And still more from That Book About Le Bas
IX
Le Bas and Duquesnoy’s mission to the armies.-Their first order.-Letters from Le Bas to his fiancee.-His return to Paris.-His marriage.-His nomination fo the Committee of General Security.
Many different sentiments appear in the document we’ve just reproduced: immense love of country, respect - almost veneration - for Robespierre, who incarnates patriotism in the eyes of his friends, faculty for sacrifice, forgetting of sufferings borne for the great cause.
Many of Mme Le Bas’s notes would demand to be developed; several among them are precious. I will return notably to those concerning the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul.
I want, first, to make a connection that imposes itself: beside the idyll whose phases the Conventionnel’s widow naively retraces must be placed the glorious operations of which her husband was one of the heroes with the armies.
The letters from the fiancé to the fiancée (and seen after, those of the husband to the wife) will moreover create a curious, little banal, antithesis to the events that will follow.
Amid the effusions of affection of these two beings who gave themselves to each other and who will be united for too short a time, we will have to record proclamations, orders of the day, and the manifestations of an all-consuming activity in the public man, extraordinary commissary to the armies, member of the Committee of General Security or president of the Jacobins.
* * *
On 2 August 1793, the Convention decrees that two of its members, the citizens Le Bas and Duquesnoy, “will go, immediately, to the Army of the North, to correspond there with the Committee of Public Safety, and to take the measures that the interest of the Republic demands there.”
Duquesnoy was, like Le Bas, a deputy of Pas-du-Calais; bonds of kinship united them. Older than his colleague, [1] he had already represented his department in the Legislative Assembly. A simple farmer, without much education, Duquesnoy was not made to survey and above all to guide military operations; but he had, like Le Bas, two qualities which were to serve him powerfully, in the corrupt and undisciplined milieu into which the Convention had just sent him: he was honest and firm. Moreover, his young relation had the intelligence and the sagacity necessary to save him from any imprudent measure.
The first act of the two representatives was to address a proclamation, from their arrival on the theater of war. After having discussed its substance together, Le Bas and Duquesnoy each made a different draft: [2] Le Bas’s was, in the last analysis, chosen and addressed to the troops; as will be seen (through comparison with the returns), it was more modest, it eliminated all useless rigor and diminished reasons for strain.
Le Bas’s spirit of tolerance is thus manifest everywhere, in his writings as in his acts.
Here is that proclamation:
“I have often heard officers accuse the solider of indiscipline, negligence, and cowardice. The source of these disorders exists only in the bad conduct of a few officers. [3]
“I have visited the camps, the billets, the outposts; I have been present at several engagements: everywhere I am convinced of what I advance.
“If I have seen soldiers badly cared for, badly instructed, watchmen asleep, weapons thrown on the ground with impunity, I have also seen officers, some plunged into drunkenness, others absent from the camp and abandoning their subordinates entirely to themselves. Should we be surprised, with such an order of things, at so many surprise attacks where the Republic’s soldiers have been forced to shamefully take flight? And is it not revolting to hear of officers who have not dared to look the enemy in the face, blame a reverse on the good people whose courage they have not known to guide. [4]
“Such condemnable abuses cannot be tolerated, and a representative of the people must employ all the power with which he invested to repress them. [5]
“I declare therefore that I will not hesitate to suspend [6] and to deliver into all the rigor of the laws any leader who does not survey the troops entrusted to him, who is found drunk off-duty, who is absent from camp or his post without motivated permission from his superior, endorsed by the general.
“Invariably attached to the principles of equality, I will make no distinction of rank, and the general will submit to the law the same as the least soldier of the army.” [7]
This document needs no commentary. Yet we would not know to dispense with underlining one phrase, which is found in Le Bas’s proclamation and in Duquesnoy’s variant: the two representatives, measuring out the penalty according to their temperament, discharge or suspend only “any leader who is found drunk off-duty”: the representatives’ severity does not go so far as to inflict a penalty on the leader who becomes intoxicated on duty, and who, notoriously, gives a scandalous example to his soldiers. The officers had arrived at such a degree of misconduct that this moderation was necessary: the ill was too great; the remedy needed to be measured out.
