laura/antoine, 18, intj, from italy (but half french). bigender (she/her/hers - he/him/his) and hellenic polytheist. history, art, social justice. also les misérables and star wars trash. ( )

unspeakablevice:

[[above: on the left we have Billaud-Varenne, and on the right we have a depiction of the Collège d’Harcourt during the 18th century]]

So I just stumbled across something that pertains to Billaud-Varenne’s sexuality, his sexual history, and his journal with faith and irreligion. 

 I’ve been reading Claude Manceron’s Toward the Brink. Manceron includes several translated excerpts from Billaud-Varenne’s unpublished autobiographical novel, an incomplete rough-draft found among Billaud-Varenne’s papers. In this draft Billaud-Varenne details his upbringing and childhood. Manceron, however, does question how much of Billaud-Varenne’s account “is invention” and “how much is reality”. Either way, Manceron argues, Billaud-Varenne certainly at least “dreamed” that these events took place whether or not they actually did. 

At the age of fifteen Billaud-Varenne’s parents send him to the Collège d’Harcourt in Paris, as was the fashion to receive some amount of education in Paris. Billaud-Varenne recounts an experience he had at the Collège d’Harcourt in the following excerpt from his incomplete autobiographical novel:

“On my second day at the Collège d’Harcourt, the schoolfellow to whom I was closest– for this is a place in which acquaintances are soon struck up– asked if I wanted him to come see me at night, when everyone was asleep. I gladly accepted his offer and awaited him, sitting fully dressed on my bed. He came about eleven.

“Not in bed yet?” he asked.

“No, I was afraid of falling asleep, and besides, we’ll be more comfortable for talking this way.”

“But I’ve come to play with you.”

“What kind of play?”

“Get in bed, my friend, and I’ll teach you.”

Indeed, a few minutes more and I was, unfortunately, only too edified. The ensuing nights saw me repeating the lessons I had learned; I even moved beyond those of my first friend, and other schoolmates soon became the companions of my pleasures, or rather, I joined in their debauches and infamies.”

Young Billaud-Varenne had to make his first communion, though, since he had only six months left in school at this point and it was a requirement that had to be fulfilled before leaving.  “In every letter, my father never failed to asked why I did not make my first communion,” Billaud-Varenne recalls, “and I took great care not to tell him that a wretched sin of habit was the only obstacle”. Young Billaud-Varenne eventually makes up his mind to go through with communion. He charges himself with all his sins, then is told by his director that he had one week to prepare for his general confession. On his preparation Billaud-Varenne recounts:

“Why cudgel one’s brain for hours on end to remember some sin committed last month or a year ago? It is far easier to consult those little manuals that are made to assist one’s memory by presenting tables of every conceivable error. I turned over the pages […] when I came to the one called “against the self”, how I shuddered! […] Upon the instant, the fibers of my brain quailed, a thousand burning darts inflamed my heart. I lost all control, the book fell from my hands.”

Under the umbrella of sins ‘against the self’ there are numerous sexual sins. These sins are against the self in the sense that they’re seen as a violation of one’s own body and a violation of the only sexual purpose God has deemed appropriate– reproduction. What young Bilaud-Varenne likely did with other boys his age in the Collège d’Harcourt would’ve qualified as a sin against the self/body (sodomy). 

After young Billaud-Varenne confesses to his director, his director tells him:

“You have one refuge. Commit yourself into the hands of the Mother of God, invoke her aid, that she may grant unto you her wisdom and chastity.”

Soon after young Billaud-Varenne visits a chapel dedicated to Mary. He ends up becoming quite titillated by a painting of Mary nursing her child. 

“I stared at her enthralled. My soul flittered to my lips, seeking to mingle with the partner it cried out for. Beloved, sinister illusion! I was infatuated with an inanimate object. What impetuous desires that cold and lifeless image inspired in me! It was too much. I could bear no more; nature triumphed over reason and I succumbed.”

Clearly the suggestion here is that young Billaud-Varenne couldn’t help but succumb to self-pleasure. He decides against confessing this sin to his director. Instead he confides in a friend, a boy, who tells him that it’s fine to take communion in sin since it is those who forced them to take communion who “must take the responsibility”.

Ultimately, Billaud-Varenne ends up rejecting faith when he grows older. It can’t be known whether or not his sexual history had anything to do with that, but it seems possible it was at least a small component. Billaud-Varenne argues that “religion is the work of priests” and that:

“to achieve their ends they took the name of the God they served. Credulity and superstition came hard on the heels of ignorance and it was easy for them to dazzle gross and stupid people with a stern frown, a superficial morality, and, above all, a great deal of magic and charlatanism. In short, their wealth increased, their power became boundless, kings themselves were little better than their slaves and held authority from them alone. At last, after centuries of darkness, a new dawn came to enlighten the world. Man acquired knowledge and learned how to think […] Then, ashamed of being their dupes for so long, we changed from fanaticism to irreligion and, after believing too much, ended by believing nothing.”

  1. siegeperilousgalahad a reblogué ce billet depuis unspeakablevice
  2. frevandrest a reblogué ce billet depuis tierseta et a ajouté :
    “ He decides against confessing this sin to his director. “ Smart move, given how his last experience went. I don’t...
  3. tierseta a reblogué ce billet depuis unspeakablevice
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  8. unspeakablevice a reblogué ce billet depuis montagnarde1793 et a ajouté :
    I should mention that while Manceron doesn’t entirely contest the idea that Billaud attended the collège d’Harcourt (so...
  9. montagnarde1793 a reblogué ce billet depuis saintjustitude et a ajouté :
    Interesting, but Françoise Brunel, who has done a lot of work on Billaud contends that there’s no evidence that Billaud...
  10. vivaldisspring a reblogué ce billet depuis jacobinenjolras
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