#robespierre novel

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

"He was the perfect little brother and followed Maximilien everywhere." ~The Incorruptible, Corrupted

I know it's a day late, but here's a lil doodle for Bon Bon's birthday. Joyeux anniversaire to the best little brother in history (other than my own 3)

[robespapier]

Based on this post and @tobermoriansass's very cursed tags, may I present a very cursed poll ?

And here's the link to the naked sketch of David's Tennis Court Oath.

[holyrosemary]

──── ୨୧ ────

𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒚𝑹𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈˚.🎀༘⋆

My name is 𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒆.ᐟ

⸝⸝ I’m a femme fragile 6teen lesbian girl with a ton of obsessions, the sweet queen of empathy, a depressed Lizzie Grant lover, ℳary Lisbon’s sister with cappuccino in her veins, Sofia Coppola's ℳuse, a dark chocolate ℳarie Antoinette from Versailles, a nod to ℳarquis de Sade’s Justine—edged in silk and lace ⸝⸝

I’m obsessed with cakes, pastries, and candy, but I never eat them because I’m scared of the calories 🍰ྀི

𐙚 I read and love books, but I’m not into modern novels—sick of them. I much prefer something classic, but please, not Russian. French literature is more my style

⋮as for genres—novels, fiction, memoirs, and most often, historical ones

♕𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚♕

જ⁀➴ I owe my gratitude to Queen Marie Antoinette of France for leading me into the rich history of her beautiful country, and, most importantly, the great revolution. As a child, I sang her praises while turning the pages of her biography, captivated by her story. But with time, I grew apart from her, finding my heart drawn to new historical figures, to whom I’ve since devoted my love, sympathy, and admiration. 𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋

⋮Napoleon Bonaparte & Josephine; Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire; Louis XVIII; Charlotte Corday & Jean-Paul Marat; Robespierre; madame de pompadour; Sappho etc

𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋♬⋆.˚𝄢ᡣ𐭩

𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄

I’m drawn to tender, melancholy music—melodies, soundtracks, and operas. I don’t just listen to anything and everything—I have eras, phases where I devote myself to one artist or track, obsessively, until another passion takes its place. I listen with my whole heart, memorizing every note, humming along, imagining a beautiful, Pinterest-perfect life, spinning chaotically like Lolita in a dream.

𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋♬⋆.˚𝄢ᡣ𐭩

⋮Frank Sinatra & Nancy Sinatra; Miki Matsubara; have a nice life; mitski; Lana Del Rey & Lizzie Grant; Lalleshwari; Agnes Mellon; Fiona Apple; ABBA; Adrianne Lenker; Radiohead; Akira Yamaoka; Cicada sirens; Elvis Presley; and one; KMFDM; Cab Calloway; Richard Wagner; Sabrina Carpenter.

yay I’m finally made this info post

and I haven’t even touched on cinematography or games, but still

Other stuff ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

⋮dni—mean girls, boys creeps, grown men who are obsessed with erotica and teenage girls, extreme racism, misogyny and the like.

[vivmaek]

THE PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS GENERATION Born at the start of Globalization, November 10, 1995 - January 25, 2008

I’ve been talking a lot of shit on here about the Pluto in Sagittarius generation. And while I still think my irritations are justified (lol,) I gotta make it up by doing a complete breakdown. After all, this is the generation I belong to. 

1995: NASA's Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter

With Pluto in Sagittarius, this is a generation full of creatives, visionaries, academics, philosophers and rebels. We’re all about big ideas and moral philosophy. We’ve had the internet within our fingertips our entire lives, an unlimited database of knowledge and social interconnectivity.

We have a lot in common with the Pluto in Leo generation (Baby Boomers,) being that both generations are ruled by fire signs. However what differentiates us is that the Pluto in Leo generation is focused on the self (Sun,) and the Pluto in Sagittarius generation is focused on the collective (Jupiter.) We project a sense of optimism despite having such large ambitions. This will serve as an inspiration for future generations. 

Most of us have parents belonging to the Pluto in the Libra Generation. They raised us with values centered on equality and justice. 

