Constructing a political identity in the French Revolution: the case of L.A. Saint-Just

Saint-Just was one of the best known of the French revolutionaries. He was a leading Jacobin and worked closely with Robespierre. He was also one of the most radical of the revolutionary leaders. His identity is iconic and provoked strong views throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century and indeed up to the present day. His admirers see him as a heroic figure, his detractors as the 'angel of death‘. His character, motivation and political views are still very controversial. This paper unpicks some of the mythologizing of Saint-Just, to look at how he himself contributed to the fashioning of his political identity during his lifetime. It focuses in particular on how he set out to portray himself as a 'man of virtue‘, and how he enlisted images of heroes from Greek and Roman antiquity as one of the ways in which he gave himself a political voice. This paper is part of a full-length study which examines the relationship between Jacobin ideologies and the practice of politics.