Louis de Saint-Just
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Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794), usually known as Saint-Just, was a French revolutionary leader. Closely allied with Robespierre, he served with him on the Committee of Public Safety and perished with him after the events of 9 Thermidor.
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[edit] Biography
Born at Decize in the Nivernais, he joined the revolution at its outbreak, was elected an officer in the National Guard of the Aisne, and falsified his age to become a member of the electoral assembly of his district. Early in 1789 he had published twenty cantos of licentious verse, in the fashion of the time, under the title of Organt au Vatican. Afterwards, however, he assumed a stoical manner, which, along with what the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica characterised as his devotion to a "tyrannical and pitilessly thorough" policy, became a lifelong characteristic.
He entered into correspondence with Maximilien Robespierre, who befriended him. Thus supported, Saint-Just became deputy of the département of Aisne to the National Convention, where he made his first speech on the condemnation of Louis XVI on 13 November 1792. In the Convention, in the Jacobin Club, and among the populace, his relations with Robespierre became known, and he was dubbed the "St. John of the Messiah of the People". His appointment as a member of the Committee of Public Safety placed him at the centre of the political arena.
In the name of this committee he was given the job of drawing-up reports to the Convention on the absorbing themes of the overthrow of the party of the Gironde (report of 8 July 1793), of the Hébertists, and finally, of the denunciation of Georges Danton which consigned him and his followers to the guillotine. Camille Desmoulins mockingly said of Saint-Just: "He carries his head like a Holy Sacrament." "And I," replied Saint-Just, "will make him carry his like a Saint Denis." The threat was not vain: Desmoulins accompanied Danton to the scaffold.
In the external policy of France, he proposed that the National Convention should, through its committees, direct all military movements and all branches of the government (report of 10 October 1793). This was agreed to, and Saint-Just was despatched to Strasbourg, in company with fellow deputy and friend, Philippe Lebas, to superintend the military operations. It was suspected that the enemy without was being aided by treason within. Saint-Just's remedy was to follow his experience in Paris, organise the Reign of Terror, and soon the heads of all suspects sent to Paris were falling under the guillotine. There were no executions at Strasbourg, and Saint-Just repressed the excesses of Jean-Georges Schneider, who as public prosecutor to the revolutionary tribunal of the Lower Rhine had ruthlessly applied the Terror in Alsace. Schneider was sent to Paris and guillotined.
The conspiracy was defeated, and the armies of the Rhine and Moselle having been inspired by success - Saint-Just himself taking a fearless part in the fighting - and having effected a junction, the frontier was delivered and the German Rhineland was invaded. On his return, Saint-Just was made president of the Convention. Later, with the army of the North, he placed before the generals the dilemma of victory over the enemies of France or trial by the dreaded revolutionary tribunal; and before the eyes of the army itself, he organized a force specially charged with the slaughter of those who should seek refuge by flight. Success again crowned his efforts, and Belgium was gained for France (May, 1794).
Robespierre recalled Saint-Just to the capital. According to Barère, on 5 Thermidor Saint-Just proposed a dictatorship as the only remedy for the convulsions of society. Barère's report is highly questionable, however. As one of the leaders of the Thermidorian Reaction, his testimony is necessarily suspect and it has been argued (Fayard, p. 311) that the style that Barère alleges is not at all typical of Saint-Just. At the famous sitting of 9 Thermidor, Saint-Just tried to present as the report of the committees of General Security and Public Safety a document expressing his own views, a sight of which, however, had been refused to the other members of committee on the previous evening. He was vehemently interrupted, and the sitting ended with an order for Robespierre's arrest. On the following day, 28 July 1794, twenty-two men, nearly all young, and including Saint-Just and Robespierre, were guillotined. Saint-Just maintained his proud self-possession to the last.
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the following references in turn:
- Œuvres de Saint-Just, précédes d'une notice historique sur sa vie (Paris, 1833-1834).
- E. Fleury, Etudes révolutionnaires (2 vols., 1851), with which cf. articles by Sainte Beuve (Causeries du lundi, vol. v), Cuvillier-Fleury (Portraits politiques et révolutionnaires).
- E. Hamel, Histoire de Saint-Just (1859), which brought a fine to the publishers for outrage on public decency.
- FA Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention (2nd ed., Paris, 1905).
- The Œuvres complètes de Saint-Just have been edited with notes by C Vellay (Paris, 1908).
- Théorie politique, edited by Alain Liénard, Paris: Seuil 1976.
- Saint-Just, Bernard Viot, Paris: Fayard, 1985.
