FIC: Burning a Fragment of the Eternal (Chapter II) - Saint-Just/Robespierre - Rated PG-13.
Title: Burning a Fragment of the Eternal - Chapter II (of ?)
Author: Maelicia
Rating: PG-13
Era: Summer-Fall 1793.
Pairings/Characters: Saint-Just/Robespierre (main pairing); Saint-Just/Desmoulins (flashback), Saint-Just/Thérèse Gellé (brief mentions); also featuring Le Bas and Charlotte Robespierre.
Word Count: 4341
Summary: This story is about the tension between the public self and the private self, between the Stoical and Inflexible Conventionnel and Saint-Just’s younger, almost libertine self, the conflict between the political man and private man who both struggle to accept each other…
Beta’ed by estellacat and elvenmongoose.
Again, thanks to everyone who’s been there for me. Much love. ♥
Burning a Fragment of the Eternal
~ By Maelicia.
“We mustn’t confuse the feelings of the soul with passions;
the first are the gift of nature and the principle of social life;
the others are the fruit of usurpation and the principle of savage life.
[…] Man does not know himself and, so proud [as he is] of the false nature
he has made for himself, how will he find the true one again?”
~ Saint-Just, De la nature…, 1791-1792.
II
The rest of that day of 9 October 1793 had passed like many others. A session at the committee, a session at the Convention. Debates, arguments, shouts and applause. At times, short talks with colleagues, bureaucrats, friends, acquaintances or partisans.
When the session at the Committee had been adjourned for the afternoon, Saint-Just had exchanged some words with Robespierre. The same as usual, about each other’s personal agendas. Then, they had parted; Robespierre, to dine at the Duplays, as always; Saint-Just to wait for Le Bas to be done with the Committee of General Security. They dined together, at the Convention, discussing the preparations for their mission to Alsace. Le Bas spoke of his wife, too, but that was to be expected. Everything reminded him of her. Now it was the food, which wasn’t as good as Babet’s. Tomorrow it might be a soft word, the smell of flowers, or even the pattern of some man’s waistcoat. Or the fichus (or hairdo?) of some woman passing by, as had already happened once.
Saint-Just’s eyes widened and he almost choked on his bit of bread. “Her fichus, really?”
“I meant… her hairdo,” Le Bas coughed, embarrassed. “Yes, that woman’s hairdo reminds me of Babet’s.”
“Ah, yes…”
“This wasn’t what I…where I was looking,” the man defended himself, somewhat ashamed. “You know that.”
“Le Bas,” Saint-Just added, teasingly, grinning knowingly. He knew that wasn’t where he was looking, but the slip was nevertheless amusing. “You’re blushing like a schoolboy.”
That afternoon, Barère had presented his decree to ban all merchandise fabricated in England and in the countries under that government’s yoke from the République. There had been murmurs - coming from a certain side of the Convention. Fabre d’Églantine had added an amendment, stating that the decree was pointless if it did not also decree the arrest of all the English, as well as the confiscation of their property. Then, there had been shouts - unsurprisingly from the same side. An argument followed on this amendment. Ramel, from the Committee of Finances and Trade, claimed it was “contrary to the interests of the République”. This time, there had been shouts from the other side of the Convention. Predictable, Saint-Just thought. The usual.
Robespierre went to the tribune to support Fabre’s proposition. It was a short intervention, but it was effective: the Convention demanded to vote on it immediately, and it was adopted, despite Ramel’s opposition.
Saint-Just remembered Robespierre’s slight, proud smile when he climbed back to his seat. Next to him. Up the Mountain. A lovely smile. The sort that sent warm tremors through his chest.
Saint-Just raised his eyes; Robespierre was now standing in front of him, flipping through the pages of his notebook. After his meeting with a delegate of his section, he had come back to the Committee, where Saint-Just was, at the moment, working, dipping his quill in the inkwell, writing, then - furtively - looking up at Robespierre. His friend seemed nervous ever since he had come back. He was walking from the table to the desks and shelves, searching through the files and piles of papers, leaving them displaced, untidy.
Saint-Just was watching the scene out of the corner of his eye. He had returned to the Committee to concentrate better, something he doubted he could succeed in as well in the privacy - the uncomfortable intimacy - of his apartment. Too many memories… Following the few suggestions of his colleagues, he was correcting the speech he was going to read the next day, slightly re-writing some parts, then giving each page to be dutifully copied by a secretary.
“Did you see the petition that was brought to us this morning?” Robespierre asked suddenly, despairing of not finding what he was seeking. He pulled his glasses up to his forehead, rubbing his eyes out of weariness.
“No,” Saint-Just answered, shaking his head. “Maybe Lindet knows though.”
“Lindet?”
“I think I heard him speaking of it.”
Robespierre’s eyes stared up and he frowned, lost in his thoughts, probably trying to remember if he had spoken to Lindet about the petition or vice-versa. After a moment, he looked back at Saint-Just. “Perhaps,” he said simply.
He started walking to the door, trying to figure out where Lindet could be at the moment. Suddenly though, he stopped. Turning back, he walked to Saint-Just and pulled back the chair next to him to sit down. Taking a pause, a break in his daily rhythm. Saint-Just watched him quietly, amused.
“What are you doing?” Robespierre inquired.
His voice was soft; the tone, different. Saint-Just smiled.
“I’m re-working tomorrow’s speech.”
“Ah.” Robespierre sighed. “Will you come this evening?”
There was a gathering of Robespierre’s friends at the Duplay house, as always. This time, it might be a bit more… special, since many of the people who would be there were about to leave on mission. Buonarroti, Le Bas, Saint-Just himself…
“Yes,” Saint-Just almost whispered, his smile growing wider. “I will.”
***
There were very few things Saint-Just truly enjoyed. He wasn’t a man of many pleasures. He had taught himself - with difficulty, admittedly - to appreciate the few things he was granted. Even when he aspired to more, it was for something higher, for something unearthly.