Documents on this first mission of Le Bas to the armies are rare.
Here, first, are the two letters he addresses to his fiancée:
Cambrai, 4 August. [8]
We arrived here yesterday, my dear Élisabeth, quite fatigued. I believe that we will not remain here long, and that we will make haste to head for Bergues. I hope that my stay in this country will not last long. You must not doubt my eagerness to rejoin you and to seal a union to which I attach my life’s happiness. Above all take good care of your health. A thousand kind regards to the whole family; tell Robespierre that, while I rage against him, I am one of his best friends. I embrace you.
LE BAS.
Cassel, 6 August. [9]
I did not have the time, by dear and tender friend, to write to you yesterday, and I have but very little leisure today. We have done much work, and it seems to me that we will have much more still to do to fulfill the object of our mission. I nevertheless hope to be free towards the 10th of this month. Oh! How sweet the moment I see you again will be for me! How cruel absence is, when one loves as I do! My father will surely not go to Paris before my return, and I count on bringing him with me when that time will have arrived. I must go tomorrow to Dunkerque.
Address your letters to me here. A thousand kind regards to your family that I regard as mine as well. I am you faithful friend for life.
LE BAS.
Duquesnoy gives you his compliments.
It is also from Cassel, and the same day (6 August 1793) that Carnot writes to his colleagues of Lille, who were calling for his presence, “that he cannot go to them, and that he profits, in order to go to Paris, by having his two colleagues Duquesnoy and Le Bas who can replace him.” [10]
I report this first show of confidence from Carnot toward the two representatives; this confidence will not be betrayed as regards Le Bas, in his other missions to the armies.
Le Bas and Duquesnoy’s first acts of repression also date from 6 August.
We point out notably these:
From 6 August 1793, Le Bas and Duquesnoy’s requisition to the general Barthel, [11] enjoining him to arrest the general O’Moran. If they exercise rigor, it is because grave suspicions are arising about him and Carnot shared these suspicions, which he had confided to the representatives Niou and Billaud-Varennes.
From the same day, and for the same reasons, a requisition by the same to the general O’Meara, [12] enjoining him to arrest the general Richardot.
The representatives, still on the same day, give an order entrusting the provisional commandment of the billets outside Bergues to Jacques Fromentin, first leader of the first battalion of the Orne. [13]
They give an account to the Committee of Public Safety, 11 August, of the diverse measures taken. [14]
[1] Duquesnoy (E.-D.-F.) was born in Bouvigny-Boyelles in 1748; he was therefore seventeen years older than Le Bas; like him, he killed himself to escape the scaffold.
[2] Duquesnoy and Le Bas’s projects have been conserved by the Le Bas family.
[3] In this passage, Duquesnoy affirmed “the cowardice of most officers.”
[4] Duquesnoy ended by these words: “I am not surprised that in an engagement the soldier whose officer is absent, drunk, or cowardly, abandons himself to flight,” and he added another paragraph to say: “It seems that the officers of this army are uniquely destined but to wallow in debauchery…”
[5] More solemn, Duquesnoy had written: “I would be truly guilty in the eyes of the entire nation if I did not use the power which it has delegated to me to punish crimes which would necessarily bring about its ruin.”
[6] Duquesnoy had put “I will discern the penalty of destitution.”
[7] Duquesnoy’s project, still more solemn, added this peroration: “Reflect, citizen officers: glory awaits you, or opprobrium.”
[8] These letters are addressed “to the citoyenne Élisabeth Duplay, at the home of the citoyen Duplay, cabinetmaker, n°366, Rue Saint-Honoré.” (National Archives, AB XIX 179; they were left there, in 1878, by M. Léon Le Bas.)