We grew up amongst explosive world events: First Internet Meme (1996), Google (1998), Columbine (1998), The Second Congo War (1998), Kosovo Genocide (1999), Launch of International Space Station (2000), 9/11 (2001), Invasion of Iraq (2003), Darfur (2003), Boxing Day Tsunami (2004), Facebook (2004), London Bombings (2005), iPhone (2007), America's first black President (2008), Global Economic Downturn (2008).

Pluto in Capricorn frames our coming of age story. Our teenage years were harsh and depressing. It was an isolating experience that did not involve much fun. For many people born with a Sagittarius Pluto, their adolescence is defined by a Global Pandemic in which all movement was restricted. These years also put into focus old frameworks that must be destroyed and cast aside.

The Pluto In Scorpio Generation is coming through and uprooting all these frameworks before passing the torch onto us. We will be the ones to come up with blueprints for new ideologies and ways of thinking. We’re aiming forward and casting an arrow for future generations to follow. 

Past events that occurred while Pluto was in Sagittarius: The Burning of the Library of Alexandria (272), first novel published in Japan (1010), Sorbonne founded (1257), first use of eyeglasses (1268), Columbus sets sail (1502), the birth of Nostradamus (1503), invention of sign language (1749), the first encyclopedia (1751).  

Past figures born while Pluto was in Sagittarius: Constantine I (272), Dante Aligheri (1265), Goethe (1749), James Madison (1751), Alexander Hamilton (1755), Marie Antoinette (1755), Mozart (1756,) William Blake (1757), Robespierre (1758).

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

And this is why my novel has bi-romantic Robespierre lol

robespierre after the carvin trip:

[bimboficationblues]

End of Year Book Report

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson: rules, worthy of an insane effortpost but I want to read the other two first.

Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno: one of the great works of theory and literature of the 20th century. reading it as a conventional philosophy text - that is trying to persuade or unfold a systemic argument - seems wrongheaded to me, not just because of the aphorism form but because as the text unfolds, it becomes clear that Adorno is wrestling with not just a description of the political and economic situation of modernity in the wake of fascism and the Shoah, but himself. he is digging into his subjectivity as a person who has been deeply wounded over and over by life, his sense of complicity as an intellectual and a refugee and a subject of capitalist modernity, his survivor's guilt, his sense that all the good in the world has betrayed and destroyed itself for nothing, balanced against a lingering, earnest utopianism. it is raw and honest in a way that is sometimes unflattering and often challenging, but just as often compelling.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville: rules. it's so awesome that there was just a Calvinist in the 19th century who happened to write a postmodernist novel. I think the first two thirds are strongest. once it gets to the section where the crew just keeps encountering different ships and their respective crews, it didn't grip me as much - chiefly because Ishmael's very distinct voice becomes more reserved in his commentary - but the ending is quite strong.

Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life: a very good biography! pretty even-keeled and neutral-positive on its subject, and does a good job of portraying how a variety of people can both love and despise the guy personally and politically. ultimately I came away with a mix of admiration and disappointment. it's easy to read Robespierre as teleologically determined towards his particular end - indeed, this is how literally all of his enemies and critics talk about him - but I think McPhee does a good job of depicting the historical contingencies AND specific values that led Robespierre to make increasingly compromised or ill-conceived political decisions. definitely not a pop-history biography, it really plunges you into the material - which I think was fine for me after taking a lot of notes on the F.Rev for months, but might make it a tough introductory rec.

Normal People: I know this was bigger (and contentious) a while back, but I decided to pick it up because of the author's recent writings on Palestine which I thought were incredibly forceful. It's good! I think the characterizations I'd seen of it as just boring rich people with no problems talking about literature were completely unfair and inaccurate. it was definitely a triggering book for me, not sure I'd be able to read it again, but that was also kind of a resonant quality about it - as a person who has been romantically entangled with abused people and had complicated feelings about that, it really landed. It's sort of like, intellectualized schlock, but I mean that positively - but that does mean it has it moments where the schlock pokes through (most notably the resolution). also the anti-BDSM digression is kind of an eyeroll but I also kind of get it.

