Le lendemain je me trouve placé, dans la Société des Jacobins, près David et Michot. Celui-ci disait à l'autre:Ah! la belle tragédie que celle de Timoléon; c'est un chef d'oeuvre; demande à Vilate. Je ne pus me défendre de rendre une justice éclatante … au génie de l'auteur. Le peintre (David) … nous répond:Chénier une belle tragédie! c'est impossible. Son âme a-t-elle jamais pu sentir la liberté {275} pour la bien rendre? Non, je n'y crois pas. A quelques jours de là, me trouvant avec Barère et Billaud-Varennes, on parle deTimoléon. Billaud ne put dissimuler son humeur:Elle ne vaut rien; elle n'aura pas l'honneur de la représentation. Qu'entend-il par ce vers contre-révolutionaire:
N'est-on jamais tyran qu'avec un diadème?
Barère, qui avait mêlé ses applaudissements à la lecture de la pièce, mais auquel j'avais déjà rapporté les propos de David, ajoute:Oui, il n'y a pas de génie révolutionaire; elle manque dans le plan. Billaud à Barère:Ne souffrons pas qu'elle soit jouée. Barère:Donnons lui le plaisir de quelques répétitions.
Several rehearsals were accordingly permitted to take place. Two performances followed. At the third there came a collapse.
On laisse aller la tragédie jusqu'à la scène où Aristocles va pour placer le bandeau royal sur la tête de Timophane, sous prétexte que le peuple de Corinthe concentre son indignation.…
A man in the pit thereupon rose and called out:
Si le peuple eut besoin d'être provoqué pour s'élever contre la tyrannie, c'est une injure faite au peuple français que de lui offrir cet exemple de faiblesse et d'ineptie. A bas la toile!
The cry was taken up; a riotous scene followed; and presently: on pousse l'horreur jusqu'au point de forcer Chénier à brûler {276} lui-même, sur le théatre, le fruit de huit mois de travaux et de veilles.
Art, like literature, languished during the Revolution, or meretriciously touched herself up with the fashionable rouge. Before and after are great periods, but for the moment art seems to have lost its cunning; the artist, like David, turns politician. Fragonard and Greuze both survived to see the Empire, but lost their vogue. The touch of Greuze could hardly be appreciated in the age of Danton; the luscious sweetness of Fragonard was in like case; both of these great artists were ruined by the Revolution and died in poverty. Instead of these graceful masters of the false pastoral taste of the decaying century, a robust group of military painters arises, Vernet, Charlet, Géricault, and later Raffet, most brutal, but most candid portrayer of the armies of the Republic. The false classical style, inherited from the period of Louis XVI, is metamorphosed by David and Gros, becomes inflated, declamatory, vapid, and wooden. David's immense picture, the most insistent canvas now hanging in the Louvre, representing the three Horatii swearing to Rome that they would conquer or die, gives the note of the period. False sentiment, {277} mock heroics, glittering formula, lay figure attitude, all are there.
A few artists succeeded in carrying the elegance of the 18th century through the storm into the period beyond, notably Prud'hon, who has been called the Watteau of the Revolution. His portraits of the women of the Bonaparte family, Joséphine, Hortense, Pauline, have all the grace and fascination of the earlier age, merge with it the abandon of the Directoire period, and touch the whole with the romanticism and individualism of the coming century. In terrible contrast with these lovely and alluring women of the new age, is the grim figure caught in a few masterly strokes by David, as Marie Antoinette, proud and unbending as ever, but shorn of all the glory of Versailles, her face haggard, her hair gray, dishevelled, mutilated by scissors, passed by on the prisoner's cart on her way to the guillotine. It is the guillotine, in art as in politics the most potent of solvents, that stands between Trianon and the romantics.
[1] TO THE NUMBER OF THE DAY IN:Vendémiare, add 21 to get dates in September, October;Brumaire, add 21 to get dates in October, November;Frimaire, add 20 to get dates in November, December;Nivôse, add 20 to get dates in December, January;Pluviose, add 19 to get dates in January, February;Ventôse, add 18 to get dates in February, March;Germinal, add 20 to get dates in March, April;Floréal, add 19 to get dates in April, May;Prairial, add 19 to get dates in May, June;Messidor, add 18 to get dates in June, July;Thermidor, add 18 to get dates in July, August;Fructidor, add 17 to get dates in August, September;Fructidor was followed by fivejours supplémentaires,thesans cullotides.
