Liberty Leading the People

artnet.com May 1, 2024:

Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830) has been celebrated as an emblem of the French Republic for almost 200 years. The dynamic scene of Liberty leading revolutionaries into battle first entered the Louvre in 1874, following its purchase by the state a year after its creation.

However, its dramatic palette has yellowed and dimmed over time, leading the museum to undertake a major six-month restoration to remove eight layers of oxidized varnish. The project forms part of other recent restoration efforts to conserve works by Delacroix. . .

According to Bénédicte Trémolières and Laurence Mugniot, who restored the painting, previous attempts at preservation had dramatically altered Delacroix’s subtle palette and flattened or obscured key compositional details.

For example, the central allegorical figure of Liberty—who is known in France as Marianne, the personification of liberté, égalité, fraternité—wears a tunic which was believed to be uniformly yellow. However, it is in fact light grey with hints of golden hues. A conservation effort in 1949 is believed to be responsible for deliberately recoloring the clothing.

Who will represent "Liberty" tomorrow?

Art Review, May 10, 2024:

Activists detained for posting stickers around Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’

On Wednesday, French police arrested two Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) activists at the Musée du Louvre in Paris after they staged a protest in front of Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830) . A video recording was posted to the group’s social media account showing the pair placing two stickers that read ‘Résister est vital’ to the painting’s right and chanting demands for social security to sustainable food.

The two were charged with ‘wilful damage’ and a museum representative filed a complaint with the authorities. The painting, however, remains undamaged.

According to its website, Riposte Alimentaire ‘is a profound and collective transformation operation which aims to achieve an ecological and social victory through the establishment of sustainable food social security’. They are the organisation responsible for throwing soup on Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) earlier this January.

Activists leading the people to victory!

Quotes in Context: Who thinks that Robespierre represents freedom?

This recently floated through my social media, from a person who does not have Jacobin leanings. But now that there is a Jacobin magazine, perhaps it is not surprising that memes featuring this guy would get copied randomly on social media.

I responded with some context concerning Robespierre's own tyrannical actions, but not this much context:

From the BBC historic profile of Robespierre (archived, no longer updated - which can only be a good thing). This link is a pretty good summary if you want something short about the Jacobins to pass on to those with attention spans long enough to go beyond the typical social media meme:

In the period after the king's execution, tensions in the convention resulted in a power struggle between the Jacobins and the more moderate Girondins. The Jacobins used the power of the mob to take control and the Girondin leaders were arrested. Control of the country passed to the Committee of Public Safety, of which Robespierre was a member. He rapidly became the dominant force on the committee.

Against a backdrop of the threat of foreign invasion and increasing disorder in the country, the committee began the 'Reign of Terror', ruthlessly eliminating all those considered enemies of the revolution. These included leading revolutionary figures such as Georges Danton.

In May 1794, Robespierre insisted that the National Convention proclaim a new official religion for France - the cult of the Supreme Being. This was based on the thinking of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau of whom Robespierre was a passionate advocate.

Somehow, I had glossed over the Cult of the Supreme Being in learning about the French Revolution. Don't know why. Inspired by Rousseau?

Here's a nice quote:

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I like to remember Rousseau as the guy who abandoned all his children to a foundling hospital. Robespierre thought of him as the inspiration for a new religion. I don't know if this idea from Rousseau was incorporated in the new religion:

Girls must be thwarted early in life.

Well, Rousseau seems to have thwarted the mother of his children in a negative way. On the other hand, with rage rituals and various stereotypes of women among "transwomen", maybe he had a point.

Happy Mother's Day!

Anyway, the Cult of the Supreme Being:

The Cult of the Supreme Being was a deistic cult established by Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) during the French Revolution (1789-1799). Its purpose was to replace Roman Catholicism as the state religion of France and to undermine the atheistic Cult of Reason which had recently gained popularity. It represented the peak of Robespierre's power and went unsupported after his downfall.

In establishing the Cult of the Supreme Being, Robespierre intended to shepherd the French Republic toward a state of absolute virtue, or moral excellence. He meant to use the idea of an abstract godhead, or Supreme Being, to educate the French people on the relationship between virtue and republican government, thereby creating a perfectly just society. According to the decree of 18 Floréal (7 May), the cult acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being as well as the immortality of the human soul. Worship of the Supreme Being was to be done through acts of civic duty.

Worship through "acts of civic duty".

On 8 June 1794, a Festival of the Supreme Being was held on the Champ de Mars. Robespierre, who was then at the apex of his dictatorial powers, took on a central role in the festivities, giving him the appearance of pontiff to the new religion. It is thought that distaste for the cult, and for Robespierre's central position in it, helped lead to his downfall a little over a month later. According to historian Mona Ozouf, the Festival represented a certain revolutionary stiffness that foreshadowed the "sclerosis of the Revolution" (Ozouf, 24).

