Robespierre’s Periods of Illness

rbzpr:

In this post I will try to construct a timeline with Robespierre’s known periods of absence or presumed illness, or occasions where he admitted exhaustion and physical frailty, together with important events preceding them (mostly taken from the timeline of McPhee’s Robespierre).

1790:

• May: opposes the king’ right to declare war, supports clerical marriage
• April - June: conflict with Beaumez
• 31 May - 16 June: period of absence / illness
  

1791:

• May: defends right to petition and freedom of the press; supports free “men of colour” in the colonies; opposes death penalty
• 16 May: proposes “self-denying ordinance” for deputies in outgoing National Assembly
• early June: period of absence / illness (note: in a letter to the Jacobins of Toulon he excuses for not having written earlier due to “a period of illness brought by an excess of work”, which had kept him home for a few days.)
  

1792:

• early 1792: speeches against war, increasing unpopularity & political isolation, conflicts with the Brissotins
• 15 February: admission of physical frailty at Jacobin Club
• 10 April: resigning from office as public prosecutor in the Paris Criminal Tribunal
• 29 October: Louvet’s attack on Robespierre
• 5 November: Robespierre’s response to Louvet
• 6 - 30 November: period of absence / illness 
  

1793:

• May: escalating conflict with the Gironde leading to their expulsion
• 28 May / 12 June: admission of physical frailty
• August / September: military defeats, escalating federalist insurrections, popular pressure, “terror as the order of the day”
• 5 September: “journée”, Sansculotte insurrection
• 19 September - 3 October: period of absence / illness 
  

1794:

• 10 January: “break” with Desmoulins at the Jacobins
• 6 February - 11 March: period of absence / illness 
  
• 30 March - 6 April: arrest, trial and execution of Indulgents
• 19 April - 6 May: period of absence / illness
• June: continued conflicts with other members of the CSP, increasing accusations of wanting to establish a dictatorship
• 26 June: advocates mercy for Catherine Théot
• 29 June - 26 July: period of absence / illness

My theory is that these stressful events and the exhaustive work may have triggered some of these periods of absence / illness, a kind of psychosomatic phenomenon. What do you think, citoyens?

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29. silver-whistle a dit : Yup. Poor Max… I want to scoop him up and look after him, to get him well.
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31. charie-caphine a dit : Imagine life as a never-ending exam session, no weekends, and instead of an ‘A’ you get to keep on living like this a little more.
32. silver-whistle a dit : The other thing is, if he’s drinking too much coffee and not getting enough food or rest… Once saw a student faint during exams with a racing heartbeat because of the caffeine in his system.
33. silver-whistle a dit : PTSD almost certainly, but I think physically he’s frail, too. 18C cities weren’t healthy places to live in.
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38. charie-caphine a dit : Or maybe he had intermittent nervous breakdowns. ‘Cause brain is attached to the body, so if he didn’t take enough care of the latter, the former can only endure so much at a time. Overall =(
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40. silver-whistle a reblogué ce billet depuis rbzpr et a ajouté :

    The other possibility is:When he’s working too hard, he doesn’t look after himself: not enough rest or food, too much...

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