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PARTISAN REVIEW
for nothing, and parentage for little. It was a period whose heroes
did not reach old age. When Saint-Just saw Hoche for the last time,
they were both twenty-six. Danton died at thirty-five, Robespierre
at thirty-six. Those few years were presided over by the image of
youth, cut off in its prime, and triumphant over the old Heraclitean
stream....
That was not a time of families; men alone shaped the course
of events; and, in the heyday of Saint-Just's power, women had no
influence. The Plutarchean epoch extends from the execution of Ma–
dame du Barry, of Marie Antoinette, and of Madame Roland, to
the release of Madame Tallien. The nation alone was queen, to be
served by eloquence and terror.
The legendary mantle of terror envelops many a great figure,
and chiefly that of Robespierre. But the aura of Saint-Just emanates
from his own being, and it is this aura I shall try to capture.
Today, the Dantonist historians have lost much of their author–
ity. It may be that Danton was guillotined by fanatics; if so,
Robespierre was no doubt guillotined by scoundrels. One may smile
at the latter's nickname of "Incorruptible," but the fact is that neither
Tallien, nor Barras, nor Fouche ever laid claim to the title. The Dan–
tonists seem to have gotten
all
the glory of the Revolution, and the
Robespierrists, the blood. History is Manichean when it animates
dreams and legitimates passions. And Michelet, the father of this
Manicheanism, could neither arrive at a clear idea of Robespierre nor
make us understand the sources of his power; on the other hand,
Michelet's fraternal .and intuitive penetration imposes on us an image
of Saint-Just which is at once forbidding and grandiose, a myth
in
itself. No Robespierrist has his statue in France, but the name of
Saint-Just is inscribed in a secret Pantheon. When an adolescent
wields the powers of destiny, he seems not to have conquered them,
but to have received them from some divinity. However, Saint-just's
"young girl's complexion," his very low forehead and eyebrows that
met, were hardly enough to justify the designation of Archangel of
the Terror. It was myth that gave to Danton the face of Mirabeau,
and to Mirabeau that of Beethoven; but the portrait in the Carna–
valet Museum shows us a baby-faced Danton. The beauty of Saint–
Just did not give birth to legend, his beauty was born of legend; for
his head to become that of the Archangel of the guillotine, it had to
be exhibited by the executioner.
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