way to do and to suffer bravely. Nor am I alone in my resolve against your life; behind me is a long line of men eager for the same honor. Brace yourself, if you will, for the struggle - a struggle for your life from hour to hour, with an armed enemy always at your door. That is the war we declare against you: you need fear no action in the battlefield, army against army; it will be fought against you alone, by one of us at a time.'

Porsena in rage and alarm ordered the prisoner to be burnt alive unless he at once divulged the plot thus obscurely hinted at, whereupon Mucius, crying: 'See how cheap men hold their bodies when they care only for honor!' thrust his right hand into the fire which had been kindled for a sacrifice, and let it burn there as if he were unconscious of the pain. Porsena was so astonished by the young man's almost superhuman endurance that he leapt to his feet and ordered his guards to drag him from the altar. 'Go free,' he said; 'you have dared to be a worse enemy to yourself than to me. I should bless your courage, if it lay with my country to dispose of it. But, as that cannot be, I, as an honorable enemy, grant you pardon, life, and liberty.'

'Since you respect courage,' Mucius replied, as if he were thanking him for his generosity, 'I will tell you in gratitude what you could not force from me by threats. There are three hundred of us in Rome, all young like myself, and all of noble blood, who have sworn an attempt upon your life in this fashion. It was I who drew the first lot; the rest will follow, each in his turn and time, until fortune favor us and we have got you.'

The release of Mucius (who was afterwards known as Scaevola, or the Left-Handed Man, from the loss of his right hand) was quickly followed by the arrival in Rome of envoys from Porsena. The first attempt upon his life, foiled only by a lucky mistake, and the prospect of having to face the same thing again from every one of the remaining conspirators, had so shaken the king that he was coming forward with proposals for peace.

Titus Livius

[homunculus-argument]

The ancient Romans didn't really care that much about distinguishing legends from historical records, a cool story is a cool story regardless of how much truth there is to it. Anyway, this one guy, named Gaius Mucius Cordus, later given the cognomen Scaevola - "left-handed", because ancient Romans weren't all that familiar with steel, and "balls of steel" was not an available option. Anyway the story goes that as a young soldier, he sneaked into an enemy' camp to assassinate their king. The attempt failed and he was captured. Looking death in the eye, he figured that the best course of action would be to survive by sheer audacity.

So he looked the king he just failed to assassinate in the eyes, told him that yeah I came here to kill you, and you can kill me now but you better get just as lucky every single time, because there's like 300 guys beside me who volunteered for this mission. And then he stuck his entire right arm into a pyre that was within reach, standing perfectly still in place while letting his hand burn, solidly keeping eye contact with the Etruscan king the entire time, just as a way of going "this is what I am capable of doing. This is what I can and will do to myself just to flex on you. The fuck do you think you could do that would harm me."

And the king was sufficiently freaked out by this and decided to just go alright, fair enough, you win this one, by all means please do fuck off, seriously just get the fuck out of my camp. So Mucius was freed and allowed to return to Rome, alive and unharmed if one does not count the collateral damage of one sword arm. And the Etruscan king came to the conclusion that whatever the fuck the Romans have going on, he wants nothing to do with that, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate peace.

Anyway, that's also vaguely how I feel every time I see a tumblr user whose screen name is something like "autistic-faggot". I'm gay myself and have nothing but respect for people on the spectrum, but if all I know about this person is that this isn't just what they're braced to be called, but what the have specifically chosen to name themselves, and how they prefer to be addressed, you can't tell them shit that would even make them blink.

[antonio-m]

"Gaius Mucius Scaevola", c.1858 by Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). Swiss artist resident in France. oil on canvas

[lux-vitae]

Mucius Scaevola in the Presence of Lars Porsenna (detail) by Matthias Stomer (c. 1640-45)

[nesiacha]

Life and Fate of Sophie Momoro, née Fournier, and Her Childrens According to Certain Information

Festival of Reason where Sophie Momoro played a key role during certain ceremonies

Sophie Fournier was born in 1766 in Auxerre, where her family was involved in the creation of printing typefaces. Her grandfather had purchased the Blé foundry, one of the most important in France. On her mother’s side, the Gando family specialized in printing typefaces for musical scores.