When he was a child, he enjoyed taking long walks in the fields of Blérancourt, running through them with friends, playing from time to time at hide-and-seek with the peasant or bourgeois children. Sometimes, he loved to merely hide for hours, all alone, to lay down on his back against the hard soil, to look at the brown earth under his nails, and to watch the sky, the clouds. One day, he brought the young Thérèse with him, the illegitimate daughter of the notary Gellé. A tradition which started when they were children and didn’t cease until… until fate decided otherwise. She had always been different, like Saint-Just, and they liked this in each other. Outcast children of their small village. But one day, their differences stopped bringing them together and Thérèse unwillingly came to aspire to be one of the others. Her mother was finally united to her father in the holy, legal bonds of marriage and Thérèse’s birth stigma thus disappeared. As if a single paper, a marriage certificate, the register of a Church, could change the self of a human. But now that she was “proper” and “respectable”, she was, finally, just like all the others: a tool for families and social ascension. Saint-Just and Thérèse grew apart and she regretted, silently, that Saint-Just would no longer bring her to observe the clouds in the fields. He silently regretted that she would never come back to listen to his flute playing or to the rhymes he made about her hair, comparing her long locks to the colour of the wheat ears surrounding them.
Another thing he used to enjoy from these fields was their silence. The wind passing through the wheat ears, dancing. The wind filling the silence, creating a sort of music from the silence.
Much later, when he was older and when he rode his horse through the fields, he would hear that strange music again. Sometimes he would shut his eyes, and let the horse lead him along the road, and he would forget everything else. No shouts. No lies. No hypocrisy. No masks. Only a peculiar form of silence. And that brought peace to his soul and mind.
Except today, as he was riding as he often did in the Bois de Boulogne, he couldn’t find it.
It was too crowded to gallop freely. (The best time to do so was dawn, the early morning, or sunset, in fact.) It was a sunny day, a beautiful, bright October day - one of the last few - which naturally attracted people to the Parc de Bagatelle at the heart of the woods. There were bourgeoises with their children; and entire bourgeois families picnicking; and some were walking their dogs. Saint-Just thought they could have done it in the Jardin des Tuileries or at the Palais-Royal, but maybe those were crowded too.
Saint-Just looked at the smiling faces, at their calm, at their playfulness.
Suddenly he wondered if the men who were there didn’t have better things to do. Why weren’t they working? Did their workers do everything? Couldn’t they leave for the struggling armies, sharing their blood with their Mother the République? What sort of permission did they have? Which member of the government, of the bureaucracy, allowed them? What connections did they have? What allies?
A new regime. Which still looked exactly like the previous one, except with the appearance that there were less aristocrats around. What’s in a different date, calendar, code of address and costume? Whose heart was laughing now and who would say, in a few years, that they had lived in fear?
Saint-Just frowned. He didn’t know why he had thought of that, as if he had a feeling of an ending, of a closure. What closure? Shouldn’t the future be open to anything? But tomorrow - which would be the future - he would condemn the Constitution. Himself. He would give the last blow - he wondered why he was always the one chosen for these tasks. Because the youngest must prove his courage and his virtue. And there were no choices. So many doors of the future had been shut. The feeling of closure was around him.
No choices. Yet, he was free. He had always been. He always would be.
But when he thought of Robespierre, his thoughts became confused again.
An image from the afternoon suddenly came back to him. After his older friend’s argument at the tribune, when the session at the Convention was dismissed, Desmoulins was there, waiting. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs for his ‘childhood friend’. He had embraced Maximilien, for no reason, for no other pretext than to express an inexplicable joy. So typical of him. Saint-Just observed how they had completely forgotten about his existence when they did, when they started discussing together, how Desmoulins apologised about not being able to go to the Duplays’ that evening. Nonsensical chattering.
Desmoulins. Ever since Danton went off to Arcis for his honeymoon - which seemed, quite frankly, endless - Desmoulins seemed lost. He always seemed lost anyway. Searching for a cause. For a mentor. For a protector. Pathetic man, Saint-Just thought. Older than me and yet still acting in this pathetic way. And Robespierre who treats him like a child. Sometimes, Saint-Just thought the two’s relationship was… no, he wouldn’t say the word.
Prior to the time of the Convention, Saint-Just had met Camille Desmoulins only twice. He had written to him often before, always eagerly waiting for a response, as with Beuvin, his editor. The only person he had never actually expected an answer from was Robespierre.
This wasn’t a memory Saint-Just was proud of, but he had admired Desmoulins once. Or so he thought. Now, he really wondered why or how he could have. The man was filth, he was convinced. Patriotic, but filth nevertheless. Only, he hid it well. Even Saint-Just had been fooled the first time he had met him - but the second, it would have been difficult not to realise. He remembered how it had happened, when they had seen each other for a dinner in one of Mirabeau’s hotels. Saint-Just did say he would rather have taken a coffee somewhere else…
“Who’s paying for all of this?” Saint-Just asked, a bit surprised - and, especially, unused - by the fine meals and the luxury of the dining room.
“I’d like to say it’s me,” Desmoulins answered, cheerfully. “B-But it’s Mirabeau.”
Saint-Just thought that Camille Desmoulins must really have a thing for surrounding himself with men of passionate fury, like Mirabeau and Danton - also, men of great hideousness.
“How do you get Mirabeau to offer you these things? Letting you give a dinner for a… mere country patriot?”
“Don’t speak of yourself this way,” Desmoulins seemed to lose his gaze in the younger man’s - but the feeling, unfortunately, wasn’t returned. Saint-Just sensed it, somehow, and frowned slightly, though not enough as to worry the man he was conversing with. “You’re more than that,” he continued. “As for your first question, it’s nothing very complex… nor very novel either. Give him something, he’ll give you something else. It’s the most natural exchange you can get. Barter. Like the Indians.”
“Ah,” Saint-Just merely replied. He didn’t really think this had anything to do with the Indians, or with the Primitive Man. Rather, he could recognise this sort of philosophy in the corrupted alliance system of the Ancien Régime. The sort of system that had made him lose Thérèse. He tried to concentrate on his meal, on the fine plate in front of him, but he suddenly realised he could not. A thought for the people starving because of the high prices and the bad winter kept on returning to his mind. He didn’t feel guilty often; but this time, he did.
Desmoulins seemed to notice the younger man’s conflict. “What is it? Don’t you like th-th-the fried salmon?” A worry, no doubt, had just interfered with the control of his stuttering.
“No, it’s not that,” Saint-Just hastily sputtered, not wanting to appear so capricious when it was not that at all. “I was just thinking it’s too much for one, when there are so many who have nothing at all.”