Climate Leviathan: this was interesting! like a lot of Verso books it’s a little bit of a make-work project, the authors’ previous essays given book-like form, but the essays are generally good. sobering stuff (the book “Climate Wars” sounds like it has a similar thrust) about the coming shifts in the security state in defense of capitalist civilization and order, positing a supranational (or quasi-supranational, more likely) body that will assume the role of determining which parts of the world receive the bulk of the warming mitigation strategies like geoengineering - assuming we don’t all collapse into fascist localism. It does have some weird pointless digressions, but I thought it still had a lot to say.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: it's okay. I was very engrossed in the melodrama and the non-linear structure, weaving back and forth between the pre-apocalypse and post-apocalypse. but the ending is really schmaltzy which soured me on it.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith: this book sucks, someone in my reading group (possibly edwad) described Smith as a "summarizer" and that's basically correct, he's just cobbling together completely inconsistent positions from a variety of sources (Hobbes, Aristotle, Hume, Grotius, etc). only really interesting as like an artifact of bourgeois thought and the rhetoric of political economy, which sees property as the method by which to encourage civility and propriety. this book honestly makes me kind of mad.

Books I Started But Haven't Finished

Cassandra's Daughter by Joseph Schwartz: really interesting piece of intellectual history about the development of psychoanalytic theory, primarily from the clinical angle. contextualizes Freud in the broader Viennese political and cultural milieu with some fascinating details I never came upon elsewhere, like the extensive network of socialists and feminists who were connected to Freud and his earliest patients. I bailed to this after briefly reading Marshall and Black's "Freud and Beyond" because that ended up being more of like a summary of major psychoanalytic concepts, which was not what I wanted. I've only read a few chapters but am hoping to pick it back up in the new year.

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: definitely more tolerable and worthwhile than Theory of Moral Sentiments but Smith is such an annoying doofus it killed my reading group for months.

Capital, Vol I by Karl Marx: I am really enjoying going through the new translation with a group. I think the introductory materials and scholarly additions in the endnotes are incredibly strong and the translation achieves its goal, in my opinion, of making the book overall more readable while simultaneously making some of the more complex ideas (particularly around the value-form) more alienating in a way that invites you to wrestle with it rather than be overwhelmed.

Mort by Terry Pratchett: frequently laugh-out-loud funny. the story itself is a little twee for my liking but I can't say I am not enjoying it. just need a free afternoon to tear through the second half.

[dangermousie]

Now that I've finished Long Live Evil, I think one of the many reasons I adored this book is that two of the three of my OTPs in it are very much of the "nuke in human shape whose leash is held only by one person" variety, aka my favorite set-up.

This said, that whole set up went spectacularly wrong for Rae x Key and his whole return as the Zombie Robespierre is actually making me think a little about the return of Zixiao in Wu Chang Jie, transformed from adoring younger "brother" to ruler of evil army, obsessed with possessing AND punishing Ziheng. (Thankfully, this is not SQC, much as I love her, and we aren't gonna get throne noncon times...Man, that novel was GONZO, I kinda want a reread.)

Also, gotta give Rae points for not seeing the obvious ie Octavian not being the Emperor because, as she herself notes in ch 1, the series involves (among other things) "the hero rising from humble origins to ultimate power" and I am not sure what about being King screams humble origins. Heh.

PS Also someone should get her this sweatshirt:

[octavodeci]

Alright frevblr I got beef with the 2023 Napoleon movie. It’s well done, medium, medium rare, and RAW. I also got beef with Ridley Scott and his portrayal of Robespierre and the events that lead to Napoleon’s rise. Historians critiquing the movie and Ridley Scott goes “haha well shut up you weren’t there and I wasn’t either”

Ohhhhh arghh ohhh my body aches ohhhh Max! how they did him wrong. MAAXXX 😫😭😭 That’s not how he went down. HELLO? Did hotel de ville not exist? What about the paris fucking commune? Saint-Just didn’t even appear to defend him like he actually did (Ridley fucking Scott would know this if he had the brains and willpower to pick up a historical novel and READ it) with his laziness he’d probably skim over the index and call it a day.

Do not get me started on the costumes. Why was Robespierre and others wearing 20th century style suits? Why were the shoulder lines so sharp? They did not have them that sharp back in the day i can guarantee you. Also it’s a blend of early 18th century attire. Confusing since….it wasn’t early 18th century.

