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Cook: Robespierre in French fiction (1999)

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Cook: Robespierre in French fiction (1999)

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Cook, Malcolm. “Robespierre in French Fiction.” In Robespierre, edited by Colin Haydon and William Doyle, 224–36. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

In this journal article Malcolm Cook explores the different ways Robespierre has been portrayed in some French novels, including some Revolutionary fictional pamphlets. It's an interesting review of Robespierre's image throughout time (particularly his physical appearance and personality). One interesting thing of note is that Cook included Michelet's history of the Revolution, because Michelet's descriptions were so fanciful.

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(Pictured: Poster from the Takarazaka Revue show about Robespierre)
It might also be interesting to look at how Robespierre has been portrayed in Japanese media. Robespierre has appeared as a character in the manga and anime The Rose of Versailles, in the manga Innocent, and in the Takarazuka production A Passage Through the Light ~Maximilien Robespierre, the Revolutionary~. Depictions of Robespierre in Japanese media seem to be a mixture of conventional views of Robespierre (such as "Robespierre as tyrant," though Riyoko Ikeda's Rose of Versailles holds a more sympathetic depiction, probably as Ikeda comes from a leftist background), and anime/manga tropes, making Japanese portrayals of Robespierre to be vastly different from Western depictions.

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[GAP] Historical memory and women's role in maintaining Robespierre's legacy

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[GAP] Historical memory and women's role in maintaining Robespierre's legacy

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(Pictured: Charlotte Robespierre, sister of Maximilien Robespierre, 1760-1834)
It might be interesting to examine how the women in Robespierre's life contributed to the rehabilitation of his memory. His sister, Charlotte Robespierre, wrote memoirs in her later years in the 19th century, with a particular aim of rehabilitating her late brother's tarnished legacy. One of the daughters of the family he lived with, Elisabeth Duplay, also wrote memoirs of her experience in 1793-94; though her memoirs focused on her own relationship with her husband Philippe Le Bas, Robespierre features frequently throughout the memoirs, as he was very close to her family. In these memoirs we learn how the people closest to Robespierre viewed him, as a kind, soft-spoken, beloved brother (or brother-figure).

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Soboul: Robespierre and the popular movement of 1793-4 (1955)

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Soboul: Robespierre and the popular movement of 1793-4 (1955)

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Soboul, Albert. “Robespierre and the Popular Movement of 1793-4.” Past & Present, no. 5 (1954): 54–70.

Soboul, as the student of Lefebvre, continued Lefebvre's and Mathiez's position that Robespierre (and the sans-culottes of Paris) were justified in defending the republic from enemies through the Terror.

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Michelet: History of the French Revolution (1847)

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Michelet: History of the French Revolution (1847)

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Michelet, Jules. History of the French Revolution. Translated by Charles Cocks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Michelet saw the leader of the Revolution in not any singular leader but in "the people." Like the liberal historians, he also divided the Revolution into two "stages" but as a Republican democrat, made his division between 1789-92 as the glory days and 1793-94 as the sombre days. Michelet favored Danton as a more heroic figure; consequently, Robespierre who executed Danton was written as a figure of the Terror. Michelet wrote Robespierre as a brooding, solitary yet hypocritical leader.

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Mignet: History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 (1824)

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Mignet: History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 (1824)

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Mignet, François. History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2006.

François Mignet admired some parts of the Revolution, but being also a monarchist and a liberal, repudiated the fall of the monarchy and execution of Louis XVI. Mignet, like others of this period, classified the Revolution into two stages: 1789-1791, the more favorable stage, and 1792-1794, the years of "terror." Robespierre was not regarded favorably by Mignet and other liberal historians at this time. The perception of him was of a hypocritical, petty tyrant.

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BBC Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution (2009)

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BBC Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution (2009)

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Hayhurst, Mark. Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution. BBC Two, 2009.

