Louis de Saint-Just

French revolutionary leader

• Born: August 25, 1767
• Birthplace: Decize, France
• Died: July 28, 1794
• Place of death: Paris, France

An acute political theorist and insightful orator, Saint-Just dominated the executive councils of the national convention at a time when internal anarchy and military invasions threatened social order in France.

Early Life

Louis de Saint-Just (lwee duh sa-zhewst) was born in Decize, a town along the Loire River, but he grew up in southern Picardy, the native province of his father, a retired military officer who had purchased property at Blérancourt. The mother of Saint-Just, Jeanne-Marie Robinot, was the daughter of an established notary. She advocated egalitarian principles; after her son completed his education at the Collège of Saint-Nicolas under the direction of the Oratorian Fathers, she used her influence to obtain a position for him as a clerk in the office of the public prosecutor of Soissons. As a student, Saint-Just was self-indulgent and often impudent. At the age of nineteen, he ran away with some of the family silver, which he sold in Paris. He was arrested and placed in a reformatory for six months; after this episode, he entered the University of Reims, where he studied law, receiving a degree in 1788.

Saint-Just began to frequent the political clubs of Soissons; soon he gained a reputation as an enthusiastic orator, and he was elected lieutenant colonel of the national guard in Blérancourt. In July of 1790, he led the federates from Blérancourt to Paris for “La Fěte de la Fédération.” When he returned home, he learned that some of his constituents were planning to seize the open markets of Blérancourt; he then wrote an impassioned letter to Robespierre, a lawyer and deputy to the legislative assembly from Arras, in which he encouraged economic equality as a step toward improving the living conditions of the working class. This letter, which greatly impressed Robespierre, marks the beginning of a political relationship that transformed the destiny of France. Both men were obstinately serious, ambitious, and austere, but Saint-Just—with Machiavellian hauteur and tireless energy—was more impetuous and self-righteous.

Life’s Work

In 1791, Saint-Just hoped to run for election as deputy to the national assembly. His rivals, however, succeeded in removing his name from the list of candidates. In preparation for this campaign, Saint-Just had written Esprit de la révolution et de la constitution de France (1791; spirit of the revolution). This work is composed primarily of provocative epigrams that follow the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. To better serve the poor and the peasants, Saint-Just recommended that the French Revolution move beyond benevolent and patriotic activity toward the construction of a new society. According to Saint-Just, the French were not yet free because sovereignty of the people was not possible until everyone was just and rational. In his visionary ardor, he misrepresented Rousseau’s intentions and blurred the contours of his philosophy. As the political career of Saint-Just advanced, it became increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between prescriptive theories and irrevocable laws.

On September 22, 1792, France declared itself a republic. The fall of Louis XVI provoked the invasion of the country by the Prussian and Austrian armies. The national assembly called for new elections of deputies from the newly formed départments, and Saint-Just was chosen to represent Aisne. By January of 1793, the king had been indicted; the Girondins, or moderates of the national assembly, expressed the view that he should be given a trial, whereas the Jacobins, or extremists, demanded an immediate execution. In this debate, Saint-Just emerged as the most forceful and challenging prosecutor against the king. His cold, implacable logic was an indicator of the rigor he expected from others.

Saint-Just argued against the inviolability of the king according to the ideas of Rousseau’s Du contrat social: Ou, Principes du droit politique (1762; A Treatise on the Social Contract: Or, The Principles of Political Law, 1764). He postulated that a king is a usurper who has stolen the absolute sovereignty that belongs only to the people. Law is an expression of the people’s common will. Therefore, the king, as a criminal guilty of tyranny, is an outsider and not a citizen. For this reason, he has no access to the law. Saint-Just concluded that the king must die in order to safeguard the republic. In demanding the death of Louis XVI, Saint-Just relied on the rhetoric of revolution as apocalypse; despite the utopian zeal of his formulations, he was promoting a new order of absolutism, with its own assortment of ingenious and exalted crimes.

After the execution of Louis XVI, Saint-Just rose to prominence as an advocate of national patriotism in the service of a strong, centralized government. He proposed a constitution that would subordinate military affairs to civil power, and he opposed the creation of municipalities favored by the Girondins. In May of 1793, he was asked to join the Committee of Public Safety in order to prepare new constitutional laws. Within two months, he became a definitive member of this heterogeneous and powerful Group of Twelve.