Robespierre’s actor just wasn’t it. I’m sorry. The wig is wrong too im not sorry about that. Being straight up. It was also lop-side so screw you Ridley Scott. Don’t touch anything historical ever again and just stick to the damn alien franchise cause that went to shit anyway.

I’m not in the Napoleonic fandom but I know god damn well they did my boy Napoleon wrong too. Him and Joséphine. Serve them Justice. The next friend of mine that gushes about the Napoleon (2023) movie because Joaquin Phoenix is in it will meet the floor SOON.

I knew the movie was about to be shit as soon as i saw Marie Antoinette being lead to the guillotine with LONG HAIR. She had nothing to cover her head and she was still wearing a dress and not a plain shift underneath. She. Had. Makeup. On.

It’s just pure lack of research and i find it more offensive than Thermidorian propaganda. Idk maybe if I’d posted this on my main account I’d have structured this nicer more professionally but i have a migraine right now and it’s chronic and im tired and it’s 4:31 am.

so basically fuck the Napoleon movie. I cant believe Ridley Scott directed The Duelists (1977) which I arguably enjoy for its raw, realistic and guttural portrayal of fencing in any film I’ve ever seen. thanks for listening reading my Ted talk.

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

Bout to add more of these to my novel lol

Especially Camille calling Horace 'little lizard' because that is so cute!

Frev nicknames compilation

Maximilien Robespierre – the Incorruptible (first used by Fréron, and then Desmoulins, in 1790).

Augustin Robespierre – Bonbon, by Antoine Buissart (1, 2), Régis Deshorties and Élisabeth Lebas. Élisabeth confirmed this nickname came from Augustin’s middlename Bon.

Charlotte Robespierre – Charlotte Carraut (hid under said name at the time of her arrest, also kept it afterwards according to Élisabeth Lebas). Caroline Delaroche (according to Laignelot in 1825, an anonymous doctor in 1849 and Pierre Joigneaux in 1908).

Louis Antoine Saint-Just – Florelle (by himself), Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint-Just (by Salle and Desmoulins)

Jean-Paul Marat – the Friend of the People (l’Ami du Peuple) (self-given since 1789, when he started his journal with the same name)

Georges-Jacques Danton – Marius (by Fréron and Lucile Desmoulins).

Éléonore Duplay – Cornélie (according to the memoirs of Charlotte Robespierre and Paul Barras. Barras also adds that Danton jokingly called Éléonore “Cornelie Copeau, the Cornelie that is not the mother of Gracchus”)

Élisabeth Duplay – Babet (by Robespierre and Philippe Lebas in her memoirs)

Jacques Maurice Duplay – my little friend (by Robespierre), our little patriot (by Robespierre)

Camille Desmoulins – Camille (given by contemporaries since 1790. Most likely a play on the Roman emperor Camillus who saved Rome from Brennus in the 4th century like Camille saved the revolution on July 12, and not a reference to Camille behaving like a manchild to the people around him like is commonly stated.) Loup (wolf) by Fréron and Lucile (1, 2), Loup-loup by Fréron (1, 2), Monsieur Hon by Lucile.

Lucile Desmoulins – Loulou (by Camille 1, 2), Loup by Camille, Lolotte (by Camille (1, 2), Rouleau by Fréron (1, 2) and Camille, the chaste Diana (by Fréron), Bouli-Boula by Fréron (1, 2).

Horace Desmoulins – little lizard (Camille), little wolf (Ricord), baby bunny (Fréron).

Annette Duplessis (Lucile’s mother) — Melpomène (by Fréron), Daronne (by Camille)

Stanislas Fréron – Lapin (bunny) (by himself (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and Lucile. According to Marcellin Matton, publisher of the Desmoulins correspondence and friend of Lucile’s mother and sister, Fréron obtained this nickname from playing with the bunnies at Lucile’s parents country house everytime he visited there, and Lucile was the one who came up with it). Martin by Camille and himself (likely a reference to the drawing ”Martin Fréron mobbed by Voltaire” which depicts Fréron’s father Élie Fréron as a donkey called ”Martin F”.)

