fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #764 ]

[ SECRET POST #764 ]

⌈ Secret Post #764 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Buffy]

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[Being Human]

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[Prince of Tennis]

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[Lost]

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[Liza Minnelli/Judy Garland]

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[Camille Desmoulins]

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[Heroes, Matt Parkman/Noah Bennet]

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[Bakuman]

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[for the non-UK: pissed = drunk]

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[Iron Chef]

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[Gossip Girl]

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[Superman, Batman]

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[The Iliad]

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[Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean]

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[Liz Lemon, 30 Rock]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 20 pages, 492 secrets from Secret Submission Post #110.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - doing it wrong ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A Place of Greater Safety is the Hilary Mantel book. I like it, until the last hundred pages or so when I kind of through it on the floor hard enough to leave a dent. It portrays Robespierre as having no ability to stand up to Saint-Just and also as having no will-power, which are both seriously WTF?!.

Also, I understand the author is very pro-Camille Desmoulins, but seriously, there is no way to be pro-Camille at the time when he was enough of an idiot to write journals 3, 4, and 5 of Le Vieux Cordelier. How did he think he could call his friend a tyrant (little more than a year after the king had been executed for that same reason) and still have that very friend (the friend he called a tyrant) get him out of any trouble he could dig himself into (and he just kept digging himself in deeper and deeper) with no problem whatsoever?!
...and I'll just shut up now before I really start ranting

... although what did you mean "fucking middle-class revolutionaries"?

Does the fact that he was writing against the Terror not count for anything? He didn't write them to see how much he could annoy Robespierre; it could be argued he was hoping to persuade him. Personally I think that was more admirable than childish.

Although I will agree with you that A Place of Greater Safety is VERY anti-St-Just, unfairly so... Still love that book, though, it's one of my favourites. Was the portrayal of Robespierre why you didn't like it? Or the favourable view of Camille?

I would argue that first part (please note that this is arguing, rather than meant in any offensive way! Also, I'm not the OP, I'm just a fan. ^^;) - yes, Camille was writing against the Terror, to be sure, but he was doing so in a way that could only be seen as an active attempt to knock Robespierre out of politics: something that in that time period usually meant death. You don't persuade someone by calling them a tyrant (in an age where that word meant automatic death), you don't persuade someone by attacking them and their policies and stating that your friend is PERSONALLY responsible for all the trouble, etc. The Terror was a gov't-run move, which was demanded by the sans-culottes and the Hebertists - sure, people objected to it later, but it was a popular action to start with. Camille knew perfectly well that there were 12 CSP members, but he chose to focus on Robespierre directly. THAT is childish, not admirable.

Furthermore, the whole point of Camille's "anti-Terror" views was because he felt guilty for sending the Brissotins to the guillotine - but apparently he was trying to send Robespierre now as well. *shrug* In my view, if one wants to view Camille as a man responsible for his actions, one would have to come to the conclusion that Camille was above all an advocate of Danton.

Also, Camille was given a fair warning - he swore up and down in the Jacobin club that he would never do it again, but when he was arrested they found several copies of his paper on him which essentially demanded an uprising against the corrupt Comite. Camille cheered when that very reason was used to execute Hebert; why should he be surprised it was turned on him..?

I'm not as anti-Camille as I sound, really; but I do think to deny that he was childish and way out of his depth is a bit silly. That's basically his main characteristic. This does not however deny the fact that he's a rather cute historical character, of course.

BTW, you sound really awesome on your profile (French Revolution, Les Mis, Gaiman AND Blackadder? You officially pwn, just for that). Can I friend you? :D?

It's so hard to get across tone of voice on the internet - same here, I'm just arguing the point, don't mean anything personally!

I just don't think that was the intention of the Vieux Cordelier, though; I haven't read beyond issue 4 but Camille's almost doing the total opposite, he's appealing to Robespierre to listen to him, as a friend, but also as Robespierre is in a position of power and might have the chance to change things for the better. The only way it would be an attempt to knock Robespierre out of politics would be if he wanted to take the whole government down with him, which he's not.

And he doesn't call Robespierre a tyrant. The paralell he makes, between the time they're living in and the time of tyrants, or the methods tyrants would use, is not saying that that is what they were but that it was the road they were going down - a warning against becoming tyrants without noticing. He uses the Romans to try and give them perspective on what they're doing. And he doesn't say that Robespierre was personally responsible for the trouble, but that Robespierre might personally be able to stop it. Of course he knew well that there were 12 CSP members (I agree with you on that point, and that was in fact the main point of my coursework on it), but Robespierre was the one who might have listened to him.

