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igenlodeI had an extraordinary dream in which my *mother* was engaged to Robespierre (who was pretending to be blind) under orders from the British Government, who were holding him in captivity. He apparently decided that this was a fate worse than death and that he would prefer to be executed, at which she was understandably both dismayed and relieved. My subconscious then reminded me that he was very short-sighted, which would serve as an excuse for the feigned blindness, and I woke up. This is the sort of thing that happens after you stumble across the existence of Robespierre fangirls while attempting to check historical details on the Internet...
Perhaps one should not be surprised that there are Robespierre fangirls, incongruous as it may seem (although referring to him as 'dear Max' actually struck me as an offensively unwarranted degree of familiarity; 'Dickon' --from the same source-- I can swallow, but Robespierre does not come across as the fond nickname type). I suppose I can see the attraction: you've got undoubted brains and ability, physically small and therefore appealing to the mothering instinct, a marked and almost feminine fastidiousness, the 'bad boy' allure and aura of power, the aloof and therefore challenging (he *must* be secretly Damaged and in need of Rescuing: Kerr Avon) personality, and then you've effectively got the whole Phantom of the Opera thing going. An unfairly vilified (he only killed a *few* people, and anyway they deserved it) outcast suffering at the hands of history, with whom those who feel themselves to be wronged and misunderstood can identify :-)
And since nobody really knows what he looked like, despite the numerous alleged portraits, it's easy to write off the unflattering descriptions as biased -- many of which, written retrospectively from memory about someone who had become a political bogeyman, undoubtedly were. (You wouldn't believe the amount of argument about the Madame Tussaud's deathmask of Robespierre; they have a point, actually, in that he notoriously attempted and bungled suicide immediately before his execution, and the waxwork supposedly taken from his severed head shows no sign of the resulting facial injury.)
Personally I can't say I would want Robespierre as a friend; by all accounts he never had very many, and his closest friends were executed when it became politically expedient.
[checks: yes, there are three hundred-odd 'French Revolution RPF' fics on AO3 tagged for 'Maximilien Robespierre'. Do I want to know... no, no I don't :-O]
My face-claim for the Comte de Brencourt: Raymond Massey in "A Matter of Life and Death"
But F. Murray Abrahams as Salieri is something in the same line, as well.
Perhaps one should not be surprised that there are Robespierre fangirls, incongruous as it may seem (although referring to him as 'dear Max' actually struck me as an offensively unwarranted degree of familiarity; 'Dickon' --from the same source-- I can swallow, but Robespierre does not come across as the fond nickname type). I suppose I can see the attraction: you've got undoubted brains and ability, physically small and therefore appealing to the mothering instinct, a marked and almost feminine fastidiousness, the 'bad boy' allure and aura of power, the aloof and therefore challenging (he *must* be secretly Damaged and in need of Rescuing: Kerr Avon) personality, and then you've effectively got the whole Phantom of the Opera thing going. An unfairly vilified (he only killed a *few* people, and anyway they deserved it) outcast suffering at the hands of history, with whom those who feel themselves to be wronged and misunderstood can identify :-)
And since nobody really knows what he looked like, despite the numerous alleged portraits, it's easy to write off the unflattering descriptions as biased -- many of which, written retrospectively from memory about someone who had become a political bogeyman, undoubtedly were. (You wouldn't believe the amount of argument about the Madame Tussaud's deathmask of Robespierre; they have a point, actually, in that he notoriously attempted and bungled suicide immediately before his execution, and the waxwork supposedly taken from his severed head shows no sign of the resulting facial injury.)
Personally I can't say I would want Robespierre as a friend; by all accounts he never had very many, and his closest friends were executed when it became politically expedient.
[checks: yes, there are three hundred-odd 'French Revolution RPF' fics on AO3 tagged for 'Maximilien Robespierre'. Do I want to know... no, no I don't :-O]
My face-claim for the Comte de Brencourt: Raymond Massey in "A Matter of Life and Death"
But F. Murray Abrahams as Salieri is something in the same line, as well.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-19 08:51 pm (UTC)I'd say there is a lot of French Revolution fic out there about other historical figures, but Robespierre is indeed one of the most popular ones.
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Date: 2024-11-19 09:50 pm (UTC)I think because it's mainly focusing on the fish-out-of-water plot -- what happens if you take a man from 1790 and dump him into modern-day Paris with no known way of getting home -- and, of course, because she has carefully picked the Robespierre from 1790 when things had basically yet to go sour.
Although I rolled my eyes when she pulled out the Fake Relationship trope followed by There Was Only One Bed :-p But it did convince emotionally, probably because you've got the development of a longterm tentative friendship and then the sudden swerve reversal just when everything seems nice and fluffily settled.
The following 'explicit' chapter... no, definitely not. (Not to my taste and doesn't convince either.)