Jacopo Robusti

“ For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed “Il Furioso." An agreement is extant showing that he undertook to finish in two months two historical pictures each containing twenty figures, seven being portraits. The number of his portraits is enormous; their merit is unequal, but the really fine ones cannot be surpassed. Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Robusti could paint in two days as much as himself in two years; Annibale Caracci that Tintoret was in many pictures equal to Titian, in others inferior to Tintoret. ”

“ The eyes are large, dark and round; the grizzled hair close and compact. The face has been held to bear some resemblance to that of Michelangelo, but this does not go very far. Robusti appears also as one of the figures in the two vast pictures by Paul Veronese—the “Marriage in Cana” and the “Feast in the House of Levi.”
Audacious and intrepid, though not constantly correct, as a draughtsman, majestically great as a colourist, prodigious as an executant, Tintoret was as absolute a type of the born painter as the history of art registers or enables us to conceive. ”

“ Some of his dicta on art have been recorded as follows by Ridolfi: “the art of painting remains increasingly difficult"; “painters in youth should adhere to the best masters, these being Michelangelo and Titian, and should be strict in representing the natural forms”; “the first glance at a picture is the crucial one"; “black and white, as developing form, are the best of colours”; “drawing is the foundation of a painter's work, but drawing from life in the nude should only be essayed by well-practised men, as the real is often wanting in beauty.”
Of pupils Robusti had very few ”

“ It was probably in 1560, the year in which he began working in the Scuola di S. Rocco, that Tintoret commenced his numerous paintings in the ducal palace; he then executed there a portrait of the doge, Girolamo Priuli. Other works which were destroyed in the great fire of 1577 succeeded—the “Excommunication of Frederick Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III.” and the “Victory of Lepanto.” After the fire Tintoret started afresh, Paul Veronese being his colleague ”

“ Men have no responsibility in the matter of a contract into which they have not entered." But it is Robespierre who, as leader of the Jacobins, gives typical expression to their devotion to the principles of Rousseau. He was the first enemy of the Girondist rationalism; hence we find him, at the time when this rationalism was most distinctly proving its destructive tendency, declaring in a charge to the Jacobins that the Revolution is under the direction of God, is in fact His work. ”

“ Collot d'Herbois, surrounded by Barère, Carnot, Prieur, and Elie Lacoste, was violently addressing Saint-Just, Robespierre's friend, who was seated at the table, engaged in writing the speech he was to deliver before the Convention on the morrow. Saint-Just, calm and contemptuous, replied to their insults by a shrug of the shoulders. This disdain exasperated Collot d'Herbois beyond measure, and Saint-Just aggravated him still more by ironical inquiries about the Jacobins' meeting.
"You are nothing more than a traitor!" cried Collot; "it is our indictment you are drawing up there, I suppose?" ”

“ Saint-Just, to all appearance the dupe of their hypocrisy, assured them they were unnecessarily alarmed. If the Jacobins and the Commune had formed any projects against the Committee, he would have heard of it. There was certainly considerable excitement in the streets among the people whose anger had been aroused at the calumnies to which Robespierre had been subject. But the Incorruptible would soon calm them down. As far as he, Saint-Just, was concerned, he was ready to forget the somewhat hasty words which one of his colleagues had addressed to him in the heat of the moment. ”

“ By his side sits Hauriot, livid and terrified, covered with the mud and filth of the sewer into which he had fallen. Couthon and Augustin Robespierre, pitifully mutilated, are lying at the bottom of the cart. Saint-Just alone stands erect, his hands bound, and retains his scornful air.
The tumbrils enter the Rue Saint-Honoré near the Jacobin Club, where two days before the Incorruptible reigned supreme. The martyrdom is not over. ”

