#brount

[nietzsche813]

La liberté ou la mort, extrait

Robespierre jouait à lancer des branches à Brount avec Elisabeth, à quelques distances devant eux. Il courrait pour entraîner le molosse derrière lui, et jetait le bâton de toutes ses forces, ne se souciant pas de voir s'il risquait de tacher ses bas blancs de boue. Brount partait comme un fou avec ses grandes pattes désordonnées, la langue pendant sur le côté et la queue frétillante. Quand il revenait avec le morceau de bois, Elisabeth et Maximilien devaient s'escrimer à le lui récupérer et tiraient de toutes leurs forces pour le lui arracher de la gueule. Le jeu recommençait ensuite, pour la plus grande joie des trois participants.

Saint-Just marchait les bras croisés dans le dos, au rythme d'Eléonore.

-Eléonore, maintenant que nous sommes bons amis, puis-je me permettre une question?

La jeune fille lui sourit d'un air indulgent.

- Voyons la question.

Saint-Just se racla la gorge et fixa son regard sur la pointe de ses bottes.

- Eh bien... je ne comprends pas que tu ne sois pas amoureuse de lui.

Eléonore laissa échapper un petit rire. Elle ne paraissait pas particulièrement vexée ou embarrassée par cette question indiscrète.

-Et pourquoi cela ? demanda-t-elle.

Saint-Just redressa la tête et fit un geste de la main vague vers Brount qui s'était mis à aboyer joyeusement, et Elisabeth qui faisait semblant de jeter le bâton pour la troisième fois.

- Je ne sais pas, regarde le... Tout à l'heure il faisait un travail de géant pour la patrie, et maintenant il se contente d'une récompense si simple ! Jouer avec son chien, nourrir ses oiseaux, manger le potage de ta mère ce soir, lire quelques pages de Rousseau au coin du feu...

-... quelques oranges, une visite de son cher Saint-Just...

- Si nous parvenons à installer et à protéger notre république, il ne cherchera aucune récompense pour lui même. Il ne faudra pas davantage que ces quelques plaisirs que nous avons évoqués pour faire son bonheur. Quand on en vient à le connaitre, il est si doux, si sincère. Parfois, cela me noue le coeur quand j'y pense.

- Certainement, approuva Eléonore en venant prendre le bras d'Antoine, et c'est pour cela que mes parents le considèrent comme leur fils et moi comme mon frère. Le sang ne me le rendrait pas plus cher.

- Un frère, oui...Mais imagine le comme époux, ne serait-ce pas mieux encore ? La voix de Saint-Just s'était réduite à un murmure rêveur. Il est si loyal, si dévoué. Non vraiment, tu ne trouveras pas mieux que lui.

-Pour ce qui est du physique... commença Eléonore

- Du physique ! répéta-t-il, le cri qu'il ne réussit par à réprimer attirant un instant l'attention de Brount vers lui. Comment peux tu parler du physique face à une telle âme ! Et puis de toute façon la physionomie de Maximilien n'a rien de désagréable, regarde, il est petit certes, mais il a les mollets bien fait, une mine intelligente, des yeux verts, un joli nez...

- Tu ne trouves pas qu'il a un style un peu démodé?

- Maximilien s'en fiche des fariboles de la mode! Il prends soin de ses vêtement et il est toujours bien mis. On ne peut pas en dire autant des trois quarts des députés qui siègent à la Convention avec les cheveux gras et les bottes crottées. Son style est très respectable.

Eléonore se mit à rire de bon coeur devant l'air révolté de Saint-Just.

-Antoine... Si moi je ne suis pas amoureuse de lui, rien ne t'empêche de l'être, toi.

[citizentaleo]

When they meet again

[leverontdemain]

Robespierre and Brount 🍀🐕

[quercusfloreal]

I wonder if Robespierre get Brount as a puppy, thinking "oh what a little cute puppy, I could take him with me, I'm sure he won't take a lot of space". Then he ends up with a huge ball of love months later.

[usergreenpixel]

Thank you, @taleon-arts ! They’re adorable!!!

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

Brount watching the Thermidor executions...

[fuwbuki]

Maximilien, Saint Just and Brount. Theres a parade on the street. If you want to make this seem sad just imagine its days before 9th Thermidor.

I really dont know how Maximiliens room realistically looked like so i had some freedom with it : ) 

(it probably would have been more clean)

[monimarat]

Portrait of Robespierre and Brount from the always amazing @taleon-arts ❤️❤️❤️

[robespapier]

There's someone selling dog couches in Arras' street market

A very Robespierre reference

Not the royal part though

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Do you know anything about Brount?

