The Revolution: Boring and Tedious?
Views and opinions toward the Revolution shift in perspective as the voice expressing the opinion shifts from one French citizen to the next. The most prolonged, most all-encompassing metaphor for the Revolution is also likely the most shared: like everything that incites with excitement at first, even a Revolution can wind up an exercise in tedium that goes on for too long:
“the Revolution is a bore; it lasts over long. Five years of enthusiasm, five years of fraternal embraces, of massacres, of fine speeches, of Marseillaises, of tocsins, of 'hang up the aristocrats,' of heads promenaded on pikes, of women mounted astride of cannon, of trees of Liberty crowned with the red cap, of white-robed maidens and old men drawn about the streets in flower-wreathed cars; of imprisonments and guillotinings, of proclamations, and short commons, of cockades and plumes, swords and carmagnoles—it grows tedious!"
A Mother's Tragedy
Try as she might, Gamelin’s mother cannot hold out against the truth forever. When she hears for herself that his fanaticism has reached the point that he would even sacrifice his own sister to the Reign of Terror, Gamelin’s mother has no choice but to utter the most dreaded words can says:
"I would not believe it, but I see it now; my boy is a monster...."
Marat
The journey that Gamelin takes from passionate idealist to monster traces a path that intersects with adoration of Jean-Paul Marat. One of the most famous figures from the French Revolution, it is certainly not by accident that this would-be painter latches on most strongly to the revolutionary hero/villain (depending on perspective) most famously immortalized in paint. Unfortunately for Marat himself, that painting depicts the moment of his assassination while enjoying a bath. Before that moment occurs, however, Marat is depicted metaphorically as he Gamelin looks on, enraptured:
“The triumphant hero entered the Hall of the Convention like Fate personified.”
Zealotry
This is the story of Gamelin’s complex passage from idealism to monster. But he is a monster of corruption, rather than of birth. His monstrousness likes in believing too much; in taking as his religion his newfound political belief and in seeing in men something more like a god. His transformation can be traced in part through the change in his language. As he becomes a true believer, the metaphorical replaces the personal; humanity gives to symbolism.
“At a time when the enemy's cannon is at her gates and the assassin's dagger at her throat, the Nation must hold mercy to be parricide.”
The Death of Robespierre
When revolutions do go on so long they reach the point of tedium, anything can happen. This is the lesson learned from the French Revolution. A little less zealous ambition and lot fewer followers like Gamelin and a man Robespierre might well have a different legacy today. Following his own ironic appointment with the guillotine, however, his legacy was instantly sealed forever in the enthusiasm of the time. No sooner had his head been separated from his body than his legacy was separated from the rabble which had eagerly followed him with the wildly successful sales of the most popular souvenirs of the day; those removing the last vestiges of any humanity that may still have clung and encasing him forever in the world metaphorical art where
“it was all hydras, serpents, horrid monsters let loose on France by the tyrant.”
