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PARTISAN REVIEW
is inseparable from the war, Saint-Just continued the work of Danton
whom he killed; "We are satisfied with you, Citizen Representative;
your courage has not wavered under fire. We have had our eyes on
you: you are a good soldier." Which required a certain firmness,
for the tricolor garb of the Citizen Representative made a good target.
But "he charged like a young Hussar." We know that he was not
satisfied just to charge: he braved defeats, and he disdained easy
victories, while the energy of Robespierre was clandestine or parlia–
mentary. And French legend cherishes fighters rather than the profes–
sional military; it ignores the generals who crushed the Vendee re–
bellion and exalts the civilians who hid the accused Jourdan, entrusted
the army to him, contributed powerfully to its reorganization, and
who when they wrote: "We anticipate victory" added: "We are send–
ing enemy flags." Some Frenchmen remember Saint-Just, no doubt,
because all Frenchmen remember the fighters of the Year II. ...
All this is part of his legend, but still does not give us a picture
of him, even if we add to it his brilliant gifts. Saint-Just was not
another Marceau, although the glamour of his bravery, talent, and
early death made
him
like that general. He was not more eloquent
than Vergniaud, nor more energetic than Danton; he was not more
ruthless than Marat: he had all those qualities with a difference.
In his speeches and his decrees, the historians perceive less the
echo of Robespierre, than that of Bonaparte. Great figures enter his–
tory when they are given power over men: before leading the army
of Italy to victory, Bonaparte first had to be put in command of it.
For this, an intrigue would have sufficed; but would it have sufficed
to transform tramps into legionnaires, to put back into the ranks
older and more experienced generals?
Before
the first battle, Bona–
parte was already a man possessed; possessed by the will to fashion
a disorderly mass into an efficient instrument of war; a
will
to which
he subordinated everything, as implacably as Saint-Just. His orders
were executed because they seemed dictated by a superior power:
Victory; just as the orders of Saint-Just seemed dictated by the Re–
public. And Saint-Just at Strasbourg, before the first battle, did ex–
actly as Bonaparte in Italy. He restored faith; and to do that, order–
beginning with the commissariat.... Bonaparte and Saint-Just differ
in their aims, but what they have in common is the impersonal magic