“ The Convention would have yawned, if it had not trembled under him, but the Jacobin Club never found him tedious. Robespierre's style had no richness either of feeling or of phrase; no fervid originality, no happy violences. If we turn from a page of Rousseau to a page of Robespierre, we feel that the disciple has none of the thrilling sonorousness of the master; the glow and the ardour have become metallic; the long-drawn plangency is parodied by shrill notes of splenetic complaint. The rhythm has no broad wings ”

“ Lebas had now closed his note-book, deep in thought. Clarisse? Olivier's mother was called Clarisse? But the woman who implored Robespierre's clemency for her son, aged nineteen, the woman whose letter he had refused to read just now ...
"Was signed Clarisse?" cried Robespierre breathlessly.
"Yes," replied Lebas.
"That is his mother!"...
And pointing to the young man, who was on the brink of swooning.
"You see, it is she! Look at him; there is no mistaking, it is she!"
"She is at the prison of La Bourbe, then," said Lebas. ”

“ Jacopo is indeed more known by the dignity of his son's than his own works, at present either destroyed, in ruins, or unknown. What he painted in the church of St. Giovanni at Venice, and, about 1456, at the Santo of Padova, the chapel of the family Gattamelata, [343] are works that exist in history only. One single picture, subscribed by his name, Lanzi mentions to have seen in a private collection, resembling the style of Squarcione, whom he seems to have followed in his maturer years. ”

“ Are we not the masters?"
"That is the question!" murmured Robespierre, without lifting his eyes.
But Lebas had just closed the door, and wished him good night.
Robespierre, left alone, resumed his train of thought. He had, himself, then, ordered the two women to be arrested. This made everything clear to his mind! He now understood why Olivier had insulted him, and matters were more complicated than he had imagined. But what was Clarisse doing at Montmorency? How had she gained acquaintance with that man Vaughan, who had proposed to him the Regency in the name of England? ”

“ Yesterday, at the Jacobins, I saw the army of the new Cromwell formed, and I have come here armed with a dagger to pierce his heart if the Assembly dares not decree his accusation. I demand the arrest of Henriot and his staff." [Pg 311]
The debate went on, growing more violent minute by minute. Several times Robespierre strove to speak, but each time his voice was drowned in cries of "Down with the tyrant!" Pale with rage and fear, he turned from his opponents towards his former supporters, both hands nervously clutching the tribune. ”

“ How many had the long-awaited cry of deliverance on their lips: "Down with the scaffold!" Only they dared not speak out! If but one had the courage to give utterance to that cry, there would be enough brave men found in the crowd to take it up and re-echo it, carrying the more timid along with them. When once a move is made the multitude will quickly follow.
Clarisse looked at him. A new thought had dawned on her mind, a horrible thought!
What if Robespierre should have Olivier arrested without knowing who he was? ”

“ The battle of the books had become a battle between bands of infuriated men. The struggle between Hébert and Chaumette and the Common Council of Paris on the one part, and the Committee and Robespierre on the other, was the concrete form of the deepest controversy that lies before modern society. Can the social union subsist without a belief in God? Chaumette answered Yes, and Robespierre cried No. Robespierre followed Rousseau in thinking that any one who should refuse to recognise the existence of a God, should be exiled as a monster devoid of the faculties of virtue and sociability. ”

“ It was mother Duplay, seated in the background under the dining-room window, washing a salad under the pump, her sleeves tucked up to the elbow, all ears for the slightest sound.
"But we are not late, mamma!" said Cornélie, who had prudently stopped to avoid being splashed.
"Not so very," answered the good woman, "but one never knows what may happen in such a crowd!" And looking towards Robespierre, from whom Victoire was taking his hat and stick, she added: "You can't help being anxious about people you love. Can you?" ”

“ Robespierre descended to the garden soon after daybreak, inhaling the fresh morning air, wandering under the shade of those great trees where Rousseau used to walk, or sitting in his favourite nooks; dreaming the while, his soul drinking to the full the infinite sweetness of Nature's magic charms, quickened into life at the rosy touch of morn. He would busy himself in rustic pursuits, botanising, or gathering periwinkles, the master's favourite flowers; thus occupied he used to prolong his walk into the forest of Montmorency, which seemed but a continuation of the garden. ”