Because of a drastic drop in the volume of foreign trade, the needs of war, inflation, and exploitation by profiteers, the Committee of Public Safety, under Robespierre’s direction, began to push for exclusive regulatory privileges. The committee persuaded the national assembly, by means of Saint-Just’s compelling arguments, that the provisional government of France remain revolutionary until peace with France’s enemies was unilaterally acclaimed. This proclamation of October 10, 1793, superseded the constitution of June and announced the creation of exceptional measures to force merchants to adhere to the Law of the Maximum, an economic expedient approved by the convention in September of 1793. The result was an intensification of fear. In order to prepare the way for unprecedented coercion, the Revolutionary Tribunal carried out a spectacular series of trials that virtually eliminated the Girondins; at this time, Marie-Antoinette was condemned and executed.

In November of 1793, Saint-Just embarked on a series of military enterprises that led to the high point of his career. He was sent to Alsace as supervisor of the Army of the Rhine, which had suffered numerous setbacks, leaving the officers and soldiers demoralized and inefficient. Saint-Just and his friend and colleague Philippe Le Bas ignored the other nine representatives from the convention already active in Alsace and proceeded to intimidate local authorities in Strasbourg in order to obtain supplies and to check the advances of aristocratic agitators. Saint-Just insisted on unswerving discipline among the troops and galvanized them with imperious commands. In December, the armies of the Rhine and Moselle were united, and Saint-Just led a victorious assault against the Austrian forces, lifting the siege of Landau. The following month, in much the same manner, he reorganized the Army of the North on the Belgian front.

When Saint-Just returned to Paris, he initiated a series of purges, with Robespierre’s compliance, designed to eliminate traitors among the ultra-Montagnards, an anarchist group responsible for the “dechristianization” of France. Saint-Just emerged as a ruthless enemy of those who either provoked agitation or favored moderation. He was responsible for the execution of Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins, heroes of the earlier phase of the revolution. Saint-Just insisted that the elimination of Danton and his followers would pave the way for a pure republic composed of single-minded patriots.

With Danton’s death, the revolution entered the period known as the Reign of Terror. In June of 1794, Robespierre drafted the Law of Twenty-Two Prairial, which defined in conveniently vague terms the enemies of the people and denied them right to counsel. Saint-Just disapproved of this measure because the sansculottes, or proletariat, were deprived of power; he declared: “The revolution is frozen, every principle has been attenuated.”

Saint-Just returned to the Army of the North and was instrumental in forcing the Prussians to surrender their garrison at Charleroi. That led to the confrontation between the French and the Austrians near the village of Fleurus in Belgium. Despite heavy losses, the French were victorious; refusing accolades, Saint-Just left immediately for Paris. He had been informed by Robespierre that the Committee of Public Safety was hopelessly divided.

In such matters, Saint-Just generally favored reconciliation. Robespierre made a speech before the convention, however, condemning his opponents as a league of conspirators. Out of loyalty to Robespierre, Saint-Just prepared a report that would incriminate Robespierre’s rivals on the committee. At the same time, moderates, known as “Thermidorians,” who were uncomfortable with Robespierre’s attempt at hegemony, united to overthrow him. On July 27, Saint-Just, Robespierre, and about twenty of their supporters were denounced as tyrants and proscribed; they were executed the following day.

Significance

In March of 1794, Louis de Saint-Just was chosen president of the convention for a fortnight. At this time, he composed notes and observations published posthumously as Fragments sur les institutions républicaines (1800; fragments on republican institutions), a work that laid the foundation for a communal society. The “immortal, impassive Republic of Virtue,” energized by permanent revolution and sheltered from human temerity, would provide education for all. Saint-Just classified and sharpened Robespierre’s theories. In a democratic republic, civic virtue made legalistic bureaucracies obsolete; institutions were the social means for producing responsible republicans. Censorship was condoned as an administrative control over unreliable elements.

At the height of his power, Saint-Just proposed the Laws of Ventôse, by which the convention voted in favor of confiscating the property of counterrevolutionaries in order to assign it to “indigent patriots” (these laws were never put into effect). In addition, the Cadet School of Mars, which emulated Spartan standards, was inaugurated to educate three thousand youths as disciplined patriots who would increase the collective efficiency of the state. As a follower of Rousseau, Saint-Just was consistent in activating Enlightenment ideals, but in order to purify the republic and to execute the Laws of Ventôse, he created a General Police Bureau, whose existence inverted democratic liberties.