{279}
Abbaye, l', 153.Aiguillon, duc d', 37, 76, 95.Aix en Provence, 230.Aix la Chapelle, 172.Alembert, d', 18, 19.Almaia, 23.Alsace, 106.Amsterdam, 34.Arcola, 247.Argonne, 149, 157.Arras, 199.Artois, Cte d', 55, 62, 71, 100.Artois, Ctsse d', 33.Augereau, 250.Aulard, 8.Avignon, v.
Babeuf, 244, 245, 246.Bailly, 55, 58, 71, 73, 74, 86, 123, 129, 108.Bale, 229, 249.Barère, 159, 167, 168, 176, 180, 183, 187, 213, 217, 225, 228.Barras, 159, 221, 224, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 250, 257.Barry, Mme. du, 14, 37.Barthélemy, 229, 249, 250.Bassano, 247.Bastille, 66, 67, 105.Bayle, 15.Beauharnais, Vcte de, 76, 186, 189.Beauharnais, Joséphine, 241, 242.Beaumarchais, 21, 22, 23.Bernadotte, 258, 259.Besenval, 63, 65, 66, 67, 70.Billaud, 142, 193, 213, 218, 219, 225, 228.Biron, 186, 189, 190, see also Lauzun.Blanc, 4, 5.Blondel, 82.Boissy d'Anglas, 248.Bonaparte, 133, 237, 238, 242, 243, 247-253, 256, 259-261;see also Napoleon I.Bordeaux, 185.Bouillé, 108, 109, 113, 117, 118, 136, 166.Boyer Fonfrède, 197.Breteuil, 64, 71.Brézé, Dreux, 58, 59.Brienne, see Loménie.Brissot, 84, 128, 131, 132, 135, 136, 159, 161, 187, 188, 197.Brittany, 187.Broglie, 63, 66.Brunswick, 136, 140, 143, 149, 150, 154, 157, 158, 170, 182.Brutus, 21, 273.Buzot, 174, 187, 188, 198.
Calonne, 34, 39, 41-43.Calvin, 17.Cambacérès, 224, 230.Cambon, 128, 159, 176, 218.Campo Formio, 251.Carlyle, 4.Carnot, 159, 187, 216, 217, 240, 242, 249, 250.Carrier, 199, 200, 225, 226, 270, 271.Carteaux, 192.Cassano, 256.Castiglione, 246.Cathelineau, 187.Cercle des Égaux, 245.Chabannes, Mlle. de, 210.Chalier, 186.Championnet, 254, 257.Charette, 187, 234.Charles, Archduke, 247, 254.Charlet, 276.Chateau Gontier, 198.Chateauvieux, 108, 136, 268.Chaumette, 208.Chénier, A., 209, 267-273.Chénier, J., 216, 250, 267, 273-275.Clairon, 33.Clavière, 134, 135.Clermont-Tonnerre, 59, 129.Club Breton, 57, 58, 94.Club de Clichy, 248, 249.Club du Panthéon, 245.Cobenzl, 251.Coblenz, 130, 135, 170, 227.Coburg, 192, 200.Collot, 193, 196, 205, 213, 220, 225, 228, 268.Condorcet, 78, 128, 159, 198.Constant, Benj., 1, 248.Corday, Charlotte, 188, 189, 269, 270.Cordeliers, 109, 120, 121, 123.Couthon, 128, 187, 195, 208, 217, 220, 221.Cromwell, 110, 142.Custine, 170, 176, 186, 189.
Danton, 40, 120, 122, 124, 128, 136, 144, 148, 150, 151, 154,155, 156, 158, 159, 166, 171-176, 185-188, 191-194,202-208, 244, 245, 265.Dauphiné, 44, 94.David, 276, 277.Desmoulins, 64-66, 91, 104, 155, 197, 204, 205, 207, 208, 265, 266.Diderot, 18, 19.Dreux Brézé, see Brézé.Dubois, 14.Ducos, 257.Ducrest, 33.Dumouriez, 21, 134-136, 157, 158, 168, 170, 174, 176.