Manon Roland — Sophie (by herself in a letter to Buzot).

Charles Barbaroux — Nysus by Manon Roland

François Buzot — Euryale by Manon Roland

Pierre Jacques Duplain — Saturne (by Fréron)

Guillaume Brune — Patagon (by Fréron)

Antoine Buissart (Robespierre’s pretend dad from Arras) — Baromètre (due to his interest in science)

Comment who had the best/worse nickname!

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

how is your frev novel doing? 😯

Well I've pretty much stopped editing it and I've been sending it out to agents who can represent me to publishers. Unfortunately, no one I've sent it to seems remotely interested. Which really sucks and is discouraging but such is the life of an aspiring author. Although if anyone has any possible connections or a way to hook me up that would be amazing and much appreciated lol But for now it's a lot of hoping for the best with my fingers crossed and continuing to submit to agents while I work on my next novel and brainstorming for my webcomic. Not the news you were hoping for I'm sure, but oh well. 🤷

[theartisticcrow]

How has my life gotten to this point? One day I was just handed some YA fantasy novel, then the next day I was writing a thirty page essay about Maximilien Robespierre, and now I'm sat in the back of the lighting booth in the theater drawing French Revolution yaoi.

[wrishwrosh]

re: tags on labor in historical fiction post, would be very interested to hear what the four examples you mentioned are!!

ok u know what that tag WAS bait, thank you for taking it. technically speaking these aren't works dealing strictly with labor in historical fiction, they are my four treasured examples of BUREAUCRAT FICTION (so not NOT about labor in history?) i was gonna try to make this post pithy and short but then i remembered how extremely passionate i am about this microgenre i made up. so sorry.

bureaucrat fiction is not limited by genre or format but criteria for inclusion are as follows: long and detour-filled story about functionary on the outside of society finding unexpected success within a ponderously large and powerful System/exploring themes of class and physicality and work and autonomy and what it means to hold power over others beneath the heartless crushing wheels of empire/sad little man does paperwork. also typically long as hell. should include at least one scene where the protagonist is unironically applauded-perhaps for the first time in their life-for filling out a form really good. without further ado:

soldier's heart by alex51324. the bureaucracy: british army medical corps during wwi. the bureacrat: mean gay footman/new ramc recruit thomas barrow. YEAH it's a downton abbey fic YEAH it's a masterpiece. i've talked about it before at length, my love has not faded. the crowning moment of bureaucracy is a long interlude where thomas optimizes the hospital laundry (this actually happens twice or maybe three times)

hands of the emperor by victoria goddard. the bureaucracy: crumbling fantasy empire some time after magical apocalypse. the bureacrat: passionate late-career clerk from the hinterlands cliopher mdang. i reread this book every winter bc it is as a warm bath for my SAD-addled brain and every time i neglect all my responsibilities to read all nine billion pages in three days. it puts abt 93% of the worldbuilding momentum into elaborating all of the ministries and secretaries and audits necessary to run a global government and like 7% into the magic and stuff. there are also several charming companion novellas and an equally long sequel that dives more into the central relationship between cliopher and the emperor which i highly recommend if you like gentle old man yaoi and/or magic, but there's more bureaucracy in HOTE.

the cromwell trilogy by hilary mantel. the bureaucracy: court of henry viii. the bureaucrat: thomas cromwell, the real guy. curveball! it's critically acclaimed booker prize winning rpf novel wolf hall! mantel is really interested in particular ways of gaining and maintaining power in delicate and labyrinthine systems like the tudor court, specifically in strongmen who use both physical intimidation and metaphysical manipulation to succeed. under these conditions i do think my best friend long-dead historical personage thomas cromwell counts as Bureaucrat Fiction (as do danton and robespierre in a place of greater safety. bonus rec.)

going postal by terry pratchett. the bureaucracy: fantasy postal service of ankh-morpork. the bureaucrat: conman, scammer, and little freak moist von lipwig. this is definitely shorter and lighter than the other three entries on the list, sort of a screwball take on the bureaucrat. but the mail is such a classic bureaucracy thing? who doesn't love thinking about the mail? also contains a key genre element which is a fraught sexual tension with the person immediately above the protagonist in their hierarchy, who is also their god-king and boyfriend-dad. you can't tell me vetinari isn't torturing moist psychologically AND sexually.

anyway sorry about all this. if you've read any of these come talk to me about them. bureaucrat fiction recs welcomed with the openest possible arms.