[9] Id.
[10] V. Charavay: General correspondence of Carnot, II, page 447.
[11] Original handwriting of Le Bas; National Archives AF II, 233, n°270.
[12] Id., n°166.
[13] Id., n°169.
[14] See their letter to the Historical Archives of the Ministry of War (Army of the North, 11 August 1793). It is written in Le Bas’s hand.
See too the decrees of a particular order made by the representatives in the first fifteen days of August, in the National Archives (AF, II, 131, plaquette 1004), notably that secularizing the personnel of the hospital of Bailleul, then composed of “Black Nuns,” and that suspending the general Chalain, and replacing him provisionally by the general Ferrand.
And, in other Le Bas-related news, on Google Books, I found a few more basic facts (which, however, need to be taken with a grain of salt--you'll see why) in Charles Nauroy's Le curieux, vol. 2:
Page 156
Le conventionnel Lebas. - Voici l’acte de naissance de Philippe Le Bas (de l’Institut), précepteur de Napoléon III :
Extrait du registre des actes de naissance de la municipalité de Paris pour l’an 2.
Du premier messidor de l’an second.
Acte de naissance de Philippe, né le vingt-neuf du mois dernier, deux heures du matin, rue du Luxembourg, section des Piques, fils de Philippe-François-Joseph Lebas et de Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay, même demeure, marié en aoust à la commune de Paris.
Témoins : Emmanuel Lanne, âgé de trente un ans, domicilié à Paris place et section des piques, et Maurice Duplay ayeul de l’enfant, domicilié à Paris, rue Honoré, même section.
Sur la déclaration faite à la maison commune par ledit Lebas, père de l’enfant.
Signé : Le Bas, Lanne, adjt, Duplay et Coru.
Par jugement rendu en la chambre du conseil du Tribunal civil de la Seine le seize décembre mil huit cent cinquante-neuf enregistré, il a été ordonné que l’acte ci-contre sera rectifié en ce que le nom du père y a été écrit Lebas, au lieu de l’être de cette manière Le Bas en deux mots.
Philippe-François-Joseph Lebas mourut sur l’échafaud avec Saint-Just et Robespierre le 10 thermidor an II [1] : il était né à Frévent (Pas-de-Calais) (Ernest Hamel, Histoire de Saint-Just, page 281).
Son fils épousa à Paris, (1er arrondissement), le 2 octobre 1817 une parente, Edmée-Louise-Clémence Duplay, née à Paris le 27 floréal an 7 (16 avril 1799), fille de Mathieu-Jacques, menuisier et d’Agathe-Edmée Buchon époux ; il était alors employé au bureau des hospices de la préfecture de la Seine.
Sa veuve, Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay, née à Paris le 16 août 1772, demeurant rue de Verneuil n° 792, fille de Maurice, qui mourut en 1820 (Hamel, Histoire de Robespierre, III, 685) et de feue Françoise-Eléonore Vogois [sic], se remaria à Paris (10e arrondissement) le 20 nivôse an 7 avec Charles-Louis-Joseph Lebas, parent de son premier mari, employé, né à Frévent (Pas-de-Calais) le 27 mars 1772, mort à Paris, (8e arrondissement) le 2 septembre 1830, d’où Charles, employé à la Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, né à Lorient (Morbihan) le 4 décembre 1810, marié à Paris (9e arrondissement) le 23 décembre 1848 à Rose-Hortense Lottin, née à Saint-Valéry (Somme) le 9 janvier 1827, d’où Charles-Auguste-Philippe Maximilien, né à Paris, quai Bourbon, n° 1, le 2 juin 1851. [2]
Au dernier moment, je lis dans la Révolution française, 2e semestre de 1885, page 146, qu’Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay mourut le 26 juillet 1832 ; on voit qu’elle n’avait pas 64 ans, comme le dit M. Félix Bouvier d’après les inscriptions du Père-Lachaise, où elle est enterrée avec son père Maurice (Saint-Didier la Seauve (Haute-Loire) 23 décembre 1730 - Paris 30 juin 1820). [3]
[1] Erreur: Le Bas s’est suicidé dans la nuit du 9 au 10 thermidor an II.