The personality of Saint-Just offers a wide range of contradictions. The swiftness with which he consigned authority to himself is impressive, but his collusion with Robespierre added to the apprehension created by his virulent, doctrinaire speeches. Known as the “Panther” or “Angel of Death,” Saint-Just often revealed chinks in his armor. In Strasbourg, while addressing a Jacobin Club, he broke down in tears when referring to the vandalism of churches and desecration of the Blessed Sacrament. His impeccable habits and stoical demeanor suggest a puritan strain that was not pursued in private. His Blérancourt mistress visited him regularly in Paris, and his fiancée, the sister of Le Bas, accompanied him on one of his missions to Strasbourg. He once stated that a man who struck a woman should receive the death penalty. He was given to peremptory and sententious speech but displayed a genuine solicitude for soldiers in the lower ranks and for the poor and needy. He was not autocratic; he accepted the sovereign will of the people implicitly. For this reason, when he was indicted, he did not appeal to the sansculottes to challenge the convention.

The rhetoric of Saint-Just anticipates twentieth century forms of totalitarianism; however, his confidence in democratic institutions was pristine. As commissioner of the armies, Saint-Just successfully mobilized the resources of France in order to defend the revolutionary government against an allied front directed by the monarchs of Europe. Military victories were preliminary steps toward the complete regeneration of society. Saint-Just sought to create a nation made up of communities with a common interest that would safeguard the principles of the French Revolution.

Bibliography

Béraud, Henri. Twelve Portraits of the French Revolution. Translated by Madeleine Boyd. Boston: Little, Brown, 1928. The thirty-page chapter on Saint-Just contains information excluded from subsequent biographies. The presentation of Saint-Just is occasionally melodramatic and there are some factual inconsistencies, but the overall portrait is illuminating.

Bouloiseau, Marc. The Jacobin Republic, 1792-1794. Translated by Jonathan Mandelbaum. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. The second of a three-volume series designed to provide a synthesis of twentieth century attitudes toward the French Revolution. Bouloiseau studies the economic and social history of the Jacobin organizations to the detriment of political developments. The contribution of women’s societies is also explored.

Bruun, Geoffrey. Saint-Just: Apostle of Terror. Reprint. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1966. This short but perceptive study appraises the contributions of Saint-Just to policies enacted by the Committee of Public Safety. Bruun analyzes the images of Saint-Just as a fanatic, a designation given him by French Royalist émigrés throughout Europe.

Curtis, Eugene. Saint-Just: Colleague of Robespierre. Reprint. New York: Octagon Books, 1973. This exhaustive study uses original documents and manuscripts, including Saint-Just’s correspondence, to examine the missions to Alsace, dominated by Saint-Just, to counteract Royalist insurgents. An objective and far-reaching study of the reasons behind the Reign of Terror.

Fisher, John. Six Summers in Paris, 1789-1794. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Richly detailed and wide in scope and investigation, this work chronicles the factionalism that developed among the splinter groups that sustained the momentum of the revolution. Brilliantly conceived but unnecessarily cynical.

Gough, Hugh. The Terror in the French Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. A concise overview describing the evolution and consequences of the Terror. Describes Saint-Just’s military work in Alsace, his role on the Committee of Public Safety, his proposed Laws of Ventôse, and his execution.

Hampson, Norman. Saint-Just. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1991. Comprehensive biography written by a noted historian who specialized in the French Revolution and wrote biographies of Danton and Robespierre.

Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution from 1793 to 1799. Translated by John Hall Stewart and James Friguglietti. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964. The second part of Lefebvre’s comprehensive history, originally published in 1951. An informative, valuable study that clearly outlines Saint-Just’s efforts to offset the economic crisis and to mold a national platform of systematic reconstruction.

Loomis, Stanley. Paris in the Terror: June, 1793-July, 1794. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1964. A colorful account of the domestic and foreign intrigue that created a climate of suspicion and panic during the Great Terror. The biographical sketches of Saint-Just place him above and beyond the fray of partisan politics.

Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution. Rev. ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. A revised edition of the 1941 text by a distinguished translator and authority on France during the revolution. Although occasionally impressionistic, this is a vivid study of the conflicts within the Committee of Public Safety.