SAINT-JUST, Antoine (1767-1794), French revolutionary leader, was born at Decize in the Nivernais on 25th August 1767. He was educated at Soissons, and showed his character at school as ringleader of a plot to set the school buildings on fire. Saint-Just was caught red-handed in the act of incendiarism, and, refusing to exhibit any tokens of submission, was ignominiously expelled. His education, however, does not appear to have been neglected; and the reports and speeches of his short and stormy political career exhibit not a little scholarship, and in particular considerable acquaintance with ancient history. Intoxicated with republican ideas, Saint-Just threw himself with enthusiasm into the political troubles of his time, had himself appointed an officer in the National Guard, and by fraud—he being yet under age—admitted as a member of the electoral assembly of his district. Ambitious of fame, he in 1789 published twenty cantos of licentious verses under the title of Organt, and this work was afterwards reissued under the title of My Pastimes; or The New Organt. From that year onwards, however, the open turbulence of his youth gave place to a rigorously stoical demeanour, which, united to a policy tyrannical, uncompromisingly thorough, and pitilessly severe, became the marked and startling characteristic of his life. He now entered into correspondence with Robespierre, who thenceforward became his hero and ideal. Robespierre invited him to Paris, felt flattered by his worship, saw that he suited his purpose, and in a short time the two became hand and glove. Thus supported, Saint-Just became deputy of the department of Aisne to the national convention, where he made his first speech— gloomy, fanatical, remorseless in tone—on 19th November 1792. He had but ...twenty months to live; but into these he seemed to crowd the life of twenty years. In the convention, in the Jacobin Club, and among the populace his relations with Robespierre became known, and he was dubbed the “St John of the Messiah of the People.” Hardly a week passed without the attention of France being arrested by his attitude or his utterances. Both were anxiously watched, as the unfailing indication of the trend of Robespierre’s designs. His appointment as a member of the committee of public safety now placed him at the very height and centre of the political fever-heat. In the name of this committee he was charged with the drawing up of reports to the convention upon the absorbing themes of the overthrow of the party of the Gironde, thereafter, when even the “Mountain” seemed to have fallen in pieces, of the Hébertists, and finally, as the tragic sequel to the rupture between Robespierre and Danton, of that denunciation of the latter which consigned him and his followers to the guillotine. What were then called reports were far less statements of fact than appeals to the passions; in Saint-Just’s hands they furnished the occasion for a display of fanatical daring, of gloomy eloquence, and of undoubted genius; and —with the shadow of Robespierre behind them—they served their turn. Once a flash of cruel humour lighted up his angry retorts, and it became memorable. Desmoulins, in jest and mockery, said of Saint-Just—the youth with the beautiful cast of countenance and the long fair locks—“He carries his head like a Holy Sacrament.” “And I,” savagely replied Saint-Just, “will make him carry his like a Saint-Denis.” The threat was not vain: Desmoulins accompanied Danton to the scaffold. The same ferocious inflexibility animated Saint-Just with reference to the external policy of France. He proposed that the national convention should itself, through its committees, direct all military movements. This was agreed to, and Saint-Just was despatched to Strasburg, in company with Lebas, to superintend operations. It was suspected that the enemy without was being aided by treason within. Saint-Just’s remedy was direct and terrible: he followed his experience in Paris, “organized the Terror,” and soon the heads of all suspects were falling under the guillotine. The conspiracy was defeated, and the armies of the Rhine and the Moselle having been inspirited by success—Saint-Just himself taking a fearless part in the actual fighting—and having effected a junction, the frontier was delivered. Later, with the army of the North, he wrought similar magical changes in the aspect of affairs. Before the generals he placed the terrible dilemma of victory over the enemies of France or trial by the dreaded revolutionary tribunal; and before the eyes of the army itself he organized a force which was specially charged with the slaughter of those who should seek refuge from the enemy by flight. Success again crowned his terrible efforts, and Belgium was gained for France. Meanwhile affairs in Paris looked gloomier than ever, and Robespierre recalled Saint-Just to the capital. As the storm was gathering Saint-Just gave it direction by mooting the dictatorship of his master as the only remedy for the convulsions of society. At last, at the famous sitting of the 9th Thermidor, he ventured to present as the report of the committees of general security and public safety a document expressing his own views, a sight of which, however, had been refused to the other members of committee on the previous evening. Then the storm broke. He was vehemently interrupted, and the sitting ended with an order for Robespierre’s arrest (see Robespierre). On the following day, 28th July 1794, twenty-two men, nearly all young, were guillotined. Robespierre was one, aged thirty-six; Saint-Just another, aged twenty-six.
In 1800 there was published at Strasburg a work from the pen of Saint-Just entitled Fragments on Republican Institutions. It is a crude mixture of his opinions on social and political topics.
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