Clemency and its postponement

Use in the book

The family scene first exposes the postponement in practical terms. Gamelin promises clemency when the Republic triumphs, but says that conspirators grow bolder as it grows stronger. His mother’s request for help immediately tests the gap between a future public blessing and assistance to a particular person. In chapter XX his inward account incriminates Desmoulins for demanding untimely clemency; this is not an independent demonstration that the demand served a foreign plot.

At the festival, clemency enters the ecstatic catalogue of republican blessings. The narrative then turns to the law of prairial and the reduction of procedural protection. Ceremonial aspiration and practical intensification must be read together, rather than converting either the celebration or its sequel into a complete description of revolutionary feeling.

The garden encounter gives postponement its fullest logic. Gamelin observes Robespierre treating a child gently, then silently supplies a political programme that Robespierre has not spoken: he will prepare the way for clemency by exterminating enemies. Only after the last enemy dies will indulgence cease to be a crime. An absolute condition makes continued killing compatible with an avowed wish to stop.

On the way to execution Gamelin retains that structure. He judges himself and Robespierre guilty of indulgence and therefore deserving of death. His conclusion that he dies justly is not repentance for unjust severity: he blames supposed insufficient severity. The vocabulary of guilt does not itself establish a changed political conscience.

Places to read

1. Chapter XVIII, paragraph 62Frenchmontrera sa clémence: will show its clemency. Gamelin’s future tense postpones the act while he reports victories.
2. Chapter XX, paragraph 3Frenchune clémence intempestive: untimely clemency. Gamelin makes Desmoulins’s demand for leniency evidence against him.
3. Chapter XXII, paragraph 1Frenchô clémence: O clemency. Part of the festival’s rapturous rhetoric, before the account of intensified punishment.
4. Chapter XXVI, paragraph 6Frenchles voies de la clémence, en exterminant les conspirateurs et les traîtres: the way to clemency through extermination. Gamelin’s silent prayer supplies the programme, rather than quoting an actual instruction from Robespierre.
5. Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 14Frenchnous nous sommes rendus coupables d’indulgence: we made ourselves guilty of indulgence. Gamelin condemns himself for leniency while proceeding to execution.
6. Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 14Frenchpar douceur, par mansuétude: through gentleness and mildness. His explanation of Robespierre’s supposed sin preserves the reversal of ordinary moral expectation.

Translation in this edition

The edition keeps clemency, indulgence and mildness distinct. At Chapter XXVI, paragraph 6 the means, by exterminating, must remain attached to the proposed preparation for mercy. At Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 14 the first-person plural and the comparison with Robespierre preserve Gamelin’s continuing allegiance; detaching the self-condemnation from its explanation would reverse the passage’s meaning.