[21st-century-minutiae]

"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a famous twentieth century "list" song by musician Billy Joel. The entire song is essentially a list of headlines in general chronological order without elaboration representing newsworthy events (usually crises) that occurred in BIlly Joel's lifetime. It's refrain explains, metaphorically, that history and stressful situations are always happening and have always been happening, so the idea that the current time is unprecedented is misinformed. The song agrees that there is a "Fire" (some chaotic crisis) going on, but it is not new, and has always been "burning" from the start of history.

The concept that the world is only now just falling apart is a common, myopic perception, that is often related to how children are unaware of newsworthy events so, when people grow older, they conflate their growing awareness with the world getting worse. This compounds with a mythological nostalgia for an imaginary past, which, under any minute observation, would be shown to be just as chaotic and uncertain.

Denizens of the early twenty-first century would likely be aware of "We Didn't Start the Fire." They are less likely to know the lyrics (which are rapid fire and unrelated to each other), and are unlikely to know what each headline event refers to, as decades have passed since they dominated the news cycle. It would be relatively easy to slot in a 'fake' headline in that way, as people would just understand it to be a 'headline' without needing to know the context.

if i was billy joel making we didn't start the fire I'd throw in one where it's unclear what it's referring to like I'd just say 'billiards chaos' somewhere in the middle of the 60s and people would be like i guess there was a big drama in the professional 8 ball world then or something??

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Do we know the favorite books that the French revolution figures liked to read? (It could be anyone, Robespierre or Saint just or Louis xvi it doesn't matter).

Much like this old ask about revolutionaries’ favorite dishes, I can’t say I know of any instance of someone exclaiming: ”this is 100% my favorite book,” but at tops people mentioning books that they thought were good or bad:

In his memoirs, Brissot writes he’s picking up Rousseau’s Confessions for the sixth time, so I guess that could qualify as a favorite book? send help

We have this list of books seized at Robespierre’s place after his death.

According to the memoirs of Élisabeth Duplay, Robespierre would read ”the works of Corneille, Voltaire and Rousseau” for her family in the evenings.

In a short biography over Desmoulins written in 1834, Marcellin Matton claims his favorite book was René Aubert de Vertot’s Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la République romaine (1719), of which he always carried a copy. Matton is an infamous romanticizer it’s from him we have the stupid leaf myth for example, but I’m willing to give him some leeway here since he could have obtained the information from Camille’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who were his friends:

In one of his first classes, he received Vertot's Révolutions romaines as a prize. Reading this work transported him with admiration; in the future, he always had a volume in his pocket. It was for him an indispensable companion, it was his vade mecum. He used or lost at least twenty volumes. It is perhaps to this excellent work and to the particular work that he did on the discourses of Cicero and especially on his Philippics, that we owe the lively and sharp style which distinguishes all the writings coming from the pen of Camille .

Desmoulins was however less fond of Rousseau’s Confessions, in number 55 (December 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant he admits that he abandoned the book after getting infuriated by it:

Not that I idolize J.J. as I did in the past, since I saw in his Confessions that he had become an aristocrat in his old age. How far he was from looking at an Alexander with the pride of this Cynic, to whom he is compared, and how painfully I saw that he united the opposite faults of Diogenes and Arisippus! It is a pleasant thing to hear the author of the Social Contract protest in his Confessions about the simplicity of the commerce of such great lords (M. and Madame de Luxembourg) he cries with joy, he wants to kiss the feet of this good marshal, because he wanted to accompany one of his friends, an office clerk, for a walk. Is there anything smaller, more ridiculous? I received, he says elsewhere, the greatest honor that a man can receive, the visit of the Prince de Conti, (an honor that Rousseau shared with all the girls of the Palais-Royal.) At this point I tossed away the book out of spite, and I admit, that I had to reread the speech on equality of conditions, and Julie's novel, in order to not hate the philosopher of Geneva, like Durosoy and Mallet du Pan; for the same principles, in the mouth of such a great man, are more condemnable and worthy of aversion than in the mouths of our two gazetteers, whom God created poor in spirit, and predestined as such to the kingdom of heaven.