“Oh, right,” Desmoulins seemed to hesitate. His answer was odd, Saint-Just thought. As if he had forgotten about all of this, lost in a luxury that didn’t even belong to him. “Well, I always say that you can’t refuse a good thing when it comes to you.”
Saint-Just attempted a smile, a bit shyly. “Perhaps, but it’s not very stoical.”
Desmoulins laughed. “I’ll be frank and say I’m not… really much of a Stoic.”
“Unfortunate.”
Desmoulins noted his guest’s disappointment, and thus decided to change the subject to something that would please him. “We cou-could go to th-the living room. If you like. To discuss your projects.”
Indeed it did; Saint-Just smiled. Once again, the stuttering might have betrayed a deeper emotion, but Saint-Just didn’t really mind. He was anxious to discuss again the journal he hoped he could have with Desmoulins, or to know if he could just work with the other man - anything would please him, in fact, as long as it was something that could occupy his time until he could finally be elected to an office.
Usually, the other man spoke of himself, and Saint-Just let him do it because he didn’t really mind so much about not having to speak. Saint-Just would just mention, now and then, articles Desmoulins had written that he preferred, to try to be agreeable to the conversation. But Saint-Just wasn’t lying; when he liked something, it was for real. Sometimes, he was blinded by this conviction of his own, and forgot that most men don’t actually believe in what they say.
The two men passed to the living room. This was when Saint-Just slowly started to wonder - while looking at the decoration, far too luxurious for his taste - why Desmoulins had told him he would arrange a meeting between the young man and some of the big names of the Revolution. Saint-Just knew of Desmoulins’ connections with Marat, Danton and, especially, Robespierre. Not that the first two mattered to him so much, nor all the connections he also had with reformist aristocrats and nobles of different lines of thought. No, what Saint-Just suddenly wanted to know was why Desmoulins was chattering with him in such a luxurious living room, sharing some strong liquor with him.
Though he had been suspicious since the beginning of the evening, Saint-Just soon understood, when the other man stopped discussing politics, drastically changing the subject of conversation, that his odd fears had been justified.
“D-d-do you know the works of the phhh… physionomists?”
Maybe it was the strong liquor, Saint-Just reasoned.
“I’ve heard of them,” he simply answered. “I don’t really believe in what they write.”
“Oh, but it’s science. You don’t have to believe; you have to be convinced by proof.”
“Well, it’s that they don’t have proof.”
“Depends. For example…” Desmoulins moved forward in the armchair, index pointing at Saint-Just’s mouth. “Do you know what lips like yours mean according to the physionomists?”
“No.”
Somehow, he expected it would come to this. Maybe not so bluntly, but he saw it coming. It happened every time someone spoke of those damned physionomists. Because his answer was a lie; he perfectly knew what his lips ‘meant’ because someone already told him. In fact, more than just one. Tales on the physionomist interpretations about one’s looks were so common, yet people still thought they were being original every time they brought them up. And they were also quite pathetic. Which ruined the effect of their so-called science. It could destroy lives, in fact. And it was so vain - not to say, fatalistic - to look at oneself for hours trying to figure out what one’s facial features would tell of one’s inner self and future.
“They are the sign of laziness and voluptuousness.”
Oddly, that didn’t make the other man stutter at all. Nevertheless, Saint-Just didn’t look very impressed by the statement and started, instead, to become irritated - though it was not apparent. “Did you look it up just before I come here?”
“No… I looked it up right after our first meeting,” Desmoulins took a sip from his glass. Maybe that was what gave him some control of his stutter, Saint-Just suddenly considered, numbing his palate. “Since then, I’ve been intrigued to know if your lips could reveal an unavoidable force of nature you might be fighting against, as it tried to lead your life.”
“My life is not commanded by my lips.”
That last reply sounded a bit curt. Saint-Just was feeling, within himself, that he was about to lose his composure. In these sorts of moments, he usually preferred to keep silent, to lock himself from within - but he couldn’t really do it in this situation; it could mean a recognition, or worse, a passivity. His lips, precisely, suddenly seemed very dry, and the younger man didn’t dare to moisten them, fearing the message this would send to the person who was conversing so peculiarly with him.
“Isn’t there a tension within yourself? Between what you refuse to be and what you want to be? Ascetic stoicism sure isn’t for you, I can see that.”
“You don’t know me!”
This time, Saint-Just was quite offended and his true feelings had unfortunately emerged. How did he dare? He was about to get up from the sofa, when the other man stood and, gripping his left arm, pulled him towards him. Surprised by the other man’s bold move more than with his actual strength, Saint-Just didn’t say anything - yet he should have. He only looked at Desmoulins, shocked and perplexed. As if he were suddenly paralysed, though he loathed to describe his reaction in this way.
“I’ve learned a few things about your youth, chevalier d’Organt.” Desmoulins whispered this phrase to him, eyes looking deeply into his. Saint-Just really didn’t like those eyes. They seemed elsewhere. He had drunk too much. Such a weak composure. “And I’ve wondered which path to fame you would prefer to take. Remember: I give you something, you give me something…”
Saint-Just’s breathing started to quicken, and he frowned. He disliked what this implied, but he especially disliked what he felt inside of him. What was this burning inside of his chest? Rage or… something else? What was this feeling? No, he wouldn’t be like that. He wouldn’t like that grip on his arm. He wouldn’t like that sort of proposition, that sort of suggestion of what he was. Because Louis-Antoine (de) Saint-Just wouldn’t be that. He wouldn’t take a path that a false nature might have indicated for him.
“I don’t seek fame.”
It was simple - perhaps too much, since it destabilised the other man, who released him. Relieved, Saint-Just immediately turned his back to him and started to stride towards the main door. He wouldn’t stay there one minute more.
However, before he left, he turned a last time to look at the man, who had decided to sit back in the armchair.
“You’re a good patriot, I trust that, but… don’t approach me again.”
That was all he could say, even though he wasn’t sure anymore if he was telling the truth. How could this be a good patriot? Maybe Saint-Just had lied for the first time, and that felt disgusting. That was not how patriots should be.
“Citoyen Saint-Just!”
The feminine voice shook him out of his memories. He turned his head slightly back to the right to see Charlotte Robespierre speeding her horse to reach him. Very soon, she was right next to him.
“I saw you from a distance,” she added, smiling. The sun shone brightly in her eyes, and he noted that they were the same colour as her older brother’s.
