YEARBOOK oP EUROPEAN STUDIES 9 (1996): 19-36
'JE VEUX SUIVRE TA TRACE VENEREE' ROBESPIERRE AS A REINCARNA TION OF ROUSSEAU
Norman Hampson
Some time between 1789 and 1791 Robespierre composed a rather curious Dedicace de Maximilien Robespierre aux Mlines de Jean• Jacques Rousseau, in which he placed himself 'sous l'egide du plus eloquent et du plus vertueux des hommes'. I For the rest of his life he was to attach equal importance to both of these attrib• utes. Rousseau, in other words, was not mere1y a source of ideas but also the living embodiment of a moral sentiment. Robespierre continued, 'Homme divin! tu m'as appris a me connaitre; bien jeune, tu m'as fait apprecier la dignite de ma nature et reflechir aux grands principes de I' ordre social'. It was thanks to Rousseau that he had made a personal contribution to the creation of a new France. He c1aimed to have seen Jean-Jacques towards the end of his life - he himself was only twenty when Rousseau died - and to have been profoundly impressed by 'l'empreinte des noirs chagrins auxquels t' avaient condamne 1es injustices des hommes'. He as• pired to follow in Rousseau's path 'au prix d'une vie 1aborieuse, au prix meme d'un trepas premature'. The only work of the master's to which he referred in this self-dedication was the 'admi• rables Conjessions, cette emanation franche et hardie de I' äme la
1 Text in Hector Fleischmann, Charlotte Robespierre et ses Memoires (Paris, n.d.), 290-292. 20 NORMAN HAMPSON
plus pure'. This confirms the impression that what inspired Robes• pierre was the character, at least as much as the philosophy of bis mentor. Mme Roland had experienced Rousseau in much the same way - 'Je le regarde comme l'ami de l'humanite, comme son bienfaiteur et le mien' - but she had fallen under the spell of Emile as weH as the Nouvelle Heloi'se and it was Emile that converted Brissot to emotional deism. 2 It was perhaps significant that Robes• pierre should have chosen to emphasize his particular debt to the work in which Rousseau described with indulgent self-pity and growing paranoia, his life rather than his ideas. Robespierre' s implied claim to have been a devotee of Rousseau from his early years scarcely corresponds to the evidence of his literary compositions and legal pleadings. The essay that he wrote for the Metz academy's prize competition in 1785 foHowed Montes• quieu in both style and content, to the point of quoting him without acknowledgment. His conclusion: 'Ce n'est pas que je veuille porter une main profane sur l' edifice sacre de nos lois', was not much of a foretaste of what was to come. Another essay in the foHowing year, on the treatment of the illegitimate, reflected the influence of both Montesquieu and Rousseau. Robespierre described politics as public morality but went on to assert that statesmen were powerless to influence moeurs. He maintained this balance in his essay on Gresset, in the same year, in which he suggested that men of letters were too inclined to sacrifice morality to the pursuit of glory, but praised Frederic 11 and refused to opt between 'ces philosophes qui ont combattu les spectacles et ceux qui les ont loues'. Even if this was no more than the caution of a man who was trying not to offend any of the jury, it scarcely amounted to the pursuit of vertu regardless of the cost. 3 It would be rash to draw any conclusions from Robespierre's appearance in the lightning-conductor case in 1783, where his role
2 Memoires de Madame Roland, ed. P. Faugere (2 vols.; Paris, 1864) 2: 171 (note 1); J.P. Brissot, Memoires (4 vols.; Paris, 1830), 1: 50. 3 Discours couronne par la Societe royale des Arts et des Sciences de Metz (Amsterdam, 1785); Les Droits et l'Etat des Batards, ed. L.N. Berthe (Arras, 1791). Eloge de Gresset (London, 1786).