“Queer, in the usage we know today, took on a new life during the Revolutionary period (1789-94). It is instructive to see how the historical evolution of the relationship between wastefulness and artificiality and queer style.
During the Revolution, suspicion shifted from the private body to that of the political body. Any fashion and dress that smack of the old extravagant ways, any suggestion of frippery was dealt a cold hand. William Hogarth did an engraving, which is now quite well-known, of the five orders of wigs, from âEpiscopal or Parsonicâ to âQueerinthianââ the latter in this case less macaroni-like as it did not feature a ridiculous amount of hair dangling from a  bow. Wearing big hair was not just denigrated because of its obvious ostentation; it was also something that demanded a large amount of time to make. When big hair reached its zenith in the late eighteenth century, it constituted what Margaret Powell and Joseph Roach call âthe performance of wasteâ; time that, to the sternest Revolutionary middle-class mind, could be spent more sensibly. Any form of overwrought fastidiousness of appearance smacked of the same: it was an uneconomical use of time that could serve better ends. Even Robespierre, known for his immaculate clothing and insistence on maintaining a wit, came in for criticism.
In sum, all aristocrats were âpansiesâ: aristocratic values and fashions were all relegated to the status of effeminacy, a male effeminacy that linked to fecklessness, insincerity and improvidence.”
—Vicki Karaminas, Queer Style (pg. 55). Emphasis added.
[top-left image: the Queerinthian wig from William Hogarth’s Five Orders of Periwigs;; top-right image: a 19th century steel engraving of Robespierre]
Tag: history
Daytime male dress also changed. Nineteenth-century’s women’s fashions, dominated by the corset and bustle, accentuated the female’s bosom and backside. In short her sexuality was magnified, but at the same time men’s sexuality was hidden. Male fashions no longer drew attention to the legs and thighs. The tight breeches and stockings were replaced by the 1830s in England by looser fitting trousers. And the “full fall” of the breeches was replaced by the 1860s with the more discreet buttoned fly front. For formal occasions the middle-class male donned a black three-piece suit. For every day dress, drab grays, blues, and browns replaced lighter colors and coarser wools the finer fabrics. Recourse by men to corsets and cosmetics became a laughing matter. Swords were replaced by walking sticks; ostentatious jewelry by utilitarian watches and fobs. By the twentieth century, the only hints of color were found in the tie or cravat, which led the eye away from the genitals up to the man’s head. A glance at a portrait of Marx or Engels reminds us that even political radicals donned the new uniform of the bourgeoisie. The tone had been set by the American revolutionaries’ contempt for “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and the French sans-culottes of 1789, who attacked as reactionary and pretentious fops men who affected too much attention to their dress. In response the pose of the dandy was taken up by such decadent artists and bohemians as Baudelaire, Barbey d’Aurveilly, Wilde, Swinburne, and Beardsley who wished to parade their disdain for middle-class proprieties. The extent to which Western society sought to hide the male body was perhaps best evidenced in nineteenth-century artistic representations. Female nudes were found in libraries and town halls, representing everything from “Liberty” and “Electricity” to “Slavery” and “Morphine.” The nude male virtually disappeared from the painter’s canvas. Visitors to galleries could imagine a no more shocking idea than that of a naked man as a subject for artistic representation.
Angus McLaren, The Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries (via publius-esquire)
Can we just have a moment of appreciation for this.
Favorite Robespierre anecdote?
#anon #Robespierre #someone fact check me please
On 12 June 1783 Robespierre wrote a letter to his friend Buissart and Buissart’s wife containing a description of a brief vacation he was taking to visit family relatives nearby. Sure enough, he describes his entry into the neighboring town:
This instance was mentioned in a Robespierre biography by Jean Matrat, although I don’t have the book on-hand to quote it directly.
So basically, Robespierre was going through the countryside in a carriage, and he had this idea that the people living there were jolly and welcoming.
Robespierre got really excited, right, and so upon seeing some people outside of his carriage window, he poked his head out and shouted “hello!”, waving to them like a lunatic.
