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PARTISAN REVIEW
was enjoined by Saint-Just to kill for the sake of duty.
It seems, today, that the death of the King had been decided
on by several individuals, Danton in particular, in order "to fling the
corpse of Louis XVI between France and the enemy"; but this re–
solve was never avowed. Hence a "war criminal" trial was held,
in
which the tribunal felt itself to be both the judge and a principal,
and was all the more profoundly uneasy insofar as it claimed to
judge in the name of law and of justice. By what law, if not one it
itself chose?
As
to justice, eight centuries of royalty sanctified in the
cathedrals were not so easily forgotten; it was a mockery to "judge
Louis as a citizen." "That man," said Saint-Just, "will argue that
everything he did was done by him to defend the sacred trust he
had been given." Even the firing on the people: was he the first to
do that? There remained the fact of
his
flight toward the army of
the enemy. We are amazed that Saint-Just speaks of
it
incidentally.
At least for
him,
sacred trust
had a meaning. He alone, in condemn–
ing this man, wanted to do away by violence with the crown of
Saint Louis and the purple of Richelieu, to kill the very soul of the
monarchy: he did not demand this weak head because it was guilty,
but because it was usurping. On the corpse that was going to sym–
bolize all the kings of France, the young sacrificer expected to found
the Republic of Divine Right.
This speech, which would have been inconceivable from Bona–
parte, Saint-Just repeated against Danton, and he would have re–
peated again against Hoche. Ambition? That was quickly satisfied.
Let us not compare the ambitious Saint-Just to the modest and pious
Fouche, the most expert of his murderers. His contemporaries spoke
less of his ambition than of his fanaticism. One understood by this
later on, exaltation and implacability. Exalted? Silent rather, except
when called upon to speak to soldiers. It is indeed a fanatic that we
have here, since this is a man with a faith.
His vocabulary misleads us, and perhaps it misled him too. At
times the word "principles" had for him the meaning current in the
eighteenth century, and at times it had a quasi-theological meaning.
To be sure, he was not a Christian. But he did not fight just to de–
fend a regime which he thought good and against the return of a
regime which he thought bad; the revolution was his vocation. The
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