Background

The Church & the Revolution

The French Revolution had been at odds with the Catholic Church since its beginning. A fundamental pillar of the oppressive Ancien Régime, the institution of the Church seemed to stand for corruption, superstition, and backwardness, all contrary to revolutionary values. In November 1789, Church lands were seized and nationalized to bolster France's withering economy, while the Civil Constitution of the Clergy forced all practicing clergymen to swear oaths to the new constitution and pledge that their loyalty to the French state would supersede their loyalty to the Pope in Rome. . .

Rise of Atheism: The Cult of Reason

Of course, the most fervent attempts at de-Christianization would not come until around the time of the Reign of Terror in September 1793. An anti-clerical, atheistic movement known as the Cult of Reason had arisen around Paris, propped up by an extremist, 'ultra-revolutionary' faction known as the Hébertists. The Cult of Reason rejected the existence of God in any form, instead dedicating itself to the celebration of Enlightenment values such as liberty and rationalism. While it still had ceremonies that resembled religious traditions, this was mainly done in mockery of organized religion, causing some historians to regard the cult as a "crude caricature of Catholic ceremonies" (Furet 564).

The Hébertists, who had come to power in the Paris Commune, sought to make de-Christianization an official policy of the Revolution and to make the Cult of Reason its official religion. They were instrumental in replacing many Christian symbols and statues with revolutionary iconographies, while the National Convention adopted the French Republican calendar, which erased all references to Christianity from the French year. . .

The French Republican Calendar, with 10 day weeks and such . . .

The Cult of Reason was especially hostile to clerics themselves, who were humiliatingly forced to abjure their vows by getting married or to declare themselves to be charlatans, under threat of the guillotine. Outright violence against Catholics became increasingly common; Jean-Baptiste Carrier made a name for himself by submerging thousands of clergymen and religious Vendean rebels in the Loire River in the drownings at Nantes. On 7 November 1793, the Archbishop of Paris was forced to resign his duties and was made to replace his mitre with a red cap of liberty. To celebrate the archbishop's humiliation, the Hébertists organized a Festival of Reason to be held at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which had been rededicated as the Temple of Reason.

The Festival of Reason, held on 10 November, was long the subject of scandalous rumor. It was true that Sophie Momoro, wife of one of the leading Hébertists, played a central role as the scantily clad goddess of Reason, and that the Christian altar was dismantled in favor of an altar to 'Philosophy'. Yet rumors persisted of acts of licentiousness, such as depraved orgies, that took place. True or not, these rumors finally forced the hand of Robespierre and the moralizing Jacobins.

"the drownings at Nantes" . . . Why am I thinking of Mao here?

Robespierre & Religion

By the end of 1793, Robespierre was reaching the summit of his dictatorial powers. Although all members of the Committee of Public Safety were theoretically equal, Robespierre controlled it in all but name, which made him the veritable master of France. Famously self-righteous and borderline puritanical, Robespierre had never been closer to achieving his vision of a perfectly virtuous Republic, consisting of citizens who thought of the greater good above all else. Standing in his way were the Hébertists and their seemingly hedonistic Cult of Reason. On a pragmatic level, Robespierre knew that their outspoken aversion to Christianity would further alienate the Republic from potential supporters and allies. On a personal level, he was offended by the cult's atheism and its rumored depravity, traits that were antithetical to his idealistic, moral society. Either way, he knew it had to go.

Not long after the Festival of Reason, Robespierre gave a speech in the Jacobin Club, denouncing atheism as 'aristocratic'. In March 1794, he arranged for the arrests and executions of nineteen leading Hébertists; their deaths also ensured the diminishment of the Cult of Reason. . .

But the question remained as to what exactly this new spirituality would look like. Despite his hatred of atheism, Robespierre was no fan of Roman Catholicism either, an institution that he largely viewed as corrupt. Instead, it was necessary to introduce a new god, one that personified the revolutionary values of truth, liberty, and virtue. Only through a shared faith in a higher power, Robespierre believed, could French society achieve its destiny and reach the pinnacle of virtue; clearly, he agreed with Voltaire that, "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" (Scurr, 294).

So, Robespierre set out to do exactly that. He established the Cult of the Supreme Being, which was centered around deism, the belief that a creator exists but refrains from interfering in the universe. Robespierre professed to believe in a Supreme Being as well as in the immortality of the human soul, preaching such doctrines before both the National Convention and the Jacobin Club. . .

Festival of the Supreme Being

As the day of the festival approached, the renowned painter and fanatical Jacobin Jacques-Louis David was entrusted to organize the event. . . The guillotine, which had been particularly busy as of late, was relocated from the Place de la Revolution to the site of the demolished Bastille, where the sound of the falling blade would be well out of earshot of the celebrating Parisians.

The description of the staging of the festival, the speeches and the crowds is quite remarkable.

