Love And Virtue; or a Romance of the French Revolution
Once upon a time, gentle reader, in a happy little land called France where pretty bluebirds twittered in tree branches and fluffy bunnies hopped down grassy slopes, there was a man named Maximilien Robespierre. Now, Robespierre, although he loved bunnies and birdies better than just about anyone, just happened to be the leader of a controversial government body known as the Committee of Public Safety. There were some people who thought that Robespierre and his Committee were a bunch of self-righteous mass murderers, but those people were bad because they didn't understand his glorious higher purpose: that is, to create a better world, a sunny utopia where young men and women could grow up learning about civic virtue, and loving parents could lull their babies to sleep at nights reading excerpts from Rousseau's "A Social Contract." Yet although Robespierre, the virtuous, the Incorruptible, wanted nothing more than to sacrifice his life for everyone, from crying babies in the cradle to babbling, senile oldsters, there were many, many bad people who just didn't understand the good that he was trying to do. But one person who did understand was Robespierre's dear young friend, Louis Saint-Just, who just happened to work with him on the Committee of Public Safety. In fact, Louis understood Maxime very, very well... which leads us to the main part of our story, dear reader, for which is the reason why I am sure you all are reading.
One night Louis was walking Maxime back to the Duplay house from another interminable Committee meeting. "Ah, Maxime!" Louis exclaimed, striking a pose (as he so often liked to do), against the threshold of the Duplay residence. "You look so tired! How you push yourself- you must not! You shall make yourself ill. Your health is all so delicate!"
"My dear friend," Robespierre said wearily, his noble brow creased with worry, "I must push myself- for if I do not- surely France will sink into a morass of decadence and corruption! What is my health, as compared to the virtue of la Patrie?"
Ah, thought Louis in ecstasy, there speaks the greatest man of all time! Lovingly he regarded the great man's soft green eyes, the delicate mouth, the tender white complexion, the diminutive, impossible slender figure. How little he disregards his own welfare, since he thinks so much of other people! Why, I daresay he is a saint! Louis sighed, little realizing how his older friend was examining him at precisely the same moment. Robespierre, as always, wondered at Saint-Just's unearthly beauty, his tall, slim build, the long blond hair that framed the face of a Grecian statue, the deep blue eyes that were set underneath a brow that even fair Antinous would have envied. It was not for nothing that his enemies referred to him as the "Angel of Death." But, alas, I am not even worthy of his admiration! the two men thought simultaneously, and they both sighed again, in such deep gusty breaths that it was quite amazing that neither of them noticed it in the other.
That is, I believe, enough physical description to satisfy you, gentle reader; so let us commence with the rising action of this particular romance. Citizen Robespierre, as he was walking tiredly up the stairs to his rooms, tripped on a loose nail and would have surely toppled down the stairs to a decidedly uncomfortable end had not the ready arms of his dear friend prevented such a catastrophe. "Ah, Maxime!" exclaimed Louis. "You are exhausted! I must see you safely to bed!" The good citizen argued, feebly, that this was not necessary; but upon Louis's insistence, his objections at last subsided. "But it is so late," said Maxime. "You must not walk home at such an hour. The streets of Paris are dangerous after midnight!"
"I shall sleep in the chair," agreed Saint-Just, secretly elated that he might at last be able to watch the great man slumber. Does he sleep like other mortals? he wondered. Or do demi-gods take their rest in a way that is unimaginable to us lesser creatures? Ah! But I shall at last be able to see for myself! Robespierre, in his own fastidious fashion, disrobed and changed into his nightshirt, little knowing how his friend was watching him covertly, possessively. Although all this dishabillement was all terribly fascinating for Louis, he was dreadfully tired himself, and although the chair was uncomfortable as the very devil, he was at last able to find his own repose within the arms of Morpheus. However, he was soon aroused from his sleep by a hideous muffled scream- the scream of a drowning man; the scream of one who has seen terrors unimaginable, horrors indescribable.
