Saint-just speech
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
French revolutionary politician (–)
Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just[a] (French pronunciation:[sɛ̃ʒyst]; 25 August &#;&#; 10 Thermidor, Year II [28 July ]), sometimes nicknamed the Archangel of Terror,[1][2][3] was a French revolutionary, political philosopher, member and president of the French National Convention, a Jacobin club leader, and a major figure of the French Revolution.
As the youngest member elected to the National Convention, Saint-Just belonged to the Mountain faction. A steadfast supporter and close friend of Robespierre, he was swept away in his downfall during 9th Thermidor.
Louis st just biography examples for kids This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work. He was the eldest child of Louis Jean de Saint-Just de Richebourg — , a retired French cavalry officer, knight of the Order of Saint Louis, and of the years younger Marie-Anne Robinot — , the daughter of a notary. He had two younger sisters, born in andRenowned for his eloquence, he stood out for the uncompromising nature and inflexibility of his principles advocating equality and virtue, as well as for the effectiveness of his missions during which he rectified the situation of the Army of the Rhine and contributed to the victory of the republican armies at Fleurus.
Politically combating the Girondins, the Hebertists, and then the Indulgents, he pushed for the confiscation of the property of the enemies of the Republic for the benefit of poor patriots. He was the designated speaker for the Robespierrists in their conflicts with other political parties in the National Convention, launching accusations and requisitions against figures like Danton or Hébert.
To prevent the massacres for which the sans-culottes were responsible in the departments, particularly in Vendée, or to centralize repression (a point still unclear), he had the departmental revolutionary tribunals abolished and consolidated all procedures at the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris.
He was also a political theorist, and notably inspired the Constitution of Year I,[4] and the attached Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen of He also authored works on the principles of the French Revolution.
On the 9th Thermidor, he defended Robespierre against accusations made by Barère and Tallien. Arrested alongside him, he remained silent until his death the following day, when he was guillotined on the Place de la Révolution with the Robespierrists executed, at the age of His body and head were then thrown into a mass grave.
The dark legend surrounding this figure, and Robespierrists in general, persisted in historical research until the second half of the 20th century, before gradually being reassessed from that period onward by more recent historians. Until then, he was perceived as cruel, bloodthirsty, and having a wild and violent sexuality.[5]
Early life
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just was born in Decize in the former Nivernais province of central France.[6] He was the eldest child of Louis Jean de Saint-Just de Richebourg (–), a retired French cavalry officer (and knight of the Order of Saint Louis),[7] and Marie-Anne Robinot (–), the daughter of a notary.[8] He had two younger sisters, born in and The family later moved north and in settled in the village of Blérancourt in the former Picardy province, establishing themselves as a countryside noble family living off the rents from their land.
A year after the move, Louis Antoine's father died, leaving his mother with their three children. She saved diligently for her only son's education, and in he was sent to the Oratorian school at Soissons. After a promising start, his teachers soon viewed Saint-Just as a troublemaker, a reputation later compounded by infamous stories (almost certainly apocryphal) of how he led a students' rebellion and tried to burn down the school.[9] Nonetheless, he graduated in [10]
His restive nature, however, did not diminish.
Louis st just biography examples He was a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre and served as his most trusted ally during the period of Jacobin rule —94 in the French First Republic. Saint-Just worked as a legislator and a military commissar, but he achieved a lasting reputation as the face of the Reign of Terror for which he was dubbed the Archangel of the Terror. He publicly delivered the condemnatory reports that emanated from Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and defended the use of violence against opponents of the government. He supervised the arrests of some of the most famous figures of the Revolution, many of whom ended up at the guillotine. As the Revolution ran its course, like his mentor, he would meet the same fate in the Thermidorian Reaction.As a young man, Saint-Just was "wild, handsome [and] transgressive".[11] He reportedly showed a special affection towards a young woman of Blérancourt, Thérèse Gellé. She was the daughter of a wealthy notary, a powerful and autocratic figure in the town; he was still an undistinguished adolescent.