“Citoyenne Robespierre,” Saint-Just replied, smiling back. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you are,” the older woman answered enigmatically, hinting at their mutual affection for this sort of solitary promenade. “But I am doing it while my brothers are too busy to scold me as usual…”
Saint-Just had vaguely heard of this story from Maximilien, when Charlotte had accompanied Augustin on his mission in the Midi. She used to promenade with the wife of Augustin’s colleague, until people started whispering that it wasn’t proper, that it was vain, that it attracted the enemy’s attention to them. Some story that sounded like this, or something about plots threatening them. Saint-Just didn’t really remember - Robespierre had been muttering about it, and told his sister not to do this again. Except that now that she was in Paris, she assumed that she could.
Yet, the sound of her voice didn’t sound so daring. She was lowering her eyes and placed a lock of auburn hair behind her left ear, combing it nervously, repeatedly. This was a sign which couldn’t lie - Saint-Just had seen her brother do it so often, combing his neat wig with his fingers with an exaggerated, almost maniacal care. It wasn’t a form of prudery or timidity; she rather seemed to think of herself as guilty for something that wasn’t really a fault. Such a family trait, Saint-Just concluded.
“You won’t denounce me,” Charlotte suddenly asked, eyes flashing back at Saint-Just. “Will you, Citoyen?”
Saint-Just smiled widely. Laughing a bit, he looked around playfully as if it were a State security secret. “I promise I won’t,” he replied in a semi-serious way.
Charlotte laughed too. She wasn’t used to seeing this so serious Conventionnel joking. He wasn’t either, in fact. “Then I should be fine,” she said again. “Unless one of those Duplay pests reports me.”
She was referring to the slight hostility she assumed the Duplay mother, Françoise, and the elder daughter, Éléonore, had towards her, stopping her - as she had once fully explained (or complained about) - from visiting (and taking care of) her own brothers. She exaggerated, most of the time - or so Maximilien said. It appeared that his attempts to reconstitute an odd family - his childhood dream - were not working as perfectly as he had wished.
“I thought Élisabeth was your friend,” Saint-Just commented, remembering how Charlotte had always seemed to get along quite well with the youngest Duplay daughter.
“She is… but you know how young brides are… Distracted. Always swooning about son Philippe.”
Saint-Just grinned at the woman’s grimace, trying to imitate her far younger friend’s voice. A typical comment from an old spinster, he thought. “Then perhaps try swooning over someone too?”
“I would,” she retorted - almost curtly, in the same way than her older brother always did whenever he felt someone was misunderstanding him, or misinterpreting his thoughts and, especially, his temperament and nature. “But my brothers may not approve of my choices. Such as my apparently aristocratic horseback-riding. Aristocratic?” She paused for a slight sneer. “How can horseback-riding be aristocratic?!”
Saint-Just laughed. He unfortunately didn’t have the answer, but he was sure her brothers hadn’t quite described it as “aristocratic”. Perhaps, “threat to their reputation” or “exposure to enemy propaganda”. The Robespierres were, after all, good at exaggeration.
“Will you come to the gathering tonight?”
“Yes,” Saint-Just nodded. “Maximilien already reminded me.”
“Ah,” she replied, pausing before she continued with another (this time surprising) question. “Do you want to race, Citoyen?”
Saint-Just hadn’t expected this. He looked, a bit shocked, at the woman seven years his senior, eyebrows rising. She laughed - probably because of the odd looks he must have been showing at the moment. He would have liked to accept the proposal, but he had already accepted to keep a “secret” from her brothers, his colleagues. The situation would become awkward…
“I’m afraid I must regretfully refuse, Citoyenne.” Even as he tried again to look stern, the ghost of a smile on his lips betrayed that he had been genuinely joyous the moment before.
“How unfortunate,” Charlotte replied, the tone of her voice hinting at her disappointment. “I’ll do it alone then.”
He watched the woman suddenly riding her horse away, brusquely. She winded along the road between bourgeois families, who seemed slightly shocked, and shouted. He could hear her far away “polite” apologies... even though she didn’t stop and came back.
Yes, Saint-Just thought, this attitude looked quite improper - and quite un-Robespierre-like. He wondered if the Robespierre brothers had realised how free was their sister, maybe more than them both, with all of their obligations. And yet, these two brothers were also quite free, in their own way, even if they may not have any idea of it.
Somehow though, Saint-Just also wondered how much the Robespierre sister valued her freedom. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he could perceive a difference between the siblings’ conception of their own freedom, and its price.
He didn’t think about his own. He knew already.
***************************************************************************
Author’s Notes.
1. The flashback on Desmoulins was slightly, mysteriously, introduced in my fic The Understanding of a Consuming Battlefield, because it’s a scene I pictured in my mind long ago, about an “encounter” of the sort between the two men. I’ve felt very uncertain about it, and it had many re-writings, mainly because my goal is not to make Camille seem like he’s “evil”, and I hope it worked. He’s rather acting like an unwilling “corrupter”; the scene, also, has a “purpose” in the plot, to address the issues behind Saint-Just’s fears (I hope that could be read), but also because he will make other “appearances” in the next chapter and in a future chapter (I don’t have the number of it right now). I must say that the scene was originally going much further than this, and that I made the whole thing less terrible by making Camille a bit... drunk.
2. The story about Charlotte’s “aristocratic horseback-riding” is described in her memoirs, if you’re interested. I may have played around with it, so that it doesn’t really look like what she was telling - but this is why the story is re-told from Saint-Just’s perspective, who doesn’t really know (didn’t pay attention) to the details.
3. The Second Chapter was originally more than 10 000 words, all from Saint-Just’s POV. However, finally, I decided to cut it into many parts, and develop each of them. There is a practical and a sentimental reason for this. The practical one is that, this way, you will get to know what’s going on in Robespierre’s mind much earlier, because the next chapter will be from his POV. The sentimental one is that one of the scenes - which was yet one of my most beloved ones, the one that almost disappeared with my computer crash - now seems unbearably painful to me. I couldn’t delete it (and when you read it, you will know why), so my only solution was to give it a better ending, and to change what would occur afterwards. This is this scenario I decided to follow, and thanks to nirejseki for the help. ♥
Chapters:
Chapter I (Rated R)
Chapter III (Rated PG-13)
Chapter IV (Rated R)
Chapter V (Rated R)
Chapter VI (Rated R)
Author: Maelicia
Rating: PG-13
Era: Summer-Fall 1793.