When did Maxime first meet/get him, and what happened to Brount after Thermidor? ;0;

Good questions! I may have the answer to the first one, but unfortunately not the second…

The first sign of what could be Brount is in a letter Robespierre adressed to ”a young girl” 6 June 1788 (incidentally, it’s the same letter that was put up for sale a few days ago). In it he writes ”Is the puppy (petit chien) you are raising for my sister as pretty as the model you showed me when I passed through Bélhune? Whatever it is, we will always welcome it with distinction and pleasure. We can even say that, however ugly it may be, it will always be lovely.” Both historians JM Thompson, Peter Mcphee and Hervé Leuwers have concluded that the ”young girl” must have been one Mlle Dehay, who also gave Robespierre a cage of canaries in 1782. If the puppy here actually is Brount, it means that he 1, was born 1788 and thus six years old when his master died, and 2, was originally meant to be Charlotte’s dog.

After this, not much is known. In 1791, Charles-Engelbert Oelsner reported the following anecdote (cited in Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life by Peter Mcphee), but is impossible to know if the dog in question is Brount:

At Madame de Kéralio’s I have seen him (Robespierre) hold himself apart for an hour, playing with a big dog.

Élisabeth Lebas, our most authentic source on the subject, only has this to say in her memoirs:

He (Robespierre) had a dog named Brount whom he loved a lot, the poor animal was very attached to him.

Inside the work in which Élisabeth’s memoirs were published, Stéfane-Pol (Paul Coutant), it’s author, also adds the details of 1, Robespierre letting Brount bath in the Seine, and 2, Robespierre bringing Brount with him when going for walks with the Duplay family on the Champ-Élysées. However, these may just be embellishments, considering both Élisabeth and her son Philippe died before Coutant was even born, and thus hardly could have shared them with him.

The historian Hamel gives us even more details, claiming to know both what dog breed Brount was as well as when Robespierre brought him from Arras to Paris:

One of the family's great amusements consisted in long walks on the Champs-Élysées. Robespierre did not miss out when he had the time. He was followed by a Great Dane named Brount, whom he had brought back from his last trip to Artois and whom he loved very much. This dog was very attached to his master, of whom he was the assiduous companion. Lying at Maximilien's feet when the latter was working in his room, he gazed at him with a sad and gentle air, as if he had divined his anxious thoughts. When they went out, Brount showed his joy by barking and gambolling; he was a friend, a friend always feted and pampered by the young girls.

Hamel was born 1826 and did claim to have met (and even danced) with Élisabeth Lebas, so this sounds somewhat more authentic, even though I also don’t think it needs saying that a lot in Hamel’s account is embellishent rather than fact.

In his Robespierre (2014) Hervé Leuwers also writes the following about Robespierre’s last weeks alive, citing page 408 of Henri Guillemin’s Robespierre - Politique et mystique, (1987) (a book which I unfortunately don’t own) as the source:

[Robespierre’s] absence from the Committee is coupled with a long silence at the Convention. A far cry, however, from the illness that kept him from all places of power the previous winter; one sees him walking in the meadows on the banks of the Seine, with his dog Brount.

These are all authentic sources I know about regarding Brount. I also know two apocryphal anecdotes in which he’s mentioned, one originating from Alphonse Esquiros Histoire des Montagnards, in which Robespierre, Éleonore and Brount go for a walk on the eve of 8 thermidor, and one from Charles Henri Sanson’s diary, in which Robespierre and Brount meet Sanson and his nieces while out on a walk (in the latter one, Brount gets described as a black and white spotted dog).

As for what happened to Brount after thermidor, I have no idea. The Duplays were all arrested shortly after Robespierre’s execution, and unless they managed to give away Brount or brought him with them to prison (the latter of which I don’t know if you could actually do or not) I doubt they ever saw him again. When the first of them was released it would have already been way too late for Brount had he been left in their apartment. With that said, this can hardly have been the first time a pet got left behind when someone got arrested, so it seems likely there would be some sort of rule for what to do when that happened. Maybe Brount was let loose and lived the rest of his days as a street dog? Or maybe he was adopted by someone sent to arrest the Duplays? although here we can also ask outselves if ”Robespierre’s former dog” was such a great title to possess if you wanted to survive thermidor… Pick whatever makes you sleep the best at night I suppose.

[patientsisavertu]

Yes, nice to see the dog if nothing else.

I watched the documentary Les 76 derniers jours de Marie-Antoinette. It was not bad, I think. Although their Maxime looks like a random guy with a wig on, he has his Brount with him. 😌 Nice to see them together.

[citizentaleo]

Happy birthday to the man who saved me from death ✨🙏🏽❤️

[insanedoritos]

a really cute Maximilien Robespierre from La Guerre des Sambres - Maxime & Constance by Yslaire drawned by Boidin

[jeskerthefool]

Conversations with a dead man.

[monimarat]

So much time in Saint-Just et La Force des Choses is spent in Robespierre’s rooms that it was really a missed opportunity for Brount.

Robespierre ignoring Barras and Fouché by playing with the dog.

Brount affectionately attached to Camille and making Saint-Just jealous.

Robespierre giving his glasses a break by having something else to anxiously fuss with.

[citizentaleo]

And some from 2023 ☺️

The last one if a fanart of a customer’s OC