He is said to have proposed marriage to her, which she is said to have desired.[12] Though no evidence of their relationship exists, official records show that on 25 July , Thérèse was married to Emmanuel Thorin, the scion of a prominent local family. Saint-Just was out of town and unaware of the event, and tradition portrays him as brokenhearted.
Whatever his true state, it is known that a few weeks after the marriage he abruptly left home for Paris unannounced, having gathered up a pair of pistols and a good quantity of his mother's silver.[13] His venture ended when his mother had him seized by police and sent to a reformatory (maison de correction) where he stayed from September to March Upon returning, Saint-Just attempted to begin anew: he enrolled as a student at Reims University's School of Law.[14] After a year, however, he drifted away from law school and returned to his mother's home in Blérancourt penniless, without any occupational prospects.[15]
Organt
Saint-Just had shown a precocious fascination with literature,[16] and he wrote works of his own including a one-act play Arlequin Diogène.[17] During his stay at the reformatory, he began writing a lengthy poem that he published anonymously more than two years later in May at the very outbreak of the Revolution.
The year-old Saint-Just thereby added his own touch to the social tumult of the times with Organt, poem in twenty cantos.[b] The poem, a medieval epic fantasy relaying the quest of young Antoine Organt, extols the virtues of primitive man, praising his libertinism and independence whilst blaming all present-day troubles on modern inequalities of wealth and power.[19] Written in a style mimicking Ariosto,[6] the work foreshadowed its author's future political extremism.
Spiked with brutal satire and scandalous pornographic episodes, it also unmistakably attacked the monarchy, the nobility, and the Church.[20]
Contemporaries regarded Organt as a salacious novelty and it was quickly banned. Nevertheless, censors who tried to confiscate copies discovered that few were available anywhere.
It did not sell well and resulted in a financial loss for its author.[21] The public's taste for literature had shifted in the prelude to the Revolution, and Saint-Just's taste shifted along with it: he devoted his future writing almost entirely to unadorned essays of sociopolitical theory, aside from a few pages of an unfinished novel found amidst his papers at the end of his life.
With his previous ambitions of literary and lawyerly fame unfulfilled, Saint-Just directed his focus on the single goal of revolutionary command.[22]
Early revolutionary career
The rapid development of the Revolution in upended Blérancourt's traditional power structure.
The notary Gellé, previously an undisputed town leader, was challenged by a group of reformists who were led by several of Saint-Just's friends, including the husband of his sister Louise.[23] Their attempts were unsuccessful until when Blérancourt held its first open municipal elections.
Louis st just biography examples wikipedia: Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just [a] (French pronunciation:; 25 August – 10 Thermidor, Year II [28 July ]), sometimes nicknamed the Archangel of Terror, [1] [2] [3] was a French revolutionary, political philosopher, member and president of the French National Convention, a Jacobin club leader, and a major figure of the French.
Mandated by the National Constituent Assembly, the new electoral structure allowed Saint-Just's friends to assume authority in the village as mayor, secretary, and, in the case of his brother-in-law, head of the local National Guard. Despite not meeting the legal age and tax qualifications, the jobless Saint-Just was allowed to join the Guard.[24]
He immediately exhibited the ruthless discipline for which he would be famous.
Within a few months he was the commanding officer, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.[25] At local meetings he moved attendees with his patriotic zeal and flair: in one much-repeated story, Saint-Just brought the town council to tears by thrusting his hand into the flame of a burning anti-revolutionary pamphlet, swearing his devotion to the Republic.[26] He had powerful allies when he sought to become a member of his district’s electoral assembly.