As well, I don't think Camille's anti-terror standpoint can be attributed to guilt over the Brissotins; in some ways the Vieux Cordelier could be seen quite pragmatically as part of a campaign for moderacy with Danton at its head. But it's more a sense that the high ideal of the Republic that they were aiming for was going wrong; he says that they were falling short of what the maxim of a republic should be, that it would be better for many guilty to go unpunished than for one innocent to be struck down. I really don't think it was an attempt to send Robespierre to the guillotine - it was an appeal to him, as a friend. But yes, as well as that, he was definitely following Danton - but not as a mindless sheep.

I haven't read the later issues yet so I can't argue with you on that point; but if he lied to the Jacobins about that, then it seems to me he was upholding what he believed to be right, and risked being arrested, by continuing to write.

How would you see him as a man not responsible for his actions?

I'm probably not as pro-him as I sound; actually probably am, I know that he has faults, but I like him anyways. He was childish, undeniably; saying "Burning is not answering" to Robespierre is almost like point-scoring, but at the same time it's an instant rebuke, deadly serious, saying that Robespierre was wrong and he ought to know it. He was childish, but at that point he was also being very serious. Out of his depth? Maybe that too. And he's sweet, but I think to say he's just that is a bit belittling, and that's not what he deserves.

Thankyou! (I don't think anyone has ever said I pwn before, am very very flattered) Definitely!

You have a very pro-Camille reading of events. ^^ I've read quite a lot of it, and I've never seen such a sympathetic reading of it - ever. But I get what you're saying, and it is possible to come up with that interpretation as well, but in general I must admit I've never seen anything that nice to him. ^^ (I got your note at the end, I just wanted to say)

The issue with the Vieux Cordelier, however, is that Camille was certainly appealing to Robespierre as a friend, but he's also insulting his position as a tyrant - I believe #5 is when it starts going catastrophically wrong for Camille, actually..? It's been a very long time since I've reviewed that, so I'm working on memory and secondary sources at the moment. ^^

I always got the impression that Camille did to a certain degree, at least in his writing, ascribe guilt to the current situation to Robespierre via pointing out, constantly, that Robespierre was in a position of power. Furthermore, given the tense atmosphere of 1794, there's no way that Camille honestly thought he could change the government of CSP to government with Danton without knocking Robespierre entirely out of politics. One ought to keep in mind that the argument in French politics ever since 1789 until 1945 was not "who should be in government" but "what government should we have". It's a constitutional question. In 1794, I think, given the situation and the precedents!, that Camille (at most) hoped that Robespierre would switch sides to the Dantonist one, but more realistically thought that it was necessary to remove Robespierre and his government entirely. One can completely understand Robespierre's response to what would be perceived a threat like that, though one doesn't necessarily approve of him as a person for it...

I definitely got more the impression that he was calling Robespierre a tyrant. Certainly, he was saying that Robespierre was heading down the road to tyranny, but he emphasizes over and over what Robespierre can personally do to fix the situation, without keeping in mind that it would be quite difficult for Robespierre to do so, being one of twelve - and one of the twelve who is in minority and with his allies aside. Camille would certainly know this; Paris is not so large that he could have missed it. Even with the CSP working in secret, it's pretty obvious. Also, even if he's just trying to warn Robespierre, doing so in such a public forum as his journal - and given who are the people who are his reading public - gives much more the impression that he is not warning the man to beware of tyranny, but the people to notice how the man is failing to beware of tyranny.

Camille would also likely be aware of the complete failure of previous forms of government, particularly under wartime conditions. The guilt over the Brissotins as far as I can tell almost universally ascribed to Camille's change of view; I've never seen any version that explains it any more rational way (most are either saying that he was just a blind pro-Dantonist at that time or that he was honestly just trying to fix the Terror and screwing up his method of doing so). He could have chosen any number of other ways to campaign for moderacy, including advocating the inclusion of Dantonists onto the CSP (after all, the Hebertists did it and managed to skew the CSP's position further left), but he chose instead to appeal to Robespierre personally and warn of tyranny instead of advocating any rational method or way to change things. Given the history not only of Camille himself but of his party in regards to insurrections, it's understandably difficult to see it as less than a possible threat to the whole system of government - which, while few will argue weren't living up to the ideals of the revolution, were currently in the process of saving it. It's hard to see the war for the future of the revolution surviving long if intead of the CSP they had been under the leadership of Danton (who did have and take his chance, earlier on).