In a diary kept over the summer of 1788, Lucile Desmoulins mentions reading L’Âge d’Or (1782) by Sylvain Maréchal (of which she also copied two verses, Le Trésor and Le contrat de mariage devant la nature, in a notebook the year earlier), Les Idylles et poèmes champêtres (1762) by Salomon Gessner, L’Hymne au soleil, suivi de plusieurs morceaux du même genre qui n’ont point encore paru (1782) by Abbé de Reyrac (where she wrote down the verse La Gelée d’avril), Nouvelles lettres anglaises, ou Histoire du Chevalier Grandisson (1754) by Samuel Richardson and  Les Noces patriarchales, poëme en prose en cinq chants (1777) by Robert Martin Lesuire.

In his memoirs, Buzot mentions enjoying the works of Rousseau and Plutarch:

With what charms I still remember this happy period of my life which can no longer return, when, during the day, I silently roamed the mountains and woods of the city where I was born, reading with delight some works of Plutarch or of Rousseau, or recalling to my memory the most precious features of their morality and their philosophy. Sometimes, sitting on the flowering grass, in the shade of some thick trees, I indulged, in a sweet melancholy, in the memories of the sorrows and the pleasures which had in turn agitated the first days of my life. Often the cherished works of these two good men had occupied or maintained my vigils with a friend of my age whom death took from me at thirty, and whose memory, always dear and respected, has preserved from many errors!

Wow any chance you can sound even more like an 18th century man stereotype, Buzot?

…and that’s basically all I can come up with for the moment. But add on if you know anything more! @louis-antoine-leon-saint-just @lazarecarnot maybe you would like to share your favorite books with us if you have any?

[robespapier]

Jean Artarit: Robespierre was a repressed homosexual.

Olivier Dutaillis: YES! He liked watching the young, joyful, sturdy, pretty carpenters who worked for Maurice Duplay, often shirtless or with their clothes sticking to their muscles with sweat!...AND he also liked Saint-Just, who looked like an angel! AND WAS A GOTH!!!

Artarit:......

Dutaillis: He was a repressed homosexual of many tastes.

[pilferingapples]

I'm never sure how much of a Thing it's supposed to be, because of the novel framework, but...

it stands out to me that all of Grantaire's self-claimed republican knowledge is First Republic history:  I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. `The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand."

Like... this is all important history and even foundational philosophy! But in terms of convincing people right now ? No one's going to the barricades for Hebert. People aren't going to risk their lives and liberty because Robespierre was So Right.* People don't throw their current, actually-living selves into a dangerous situation because a bunch of people who died before they were born had some Good Points, even if they totally believe in the points. People risk their lives for Shit Going Down now.

Why is a republic urgent now, what are the main advantages people can --even abstractly!-- hope for from it? What are the current outrages? What's hurting them about the situation right now? Principles are important and crucial, of course, but there's a big gap between getting across the abstract concept and showing how that concept is relevant right now, to this audience . Even the most eager True Believer would be sensible to ask " why now " for something like they're planning-- why now and not autumn, or next year, or during the next labor protest, etc etc etc. That's why Enjolras sends the others to the specific groups he sends them to! Because those are the groups whose immediate interests and concerns they can engage with best!

And that's exactly what Grantaire cannot do, even for himself. He can't argue for how immediate action will improve things because he doesn't think it will. He can agree the current situation Sucks; he can't believe anything anyone does will make it better. That's his whole entire failure point!

So of course he fails.

(...and , added knife-twist that I'm sure Grantaire notices: Enjolras sends everyone to the groups they can best influence....and he doesn't want to send Grantaire to anyone. And he is, of course, right on all fronts. I'm sure that leads to just the HEALTHIEST thought-loops.><)

...as volatile as FRev academic discussion gets sometimes, it's mostly not going to result in barricades and guns at dawn. Mostly.