“ The fleeting impression was soon effaced, and Robespierre, having already forgotten the coincidence, rose and went towards the now open bookcase. Taking Rousseau's volume, he opened it at these words: "Is there in the world a more feeble and miserable being, a creature more at the mercy of all around it, and in such need of pity, care, and protection, as a child?" ”

“ His intention was to confirm in public, amid the acclamations of the populace, the religion of a new God, whose existence he had just proclaimed—the God of Nature, a stranger to Christianity, borrowed entire from Rousseau's famous pages in le Vicaire Savoyard. Robespierre's sectarian temperament experienced a deeper satisfaction than he had perhaps ever felt, at the thought that he was to declaim, among flowers and incense, those empty, sonorous phrases which he was writing on the little walnut table where his master had found some of his most burning inspirations. ”

“ They surround the accused, and push them towards the door. Robespierre walks with head erect, and folded arms between two gendarmes. He does not even cast a glance on the crowd who had hailed his entrance with loud cheers, and who now hiss and hoot him. The public are descending and mix with the deputies. The whole floor is crowded. The Convention-hall where a loud, incessant buzzing is all that can be heard, resembles a gigantic beehive, for no single voice is distinguishable in the tempestuous clamour that follows that solemn act at last accomplished. ”

“ Curses are heard mingling with the shrieks of the rabble, for among the crowd there are many victims of the Terror, widows and orphans conjuring up the memory of all their anguish, all the drama of the guillotine, the work of the Incorruptible.
A woman clutches at the tumbril in which Robespierre sits, a woman whose two children had been torn from her by the Prairial law.
"Monster!" she cries, "vile monster! in the name of all mothers, I curse you to hell!"
The crowd following the cortège grows denser as it proceeds. It is Decadi, the Republican Sunday. All Paris is out of doors. ”

“ Artillerymen now come forward, and take him up again, but Robespierre, still unconscious, knows nothing of what is passing round him. They lift the wreck of what was once the Incorruptible and continue their way. Saint-Just walks in the rear between two gendarmes, his hands bound behind him, very pale, with head erect, and perfectly indifferent to the insults hurled at him—the only one of his allies who is with Robespierre in the hour of defeat. ”

“ She rose with difficulty, every limb trembling, and escaped from the crowd with Thérèse and Olivier through an open door. Some men advanced to carry Robespierre away, who looked already like a corpse, with his eyes closed, and the blood gushing through his lips. One man held his head, another his legs, and thus the ghastly burden was carried through the crowd of assailants, who stood aside to make way for it. Clarisse, standing in one of the doorways as the gloomy procession passed, clung to her son, imploring his pity. ”

“ People were filling the streets from all directions, all in festive attire, with palms and ears of corn in their hands. On recognising the Incorruptible, they bowed to him; delighted, he discreetly returned their salutations.
Robespierre had turned into the Passage des Feuillantes, and found himself on the terrace. Here a surprise awaited him. The garden was already, at that early hour, three-quarters full, looking like an immense sea with wave upon wave of tricolour ribbons, plumes, and cockades. ”

“ Ah, yes; she could be at rest, truly! The letter would reach Robespierre. But under what conditions? He, who received so many! Alas! It is in the wounded heart that most illusions take root! Clarisse did not dream that anything could interfere with her scheme, and began to speculate on the future, counting the hours, and saying to herself that in all probability the letter could reach Robespierre the next day.
The best she could do till then, she thought, was to moderate Olivier's zeal, by showing him that their prison-life was not so unbearable ”

“ He should lay bare the most secret recesses of his soul, denounce his accomplices, and disclose his connections and parentage. Such an insult, the cruellest Robespierre had as yet sustained, demanded an exemplary penalty. The death of the man himself would not suffice; he should pay with the heads of every one connected with him in any way—accomplices, friends, and relations. ”