Given her family’s professions, it was natural for Sophie Fournier to cross paths with Antoine François Momoro, a printer. They married on January 18, 1786, and on December 13, their only child, Jean-Antoine Momoro, was born. Antoine-François Momoro was initially a cautious revolutionary in 1789 but later dedicated himself fully to the cause until his arrest and execution. Although Sophie remained in the background, it is believed she remained loyal to her husband during his most difficult times, such as his arrest following the Champ de Mars massacre in 1791.

It wasn’t until late 1793 that Sophie Momoro began to play a public political role. On November 10, 1793, during the Festival of Reason, a woman portrayed the Goddess of Reason, wearing a Phrygian cap and carried on a stretcher by men. Patriotic songs echoed throughout the event. There is some doubt about whether Sophie played the role of the Goddess of Reason during this ceremony (some think it was Maillard, an opera actress, or Mademoiselle Aubry). However, Duquesne notes that since the ceremony was presided over by Antoine François Momoro, it is highly probable that it was Sophie Momoro.

On December 5, 1793, at the Temple of Reason, Sophie Momoro was clearly identified as the Goddess of Reason, playing an important role in the de-Christianization campaigns. Sophie was carried on a stretcher, then placed on a platform, with the crowd proceeding to the Convention. On the way back, she was again placed on a stretcher, but due to someone losing balance, she fell and broke her arm. Another notable event during the ceremony involved the impromptu burning of wooden statues of Saint Sulpice and Saint Peter. The president of the Mucius Scaevola section (formerly the Luxembourg section) Ceyrat declared, "If this God exists, let him thunder and strike me down with a bolt of his thunder!" When no thunder struck, he concluded, "He does not thunder, therefore his existence is a chimera."

Despite her injury, Sophie continued to participate in similar ceremonies of dechristianization . When portraying the Goddess of Reason, she would reportedly wear white and carry a pike (considering the struggle for revolutionary women to bear arms, this shows a certain determination on Sophie’s part).

One of Sophie Momoro’s other political actions was presiding over a reconciliation between former Catholic priests and Protestants. According to Jean-Pierre Duquesne, she was surrounded by "two or three hundred young girls dressed in white, beautiful to behold, with provocative looks, low-cut dresses, and crowned with oak leaves." During this de-Christianization ceremony, it was declared that the two religions had only survived through "clerical charlatanism according to theirs words. Thus, Sophie not only supported her husband but also demonstrated significant militancy herself, like many wives of revolutionaries who remain too often in the shadow of their husbands.

However, this marked the beginning of the end for her marriage. Following his involvement in an attempted insurrection and the complex context of 1794 with factional struggles, Antoine François Momoro was executed as part of the "Exaggerated" faction alongside Charles Philippe Ronsin, Jacques René Hébert, François-Nicolas Vincent, and others. He was falsely accused, among other things, of attempting to sabotage supplies and was allegedly (likely falsely) claimed to have amassed 190,000 livres, despite being known as an incorruptible revolutionary who lived very modestly. The saddest part is that, although he died bravely, his heart must have been broken knowing that his wife had been arrested and risked following him to the guillotine.

In prison, Sophie Momoro was inconsolable when she learned of her husband’s death from a man named Jean Baptiste Laboureau, who escaped the Hébertist execution by implicating, among others, Antoine-François Momoro. Laboureau’s remarks were either highly insensitive or downright cruel: "The Goddess of Reason was not at all reasonable; during the day, she lamented greatly over the accident that happened to her husband." Unlike Marie-Françoise Goupil and Lucile Desmoulins, she was not executed. Sophie Momoro was released on May 27, 1794, but was left without means and had to raise her son alone. Since Momoro was not rehabilitated ( and he will never be), she could not request the return of his assets, and even so, her husband had left very little inheritance. On August 25, 1794, she requested financial assistance and the return of Antoine-François Momoro’s printing presses. Both requests were denied by the State.

