Misrepresentations of Saint-Just's Character in Romantic Era Historical Accounts: The Importance of Humanizing Historical Figures

 In a forthcoming article for a conference, I intend to address the two most important views of Saint-Just in the historiography of the Revolution as well as some of the misunderstandings of the politician's character. In this post, I want to discuss a bit the implications of Romantic-era historians' idealized portrayal of the young revolutionary, and how even those who view Saint-Just favorably can misinterpret his character. I highly recommend reading English historian Marisa Linton's work on confounded representations of Saint-Just and their foundations, as I found them extremely useful when researching this forthcoming article.

Romantic interpretations of the revolutionary still greatly influence his portrayals in many circles, particularly online “fandom” circles, despite the many inaccuracies of this point of view. Where does this idealized representation of Saint-Just come from? Reviewing the works of the French historians Michelet and Lamartine help us to understand how these phantasmagoric ideas about Saint-Just developed over time. 

What does historian Jules Michelet have to say about our young revolutionary in his account? Michelet writes that Saint-Just was the “greatest hope of France” and the only person who could have forced Napoleon's sword "to bow before the law." Michelet's romanticized account of the young revolutionary termed the interesting nickname "Archangel of Terror" that is in modern day used to oversimplify or vilify him to an extent. Perhaps the long-term popularity of this view can be largely attributed to the fact that Michelet's view of Saint-Just was, alongside Lamartine's, the main source of inspiration behind Hugo's character Enjolras, leader of the Les Amis in Les Misérables, The popularization of this romantic view of Enjolras, as well as opinions of the character, have thus become deeply entrenched in how one might wish to view the revolutionary. That being said, it must be kept in mind that these accounts still have misrepresentations, and historical figures should not be equated with fictional characters.  

As mentioned in an article by historian Marisa Linton, these mischaracterizations have been used by both those who despise Saint-Just and those who admire him.   However, more individualized biographical approach to the often controversial figures of the period has proved useful in combating the tendency to treat these figures simply as ideologies they developed, believed in and, in this case, died for. In order to better understand the wider sociopolitical environment of the French Revolution, particularly the tumultuous first two years of the new republic, it is necessary to examine figures like Saint-Just not only from an ideological point of view, but also from a personal one. As there are a multitude of inaccuracies in the historiographic understandings of the revolutionary, it is impossible to learn truthfully about his character without reading his own work. To best understand Saint-Just, one must not look only to his political endeavors, but also to the remnants of his personality found in his speeches, writings, and anecdotes from those who knew him.

For political figures of the time, the personal and the political are often one and the same. To better understand Saint-Just, we need to analyze him not only as a politician, but also as an individual swept up and later engulfed by the fervor of the times. Minimizing or ignoring the personal life and rhetorical influences of a revolutionary politician like Saint-Just, for whom these issues were deeply intertwined, would be detrimental to understanding not only his political ideas, but also their evolution over time, as well as his role in setting the framework for many larger-scale revolutionary measures.

It is for this reason that my upcoming paper aims to discuss not only Saint-Just's political influences, which have intrigued a plethora of scholars, but to focus more so on the overlooked traces that the young revolutionary left of his own all too often forgotten humanity.


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At the Petit Palais, David d'Angers' bust of Saint-Just (circa 1848), based on a pastel by Angélique Verrier-Maillard, daughter of Saint-Just's landlord at his first long-term residence in Paris. Mme Élisabeth DuPlay-LeBas approved of it, and was especially touched, saying it resembled her late friend.

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