He initiated correspondence with well-known leaders of the Revolution like Camille Desmoulins.[27] Mid August , he wrote to Robespierre for the first time, expressing his admiration and asking him to consider a local petition.[28] The letter was filled with the highest of praise, beginning: "You, who uphold our tottering country against the torrent of despotism and intrigue; you whom I know, as I know God, only through his miracles"[29]
L'Esprit de la Revolution
While Saint-Just waited for the next election, he composed an extensive work, L'Esprit de la Revolution et de la constitution de France, published in the spring of [30] His writing style had shed all satire and now reflected the stern and moralizing tone of classical Romans so adored by French revolutionaries.[31] It presented a set of principles deeply influenced by Montesquieu, and remained fully confined to a paradigm of constitutional monarchy.[30] He expressed abhorrence at the violence in the Revolution thus far, and he disdained the character of those who partook in it as little more than "riotous slaves."[32] Instead, he heaped his praise upon the people's representatives in the Legislative Assembly, whose sober virtue would guide the Revolution best.[33] Spread out over five books, L'Esprit de la Revolution is inconsistent in many of its assertions but still shows clearly that Saint-Just no longer saw government as oppressive to man's nature but necessary to its success: its ultimate object was to "edge society in the direction of the distant ideal."[34]
The new work, like its predecessor, attracted minimal readership.
On 21 June , just days after it was published, all attention became focused on King Louis XVI's ill-fated flight to Varennes. Saint-Just's theories about constitutional monarchy were suddenly outdated. The episode fostered public anger toward the King which simmered all year until a Parisian mob finally attacked the Tuileries Palace on 10 August In response, the Assembly declared itself ready to step down ahead of schedule and called for a new election, this one under universal male suffrage.
Louis st just biography examples images Louis de Saint-Just was born on Aug. After a period of schooling, he ran away from home to Paris, taking with him part of the family silver. He studied law for a time and also published a burlesque epic which was a mixture of the crudely erotic and of sharp criticism of the government and society of his day. When the Revolution broke out in , the youthful Saint-Just gave it his enthusiastic support, and he published in The Spirit of the Revolution and of the Constitution of France. He was too young to be elected to the Legislative Assembly that year, but in September he was elected a member of the Convention, whose task it was, now that the King had been deposed, to draft a new constitution and to govern France in the meantime.The timing was excellent for Saint-Just, who turned the legal age of 25 before the end of the month.[35][36] The fear inspired by the invasion of the Tuileries made most of his opponents retire from the scene.[37] Guard commander Saint-Just was able to win election as one of the deputies for the département of Aisne.[38] He left for Paris to join the National Convention as the youngest of its members.[39][40]
Deputy to the Convention
Among the deputies, Saint-Just was watchful but interacted little at first.
He joined the Parisian Jacobin Club, but he remained aloof from Girondins and Montagnards alike.[41] He waited until 13 November to give his first speech to the Convention, but when he did the effect was spectacular. What brought him to the lectern was the discussion over how to treat the deposed King.[42][43] In dramatic contrast to the earlier speakers, Saint-Just delivered a blazing condemnation of him.
He demanded "Louis Capet should be judged not as a king or even a citizen, but as a traitor, an enemy who deserves death.[44][45] "As for me," he declared, "I see no middle ground: this man must reign or die! He oppressed a free nation; he declared himself its enemy; he abused the laws: he must die to assure the repose of the people, since it was in his mind to crush the people to assure his own."[46] Towards the end of his speech, he uttered an ominous observation: "No one can reign innocently."[47]
The young deputy's speech electrified the Convention.[48][49] Saint-Just was interrupted frequently by bursts of applause.[50] Robespierre was particularly impressed—he spoke from the lectern the next day in terms almost identical to those of Saint-Just,[51] and their views became the official position of the Jacobins.[44] By December, that position had become law: the King was taken to a trial before the Convention, sentenced to death, and executed by guillotine on 21 January [52]
On 29/30 May Saint-Just was added to the Committee of Public Safety; Couthon became secretary, which was one day before the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June.[53]
Constitution of
Because the first French Constitution had included a role for the king, it was long since invalid and needed to be updated for the Republic.