[2] Voir cette note dans la traduction anglaise.
[3] Évidemment, il s’agit d’une confusion avec le tombeau de sa sœur Éléonore, Élisabeth n’étant morte qu’en 1859.
Page 156
The conventionnel Le Bas. - Here is the birth certificate of Philippe Le Bas (of the Institute), tutor of Napoléon III:
Excerpt from the registry of birth certificates of the municipality of Paris for the Year 2.
From the first of Messidor of the second year.
Birth certificate of Philippe, born the twenty-ninth of last month, at two in the morning, Rue du Luxembourg, Section des Piques, son of Philippe-François-Joseph Lebas and Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay, same residence, married in August at the Paris Commune.
Witnesses: Emmanuel Lanne, aged thirty-one years, residing in Paris, Place and Section des Piques, and Maurice Duplay, grandfather of the child, residing in Paris, Rue Honoré, same section.
On the declaration made at the Maison Commune by the stated Le Bas, father of the child.
Signed: Le Bas, Lanne, adjt, Duplay, and Coru.
By the judgment rendered in the chamber of the counsel of the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, registered 16 December 1859, it has been ordered that the certificate opposite will be rectified in that the father’s name was there written Lebas, instead of having been written, in this way, Le Bas, in two words.
Philippe-François-Joseph Lebas died on the scaffold with Saint-Just and Robespierre on 10 Thermidor Year II: [1] he was born in Frévent (Pas-de-Calais) (Ernest Hamel, Histoire de Saint-Just, page 281).
His son married a relative, Edmée-Louise-Clémence Duplay, born in Paris on 27 Floréal Year 7 (16 April 1799), daughter of Mathieu-Jacques, cabinetmaker, and Agathe-Edmée Buchon, husband and wife, in Paris (1st arrondissement) on 2 October 1817; he was then employed in the bureau of hospices of the prefecture of the Seine.
His widow, Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay, born in Paris on 16 August 1772, residing in the Rue de Verneuil, n° 792, daughter of Maurice, who died in 1820 (Hamel, Histoire de Robespierre, III, 685) and the late Françoise-Eléonore Vogois [sic], remarried, in Paris (10th arrondissement) on 20 Nivôse Year 7, Charles-Louis-Joseph Lebas, relative of her first husband, employed, born in Frévent (Pas-de-Calais) on 27 March 1772, died in Paris, (8th arrondissement) on 2 September 1830, from which [union was born] Charles, employed in the Library of the Sorbonne, born in Lorient (Morbihan) on 4 December 1810, married in Paris (9th arrondissement) on 23 December 1848, Rose-Hortense Lottin, born in Saint-Valéry (Somme) on 9 January 1827, from which [union was born] Charles-Auguste-Philippe-Maximilien, born in Paris, Quai Bourbon, n° 1, on 2 June 1851. [2]
At the last minute, I read in the Révolution Française, 2nd semester of 1885, page 146, that Elisabeth-Eléonore Duplay died on 26 July 1832; it may be seen that she was only 64 years old, as M. Félix Bouvier says, according to the inscriptions from Père-Lachaise, where she is interred with her father Maurice (Saint-Didier-la-Seauve (Haute-Loire), 23 December 1730 - Paris, 30 June 1820). [3]
[1] Translator’s note: An error: Le Bas committed suicide on the night of 9-10 Thermidor Year II.
[2] Translator’s note: One appreciates the gesture (given whom the baby was obviously named after), but what a place to be born!
[3] Translator’s note: Clearly a confusion with her sister Éléonore’s grave; Élisabeth died in 1859.