One of the most persistent obstacles to this issue can be traced back as early as the Leçons d’histoire given by Volney (1799: ii–iii) within the recently established École Normale in early 1795. Since history gives, to Volney’s eyes, the ‘most fruitful sources of [men’s] prejudices and errors’ (232), the ancient (and Roman) references of revolutionaries are but the effect of a blind enthusiasm, responsible for their incapacity to understand that they were pursuing their true goal (the promotion of freedom and rights of men) with counterproductive means (exalting the virtues of ancient peoples and institutions favourable to slavery, to warlike politics hostile to commerce, etc.). But this approach unsatisfactorily makes these worshippers of Livy into straw men, and deters us from trying to understand their intentions when handling these specific ideological weapons (see Chapter 11). The detailed reading of Saint-Just’s trajectory proposed by Linton (2010) provides a convincing alternative standpoint, taking seriously the constitutive role of Saint-Just’s uses of Roman antiquity both in the construction of his revolutionary activity and identity, and in his vision of the new order (see more generally Linton 2004 on this latter aspect; Viarre 1991).
A clear function of Roman republican ideology in revolutionary but still monarchical France was to show how contradictory it would be to claim to be free while still living under a monarch (Hammersley 2010: 41). François Robert, an important early divulger of anti-monarchical ideas in the press and the sociétés patriotiques (Monnier 2005: Chapter 6), tries to convince the Mercure National’s readership that France can do without kingship, and anticipates the official recognition of the King’s status during the first imminent ‘Fête de la Fédération’ (14 July 1790). Aware that challenging monarchy is not topical, Robert nevertheless attacks in the Mercure National (4 July 1790): ‘this word [king] was odious to true Roman citizens’ (quoted in Monnier 2005: 156), meaning that, as revolutionary as the French claim to be, they are not yet free citizens. A few months later, he hammers it in, publishing his Republicanism adapted to France (November 1790) under the auspices of Brutus in order to disclose to his readers the ‘obvious’ ‘incompatibility’ of freedom and monarchy: French people cannot pretend to be free if they live in a monarchy (Robert 1790: i–ii, 3, 1–2). As Robert gradually reveals his uncompromising indictment of monarchy, however, one realises that he clearly does not need a detour via Roman republican heroes. Robert apparently wishes to make the grounds for adapting republicanism to France appear as self-sufficient truths. Yet Desmoulins’ attitude is more representative: well-chosen Roman examples and references are held to be necessary because French subjects are so ‘familiarised with’ the insolence of the royal fiat and the obscenity of monarchical luxury, that they tend to accept meekly their present submission as their political fate (Desmoulins 1789: 50–51). Orotund interpellations of the citizen-reader with the reminder of republican heroes should be seen in this light: ‘Dear fellow-citizens, freedom must be a great good indeed, if Cato tears his entrails to pieces instead of having a king’ (1789: 56). Neglecting such invocations as mere bookish games would amount to missing the normative and practical point Desmoulins is trying to make at the precise juncture of the days following 14 July of 1789: Cato’s gesture is used here to recall an independent truth that should be kept in mind, namely that freedom is a human good worth fighting for and that it might be incompatible with monarchy as such.
More specifically, this ‘populares’ vision of Roman politics (see Arena 2012), in which the people have a crucial and active political role, is invoked as a means to stimulate French subjects towards thinking of themselves as citizens (Desmoulins 1789: 31). The very next day, when the King’s family were arrested while they were fleeing from France (20 and 21 June 1791), the Cordeliers insisted that the Assemblée should collect the opinions of ‘all of the departments’ concerning whether France still ought to be a monarchy. As an important petition of 14 July 1791 put it, it is ‘this character they [i.e. the French people] get from the Romans, this character of freedom’ which makes them demand that the representatives of the nation should not decide anything concerning the fugitive and treacherous King before the ‘commons (communes)’ have pronounced (Mathiez 1910: 113; see Levin 2014: 11–18).
4.8 Virtus in the Service of Freedom
To some extent, the taste for Latin quotes and Roman comparisons in revolutionary debates can be said to be simply rhetorical filigree: from (almost) all republican sides, the monarchy is flayed with lessons from Roman historians (Martin 1983; Bouineau 1986: 152–153), Roman heroes are summoned to praise great French achievements or point to the path that ought to be followed, ambitious Roman men are invoked to weigh the risks of granting too much power to anyone. However, this reading is shallow indeed, for it misses the very normative constraints that protagonists both exploit and are subject to in their ideological battles. Among the many and no doubt conflicting constraints, only one – but a major one – will be highlighted here: references to the Roman Republic function as a reminder for former subjects of monarchy of the kind of virtue that acts in the service of freedom.
This is especially visible when adversaries struggle with the same reference. In his first speech to the Convention (13 November 1792), Saint-Just (2004: 476, 483) argues that the king must be treated ‘as an enemy’, as did Brutus in stabbing his own friend, Caesar. But should Saint-Just’s point be interpreted as intending to show that ‘Brutus chose political virtue over the good of any one individual’ (Linton 2010: 405)? It is true that Brutus’s tyrannicide constitutes ‘an example of virtue’ that Saint-Just fears is lacking in the Convention. However, what is at stake here is not the republic of virtue embodied by republican exempla but the idea that suing a king for oppressing his people would be incompatible with the task of founding a republic as a ‘free nation’ (Saint-Just 2004: 477, 480–481): ‘We must courageously move forward towards our aim…We are looking for freedom!’ (477). That a free republic is the revolutionary goal – and virtue the way to reach it – is confirmed by the heated exchange in the debates on the 16 December 1792, where the Girondins themselves appealed to Brutus to justify their proposition to chase the Bourbons away from France, putting the Montagnards in a difficult position since they had allowed an aristocrat (the former Duc d’Orléans) to enter their ranks. Saint-Just retorts that it is not enough to swear to be Brutus’s faithful interpreters: the Girondins should also clarify the underlying motive of their stand, for while Brutus did expel the Tarquins ‘in order to secure the freedom of Rome’, Saint-Just suspects the Girondins of aspiring to become ‘other Tarquins’ (Arch. Parl., vol. 55, 83, my emphasis; see also Saint-Just 2004: 757). Saint-Just’s point is that the Roman lesson makes freedom the yardstick of virtue (see 763–764).
This lesson is perhaps best illustrated by Desmoulins’ Le Vieux Cordelier (VC), a journal of six issues published from December 1793 to January 1794. His ‘veracious and republican writing case’ (VC3, 44) emphasises the ‘lessons of history and philosophy’ given by Tacitus, Sallust and Machiavelli (VC1, 7; VC4, 62) as critiques of the dangerous slope taken by the Revolutionary Government (see Chapter 10; Chapter 2). Desmoulins admits that France is in a terrible predicament: the raging war between republican freedom and monarchy (VC3, 39; VC4, 53) requires such perilous institutions as the Revolutionary Government and Tribunal (VC5,