Terror! was a BBC TV film/documentary that heavily leaned into the "Robespierre as tyrant" narrative. Robespierre is portrayed like a cunning movie villain. The film consists of dramatic reenactments interspersed with interviews with historians (and Slavoj Zizek and Hilary Mantel, who is not a historian but wrote a novel about the French Revolution). Simon Schama was interviewed for this TV movie/documentary. Marisa Linton was also interviewed and later stated in an journal article where she cited the movie: "The experience (whilst interesting in itself and the programme makers were charming with me)
gave me an object lesson in how little influence a specialist historian has on the argument and direction of the
final product in a programme designed to attract a mass audience." ("The Sea-Green Incorruptible and the Archangel of Death: How narratives of the
French Revolution contrast the roles of Robespierre and Saint-Just", 2020.)

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Enrico, Robert, and Richard T. Heffron. La Révolution Française. Les Films Ariane, 1989.

This film, which was sponsored by the governments of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Canada, is split into two parts: The Years of Hope, covering the 1789 Estates General to the sacking of the Tuileries in 1792; and The Years of Terror, spanning from the September Massacres of 1792 and ending with the execution of Robespierre in 1794. In this film Robespierre is portrayed with some sympathetic moments but ultimately follows the "Robespierre as tyrant" narrative.

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Cumming: Carlyle's seagreen Robespierre and the perilous delights of picturesque history (1999)

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Cumming: Carlyle's seagreen Robespierre and the perilous delights of picturesque history (1999)

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Cumming, Mark. “Carlyle’s Seagreen Robespierre and the Perilous Delights of Picturesque History.” In Robespierre, edited by Colin Haydon and William Doyle, 177–95. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Subsequent historians have critiqued Carlyle's stylistic historical writing. While contemporary reviews of Carlyle applauded how he seemed to bring history to life with vivid descriptions, future historians like Mark Cumming would critique how Carlyle's famous descriptions were, more often than not, untruthful.

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Sepinwall: Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited (2010)

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Sepinwall: Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited (2010)

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Sepinwall, Alyssa. “Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited.” The Journal of Modern History 82, no. 1 (March 2010): 1–29.

In this journal article, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall explores Robespierre as a feminist figure. Sepinwall discusses how Robespierre argued for the admission of women into academies in 1787.

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Lefebvre, Georges. “Remarks on Robespierre.” Translated by Beatrice F. Hyslop. French Historical Studies 1, no. 1 (1958): 7–10.

Influenced by Mathiez, Georges Lefebvre also wrote Robespierre as a model revolutionary of democracy. In "Remarks on Robespierre", Lefebvre takes a Marxist approach to direct democracy and central authority in the French Revolution. Lefebvre saw Robespierre as a wise statesman who understood the material necessity for revolutionary dictatorship (through the Committee of Public Safety) and connected this effort to Babeuf and Buonarroti, and even Blanqui and Lenin. Other works by Lefebvre on the French Revolution focused on a "history-from-below" approach, especially concerning the peasantry.

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Scurr: Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (2006)

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Scurr: Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (2006)

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Scurr, Ruth. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.

Like Schama, Scurr's biography leans into pop history. Its intent is more found in writing an appealing history for readers, rather than presenting new information or perspectives, as was one of the points in historian Marisa Linton's review. Scurr also placed focus on individuals, which ultimately downplayed the politics of the Revolution, and instead paid attention to personal animosities between Revolutionary figures (review in History Today, June 2006).

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Schama: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1990)

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Schama: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1990)

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Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1990.

Simon Schama carried on the perception of Robespierre as "tyrant" in his book Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989), wherein he focused more on a narrative of individuals and events, and is a relatively conservative or moderate work on the Revolution.

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Rudé: Robespierre: Portrait of a Revolutionary Democrat (1975)

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Rudé: Robespierre: Portrait of a Revolutionary Democrat (1975)

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Rudé, George. Robespierre: Portrait of a Revolutionary Democray. New York: The Viking Press, 1975.