Many drafts had circulated within the Convention since Louis XVI's execution, and Saint-Just submitted his own lengthy proposal on 24 April [54] His draft incorporated the most common assertions of the others: the right to vote, the right to petition, and equal eligibility for employment were among the basic principles that made his draft tenable.
He stood out from the pack, however, on the issue of elections: Saint-Just argued against all complex voting systems, and supported only the classical style of a simple majority of citizens in a nationwide vote.[55] Amid a flurry of proposals by other deputies, Saint-Just held inflexibly to his "one man one vote" plan, and this conspicuous homage to Greco-Roman traditions (which were particularly prized and idealized in French culture during the Revolution) enhanced his political cachet.
When no plan gained enough votes to pass, a compromise was made which tasked a small body of deputies as official constitutional draftsmen. Saint-Just was among the five elected members. In recognition of the importance of their mission, the draftsmen were all added to the powerful new Committee of Public Safety.[53]
The Convention had given the Committee extraordinary authority to provide for state security since the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in early Committee members were originally intended to serve for periods of only thirty days before replacements were elected, so they needed to work quickly.
Saint-Just took charge of the issue and led the development of the French Constitution of Before the end of his first term the new document was completed, submitted to the Convention, and ratified as law on 24 June [56]
The new constitution was never implemented. Emergency measures for wartime were in effect, and those measures called for a moratorium on constitutional democracy.
Wartime gave supreme power to the sitting Convention, with the Committee of Public Safety at the top of its subordinate administrative pyramid. Robespierre, with Saint-Just's assistance, fought vigorously to ensure that the government would remain under emergency measures—"revolutionary"—until victory.[57]
Arrest of the Girondins
During the time that Saint-Just was working on the constitution, dramatic political warfare was taking place.
The sans-culottes—deemed "the people" by many radicals, and represented by the Paris Commune—had grown antipathetic to the moderate Girondins. On 2 June , in a mass action supported by National Guardsmen, they surrounded the Convention and arrested the Girondin deputies. The other deputies—even the Montagnards, who had long enjoyed an informal alliance with the sans-culottes—resented the action but felt compelled politically to permit it.[citation needed] The Girondin leader, Jacques Pierre Brissot, was indicted for treason and scheduled for trial, but the other Brissotins were imprisoned (or pursued) without formal charges.
The Convention debated their fate and the political disorder lasted for weeks. Saint-Just had previously remained silent about the Girondins, but now clearly stood with Robespierre who had been thoroughly opposed to most of them for a long time. When the initial indictment by the Committee was served, it was Saint-Just who delivered the report to the Convention.[58]
In its secret negotiations, the Committee of Public Safety was initially unable to form a consensus concerning the jailed deputies, but as some Girondins fled to the provinces and attempted to incite an insurrection, its opinion hardened.[59] By early July, Saint-Just was able to address the Convention with a lengthy report in the name of the Committee.
His damning attack left no room for any further conciliation. The Girondins' trials must proceed, he said, and any verdicts must be severe. The proceedings dragged on for months, but Brissot and twenty of his allies were eventually condemned and sent to the guillotine on 31 October [60] Saint-Just used their situation to gain approval for intimidating new laws, culminating in the Law of Suspects (17 September ) which gave the Committee vast new powers of arrest and influence.[61]
Military commissar
On 10 October the Convention decreed to recognize the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme "Revolutionary Government",[62] (which was consolidated on 4 December).[63] The provisional government would be revolutionary until peace according to Saint-Just.
Saint-Just proposed that deputies from the Convention should directly oversee all military efforts, a proposal which was approved on 10 October [64] Amid worsening conditions at the front in the fall of that year, several deputies were designated représentant en mission and sent to the critical area of Alsace to shore up the disintegrating Army of the Rhine.