There is a point of divergence between Jean-Pierre Duquesne and Albert Mathiez. In 1795, a family council appointed Sophie Momoro as her son’s guardian. However, Momoro’s father was appointed as substitute guardian. According to Albert Mathiez, Momoro’s father, a shoemaker, had died before his son’s execution. Mathiez stated, "At that time, Momoro’s father, who had worked as a shoemaker, was already dead. But his mother, who had taken a job as a servant after her husband's death, was still alive." According to reports from the commissioners of the Besançon district, Momoro’s mother died shortly after her son, likely of grief. The report reads: "Today, Germinal 11, Year II of the Republic, at eleven o'clock in the morning, we, Jean François Denisot, member of the general council of the Besançon district, appointed by order of the same district on this day to affix seals at the home of the mother of the named Momoro, who has just suffered the death penalty in Paris, and having with us François-Joseph Bernard as our secretary clerk, we went to the home of citizen Forno, a war commissioner, where the said Momoro was a cook. There, we invited citizen Forno to show us the room of the said Momoro, to which she replied that she had died the previous night but was ready to introduce us to the room she occupied." I believe Momoro’s father was alive, and Albert Mathiez likely made an error, but it is possible that the opposite is true.

Sophie Momoro remarried on November 7, 1796, to a military man named Jacques-Marie Botot, who had been appointed commander of the Seine gendarmerie in 1793 (one of his apparent roles was escorting the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, to the scaffold). In 1795, he was appointed brigade leader. Together, they had a daughter in 1798 named Stéphanie Joséphine Adèle. Sophie’s mother also came to live with the couple and their children. However, the marriage began to falter. With the rise of Bonaparte, who was suspicious of Jacques-Marie Botot, he was appointed brigadier general and retired by the First Consul. Some accused Botot of becoming difficult and bitter in their marriage, while others believed it was due to Sophie taking a lover, the architect Jean Joseph Clotilde Lelouche. According to Georges Lenôtre, Botot’s disgrace precipitated the end of their marriage: personally, I don’t think there is any evidence of opportunism on Sophie’s part. After all, it seems she remained faithful to Momoro even in the hardest times. Perhaps Botot’s bitterness over his disgrace under Bonaparte, combined with Sophie taking a lover, led to their incompatibility over the long term. Sophie retained custody of her son, while Botot retained custody of their daughter.

Sophie moved in with Lelouche and gave birth to a daughter in 1806 named Joséphine-Clotilde-Sophie. Although he never married her, Lelouche acknowledged his daughter. However, when Sophie died two years later, it was not her lover who reported her death, but her son, Jean-Antoine. Apparently, she and her son were facing new financial difficulties. Another strange fact: despite her civil status clearly stating she was a widow of Momoro and divorced from Botot, Jacques Marie Botot did not mention his divorce status in his civil records, even though she had been dead for 14 years.

Despite their parents’ divorce, Stéphanie Joséphine Adèle Botot seems to have remained close to her brother, Jean-Antoine Momoro. She died on January 15, 1860. Joséphine Clotilde Sophie married a history painter on February 4, 1830, named Henri Louis Hippolyte Poterle.

Jean-Antoine Momoro never abandoned his mother, and it seems clear he never renounced his father and remained proud of his parents. He always signed his name as Momoro-Fournier in the registers. This was bold, as Momoro was never rehabilitated, and in some cases, family members temporarily abandoned the family names of unrehabilitated revolutionaries (understandably so, as life must have been hard enough for them), but he also signed with his mother’s surname. He always lived in the neighborhoods where his father had been active when he was in Paris. He worked as a civil servant. According to Joseph Marie Quérard, he was an "assistant chief at the Ministry of Public Works" and a "playwright" with three comedies, though it is unclear if they were published or simply performed. He married a woman from Nantes named Séraphine Emilie Nicolas, and they had a daughter, Marie-Adélaide, who married a postal worker. Jean-Antoine Momoro died in 1868.