Pairings/Characters: Saint-Just/Robespierre (main pairing); Saint-Just/Desmoulins (flashback), Saint-Just/Thérèse Gellé (brief mentions); also featuring Le Bas and Charlotte Robespierre.
Word Count: 4341
Summary: This story is about the tension between the public self and the private self, between the Stoical and Inflexible Conventionnel and Saint-Just’s younger, almost libertine self, the conflict between the political man and private man who both struggle to accept each other…
Beta’ed by estellacat and elvenmongoose.
Again, thanks to everyone who’s been there for me. Much love. ♥
Burning a Fragment of the Eternal
~ By Maelicia.
“We mustn’t confuse the feelings of the soul with passions;
the first are the gift of nature and the principle of social life;
the others are the fruit of usurpation and the principle of savage life.
[…] Man does not know himself and, so proud [as he is] of the false nature
he has made for himself, how will he find the true one again?”
~ Saint-Just, De la nature…, 1791-1792.
II
The rest of that day of 9 October 1793 had passed like many others. A session at the committee, a session at the Convention. Debates, arguments, shouts and applause. At times, short talks with colleagues, bureaucrats, friends, acquaintances or partisans.
When the session at the Committee had been adjourned for the afternoon, Saint-Just had exchanged some words with Robespierre. The same as usual, about each other’s personal agendas. Then, they had parted; Robespierre, to dine at the Duplays, as always; Saint-Just to wait for Le Bas to be done with the Committee of General Security. They dined together, at the Convention, discussing the preparations for their mission to Alsace. Le Bas spoke of his wife, too, but that was to be expected. Everything reminded him of her. Now it was the food, which wasn’t as good as Babet’s. Tomorrow it might be a soft word, the smell of flowers, or even the pattern of some man’s waistcoat. Or the fichus (or hairdo?) of some woman passing by, as had already happened once.
Saint-Just’s eyes widened and he almost choked on his bit of bread. “Her fichus, really?”
“I meant… her hairdo,” Le Bas coughed, embarrassed. “Yes, that woman’s hairdo reminds me of Babet’s.”
“Ah, yes…”
“This wasn’t what I…where I was looking,” the man defended himself, somewhat ashamed. “You know that.”
“Le Bas,” Saint-Just added, teasingly, grinning knowingly. He knew that wasn’t where he was looking, but the slip was nevertheless amusing. “You’re blushing like a schoolboy.”
That afternoon, Barère had presented his decree to ban all merchandise fabricated in England and in the countries under that government’s yoke from the République. There had been murmurs - coming from a certain side of the Convention. Fabre d’Églantine had added an amendment, stating that the decree was pointless if it did not also decree the arrest of all the English, as well as the confiscation of their property. Then, there had been shouts - unsurprisingly from the same side. An argument followed on this amendment. Ramel, from the Committee of Finances and Trade, claimed it was “contrary to the interests of the République”. This time, there had been shouts from the other side of the Convention. Predictable, Saint-Just thought. The usual.
Robespierre went to the tribune to support Fabre’s proposition. It was a short intervention, but it was effective: the Convention demanded to vote on it immediately, and it was adopted, despite Ramel’s opposition.
Saint-Just remembered Robespierre’s slight, proud smile when he climbed back to his seat. Next to him. Up the Mountain. A lovely smile. The sort that sent warm tremors through his chest.
Saint-Just raised his eyes; Robespierre was now standing in front of him, flipping through the pages of his notebook. After his meeting with a delegate of his section, he had come back to the Committee, where Saint-Just was, at the moment, working, dipping his quill in the inkwell, writing, then - furtively - looking up at Robespierre. His friend seemed nervous ever since he had come back. He was walking from the table to the desks and shelves, searching through the files and piles of papers, leaving them displaced, untidy.
Saint-Just was watching the scene out of the corner of his eye. He had returned to the Committee to concentrate better, something he doubted he could succeed in as well in the privacy - the uncomfortable intimacy - of his apartment. Too many memories… Following the few suggestions of his colleagues, he was correcting the speech he was going to read the next day, slightly re-writing some parts, then giving each page to be dutifully copied by a secretary.
“Did you see the petition that was brought to us this morning?” Robespierre asked suddenly, despairing of not finding what he was seeking. He pulled his glasses up to his forehead, rubbing his eyes out of weariness.
“No,” Saint-Just answered, shaking his head. “Maybe Lindet knows though.”
“Lindet?”
“I think I heard him speaking of it.”
Robespierre’s eyes stared up and he frowned, lost in his thoughts, probably trying to remember if he had spoken to Lindet about the petition or vice-versa. After a moment, he looked back at Saint-Just. “Perhaps,” he said simply.
He started walking to the door, trying to figure out where Lindet could be at the moment. Suddenly though, he stopped. Turning back, he walked to Saint-Just and pulled back the chair next to him to sit down. Taking a pause, a break in his daily rhythm. Saint-Just watched him quietly, amused.
“What are you doing?” Robespierre inquired.
His voice was soft; the tone, different. Saint-Just smiled.
“I’m re-working tomorrow’s speech.”
“Ah.” Robespierre sighed. “Will you come this evening?”
There was a gathering of Robespierre’s friends at the Duplay house, as always. This time, it might be a bit more… special, since many of the people who would be there were about to leave on mission. Buonarroti, Le Bas, Saint-Just himself…
“Yes,” Saint-Just almost whispered, his smile growing wider. “I will.”
***
There were very few things Saint-Just truly enjoyed. He wasn’t a man of many pleasures. He had taught himself - with difficulty, admittedly - to appreciate the few things he was granted. Even when he aspired to more, it was for something higher, for something unearthly.