(more in second one, I talk too much for LJ!)

I don't think Camille was a mindless sheep either; to be honest I think he's much more adult than most people give him credit for. But I honestly think he is somewhat weak-willed (not a crime) and somewhat too earnest. He acted mostly on emotions but that he usually meant them honestly. But if he knew about the level of Danton's complicity in various corrupt acitivies, it's hard to see him arguing just for the benefit of the revolution. He probably honestly thought Danton would be best for moderation and the ideal of the revolution, but he went about calling for it in the way he always did, and that scared the officials for rather obvious reasons. Insurrection thus far has never ended kindly to those who tried to be the government in Paris, all the way down to 1871, or indeed into the 1940s. It's hard to believe that in 1794, the height of the Terror, that Camille was unaware of the impact of what he was saying; to say that he was is to reduce him to the child most people portray him as. I'd rather think he meant what he said and was calling for insurrection - which makes him a nasty friend, but true to what he's saying..

Re: the Jacobins - if he was merely upholding his right to the freedom of the press, and if he was willing to do this and risk arrest, then there is no reason he should have continued to swear that he was not writing them (repeatedly, not just at the Jacobins!), nor for why he insisted publically that he gave Robespierre all of them to check (an obvious fallacy, because Robespierre is unlikely to have approved anything that referred to him as going down the road to tyranny...). At any rate, we have no idea what any of them were thinking at the time, so for all we know we're both utterly wrong about what was going on at the time.

I agree that Camille is more than just sweet and childish - indeed upon reading the OP's post I thought that it was referring to the fandom characterization of him (including books and movies), which leave out any spine he may have had whatsoever in favor of being cute and adorable. Though I may be misreading it, that was what I thought it said, and I thought you were advocating the other side of it. ^^ If the man was indeed a full grown man, he ought to be held accountable for all of his actions. I tend to read his later works as being pro-Danton to the exclusion often of sense, but I don't think he's just being misled. I do think that he reduces himself somewhat to the level of a child, and that if most if not all of his contemporaries viewed him as one than it should be admitted as one of his main traits.

At any rate, I think we generally agree that the ideal Camille characterization is somewhere between the cute-and-adorable-only view and the Camille-is-the-essence-of-evil approach, no..? I take a somewhat more critical view of it than you, which is ironic because philosophically I'd be more likely to go for moderation, but I think Camille and Danton rather screwed it up in their attempt, and that their attempt stank of more of a grab for power under the guise of idealism - at least, I think Danton was grabbing for power and that Camille thought that the change was going to be more idealistically based than it was. But that's my reading of it, not necessarily anywhere near the truth. ^^

Yay, friending! ^_^ I'd love to continue the conversation with you on some other format (mostly to save everyone at F!S a headache after we're done with this!) Do you have some IM I could reach you at sometime? I'm riderriddle on AIM.

I'm objecting to both. His characterization in books and movies is objectionable first and foremost. He is portrayed as either very drunk and therefore unaware of even his actions let alone the consequences of them (The Gods are Thirsty is an example of this) or very childish, to the point where he cannot be held responsible for his actions either. I object to these portrayals because he is 34 years old, not a child, and should be able to be held responsible for his own actions.

However, he seems to be a rather childish and spiteful adult and does not seem to be aware that his actions have consequences most of the time. Yes, he was advising the CSP not to become tyrannical, but he seems to think that doing so will not get people whispering about tyranny. Yes, he was calling on the CSP to stop the Terror, but by calling specifically on Robespierre to do this, it seems as though he wanted... I don't know what. It seems like he should have at least thought about the effects of his words on others. He seems to have very selective memory, to only be aware of these effects long enough to be vain about them. So the traits I'm noticing are vanity, childishness or at least strange actions like the "point-scoring" mentioned above, inability or unwillingness to think of the effects of his actions, a bit of a passive aggressive streak, etc. When added together, these traits have tended to make some very irritating individuals.

I actually liked it quite a bit, until the last fifty or so pages. I did object to the portrayal of Robespierre towards the end of the book. Also, it felt a little contrived towards the end, as though it took on aspects typically not seen outside of a soap opera. Some of this is because the end of it is where the conversations with Saint-Just occur, in which it become intensely clear that the author is very anti-St-Just. But the rest of it was enjoyable.

I distrust both the motives and knowledge of anyone not born into a social class who claims to speak for that social class. This is why I can't fangirl French revolutionaries.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #764 ]

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