POV: the year is 1794 and you're drinking your coffee in revolutionnary bucolic cups

— from the Carnavalet temporary exhibition: Paris 1793-1794: une année révolutionnaire

i did something silly idk idk

A short letter from Bonaparte to Carnot

Source: Léonge de Brotonne, Lettres inédites de Napoléon Ier (1898), p. 6

What... Do you mean intimate?

バスピスフーシェ

Lucile Desmoulins’ letter to Robespierre, written shortly after the arrest of her husband

Is it really you (tu) who dares to accuse us of counter-revolutionary projects, of treason against the homeland? You who have already much profited from the efforts that we have made for it only. Camille saw the birth of your pride, he foresaw the road you wanted to follow, but he remembered your old friendship, and, as far from the insensibility of your Saint-Just as from his base jealousies, he recoiled in front of the idea of accusing a college friend, a companion in his works. This hand which has pressed yours left the pen before its time, once it could no longer hold it to trace your praise. And you send him to his death! So you understood his silence! He must thank you for it, the homeland might reproach him for it, but thanks to you, it won’t ignore that Camille Desmoulins was against all support the defender of the republic.

But Robespierre, can you really accomplish the disastrous projects which the vile souls that surround you no doubt have inspired you with? Have you forgotten these ties that Camille can never remember without tenderness? You who took vows for our union, who took our hands into yours, you who have smiled at my son and whom his baby hands have caressed so many times, can you then reject my prayer, scorn my tears, crush justice under your feet? For you know it yourself, we don’t deserve the fate that’s being prepared for us, and you can change it. If it strikes us, it will be because you have ordered it to! But what is then the crime of my Camille…

I don’t have his pen to defend him, but the voice of good citizens and your heart, its it is sensible and just, will stand with me. Do you think one will gain confidence in you in watching you immolate your friends? Do you think one will bless he who cares neither for the tears of the widow nor the death of the orphan? Had I been Saint-Just’s wife I would tell him: Camille’s sake is yours, it’s the sake of all of Robespierre’s friends! The poor Camille, in the simplicity of his heart, how far he was from suspecting the fate that awaits him today! He thought himself working for your glory in pointing out to you what is still missing in our republic! One has no doubt slandered him near you, Robespierre, for you cannot believe him guilty. Contemplate that he never asked you for the death of anyone, that he never wanted to harm through your power and that you were his oldest, his best friend. Even if he hadn’t loved the homeland so much, if he hadn’t been as attached to the republic, I think his attachment to you would have served as a substitute for patriotism, and you think that for this we deserve death!……..because to strike him, that’s…….

Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins (1836), p. 217–219. The letter remained unfinished and never reached Robespierre.

Pictures of young Hébert, my first revolutionary crush.

He's such a cat to me

The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution (Donald Greer): Statistics

THIS MADE ME GIGGLE TOO HARD THEY ARE TRULY YURI

thank you @labrador44 this is true peak

YES!!! thank you for drawing them too théroigne is too underrated

Put that lil’ guy down 🗣️‼️ (don’t he likes it up there he just won’t admit it)

✨Antoine Leaument, the french deputy, everyone. ✨

Is he a saintspierre shipper? 😩

He asked me if he can post this tweet:

Translation: "Saint-Just was Robespierre's best companion and there are certainly histories we don't know."

He writes Robespierre x Saint-Just, I'm SCREAMING.

Antoine Leaument: Me, no. But Taleonne, yes !

Hope he will post it. 🤣 (I'm building an armor against haters.)

These posters have been appearing in hospitals and at bus stops in the UK courtesy of everyonehateselon_ - click the link and give them a follow on Instagram!

A print showing one of the few depictions of Prieur de la Côte-d'Or, kept in his fonds at the Ecole Polytechinique in Paris. It's the one where this scan is taken from, basically.

According to Georges Bouchard, here he is wearing the chef the brigade (lieutenant-colonel) uniform, so in the pictures he's between 32 and 37 years old.

Yeah so some of these couples are jokes and only "ships" in the fandom way. But you're wrong if you believe there wasn't any kind of special relationship between Robespierre and Saint-Just, Carnot and Prieur, Barère and... a lot of men. Yes, Carnot and Barère were married. Carnot loved his wife. Barère had several female lovers. Prieur had a long-term relationship with an older woman (who was married to someone else). But um... Did you forget bisexuality exists? Or homoromanticism? Or are you just de facto implying those aren't "real"? Have you internalized that they aren't real maybe? Because trust me some men love other men as much as women, as much as their wife, maybe more than their wife. David loved Drouais more than his wife - and no it wasn't "fatherly love". It was a teacher's/mentor's love with all of the ambiguity this involves when you remember they were artists and what the subjects they preferred to paint were. This culture offered a convenient pretext where you could blur the lines. And no, you'll likely never know the truth. You'll never know if they fucked other men, or how, or what positions they preferred, or if David actually fathered his own children. And honestly it's kinda creepy to take it beyond mere speculation and actually really want to know that far as if it was a fact you were owed to? You don't need to know those details. You can just know when there's obviously a loving relationship going on. That's just as true for living breathing beings you know btw. You'll never really know what kind of loving relationship they have unless they choose to tell you... or someone forcibly outs them, which is gross.

Maybe we should be happy they had the chance to live in a brief period where all loving relationships between men weren't automatically seen as "scandalous" and "depraved", that men were allowed to love each other without it being always perceived as "suspicious" and "illicit".

Barère's thoughts about Saint-Just aren't creepy because they're about another man - they're creepy because he clearly sounds jealous of Robespierre and, you know, the whole Thermidor thing and all the nasty things he said about both. But it's actually quite special that we get to read his obviously non-straight non-normative thoughts so openly. It's not "subtext" or our "fevered deranged imagination". It's just there. Your denial isn't my problem to deal with.

I can feel Carnot cringe. Barère, however...