When he was a child, he enjoyed taking long walks in the fields of Blérancourt, running through them with friends, playing from time to time at hide-and-seek with the peasant or bourgeois children. Sometimes, he loved to merely hide for hours, all alone, to lay down on his back against the hard soil, to look at the brown earth under his nails, and to watch the sky, the clouds. One day, he brought the young Thérèse with him, the illegitimate daughter of the notary Gellé. A tradition which started when they were children and didn’t cease until… until fate decided otherwise. She had always been different, like Saint-Just, and they liked this in each other. Outcast children of their small village. But one day, their differences stopped bringing them together and Thérèse unwillingly came to aspire to be one of the others. Her mother was finally united to her father in the holy, legal bonds of marriage and Thérèse’s birth stigma thus disappeared. As if a single paper, a marriage certificate, the register of a Church, could change the self of a human. But now that she was “proper” and “respectable”, she was, finally, just like all the others: a tool for families and social ascension. Saint-Just and Thérèse grew apart and she regretted, silently, that Saint-Just would no longer bring her to observe the clouds in the fields. He silently regretted that she would never come back to listen to his flute playing or to the rhymes he made about her hair, comparing her long locks to the colour of the wheat ears surrounding them.
Another thing he used to enjoy from these fields was their silence. The wind passing through the wheat ears, dancing. The wind filling the silence, creating a sort of music from the silence.
Much later, when he was older and when he rode his horse through the fields, he would hear that strange music again. Sometimes he would shut his eyes, and let the horse lead him along the road, and he would forget everything else. No shouts. No lies. No hypocrisy. No masks. Only a peculiar form of silence. And that brought peace to his soul and mind.
Except today, as he was riding as he often did in the Bois de Boulogne, he couldn’t find it.
It was too crowded to gallop freely. (The best time to do so was dawn, the early morning, or sunset, in fact.) It was a sunny day, a beautiful, bright October day - one of the last few - which naturally attracted people to the Parc de Bagatelle at the heart of the woods. There were bourgeoises with their children; and entire bourgeois families picnicking; and some were walking their dogs. Saint-Just thought they could have done it in the Jardin des Tuileries or at the Palais-Royal, but maybe those were crowded too.
Saint-Just looked at the smiling faces, at their calm, at their playfulness.
Suddenly he wondered if the men who were there didn’t have better things to do. Why weren’t they working? Did their workers do everything? Couldn’t they leave for the struggling armies, sharing their blood with their Mother the République? What sort of permission did they have? Which member of the government, of the bureaucracy, allowed them? What connections did they have? What allies?
A new regime. Which still looked exactly like the previous one, except with the appearance that there were less aristocrats around. What’s in a different date, calendar, code of address and costume? Whose heart was laughing now and who would say, in a few years, that they had lived in fear?
Saint-Just frowned. He didn’t know why he had thought of that, as if he had a feeling of an ending, of a closure. What closure? Shouldn’t the future be open to anything? But tomorrow - which would be the future - he would condemn the Constitution. Himself. He would give the last blow - he wondered why he was always the one chosen for these tasks. Because the youngest must prove his courage and his virtue. And there were no choices. So many doors of the future had been shut. The feeling of closure was around him.
No choices. Yet, he was free. He had always been. He always would be.
But when he thought of Robespierre, his thoughts became confused again.
An image from the afternoon suddenly came back to him. After his older friend’s argument at the tribune, when the session at the Convention was dismissed, Desmoulins was there, waiting. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs for his ‘childhood friend’. He had embraced Maximilien, for no reason, for no other pretext than to express an inexplicable joy. So typical of him. Saint-Just observed how they had completely forgotten about his existence when they did, when they started discussing together, how Desmoulins apologised about not being able to go to the Duplays’ that evening. Nonsensical chattering.
Desmoulins. Ever since Danton went off to Arcis for his honeymoon - which seemed, quite frankly, endless - Desmoulins seemed lost. He always seemed lost anyway. Searching for a cause. For a mentor. For a protector. Pathetic man, Saint-Just thought. Older than me and yet still acting in this pathetic way. And Robespierre who treats him like a child. Sometimes, Saint-Just thought the two’s relationship was… no, he wouldn’t say the word.
Prior to the time of the Convention, Saint-Just had met Camille Desmoulins only twice. He had written to him often before, always eagerly waiting for a response, as with Beuvin, his editor. The only person he had never actually expected an answer from was Robespierre.
This wasn’t a memory Saint-Just was proud of, but he had admired Desmoulins once. Or so he thought. Now, he really wondered why or how he could have. The man was filth, he was convinced. Patriotic, but filth nevertheless. Only, he hid it well. Even Saint-Just had been fooled the first time he had met him - but the second, it would have been difficult not to realise. He remembered how it had happened, when they had seen each other for a dinner in one of Mirabeau’s hotels. Saint-Just did say he would rather have taken a coffee somewhere else…
“Who’s paying for all of this?” Saint-Just asked, a bit surprised - and, especially, unused - by the fine meals and the luxury of the dining room.
“I’d like to say it’s me,” Desmoulins answered, cheerfully. “B-But it’s Mirabeau.”
Saint-Just thought that Camille Desmoulins must really have a thing for surrounding himself with men of passionate fury, like Mirabeau and Danton - also, men of great hideousness.
“How do you get Mirabeau to offer you these things? Letting you give a dinner for a… mere country patriot?”
“Don’t speak of yourself this way,” Desmoulins seemed to lose his gaze in the younger man’s - but the feeling, unfortunately, wasn’t returned. Saint-Just sensed it, somehow, and frowned slightly, though not enough as to worry the man he was conversing with. “You’re more than that,” he continued. “As for your first question, it’s nothing very complex… nor very novel either. Give him something, he’ll give you something else. It’s the most natural exchange you can get. Barter. Like the Indians.”
“Ah,” Saint-Just merely replied. He didn’t really think this had anything to do with the Indians, or with the Primitive Man. Rather, he could recognise this sort of philosophy in the corrupted alliance system of the Ancien Régime. The sort of system that had made him lose Thérèse. He tried to concentrate on his meal, on the fine plate in front of him, but he suddenly realised he could not. A thought for the people starving because of the high prices and the bad winter kept on returning to his mind. He didn’t feel guilty often; but this time, he did.
Desmoulins seemed to notice the younger man’s conflict. “What is it? Don’t you like th-th-the fried salmon?” A worry, no doubt, had just interfered with the control of his stuttering.
“No, it’s not that,” Saint-Just hastily sputtered, not wanting to appear so capricious when it was not that at all. “I was just thinking it’s too much for one, when there are so many who have nothing at all.”
“Oh, right,” Desmoulins seemed to hesitate. His answer was odd, Saint-Just thought. As if he had forgotten about all of this, lost in a luxury that didn’t even belong to him. “Well, I always say that you can’t refuse a good thing when it comes to you.”
