#im sorry Im not an expert I cant rly say vm

[theorahsart]

I wanted to explain why I disagree with anon in a post because I feel like the discussion raises really interesting points about queer history! (Which have probably been talked about before! But I've been thinking about queer history a lot recently).

I understand and respect their pov, except maybe the thing about it all being from those two movies, cos whenever I see ppl discuss Saintspierre they normally refer to various excerpts from history books/letters as opposed to those two movies.

I think for me, this idea of 'theres no proof it was anything more than friendship' is really interesting and something I struggle to agree with when you frame in context of the queer experience, both in modern day and in history.

Starting off with my own experience- as someone who's in a gay-ace relationship I'm confronted with this whole 'its nothing more than friendship' idea frequently (even more than the average Ace couple, because I made a book about it 😅) I definitely experience a love, devotion and intense affinity for my partner that's just on a whole different level to any other friendship in my life. And yet, because we don't do anything above holding hands, cuddling, kiss on the cheek- our feelings and relationship is frequently denied by ppl, who have a very specific idea in their mind about what both a relationship and gay romance looks like.

From a history pov I sometimes see this similar level of applying very specific ideas of what relationships look like onto people. I'd want to encourage people to let go of their static ideas of what relationships look like- not just so that you can see new perspectives on history, but also so that you can think about how you might apply the 'queer experience' of being impacted by some kind of 'otherness', onto history too.

Ive seen queer historians talk alot about this, and I think this is smth that can be applied to Saint-Just's and Robespierre's relationship.

For me personally esp when looking at Robespierre, putting all labels aside, there is definite potential of there being a 'queer experience'.

I don't feel like I can say anything with certainty because I haven't done much research into the culture of the time regards marriage etc And I don't know enough about how people felt *at the time* about Robespierre's lack of relationships specifically, but the fact he wasn't married well into his 30s, and the fact that post-death people took time to comment on this and use it to make judgements on his character, definitely for me can be labelled as a 'queer experience', and is therefore worth investigating.

Regards Saint-Just, I feel like I haven't done enough research on him specifically so I can't say vm about it. But personally it's hard for me to imagine that he died for Robespierres 'ideas' only. Lots of people shared their values and ideas at the time, and if Saint-Just's biggest motivation was for the ideas Robespierre embodied, he surely would've tried to stay alive so that those ideas could keep being pushed.

I understand the angle anon is coming from, but Saint-Just's final choice seems more complicated than that, considering the days leading up to his choice too (in which he was working towards compromise with those of clashing ideas).

From a personal pov, he seemed genuinely broken and so upset upon seeing Robespierre suffering, like much more so than anyone else involved in the situation, and wanted to take a huge risk for him, which says a lot to me.

On one last note, if we're gonna discuss what is considered friendship and not friendship in the C18th/19th. I read this interesting article last week discussing 'romantic friendships', a term used in regency times that undoubtedly tried to define smth that was more than friendship, without having to imply anything that could put such friendships in jepordy:

My takeaway from this is that just as much as we in recent years in the Ace community like to recognise and explore the differences between normal friendship and something in the grey areas that's stronger than that, people were exploring similar ideas back then, and it's worth exploring Saint-Just's and Robespierre's 'friendship' through this lense too 💜

Controversial frev opinion: I truly don't get, nor understand the appeal of "saintspierre", especially considering that it seems like it mostly comes from those terrible movies like Danton 1983 and LRF, where their relationship is presented as abusive and manipulative. So imho shipping them, using gifs and pics from those movies as material only endorses a twisted view of what was at most a genuine friendship, to which there's no proof it was anything more than that. (I don't think Saint-Just "died for Robespierre", at most he did it for the ideas that Robespierre embodied, ideas that Saint-Just knew that they would have never been put into practice if the Incorruptible had gone)

now THIS is a hot take