Élie, 68.Elizabeth, Princess, 232.England, 171.Éspréménil, d', 44.
Fabre d'Églantine, 262.Ferdinand IV, 254.Fersen, 117.Feuillants, 124, 128, 129, 131.Figaro, 22, 23.Fleurus, 215.Fontainebleau, 35.Fouché, 159, 196.Foulon, 74.Fouquier Tinville, 196.Fragonard, 276.France, Anatole, 9.Francis II, 135.François de Neufchateau, 250, 273.Franklin, 110.Fred. William II, 135, 229.Fréjus, 260.Fréron, 226.Friuli, 247.
Gensonné, 128, 197.Géricault, 276.Girondins, 159, 161, 163, 165, 170-177, 180-185.Gobel, 203, 210.Gohier, 257.Grégoire, 90, 159.Grenoble, 44.Grétry, 82.Greuze, 276.Gros, 276.Guadet, 128.Guise, 13.
Hanriot, 182, 183, 184, 206, 217, 220, 221.Hardenberg, 229.Hébert, 41, 84, 92, 144, 180-182, 190, 191, 194-197, 202,204, 206, 207, 244, 266.Henry IV, 13.Hoche, 200, 233, 234, 246.Holland, 171.Hood, 192.Hugo, 3.Hullin, 68.
Isnard, 128, 183, 228.
Jacobin Club, 94.Jaurès, 7, 8.Jemmappes, 170.Jervis, 246.Jordan, 248.Joubert, 247, 258, 259.Jourdan, 200, 214, 226, 227, 241, 242, 247, 250, 254, 255, 258, 259.
Kellermann, 157.Kléber, 199.Köln, 227.
La Barre, 18.La Fayette, 71-74, 78, 86-88, 98, 105, 120, 121, 123, 129,131, 135, 139, 140, 142, 149, 168.La Force, 154.Lally, 74.Lamartine, 4, 5.Lamballe, Prsse. de, 153, 154.Lameth, 76, 129.La Motte Valois, 39, 40.Lamoignon, 43.Lanjuinais, 159, 160, 228.Larevellière, 240.La Rochefoucauld, 76, 78, 140.La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, 129.La Rochejacquelein, 79, 198.La Trebbia, 257.Launay, de, 67, 68.Lauzun, 37, see also Biron.Leibnitz, 15.Le Mans, 199.Leoben, 247, 249.Leopold, 113, 130, 135.Letourneur, 240, 249.Loménie de Brienne, 43-46.Lonato, 246.Longwy, 149.Lorraine, 106, 149.Louis XIV, 13, 14, 15.Louis XV, 14, 15, 26, 27, 33, 35, 37.Louis XVI, 22, 25, 30, 33, 34-36, 38, 40-42, 46, 48, 52, 53,56-59, 63-65, 70, 73, 74, 80-82, 84, 87-90, 95, 100,102-106, 112, 114-118, 121-123, 125-127, 131, 132, 134,137-139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 163-170.Louis XVII, 169, 172, 231, 232.Louis XVIII, see Cte de Provence.Louis Philippe, 3.Loustallot, 91, 265.Louvet, 162, 163, 228.Luckner, 135.Lyons, 175, 185, 186.
Macdonald, 215, 257.Maestricht, 172.Maillard, 85, 153.Mainz, 170, 176, 189.Malesherbes, 167.Mallet, 265.Malta, 253.Mandat, 144, 145.Mantua, 243, 247.Manuel, 136, 140,Marat, 92, 106-108, 113, 119, 120, 132, 133, 143, 144, 155,161, 163, 166, 176, 177, 181, 184, 188, 189.Marie Antoinette, 36-41, 43, 52, 55, 62, 82, 84, 87, 88,100, 113, 115, 117, 130, 134, 138, 140, 196, 197, 277.Marceau, 68, 199.Marseilles, 49, 175, 185, 186, 192, 230.Masséna, 247, 254, 260.Mazarin, 13.Menou, 236, 237.Merlin de Douai, 250, 257.Metz, 113, 116.Michelet, 4, 5, 7.Mignet, 2, 3, 9.Mirabeau père, 26.Mirabeau fils, 21, 50, 55, 58, 60, 89, 95, 98-100, 104, 114,115, 120, 162, 244, 265.Miranda, 172.Montbéliard, 132.Montesquieu, 16, 51.Montmorency, 13.Moreau, 215, 226, 242, 247, 256, 257.Moulin, 257.Mounier, 45, 56, 60, 94.Murat, 20.