P.S.: I mentioned some similarities and differences between Camille Desmoulins and Antoine-François Momoro in this post: Camille Desmoulins and Antoine-François Momoro. It seems that their sons (Horace-Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Antoine Momoro) also had in common a sense of pride in their parents.

Sources:

Albert Mathiez

Jean-Pierre Duquesne

[trialsinthelateromanrepublic]

trial of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio

date: 132 BCE charge: senatorial quaestio [inquiry] (homicide of Ti. Gracchus) defendant: P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio cos. 138 (ORF 38.III [addenda A.2]) prosecutor: M. Fulvius Flaccus pr. by 128 other: P. Mucius Scaevola cos. 133 rejected as juror

Cic. de Orat. 2.285; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 21.2; see also V. Max. 5.3.2e Magie, RRAM 2.1033, n. 1

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Pauline Léon timeline

A timeline over the 70 year old life of Pauline Leclerc née Léon, based primarily on the article Pauline Léon, une républicaine révolutionnaire (2006) by Claude Guillon.

-

19 October 1767 — Mathurine Téholan and Pierre Paul Léon are married in the parish of Saint-Severin in Paris. Pierre Paul runs a small chocolate business on 356 rue de Grenelle. The couple settles on rue du Basq.

28 September 1768 — birth of Anne Pauline Léon, the couple’s first child. They later have four more children — Antoine Paul Louis (1772-1835), Marie Reine Antoinette, (1778), François Paul Mathurin (1779) as well as a child who’s sex and year of birth remains unknown. Pauline later describes her father as: ”a philosopher” and adds: ”If his lack of fortune did not allow him to give us a very brilliant education, at least he left us with no prejudices.”

1784 — death of Pierre Paul Léon. Pauline, aged sixteen, now starts helping her mother with keeping the chocolate business running in order to provide for the family.

14 July 1789 — Fall of the Bastille. Pauline claims to upon this event have felt ”the liveliest enthusiam, and although a woman I did not remain idle; I was seen from morning to evening animating the citizens against the artisans of tyranny, urging them to despise and brave aristocrats, barricading streets, and inciting the cowardly to leave their homes to come to the aid of the fatherland in danger.”

February 1791 — Pauline is introduced to several popular societies in Paris. She herself claims she would frequent the Cordelier Club up until 1794 (though there doesn’t seem to exist any trace of her in the debates held there), the Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes (where again, we have few documents that mention any direct activity from her part), as well as the section of Mucius Scaevola. The same month, Pauline defenestrates a bust of Lafayette “at Fréron’s”. It seems unlikey for this attack to have been aimed at the journalist Stanislas Fréron, who frequently denounced Lafayette in his l’Orateur du Peuple, but rather his mother Anne Françoise Fréron, who handled the publishing of the royalist paper L’Ami du Roi.

21 June 1791 — Pauline, her mother and their neighbor Constance Évrard are near the Palais Royal loudly protesting the king’s ”infamous treason” (his flight) when they, according to her, are ”almost assassinated by Lafayette’s mouchards” and are saved by other sans-culottes who manage to snatch them ”from the hands of these monsters” (National guardsmen)

17 July 1791 — Pauline takes part in the demonstration on the Champ-de-Mars. On the way home, she uses her fists to defend a friend against the family of a national guard. This last incident is witnessed by Constance Evrard, another sans-culotte woman and friend of Pauline, who reports it during an interrogation. This is the first conserved trace of any militant activities from Pauline.

Late February 1792 — l’Adresse individuelle à l’Assemblée nationale par des citoyennes de la capitale, a petition regarding women’s right to bear arms, is penned down. It was most likely written by Pauline herself, seeing as the first signature on the bottom of the handwritten version kept in the National Archives, as well as the only one appearing in the version printed by order of the Assembly, is “fille Léon.” After Pauline’s name about 310 more follow, including that of her mother and many other daughter-mother couples. The petition is first read out before the Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, which, under the presidency of Tallien, orders its printing and distribution.