"Maxime!" cried Louis, staring at his friend, sitting upright and shivering in his bed. "Dear friend! Whatever is the matter!"
"Alack!" exclaimed the other man, his lips pale, his hands trembling. "I suffer from such hideous nightmares! Truly I must be the unluckiest man alive!..."
"I beg of you, do tell me, dear friend!"
"No- I must not- it is my agony to bear alone-"
"You must!" cried Louis as he rushed over to his friend's side. "When I am with you, dear Robespierre, you must not think that you bear anything alone! Is it not you who, oh brilliant swordsman, who battled the foul Gironde and destroyed the depraved Hebertists? Is it not you who sent the greedy Danton to his well-deserved death? Is it not you who made the Republic of Virtue into what it is today? I have tried to help you at every step of the way, but it is you, with your prophetic sight and immaculate virtue, who have made it possible to attain the heights of patriotic goodness that we have attained today! Oh prophet of the Republic! Oh Messiah of Liberty! May I be able to count myself worthy of being your confidante, your friend?"
"If I cannot trust you, dear Saint-Just," said Robespierre heavily, "than who would I be able to trust?" He paused, trembling. "I have dreamt... of the destruction of the Republic of Virtue!"
"Oh, no!" gasped Louis.
"Yes... it was destroyed by a monster... a monster who is as of yet only the smallest child... but who shall someday corrupt mankind with its gold, its filthy lucre... a monster known as Capital! I saw men, millions of men, prostrating themselves before this beast, this golden calf, this new Whore of Babylon who lulls men into static complacency with its Mephistophelian offers of riches and luxury! This is what shall at last destroy my Republic... this anti-christ of materialism who can do more ill than all the Girondists, Hebertists, and Dantonists combined! I saw the world sink into a morass of apathy, of greed... our new Jerusalem, our budding utopia, destroyed by this cesspool of ultimate evil- the ultimate evil of capitalism!"
"This must not be!" whispered Louis in horror.
"It is... it is. I have seen it. All that we do is for naught. And soon... the long night will come... and we shall all be destroyed. Ah me- I am so cold!" Moved beyond all measure, Louis flung his arms about his shivering friend.
"Do not despair, Maxime. If we are destroyed, we shall be destroyed together! My dearest friend- I shall always be at your side!"
"I thank you, Louis," said Maxime meekly. "I do not know what I should do without you!"
As Louis embraced his friend, he was at last overcome by the turbulent passions that throbbed within his breast. He kissed him upon the lips, gently; but Maxime, in his extreme modesty, was shocked by such an outflowing of heretofore forbidden affection. He stiffened immediately.
"Oh, Maxime!" Louis begged. "Do not be taken aback by this token of my regard! I worship you! I adore you! You, who smiled so kindly upon me when I first came to Paris, when I delivered my speech at the National Convention! Words cannot describe how I felt when I saw that smile. It was as if I had been acknowledged by a god upon Olympus!"
Despite himself, Maxime began to weep. Louis brushed his hair tenderly from his forehead. "Why are you weeping, my beloved?"
"To hear such an admission of love from you... from you who I thought so cold to all human feeling!"
"Cold? Aye, to others, but not to you-- you, who stand as such a colossus over other men! I consider myself barely worthy to worship at your feet- as the humblest untouchable of far India approaches, trembling, the bronzen pedestal of terrible Vishnu!" Maxime was amazed. "Ah, Louis... but you are weeping as well!"
"Oh dear one," exclaimed Louis, "consider my tears libations to your godhead!"
"I beg of you," cried Maxime, "do not consider me a god- I have always worshipped you as one, you who are so confident in your strength and beauty! You, with your strong legs and golden hair and far-seeing eyes, who tower above other men like Achilles of the ancients!"
Louis was truly overwhelmed- indeed, a speech even more rousing than those heard in the National Convention! Inspired beyond all measure, he clasped the Incorruptible Maxime roughly and kissed him with all the passion of his fiery mind and icy heart. Tenderly, eagerly, Maxime returned the kiss; and without further ado, the two of them were writhing on the bed, divesting each other of their respective garments, tasting of the fruit of the Love that Dares not Speak its Name.