Rudé wrote several books on the French Revolution where he gave particular emphasis to "the crowd." Even in his biography of Robespierre, Rudé discusses key points of Robespierre's life in juxtaposition with the reactions and attitudes of the Parisian masses. Rudé also explicitly mentions at the beginning that he would be focusing on the political aspects of Robespierre's life, and not as much attention was given to personal details. Rudé was also a Marxist historian, which can be seen in his attention to socio-economic facts; special focus is given to the likes of the General Maximum or the Ventôse Decrees.

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Mathiez: La révolution française (1922-24)

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Mathiez: La révolution française (1922-24)

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Mathiez, Albert. The French Revolution. Translated by Catherine Alison Philips. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964.

Mathiez admired Robespierre and was concerned with the rehabilitation of his image and memory. His writings about Robespierre were conscious of the fact that his life and legacy had been "misrepresented" by previous historians. Mathiez wrote Robespierre as a model revolutionary who was dedicated to social justice. Special attention was given to Robespierre's role in the attempted Laws of Ventôse, which was interpreted by Mathiez (and future Marxist historians) as the attempt to redistribute aristocratic wealth to the poor.

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Korngold: Robespierre and the Fourth Estate (1941)

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Korngold: Robespierre and the Fourth Estate (1941)

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Korngold, Ralph. Robespierre and the Fourth Estate. New York: Modern Age Books, 1941.

In this book the "fourth estate" refers to the proletariat. Ralph Korngold uses a Marxist interpretation which results in a view of Robespierre as the ally to the proletariat. Interestingly future editions of this book carried a different title, Robespierre: The First Modern Dictator. Korngold was influenced by Mathiez's works on Robespierre.

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Carlyle: The French Revolution: A History (1837)

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Carlyle: The French Revolution: A History (1837)

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Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History. 3 vols. England: James Fraser, 1837.

Thomas Carlyle was fond of the Great Man theory and was more interested in Mirabeau and Danton. Carlyle was also a Romantic; his historical writings are written like prose and the famous epithet of Robespierre as the "sea-green Incorruptible" originated from Carlyle. Robespierre is described with monstrous qualities, with also greenish veins and a green face, as if Carlyle aimed to depict his "tyranny" as so strong it appeared on the physical level.

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Revisionist histories of the French Revolution rejected the material paradigms of Marxist historiography and were more closely related to liberal histories of the 19th century, such as the work of Carlyle.

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The influence of the Annales school's interdisciplinary approaches is seen in some feminist interpretations of Robespierre and his historiography. There have been some feminist examinations of Robespierre's life (he was apparently positively-received by working women of the French Revolution, for example).

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(Pictured: British historian George Rudé, 1910-1993)
Historians of the French Revolution in the 20th century were also influenced by the Annales school. "History-from-below" was an approach used for the French Revolution. For example, Historians such as George Rudé (who was at the same time a Marxist historian) often emphasized "crowds" in his historical writings. In his biography of Robespierre, he examines Robespierre's life juxtaposed with the attitudes of the Parisian masses.

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(Pictured: French historian Georges Lefebvre, 1874-1959)
In contrast to previous approaches to the Revolution, Marxist historians focused on social and economic analyses. A focus on class and material conditions shed positive lights on material gains by the Jacobins, including policies by Robespierre. Marxist historians usually took a relatively more sympathetic approach to Robespierre's life. Marxist historians in the 20th century did not necessarily take Karl Marx's opinion that Robespierre (and the Revolution) aided in the rise of capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

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(Pictured: Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881)
Historians of the liberal background tended to interpret the French Revolution, especially its "radical" phase, in a negative light. The influence of Thermidorian propaganda, which sought to pin the blame of the Terror on Robespierre alone, is heavily felt in this kind of history writing of the Revolution.

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Maximilien Robespierre was born in Arras, France in 1758. He became a prominent figure during the French Revolution of 1789, and was executed in 1794. There are various differing historical perspectives regarding the study of his life and legacy, from liberal to Marxist and beyond; these perspectives can even be conflicting.