March 9 1792 — the Patriotic Society of the Luxembourg section sends a delegation to the Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes to request affiliation. The latter club grants the request and appoints five auditors to attend the former’s next meeting, among which are three women: Pauline Léon, Constance Evrard and Marie-Charlotte Hardon. Pauline will actively participate in the recruitment of members for the Patriotic Society, personally presenting or supporting at least seven candidates between October 1792 and September 1793

June 1792 — Pauline, along with many other men and women, signs Pétition individuelle au corps législatif pour lui demander la punition de tous les conspirateurs that calls for ”a quick vengeance” against monarchist ministers.

10 August 1792 — Pauline takes part in the Insurrection of August 10. She describes her activities in the following way: "On August 10, 1792, after spending part of the night in the Fontaine-de-Grenelle section, I joined the next day, armed with a pike, the ranks of the citizens of this section to go and fight the tyrant and his satellites. It was only at the request of almost all the patriots that I consented to give up my weapon to a sans-culotte; I gave it to him, however, only on the condition that he would use it well.”

December 1792 — Pauline, together with 3 other women and 88 men, signs the Adresse au peuple par la Société patriotique de la section du Luxembourg which demands the death of the king and pronounces threats against eventual monarchist deputies.

2 February 1793 — During a session at the Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, Pauline is welcomed as mandated by the Defenders of the Republic of the 84 departments. At the same session, Pauline’s future husband Théophile Leclerc (1771-1820) is charged with writing a petition against commodity money. This is the first known meeting between the two.

3 February 1793 — during the session at The Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, ”Citoyenne Léon” takes the floor to continue a denounciation against Dumouriez that Hébert has just made. Le Créole patriote reports that ”she thinks, like him, that [Dumouriez] is nothing more than an intrigant; she accuses him of several things, notably the persecution he inflicted on two patriotic battalions unjustly accused by him.”

10 February 1793 — Le Créole patriote reports the following regarding the session at The Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes:

Citoyenne Léon informs of an important denunciation made to the Commune and to the society of defenders of the republic, one and indivisible of the 84 departments. This denunciation, signed, states that on the 6th of the month a dinner was held at the house of Garat, minister of justice, provisionally exercising the functions of minister of interior, where Brissot, Barbaroux, Louvet and other noirs, composing the great and famous right side of the National Convention; plus, Bournonville, new minister of war. She calls on the society to monitor the latter, and asks that two of its members be sent to that of the Jacobins to communicate to them this fact, to which the most serious attention must be paid. Boussard makes the motion that the president be instructed to write to Bournonville, so that he can give the company explanations on this subject. These three proposals are adopted.

At the Jacobin Club the same day, ”a citoyenne,” in the name of the Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, makes the following intervention: ”Citizens, I denounce to you Garat, minister of justice, who last Wednesday had thirty people to dinner, among which were Brissot, Barbaroux, Louvet and Beurnonville. The patriots do not have entry to this minister, and Brissot comes and goes there all the time.” It is very likely this speaker was Pauline.

17 February 1793 — Le Créole patriote reports that, during the session at The Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes, ”citoyenne Léon reads a denunciation from Citizen Godchaux against General Félix Wemphen. Several members believe that this denunciation is well founded, and urge the society to tear off the mask from all the intriguers.”

10 May 1793 — Pauline is a co-founder of the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women (Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires or Société des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires de Paris), a club which only admits women as members and holds its meetings at the libary of the Jacobins, rue Saint-Honoré. Claire Lacombe, who often gets mentioned as another co-founder, actually doesn’t have her first attested appearance as a member of the society until June 26.  Already on May 12, the club presents itself at the Jacobins, proposing to arm patriotic women between ages 18 and 50 in order to organize them against the Vendée. A week later, May 19, a delegation made up of members from both the Cordeliers and Revolutionary and Republican Women present themselves before the Jacobins yet again, asking for the arrest of all suspect people, the establishment of both revolutionary tribunals in all departments and a revolutionary sans-culotte army in every town, an act of accusation against the girondins, the extermination of “the stockbrokers, the hoarders and the selfish merchants” who are responsible for a conspiracy attempting to starve the people, that the revolutionary army of Paris be increased to 40,000 men, that land be distributed to the soldiers, as well as the send forth of the petition to the Convention. Though Pauline’s presence can be supposed for both of these occasions, we don’t have any hard evidence for it.