Another author, more vulgar than I, might attempt to describe how these two persons then proceeded in this amorous duel: how they kissed each other until their jaws fairly ached and their tongues turned raw; how they delicately (and indelicately) explored with their fingers and tongues every known orifice of each other's bodies; how their sexes, unsheathed, turned immense, red and rigid; and how their testicles swelled with desire and the flowing nectar of love! Gentle reader, how in heaven's name shall I do justice to such heights of passion? For the sake of propriety, I shall draw a veil over the remaining scenes; suffice to say that a worthy climax was achieved to the satisfaction of both participants. Yet, the next morning, as the two laid amidst the picturesque tumbled sheets, listening to the lark sing and the tumbrils rumble on the cobblestones towards the guillotine, they gazed sadly into each other's eyes.
"My dearest friend," said Maxime, "my feelings for you are unmatched; but we must not ever taste of the fruits of our joy ever again!"
"Ah," cried Louis, "how could you be so cruel, beloved? We have a love that rivals that of Achilles and Patroclus; of Alexander and Hephaestion; of Hadrian and Antinous!"
"Be that as it may, dear one; and truly your classical education is impeccable; but this night has been like a Pandora's box, unleashing an array of unfulfillable passions; and like Belshazzar of ancient Babylon, I have seen the handwriting on the wall, and I know that like Ulysses, we must now steer a course between the Scylla of impending fate, the Charybdis of our forbidden love, and the Tarpeian rocks of jealousy and fear! We must conserve our energies for what lies ahead. Behind us lies the days of palms and fragrant oil; ahead of us lie Calvary, and at the end of it all... the Place of the Skull. Perhaps the Supreme One has sent us this love to alleviate our miseries, to provide some leavening in these days of woe; but we must now apply ourselves to our labors; we must gird our loins for the dark hours that lie ahead!"
Louis looked at him blankly.
"You must go," said Citizen Robespierre. "And forget that this ever happened."
"Forget?" cried Saint-Just. "Never! We are destined to be together, you and I, until the end of time. I could never forget, in a thousand years... and neither, I daresay, shall you!" And with that, he kissed the older man deeply, lingeringly, with all the burning ardor that had kindled such a fire the night before. But although tears shone in his eyes, Maxime's face was that of stone.
"I do not see you getting dressed," he said severely.
"Damn you, Maxime!" Louis cried passionately. "Damn you and your virtue!" And with the restless impetuosity of youth, he threw on his clothes and dashed out of the room. Robespierre merely walked over to the window, his face still stony; but as he watched his young lover run down the street, he thought of all the cruel trials that lie ahead. He thought of the men that were murmuring darkly against him in the National Convention... the murderers, the traitors, the enemies of the state who could not abide the thought of the Republic of Virtue... He knew that they had a painful death and humiliation planned for him and all of his disciples. How could he bear it? How could the universe be so cruel as to let him find such a love as Louis Saint-Just... before the very consummation of the sacrifice that he had desired with every fiber of his being? Ah, God, he thought passionately, if you could just kill me now! Why do you torture me so? And so at last... the tears began to trickle down the deadly pale face of Maximilien Robespierre, the statesman, the Incorruptible.
Oh, gentle reader! Let us not think too deeply upon the cruel machinations of the cosmos; if we should than we might go fair mad at the injustice of it all. We might consider ourselves blessed by the heavens if we discover the one whom we know in our hearts of hearts to be our true love; but the world is wicked and unkind, and although we might find happiness for a few moments, those moments are fleeting, and afterwards we can only dream of being reunited with our loved one in a better world. Ah, the tragedy of our meager, mortal existence! Oh my dear young friends and kind-hearted ladies, if I indeed moved you with my sentimental tale of this ill-starred couple, I shall consider myself fortunate. I leave you to contemplate this couplet:
Has anyone heard a tale of such despair As Saint-Just and his Robespierre?