Saint-Just attempted a smile, a bit shyly. “Perhaps, but it’s not very stoical.”
Desmoulins laughed. “I’ll be frank and say I’m not… really much of a Stoic.”
“Unfortunate.”
Desmoulins noted his guest’s disappointment, and thus decided to change the subject to something that would please him. “We cou-could go to th-the living room. If you like. To discuss your projects.”
Indeed it did; Saint-Just smiled. Once again, the stuttering might have betrayed a deeper emotion, but Saint-Just didn’t really mind. He was anxious to discuss again the journal he hoped he could have with Desmoulins, or to know if he could just work with the other man - anything would please him, in fact, as long as it was something that could occupy his time until he could finally be elected to an office.
Usually, the other man spoke of himself, and Saint-Just let him do it because he didn’t really mind so much about not having to speak. Saint-Just would just mention, now and then, articles Desmoulins had written that he preferred, to try to be agreeable to the conversation. But Saint-Just wasn’t lying; when he liked something, it was for real. Sometimes, he was blinded by this conviction of his own, and forgot that most men don’t actually believe in what they say.
The two men passed to the living room. This was when Saint-Just slowly started to wonder - while looking at the decoration, far too luxurious for his taste - why Desmoulins had told him he would arrange a meeting between the young man and some of the big names of the Revolution. Saint-Just knew of Desmoulins’ connections with Marat, Danton and, especially, Robespierre. Not that the first two mattered to him so much, nor all the connections he also had with reformist aristocrats and nobles of different lines of thought. No, what Saint-Just suddenly wanted to know was why Desmoulins was chattering with him in such a luxurious living room, sharing some strong liquor with him.
Though he had been suspicious since the beginning of the evening, Saint-Just soon understood, when the other man stopped discussing politics, drastically changing the subject of conversation, that his odd fears had been justified.
“D-d-do you know the works of the phhh… physionomists?”
Maybe it was the strong liquor, Saint-Just reasoned.
“I’ve heard of them,” he simply answered. “I don’t really believe in what they write.”
“Oh, but it’s science. You don’t have to believe; you have to be convinced by proof.”
“Well, it’s that they don’t have proof.”
“Depends. For example…” Desmoulins moved forward in the armchair, index pointing at Saint-Just’s mouth. “Do you know what lips like yours mean according to the physionomists?”
“No.”
Somehow, he expected it would come to this. Maybe not so bluntly, but he saw it coming. It happened every time someone spoke of those damned physionomists. Because his answer was a lie; he perfectly knew what his lips ‘meant’ because someone already told him. In fact, more than just one. Tales on the physionomist interpretations about one’s looks were so common, yet people still thought they were being original every time they brought them up. And they were also quite pathetic. Which ruined the effect of their so-called science. It could destroy lives, in fact. And it was so vain - not to say, fatalistic - to look at oneself for hours trying to figure out what one’s facial features would tell of one’s inner self and future.
“They are the sign of laziness and voluptuousness.”
Oddly, that didn’t make the other man stutter at all. Nevertheless, Saint-Just didn’t look very impressed by the statement and started, instead, to become irritated - though it was not apparent. “Did you look it up just before I come here?”
“No… I looked it up right after our first meeting,” Desmoulins took a sip from his glass. Maybe that was what gave him some control of his stutter, Saint-Just suddenly considered, numbing his palate. “Since then, I’ve been intrigued to know if your lips could reveal an unavoidable force of nature you might be fighting against, as it tried to lead your life.”
“My life is not commanded by my lips.”
That last reply sounded a bit curt. Saint-Just was feeling, within himself, that he was about to lose his composure. In these sorts of moments, he usually preferred to keep silent, to lock himself from within - but he couldn’t really do it in this situation; it could mean a recognition, or worse, a passivity. His lips, precisely, suddenly seemed very dry, and the younger man didn’t dare to moisten them, fearing the message this would send to the person who was conversing so peculiarly with him.
“Isn’t there a tension within yourself? Between what you refuse to be and what you want to be? Ascetic stoicism sure isn’t for you, I can see that.”
“You don’t know me!”
This time, Saint-Just was quite offended and his true feelings had unfortunately emerged. How did he dare? He was about to get up from the sofa, when the other man stood and, gripping his left arm, pulled him towards him. Surprised by the other man’s bold move more than with his actual strength, Saint-Just didn’t say anything - yet he should have. He only looked at Desmoulins, shocked and perplexed. As if he were suddenly paralysed, though he loathed to describe his reaction in this way.
“I’ve learned a few things about your youth, chevalier d’Organt.” Desmoulins whispered this phrase to him, eyes looking deeply into his. Saint-Just really didn’t like those eyes. They seemed elsewhere. He had drunk too much. Such a weak composure. “And I’ve wondered which path to fame you would prefer to take. Remember: I give you something, you give me something…”
Saint-Just’s breathing started to quicken, and he frowned. He disliked what this implied, but he especially disliked what he felt inside of him. What was this burning inside of his chest? Rage or… something else? What was this feeling? No, he wouldn’t be like that. He wouldn’t like that grip on his arm. He wouldn’t like that sort of proposition, that sort of suggestion of what he was. Because Louis-Antoine (de) Saint-Just wouldn’t be that. He wouldn’t take a path that a false nature might have indicated for him.
“I don’t seek fame.”
It was simple - perhaps too much, since it destabilised the other man, who released him. Relieved, Saint-Just immediately turned his back to him and started to stride towards the main door. He wouldn’t stay there one minute more.
However, before he left, he turned a last time to look at the man, who had decided to sit back in the armchair.
“You’re a good patriot, I trust that, but… don’t approach me again.”
That was all he could say, even though he wasn’t sure anymore if he was telling the truth. How could this be a good patriot? Maybe Saint-Just had lied for the first time, and that felt disgusting. That was not how patriots should be.
“Citoyen Saint-Just!”
The feminine voice shook him out of his memories. He turned his head slightly back to the right to see Charlotte Robespierre speeding her horse to reach him. Very soon, she was right next to him.
“I saw you from a distance,” she added, smiling. The sun shone brightly in her eyes, and he noted that they were the same colour as her older brother’s.
