That book "The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre" by David P. Jordan continues to amaze me. Here are more extracts...
As Robespierre lay on a table in the antechamber of the Commitee of Public Safety, drifting in and out of consciousness, his ball-shattered jaw bound up with a bandage, his triumphant enemies, in another room of the Tuileries palace, were creating the monster who would soon pass into historical legend. This Robespierre created by using materials scavenged from old calumny, damaging anecdote, and sometimes sheer malicious invention, was one of the founding acts of a new revolutionary government...
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This is how the first chapter started, followed by examples of this awful propaganda and slander, which I refuse to repeat here. *sigh*
Anyway, some interesting facts are brought up here.
In making Robespierre the monstrous symbol of the Terror, of all fanaticism and excess, they not only created a vile legend, which was politically useful at the moment, they also recognized, in their frantic efforts to exorcise Robespierre's disturbing shade, his significance. In a sense Thermidorian vituperation kept Robespierre alive. The very intensity of their malice tended to mythologize the man they sought to obliterate. The next generation, with different purposes and sensibilities, would take up the memory of Robespierre, still warm from the passion of Thermidorian hatred, and create a heroic figure, a savior of France and a champion of humankind. Monster and hero have remained the poles of Robespierre's changing reputation...
...The legend of a monstrous Robespierre not only grew unchecked, for when it was being made none dared challenge the new masters of the Revolution, but was reiterated and embellished by government apologists and men who found the legend useful for propaganda, a reminder of the revolutionary excesses from which they insisted they had saved France. Napoleon, whose coup d'état in 1799 ended the reign of the Thermidorians, as First Consul or later as Emperor, had no desire to remind the people of his brief but real robespierriste past. He had no intention of rehabilitating Robespierre's reputation, let alone connecting himself with the Terror....
Charlotte's Mémoires were then...the belated and necessary antidote for Thermidorian poison. (I love the author's language.)
Although she saw only the lovable brother, while... He never aspired to be loved for his personality (as Charlotte loved him). He demanded, and received, respect, devotion, even love - for he had several close friends who resembled and extended family - for what he insisted he was, a revolutionary.