Here's a nice quote from the guy who inspired Robespierre's short-lived religion:

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But there seems to have been some miscalculation on the part of Robespierre:

Reaction to the Festival

The Festival of the Supreme Being was well received by ordinary Parisians, who had become used to the flashy theatrics of revolutionary celebrations and enjoyed the excuse to let loose and forget the grim realities of France in 1794. Jacobin newspapers praised the festival as the finest day in the life of virtuous man, while in Orléans, another festival was held in which similarly jubilated crowds cried out, “Vive Robespierre!”

Of course, not everyone was happy with the festival, and many revolutionary leaders felt threatened by Robespierre's central role. By consolidating his power the previous winter and spring, Robespierre had already opened himself up to rumors that he aspired to total dictatorship; his role as chief pontiff of this strange new religion only seemed to confirm this speculation. . .

. . a mere two days after the Festival of the Supreme Being, Robespierre and his allies introduced a law to the Convention without prior consultation. This law, infamously known as the Law of 22 Prairial, was meant to solve the problem of Paris' overcrowded prisons by accelerating trials. Resulting from this was the month-long period of the Great Terror, during which over 1,400 people were rapidly guillotined in Paris.

Robespierre began to hint that he had a list of treacherous conspirators in the National Convention but kept refusing to name names, watching as the deputies squirmed beneath his shadow of Terror. Afraid that they had made the list, many deputies refused to sleep in their own beds, lest they be arrested in the dead of night. Finally, on 27 July 1794, members of the Convention rose up and overthrew Robespierre, who was executed the next day.

End of the Cult

With the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, the Cult of the Supreme Being largely fell into obscurity. Robespierre's central role in both the cult's creation and in the festival on 8 June meant that the cult was associated with him and his Jacobin movement. With his death, no one bothered to pick up the mantle. During the Thermidorian Reaction, the period that followed the Reign of Terror, the French government distanced itself from many Jacobin policies and customs, including the Cult of the Supreme Being. It was not until 1802 when Napoleon Bonaparte delivered the final death blow, officially banning both the Cult of the Supreme Being and the Cult of Reason with his Law on Cults of 18 Germinal Year X.

The People seemed to be amenable to drowning people in the name of atheism, then switching to the Cult of the Supreme Being, then to outlawing both under Napoleon. Amazing.

Although there is now an up-and-running Jacobin magazine, other French philosophers, like Franz Fanon, are current problems for our culture.

Weekend Reading, listening and viewing

Daniel J. Mahoney

t was commonplace during the long Cold War for conservatives and the more classical of classical liberals to make a firm distinction, at once conceptual and practical, between "liberal democracy" and "totalitarian democracy"; between moderate modernity and what Eric Voegelin called "modernity without restraint" in the final pages of his classic 1952 book The New Science of Politics. With much truth, the Jacobins, Bolsheviks, and Nazis were placed on one side, godless, murderous, and contemptuous of moral and political constraints as they were; and on the other side, we had the noble principles of the American Founding and what Alexis de Tocqueville called "liberty under God and the laws."

In this understanding of things, Anglo-American democracy, the remarkably sober and decent politics of "the English-speaking peoples" as Winston Churchill famously called them, represented that non-ideological current of modernity that remained faithful, however imperfectly, to constitutionalism, common sense, moral decency and the living embers of classical and Christian wisdom. If rights had priority, duties were not forgotten. The American Revolution inaugurated no splenetic "Year Zero" as the French Revolution did, no frenzied war against the Christian religion or the broader Western civilizational inheritance, no misplaced effort to fundamentally remake human nature. The English-speaking peoples embodied that rarest of things, modernity with restraint, natural rights tethered to natural law, invigorating principle to sound prudence, material progress to a proper sense of limits and a well-grounded suspicion of utopian delusions. As Leo Strauss so suggestively said in his 1941 talk on "German Nihilism" at the New School For Social Research, the English, more than any people in continental Europe, had the great good sense to interpret their version of moderate modern liberty in continuity with older traditions of constitutionalism and civilized restraint. They refused, he said, to "throw the baby out with the bath." And Americans largely followed but with rather less overt "classicism."

For the longest time, one could thus confidently state that the Anglo-American sphere was immune to full-scale ideological politics and to the kind of moral subversion and facile nihilism preferred by continental intellectuals, great and small. . .

No Year Zero, no 10 day week . . .

What do you think?

Thoughtful links from David Foster, one including this meme from a union representing teachers who "educate" 600,000 students. Happy May Day:

I am fascinated by the changes in who is thought to represent "liberty" or "freedom" in the eyes of the people. Here's an entertaining debate position (with Nancy Pelosi present) that populism is not a threat to democracy.

Music

Used to play a two-piano arrangement of this one (no orchestra). We slowed it way down for fun. The Tortoise

From last week's comments: Sharon (willow's apprentice) to Sonny D on B.B. King: great minds think alike because that was the version I posted. There is a great set he did with Eric Clapton - Riding with the King.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, May 4, Bridges don't always make sense

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.