Of course, the bewildered citizens did not return his strange gesture, and this made Robespierre rather disgruntled. Apparently, it ruined his day.
I believe that this is based off of a letter that he wrote to someone while he was travelling. Augustin, perhaps? I’m really not sure. But I laugh every time I read about it. Poor Robey.
It was five in the morning when we left; our chariot issued from the gates of the town [Arras] precisely at the moment that the sun’s chariot sprang from the ocean’s bosom. It was decorated with a cloth of dazzling whiteness, a piece of which floated in the air, the sport of zephyrs; it was thus we passed before the dawn-risen gatekeepers. You may be sure that I did not fail to turn my eyes upon them; I wished to see whether these Arguses of the farm would belie their ancient reputation for civility; I dared to hope that I might exceed them in politeness, if that were possible. I leant out of the carriage; I removed the new hat which covered my head; I saluted them with a gracious smile; I counted on a fitting return. Would you believe it, those gate- keepers, immobile like wayside gods at the door of their hut, gazed upon me with a fixed stare, and did not return my bow! My self-love has always been excessive; this look of contempt wounded me to the quick; I was in an abominable temper for the rest of the day.
This zany tone holds throughout, eventually spiraling down into that infamous “fruit tart” poem that tumblr loves so much.
Regarding Robespierre’s personal manner, the butt of the letter’s joke is always Robespierre himself, who he caricaturizes as vain, attention seeking, and overdramatic. The common sneer, that Robespierre couldn’t laugh at himself, that Robespierre never joked, etc., is contradicted — even if we don’t find it funny (and I do) it’s nonetheless clear that Robespierre is jesting.
With that said, certain historians – I think G. Lenotre, for example, but feel free to correct me if I’m getting him flopped with someone else – argue that since Robespierre Never Joked, this letter must be read in flat seriousness. This loop is fascinating: Robespierre Never Joked. Well, I mean, we have this letter here where he seems to be joking, but since I just said he never joked, obviously this letter must be a deadpan reflection of the events Robespierre portrays. It’s the epitome of twisting your evidence to suit your theory and —- and I got WAY off track here.
Yes, Robespierre once Got Excited about being in a new town, waved like a crazy person, and was rebuffed because it’s 5 A.M dammit, no one is in the mood for this shit .
This is actually one of my favorite Robespierre anecdotes, too.
what they say: maximilien robespierre was basically the dictator of revolutionary france
what i hear: i have no idea how the national convention or committee of public safety worked and think that the only political stances during the revolution were moderate vs radical. in fact robespierre probably just woke up one day and decided he was going to dictate the fuck out of france.
Women are presented apart from the Revolution or beside it; they are not included in the revolutionary process, conceptualized as it is without reference to their involvement. And once we do start to become more particularly interested in the women of the Revolution, it is a Revolution that, despite its richness and complexity, exists only as a backdrop. Women do not seem attached to it in any way— rather, they seem to transcend the social classes and political groups. Although women have become subjects worthy of historical interest, they are denied status as active subjects of Revolutionary history and their actions play more importance in the history of women than in the history of the Revolution.
Dominique Godeau, The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution (pg. xvi)
28th of March, 1871: Paris Commune declared
On this day in 1871, following elections held two days prior, the Paris Commune was officially proclaimed. The Commune seized power in opposition to the election of a conservative National Assembly February 1871; republican Parisians feared that when they met in Versailles the royalist Assembly would restore the monarchy. When officials of Adolphe Thiers’s government tried to remove the city guard’s cannons as a precautionary measure on March 18th, the people rebelled. The city guard called municipal elections for the 26th of March, which saw victory for the revolutionaries, who established the Commune to govern the city of Paris. On the 28th of March, the new government held its first meeting and was formally declared. The Commune immediately set about enacting socialist policies, which included a ten-hour work day, abolition of the death penalty, end of military conscription, banning established religion, and promoting female suffrage. They adopted a plain red flag as the flag of the Commune, and envisioned that the situation in Paris would encourage a nationwide revolution; though ultimately, similar attempts across France failed. The Commune’s lack of internal organisation left them vulnerable to attack, but the catalyst for retribution came when Communard soldiers killed two French troops. On the 21st of May, national forces entered Paris through an undefended area, launching a violent campaign of street fighting known as “La semaine sanglante” (“The Bloody Week”). Around 20,000 insurrectionists were killed before the Commune fell on the 28th of May. The government treated the surviving Communards and their supporters ruthlessly – arresting around 38,000 and deporting another 7,000. The Commune became a symbol of socialist revolution in Europe and further abroad, with their supporters lamenting the martyrdom of the Communards.