2 June 1793 — Pauline leads a delegation from the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women wishing to be admitted to the Convention, carrying a request in her own handwriting. They are however quickly forgotten in the tumult caused by the Insurrection of May 31, which this day ends with 22 girondins being put under house arrest. During this same insurrection, several Revolutionary and Republican Women are arrested, and Pauline, as president of the Society, signs a warrant by which they demand the liberation of one of them, detained for having threatened three men with a knife.

June 1793 — Pauline is the author of a denounciation against the grocer Le Doux, rue du Sépulcre, accused of “bad comments,” mainly consisting of complains about the looting. We don’t know if the denounciation had any consequences.

9 July 1793 — Le Réglement de la Société des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires de Paris is published. The document is signed by president Rousaud and four secretaires: Potheau, Monier, Dubreuil och Pauline Léon. 

July 10 1793 — Pauline goes to the Jacobin club, where she, ”in the name of the Revolutionary and Republican Women, presents a petition demanding the exclusion of nobles from all employments.”

July 20 1793 — A Délibération de la Société des Républicaines révolutionnaires, relative à l’érection d’un obélisque à la mémoire de Marat, sur la place du Carrousel, is signed by Pauline. The text is read at the Jacobins on July 26, by a deputation from the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women.

July 31 1793 — Réglement de la Société des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires de Paris is published. The document is signed by the president, Rousaud, and four secretaries: Potheau, Monier, Dubreuil and Pauline Léon.

15 August 1793 — At the Jacobin club, ”citoyenne Léon, at the head of a deputation from the Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women, comes to request assimilation and correspondence for said Society. She also asks that the Jacobins contribute to the costs of the obelisk erected in Marat’s honor.”

30 October 1793 — Jean Pierre André Amar, member of the Committee of General Security, announces the dissolution of the Society of Revolutionary Women to the National Convention.

12 November 1793 — the marriage contract between Pauline Léon and Théophile Leclerc is signed. Through it, we see that the husband brings property valued at 300 livres, while the wife holds 1000 livres consisting of both money and effects. Pauline was in other words richer than Leclerc. She declares to after her marriage have returned to the chocolate making business and ”devoted myself entirely to the care of my household and given the example of conjugal love and the domestic virtues which are the basis of love of the homeland.”

March 17 1794 — Pauline joins Leclerc at La Fère (Aisne), where the latter is mobilizing.

April 3 1794 — the Leclerc couple is arrested on orders given by the Committee of General Security. They are taken to Paris and locked up in the Luxembourg prison three days later.

4 July 1794 — At the Luxembourg prison, Pauline either writes or dictates Précis de la conduite révolutionnaire de dame Pauline Léon, femme Leclerc, which is adressed to the Committee of General Security. It is from this document we learn almost all the details regarding her militant activities and private life. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find it published in full.

5 August 1794 — Pauline writes to ”sensible Tallien” and pleads for the cause of ”800 imprisoned people.” One day later she adresses herself to to ”the representatives” and asks them to at least consider a prompt examination of their case. Pauline claims that Leclerc and Pierre-François Réal were imprisoned for having "collected evidence against the accomplices of the tyrant Robespierre who were to have their throats slit." The following day, the two men are brought before the Committee of General Security. Réal is immediately set free, Pauline and Théophile joins him on August 22.

