Robespierre,

Or the Dostoevskian Angel 

Stiff as a ramrod, fierce as a ram, words as straight as a bullet. Orator, executioner, lawyer. The only thing sharper than your tongue was your mind, and the only thing sharper than your mind was your ideal. It sliced through your tongue and it sliced through your mind and, finally, it shattered your jaw. It rendered you silent. All you could do was speak, and it rendered you silent.

Your ideal gave you passion, and made you a revolutionary. For to be a revolutionary is to be passionate, and to make others be filled with passion for your cause. But to be a revolutionary is also to be doomed. It is an upward spiral from moderate to mad. Are you proud, love? The highest you have ever stood is on the scaffold of the guillotine. Look at the people, cheering for you. Very soon you will ascend higher, higher, until you touch the clouds.

You think they cheered for you in a different way, yesterday? Yesterday, they cheered for the death of tyrants; the same thing they cheer for now. Yesterday, the patriots wept; the same thing they weep for now. In the cloying sweetness of linden flowers, they consoled themselves as they do now. It is you who has changed, not them. Or at least the version of you in their minds.

Cats fight on streets but tigers build kingdoms. They believe that you went from a hissing, scratching beast to a destroyer. That you went from a surgeon to a butcher. To call a man tyrant, to call a man traitor, is simple. To call a man martyr is hard. Just as to blasphemously read fiction is easy, and to be pious is hard. So they stained your sanguine with sanguine.

Stiff as a lunette, gentle as lover, words as straight as a blade. Orphan, defender, victim. They saw when you raised your hand, untrembling and cold. They did not see when it was tender and warm. When it gently cupped the Republic’s cheek. In secret, deep down, you have always cared. Your biggest sin is that you have cared.

Soon, the bandage will be ripped off. Soon, a scream will pour forth, and your virtues will leave you. Your ideal made you virtuous, and your virtues made you weak. They are now making you dead. You thought your ascension will be a leap? It will be a plunge, head-fist. You will leave the place that has always been your home, the blade that has always been your companion.

This Thermidor will be a less open meadow.

Oh, my love! My sweet boy. My poor Dostoevskian angel. The tiger has been de-fanged. The jaw has been shattered. The roar has sounded, the trumpet has sounded; beside you, your saint, your Angel of Death has passed. The citizens have changed you from a destroyer to a whimpering beast. The citizens have changed you from the butcher to the wounded. To kill a tyrant, to kill a traitor, is simple. To make a martyr is simple as well. Just as to blasphemously read fiction is easy, and to blasphemously write fiction is easy as well. So they stained your sanguine with sanguine.

They stained you, my sweet boy, with sanguine. And it is all your fault! You and your ideals! Your blasted ideals, oh my.

Are you proud, love, of your Terror?

Will you be proud, love, when you die?

July 13th 2025