“Warned that Paris in arms possesses as much calm as bravery, that it supports order with as much energy as enthusiasm, that it sacrifices itself with as much reason as energy, that it only armed itself in devotion to the liberty and glory of all: let France cease this bloody conflict.” ~ from the Manifesto of the Paris Commune, dated the 19th of April, 1871
—Chevalière d’Éon when asked which wardrobe she preferred— male or female. (x)
d’Éon was assigned male at birth. She presented as a man for forty-nine years, mostly going by the more masculine title Chevalier d’Éon. During this time d’Éon worked as a spy in King Louis XV’s Secret du Roi espionage network, became a dragoon captain during the Seven Years’ War, wrote a thirteen-volume book on public administration, and even lived in London in political exile. In London considerable rumors and debates concerning her sex circulated.
From 1777 onward— for thirty-three years— d’Éon presented as a woman, and demanded that the government recognize her as female. Her demand was granted by King Louis XVI and his court. Chevalière d’Éon presented as a woman for for the remaining thirty-three years of her life. During 1779 d’Éon wrote a memoir entitled ‘La Vie Militaire, politique, et privée de Mademoiselle d’Éon’. She survived the French Revolution and lived until 1810. She was eighty-two years old.
{1/10 Posts on Chevalière d’Éon}
“Fellow women citizens, why should we not enter into rivalry with the men? Do they alone lay claim to have rights to glory; no, no … And we too would wish to earn a civic crown and court the honor of dying for a liberty which is dearer perhaps to us than it is to them, since the effects of despotism weigh still more heavily upon our heads than upon theirs… . let us open a list of French Amazons; and let all who truly love their Fatherland write their names there.”
— Théroigne de Méricourt
May 24, 1743: Jean-Paul Marat is born.
Jean-Paul Marat was one of the infamous and radical figures of the French Revolution. Born in Switzerland, he moved to Paris in 1776, two years after Louis XVI ascended the throne of France; there, he served as a doctor, and his reputation in his practice made him a sought-after physician among the aristocracy. Comfortably wealthy and endlessly opinionated, he criticized Newton, conducted scientific research that won him admirers that included Benjamin Franklin, and published works on judicial reform and philosophy.
As the French Revolution drew near, Marat directed his efforts toward another purpose: he started a newspaper — several, in fact, but the principal was L’Ami du peuple, or “The Friend of the People”, through which he remained a mostly non-aligned party dedicated to advocating the rights of the lower classes and exposing those he believed to be “the enemies of the people”. Those he attacked were often powerful, rich citizens and groups, and in 1790 Marat went into hiding in the sewers of Paris, where the conditions may have given him or aggravated the skin disease that would confine him to a bathtub for much of his later life. In 1792 he was elected (still party-less) to the National Convention; he harshly criticized and feuded bitterly with the less radical Girondist faction of the government, who attempted to bring him before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was, and he was acquitted of all charges brought against him, to widespread celebration.
Marat helped to bring down the Girondins in a political purge in the summer of 1793, but he was soon after stabbed to death in his own bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer who confessed at her trial to killing “one man to save 100,000”; to her and the conservative Girondins, Marat symbolized the excesses and violent distortion of the Revolution, which would only worsen when the Reign of Terror began, with his calls for blood and for “the cutting off of heads”. To his supporters, Marat was a passionate and relentless champion of the rights of the lower classes. Marat’s assassination was immortalized in Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Death of Marat (pictured center).
EY FATTY BOOM BOOM 