22 July 1804 — Pauline writes the following letter (cited in full within the article Un sans-culotte parisien en l’an XII: François Léon, frère de Pauline Léon (1982) by Michael David Sibalis) to Réal, by now one of those in charge of the general police, asking for the liberation of her younger brother François Paul Mathurin, imprisoned since three and a half months back for having written and published leaflets critical of Napoleon. Through the letter, we learn about some things that have happened in her life during the ten years since the last trace of her:

4 Thermidor [year 12] Monsieur, A month ago I presented a petition to the Grand Judge; at the same time I had the honor of writing to you, to request the release of my brother, named François Léon, imprisoned in the Bicêtre for a bad verse; I would ask for your indulgence, today I appeal to your justice; four months of such harsh detention had to atone for his fault; moreover his friend guilty of the same extravagance, since of two verses, one wrote the first and the other the second, was released; my brother is not more guilty, perhaps he is less; his delicacy did not allow him to justify himself at the expense of his friend; which certainly does not deserve punishment. Based on this, Monsieur, I believe I have the right to ask for his release; and I have the firm confidence that you will grant it to us; if you could still deign to think of his mother, who is old and more punished than him. This poor woman is exhausted trying to help and console him. She who needs help for herself, I am not talking to you about the grief her family is experiencing at the loss of my time (which is precious since it must be used to feed my son and relieve my mother), having, Monsieur, the advantage of having known you, I think you will not disdain these considerations. Salut and respect, Femme Leclerc Teacher (Instritutrice) Rue Jean Robert No. 4

François will be set free and leave Paris, the police having labeled him as a ”pronounced anarchist, difficult to correct.” In his interrogation, held May 2 1804 (it too cited in full within Un sans-culotte parisien en l’an XII…) he reveals that he is a tailor living alone on rue du Vieux Colombier N. 744 and ”very republican.” François’ accomplice Jean Sorret did in his interrogation claim that his friend was ”a pronounced jacobin, as is the rest of his family.”

October 5 1838 — death of Pauline in Bourbon-Vendée, rue de Bordeaux, one week after her seventieth birthday. She had moved there to settle with her sister Marie Reine Antoinette and her family somewhere between 1812 and 1835. 

[thatswhywelovegermany]

für jemanden die Hand ins Feuer legen

literally: to put your hand in the fire for someone

to vouch for someone with full confidence

Origin: Presumably in reference to the trial by fire, in which one's own innocence had to be proven. According to legend, Gaius Mucius Scaevola saved Rome by burning his hand over an open fire and greatly impressed his opponents with the courage he demonstrated.

[catilinas]

do you think lucius licinius crassus and either publius mucius scaevola cos133 or quintus mucius scaevola pontifex cos95 or quintus mucius scaevola augur cos117 or maybe all of them explored each others bodies

[illustratus]

Gaius Mucius Scaevola thrusting his right Hand into the Fire

by Antonio Campi

[valend]

didn't Ron chernow basically disprove the idea that Hamilton was referring to that savius when calling burr that?

I’m assuming this is what you’re referring to. Now, Chernow did mention the nickname but he didn’t really disprove anything. I mentioned this in the comments of the original post as well but Chernow basically claims that three classicists just “convinced” him that Hamilton wasn’t referring to that Savius. But who else could he be referring to then? Besides, we see in the same letter Hamilton spelling “Scaevola” as “Scavola” (referring either to Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur or Gaius Mucius Scaevola, personally I think it’s the latter since GMS was a man renowned for his bravery and valour and we see him connected to G. Washington). So it would make sense for Hamilton to spell Saevius Plautus as Savius. Aside from that, Chernow doesn’t say what the classicists said to dissuade him and we’ve seen time and time again Chernow pretty much defending Hamilton regarding most things so I wouldn’t really be surprised if he’s doing that again here. And there really isn’t anyone else that I can think of with the name Savius or Saevius except for Plautus Saevius.

[villainessbian]

"I should check my followers for bots to block & report"

"WHY THE FUCK IS MUCIUS SCAEVOLA THE ROMAN ANTIQUITY HERO FOLLOWING ME"

[venustapolis]

Mucius Scaevola in front of Porsenna (Rubens, 1626-8)

[antonio-m]

"Mucius Scaevola”, c.1858, by Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). Swiss painter. oil on canvas