Nancy, 108.Nantes, 187, 199, 200.Napoleon I, 3, 18, 21, see also Bonaparte.Napoleon III, 5.Narbonne, Cte de, 132, 134.Necker, 34, 38, 42, 46, 47, 52, 53, 55, 59, 63, 64, 70, 95, 98, 109.Neerwinden, 174.Nelson, 254.Newton, 15.Noailles, 76, 95.Nootka Sound, 99.Normandy, 32, 98, 114, 175, 186-188.Novi, 259.
Orléans, duc Regent, 16.Orléans, duc Egalité, 59, 119, 120, 122, 155, 195, 198.
Pache, 206.Pacy, 188.Paine, T., 159.Pétion, 131, 138, 140, 141, 198.Pichegru, 200, 226, 229, 241, 242, 248, 250.Pillnitz, 135.Pius VI, 102.Poitou, 172.Polignac, 37.Pompadour, 14, 25, 33, 37.Provence, Cte de, 116, 117, 130, 232, 233, 257.Prud'hon, 277.Pyramids, 253.
Quesnay, 25.Quiberon, 233.
Raffet, 276.Rambouillet, 35.Rastatt, 251.Rewbell, 224, 240, 255.Richelieu, Cardinal, 13.Richelieu, Duc de, 14, 37.Rivoli, 247.Robespierre, 4, 18, 90, 91, 112, 115, 124, 128, 132, 142, 148,155, 159, 163-166, 173, 175, 179, 182, 183, 187-194, 197,202-205, 208-223, 244, 265.Rochambeau, 110, 135, 136.Rohan, 39, 40.Roland, 134, 135, 198.Roland, Mme., 162, 198, 209.Rossignol, 190, 199.Rouen, 114.Rouget de Lisle, 133, 266, 267.Rousseau, 18-20, 51, 211, 214.
St. Cloud, 114-116, 121.St. Denis, 15.Ste Ménehould, 117.St. Germain, 35.St. Helena, 3.St. Just, 159, 187, 195, 205-208, 214, 216, 219, 221.St. Lazare, 272.St. Méard, 153.St. Vincent, 246.Salm, 132.San Ildefonso, 246.Santerre, 167, 169.Sardinia, 171.Saumur, 186.Savenay, 199.Savoy, 171.Sèze, 167.Sieyès, 50, 55, 56, 60, 160, 208, 216, 224, 248, 251, 255-261.Simon, 197, 232.Sorel, 7.Souham, 215.Spain, 171.Staël, Mme. de, 1-3, 249.Stockach, 254.Stofflet, 234.Sully, 13.Suvaroff, 256-260.Sybel, von, 7.
Taine, 58.Talleyrand, 95, 105, 248, 249.Tallien, 159, 216, 250.Temple, the, 147, 154.Théot, 213, 214.Thiers, 2, 3, 5, 9.Tocqueville, 5.Toulon, 192.Treilhard, 257.Trièr, Archb. of, 130.Tronchet, 167.Turgot, 25.
United States, 34.
Valenciennes, 189.Valmy, 157, 158.Vandamme, 215.Varennes, 117, 118.Vaudreuil, 37.Vendée, 172, 174.Verdun, 117, 149-151, 157.Vergniaud, 84, 128, 134, 138, 159, 169, 197, 265.Versailles, 13, 14, 23, 24, 8l, 85, 86.Vizille, 44, 45.Voltaire, 9, 16-21, 51, 211.
Washington, 110.Wattignies, 200.William Tell, 21.Wimpffen, 188.
Yorktown, 34.
Zurich, 260.