“Citoyenne Robespierre,” Saint-Just replied, smiling back. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you are,” the older woman answered enigmatically, hinting at their mutual affection for this sort of solitary promenade. “But I am doing it while my brothers are too busy to scold me as usual…”
Saint-Just had vaguely heard of this story from Maximilien, when Charlotte had accompanied Augustin on his mission in the Midi. She used to promenade with the wife of Augustin’s colleague, until people started whispering that it wasn’t proper, that it was vain, that it attracted the enemy’s attention to them. Some story that sounded like this, or something about plots threatening them. Saint-Just didn’t really remember - Robespierre had been muttering about it, and told his sister not to do this again. Except that now that she was in Paris, she assumed that she could.
Yet, the sound of her voice didn’t sound so daring. She was lowering her eyes and placed a lock of auburn hair behind her left ear, combing it nervously, repeatedly. This was a sign which couldn’t lie - Saint-Just had seen her brother do it so often, combing his neat wig with his fingers with an exaggerated, almost maniacal care. It wasn’t a form of prudery or timidity; she rather seemed to think of herself as guilty for something that wasn’t really a fault. Such a family trait, Saint-Just concluded.
“You won’t denounce me,” Charlotte suddenly asked, eyes flashing back at Saint-Just. “Will you, Citoyen?”
Saint-Just smiled widely. Laughing a bit, he looked around playfully as if it were a State security secret. “I promise I won’t,” he replied in a semi-serious way.
Charlotte laughed too. She wasn’t used to seeing this so serious Conventionnel joking. He wasn’t either, in fact. “Then I should be fine,” she said again. “Unless one of those Duplay pests reports me.”
She was referring to the slight hostility she assumed the Duplay mother, Françoise, and the elder daughter, Éléonore, had towards her, stopping her - as she had once fully explained (or complained about) - from visiting (and taking care of) her own brothers. She exaggerated, most of the time - or so Maximilien said. It appeared that his attempts to reconstitute an odd family - his childhood dream - were not working as perfectly as he had wished.
“I thought Élisabeth was your friend,” Saint-Just commented, remembering how Charlotte had always seemed to get along quite well with the youngest Duplay daughter.
“She is… but you know how young brides are… Distracted. Always swooning about son Philippe.”
Saint-Just grinned at the woman’s grimace, trying to imitate her far younger friend’s voice. A typical comment from an old spinster, he thought. “Then perhaps try swooning over someone too?”
“I would,” she retorted - almost curtly, in the same way than her older brother always did whenever he felt someone was misunderstanding him, or misinterpreting his thoughts and, especially, his temperament and nature. “But my brothers may not approve of my choices. Such as my apparently aristocratic horseback-riding. Aristocratic?” She paused for a slight sneer. “How can horseback-riding be aristocratic?!”
Saint-Just laughed. He unfortunately didn’t have the answer, but he was sure her brothers hadn’t quite described it as “aristocratic”. Perhaps, “threat to their reputation” or “exposure to enemy propaganda”. The Robespierres were, after all, good at exaggeration.
“Will you come to the gathering tonight?”
“Yes,” Saint-Just nodded. “Maximilien already reminded me.”
“Ah,” she replied, pausing before she continued with another (this time surprising) question. “Do you want to race, Citoyen?”
Saint-Just hadn’t expected this. He looked, a bit shocked, at the woman seven years his senior, eyebrows rising. She laughed - probably because of the odd looks he must have been showing at the moment. He would have liked to accept the proposal, but he had already accepted to keep a “secret” from her brothers, his colleagues. The situation would become awkward…
“I’m afraid I must regretfully refuse, Citoyenne.” Even as he tried again to look stern, the ghost of a smile on his lips betrayed that he had been genuinely joyous the moment before.
“How unfortunate,” Charlotte replied, the tone of her voice hinting at her disappointment. “I’ll do it alone then.”
He watched the woman suddenly riding her horse away, brusquely. She winded along the road between bourgeois families, who seemed slightly shocked, and shouted. He could hear her far away “polite” apologies... even though she didn’t stop and came back.
Yes, Saint-Just thought, this attitude looked quite improper - and quite un-Robespierre-like. He wondered if the Robespierre brothers had realised how free was their sister, maybe more than them both, with all of their obligations. And yet, these two brothers were also quite free, in their own way, even if they may not have any idea of it.
Somehow though, Saint-Just also wondered how much the Robespierre sister valued her freedom. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he could perceive a difference between the siblings’ conception of their own freedom, and its price.
He didn’t think about his own. He knew already.
***************************************************************************
Author’s Notes.
1. The flashback on Desmoulins was slightly, mysteriously, introduced in my fic The Understanding of a Consuming Battlefield, because it’s a scene I pictured in my mind long ago, about an “encounter” of the sort between the two men. I’ve felt very uncertain about it, and it had many re-writings, mainly because my goal is not to make Camille seem like he’s “evil”, and I hope it worked. He’s rather acting like an unwilling “corrupter”; the scene, also, has a “purpose” in the plot, to address the issues behind Saint-Just’s fears (I hope that could be read), but also because he will make other “appearances” in the next chapter and in a future chapter (I don’t have the number of it right now). I must say that the scene was originally going much further than this, and that I made the whole thing less terrible by making Camille a bit... drunk.
2. The story about Charlotte’s “aristocratic horseback-riding” is described in her memoirs, if you’re interested. I may have played around with it, so that it doesn’t really look like what she was telling - but this is why the story is re-told from Saint-Just’s perspective, who doesn’t really know (didn’t pay attention) to the details.
3. The Second Chapter was originally more than 10 000 words, all from Saint-Just’s POV. However, finally, I decided to cut it into many parts, and develop each of them. There is a practical and a sentimental reason for this. The practical one is that, this way, you will get to know what’s going on in Robespierre’s mind much earlier, because the next chapter will be from his POV. The sentimental one is that one of the scenes - which was yet one of my most beloved ones, the one that almost disappeared with my computer crash - now seems unbearably painful to me. I couldn’t delete it (and when you read it, you will know why), so my only solution was to give it a better ending, and to change what would occur afterwards. This is this scenario I decided to follow, and thanks to nirejseki for the help. ♥
Chapters:
Chapter I (Rated R)
Chapter III (Rated PG-13)
Chapter IV (Rated R)
Chapter V (Rated R)
Chapter VI (Rated R)