Maximilien de Robespierre - Cultural Depictions

Cultural Depictions

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge together with Robert Southey wrote a verse drama, The Fall of Robespierre in 1794. Written so soon after Robespierre's execution, it may be regarded as the first literary portrayal of the man. Much of the material was drawn from contemporary newspaper accounts of the events in Paris.
• In Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables, Robespierre and Rousseau are deeply admired by the character Enjolras, leader of the student revolutionaries.
• In another novel by Hugo, Quatrevingt-treize, Robespierre is featured in the "Three Gods" scene, along with Danton and Marat.
• Robespierre is a significant character in the 1912 novel The Gods Are Athirst by Anatole France, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Robespierre is a significant character in the 'Roger Brook' series of historical novels written by Dennis Wheatley.
• Robespierre's dispute against Joseph Fouché, and the coup against Robespierre are described in Stefan Zweig's 1929 biography of Fouché, Portrait of a Politician.
• He appears frequently in The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.
• Robespierre is featured in the 1835 play Danton's Death, written by German playwright Georg Büchner.
• John Eaton wrote an opera, "Danton and Robespierre" in 1978.
• He plays an important role in the short story "Thermidor" from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, serving as the antagonist to Lady Johanna Constantine's protagonist.
• He, along with Saint-Just, gives his name and role to Rob S. Pierre in the Honorverse.
• One of the two primary plot lines of Katherine Neville's 1988 novel The Eight features Robespierre alongside other famous figures of the French Revolution.
• In the 1927 silent film Napoléon, he is played by Edmond Van Daële. Although this six-hour long epic is about the rise of Napoleon, it does incorporate aspects of Robespierre's presence.
• In the 1949 film Reign of Terror (also known as The Black Book), Robespierre is played as a bloodthirsty tyrant by Richard Basehart.
• Robespierre is a central character in Hilary Mantel's novel A Place of Greater Safety, along with Camille Desmoulins and Georges-Jacques Danton.
• He plays a supporting role in A Far Better Rest (2000), a re-imagining of A Tale of Two Cities, by American author Susanne Alleyn.
• The 1964 Doctor Who serial The Reign of Terror concerns the involvement in this period of history of the time-travelling Doctor and his friends.
• In the 1983 French and Polish film Danton, Robespierre is played by Wojciech Pszoniak. The film is based on The Danton Case by Stanislawa Przybyszewska.
• In the 1989 film La Révolution Française, he is played by Andrzej Seweryn; this film spans six hours, or the entire revolution from 1789 to 1794.
• "The Palace of Versailles", a song about the French Revolution from the 1978 Al Stewart album Time Passages, includes the lyrics "We burned out all their mansions/In the name of Robespierre."
• In Frank Wildhorn's 1997 musical The Scarlet Pimpernel, Robespierre, played by David Cromwell in the original Broadway cast, makes a brief appearance.
• In The French Revolution, a 2005 History Channel documentary, he is played by George Ivascu.
• In Joni Mitchell's song "Sex Kills", she sings "Doctor's pills give you brand new ills and the bills bury you like an avalanche, and lawyers haven't been this popular since Robespierre slaughtered half of France."
• The 1996 Marge Piercy novel City of Darkness, City of Light features Robespierre as one of six first-person characters.
• Brooklyn-based punk band Team Robespierre is named after him.
• It is customary for practitioners of socionics to refer to the Logical Intuitive Introvert personality type as "Robespierre", who is a recognized representative of the type.
• Famous British children's series ChuckleVision has featured Robespierre as a villain trying to steal the Countess and defeat the Purple Pimple. Citizen Robespierre calls himself "the best swordsman of France". Featured in Series 17 and 18 (2005/2006).
• In N.D. Wilson's novel The Dragon's Tooth, Maximilien Robespierre is a (nearly) immortal man, functioning as a main villain in the story.
• A highly-idealized Robespierre is featured in the anime and manga series Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda. Shown as his younger and more idealistic self, he becomes closer to the embittered leader. Voiced by Katsuji Mori.
• A more cruel and ruthless portrayal of Robespierre is featured in Tow Ubukata's novel (and later anime) Le Chevalier D'Eon. Voiced by Takahiro Sakurai.
• The French Revolution - a 90 minutes long English language documentary produced by the History Channel, directed by Doug Schulz
• Romain Rolland published a drama about Robespierre in 1939.