Louis st just biography examples pdf
As the youngest member elected to the National Convention, Saint-Just belonged to the Mountain faction. A steadfast supporter and close friend of Robespierre , he was swept away in his downfall during 9th Thermidor. Renowned for his eloquence, he stood out for the uncompromising nature and inflexibility of his principles advocating equality and virtue, as well as for the effectiveness of his missions during which he rectified the situation of the Army of the Rhine and contributed to the victory of the republican armies at Fleurus. Politically combating the Girondins , the Hebertists , and then the Indulgents , he pushed for the confiscation of the property of the enemies of the Republic for the benefit of poor patriots. He was also a political theorist, and notably inspired the Constitution of Year I , [ 4 ] and the attached Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen ofResults were not sufficiently forthcoming, so at the end of the month Saint-Just was sent there along with an ally from the Convention, Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas.[65] The mission lasted from November through December [66] The two men were charged with "extraordinary powers" to impose discipline and reorganize the troops.[65]
| " Soldiers, we have come to avenge you, and to give you leaders who will marshal you to victory.
We have resolved to seek out, to reward, and to promote the deserving; and to track down all the guilty, whoever they may be All commanders, officers, and agents of the government are hereby ordered to satisfy within three days the just grievances of the soldiers. After that interval we will ourselves hear any complaints, and we will offer such examples of justice and severity as the Army has not yet witnessed."[67] |
| – Saint-Just's first proclamation to the Army of the Rhine, |
From the start, Saint-Just dominated the mission.[65][68] He was relentless in demanding results from the commanders as well as sympathetic to the complaints of common soldiers.[64] On his first day at the front, he issued a proclamation promising "examples of justice and severity as the Army has not yet witnessed."[67][69] The entire army was placed immediately under the harshest discipline.
Within a short time, many officers were dismissed and many more, including at least one general, were executed by firing squad.[70]
Among soldiers and civilians alike, Saint-Just repressed opponents of the Revolution, but he did not agree to the mass executions ordered by some of the other deputies on the mission.[64] He vetoed much of the deputies' work and had many of them recalled to Paris.[65] Local politicians were just as vulnerable to him: even Eulogius Schneider, the powerful leader of Alsace's largest city, Strasbourg, was arrested on Saint-Just's order,[71] and much equipment was commandeered for the army.[72] Saint-Just worked closely only with General Charles Pichegru, a reliable Jacobin whom he respected.[c] Under Saint-Just's unblinking surveillance, Pichegru and General Lazare Hoche ably secured the frontier and began an invasion of the German Rhineland.[64]
With the army revitalized, Saint-Just returned briefly to Paris where his success was applauded.
However, there was little time to celebrate. He was quickly sent back to the front lines, this time in Belgium where the Army of the North was experiencing the same problems of discipline and organization.[74] During January and February ,[66] he again delivered results ruthlessly and effectively, but after less than a month the mission was cut short.
As Paris convulsed in political violence, Robespierre required his assistance.[74]
With the republican army advancing and the Girondins destroyed, the left-wing Montagnards, led by the Jacobins and Robespierre, controlled the Convention. In these circumstances, on the first day of Ventôse in Year II of the Revolution (19 February ), Saint-Just was elected President of the National Convention for the next two weeks.[71]
With this new power he persuaded the chamber to pass the radical Ventôse Decrees, under which the régime would confiscate aristocratic émigré property and distribute it to needy sans-culottes (commoners).[75] But these acts of wealth redistribution, arguably the most revolutionary of the French Revolution,[76] never went into operation.
The Committee faltered in creating procedures for their enforcement,[75] and the frantic pace of unfolding political events left them behind.[77]
Opponents of the Jacobins saw the Ventôse Decrees as a cynical ploy to appeal to the militant extreme left.[78] Sincere or not, Saint-Just made impassioned arguments for them.
One week after their adoption, he urged that the Decrees be exercised vigorously and hailed them for ushering in a new era: "Eliminate the poverty that dishonors a free state; the property of patriots is sacred but the goods of conspirators are there for the wretched. The wretched are the powerful of the earth; they have the right to speak as masters to the governments who neglect them."[