Je méprise la poussière qui me compose et qui vous parle ; on pourra la persécuter et faire mourir cette poussière ! mais je défie que l’on m’arrache cette vie indépendante que je me suis donnée dans les siècles et dans les cieux...
Philosopher, military and political leader (1767-1794)
Antoine Louis Léon de Richebourg de Saint-Just (25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794) was a military and political leader during the French Revolution. The youngest of the deputies elected to the National Convention in 1792, Saint-Just rose quickly in their ranks and became a major leader of the government of the French First Republic. He spearheaded the movement to execute King Louis XVI and later drafted the radical French Constitution of 1793. He became a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre, and served with him as one of the commissioners of the powerful Committee of Public Safety.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Native Name:
Louis Antoine Saint-Just
Alternative Names:
Louis Florelle de Saint-Just
From Wikidata (CC0)
Insurrection is the exclusive right of the people and of the citizen. Every foreigner, every man clothed with public authority, is outlawed if he proposes it and must be put to death as a usurper of sovereignty and as interested in fomenting troubles for the purpose of doing evil or of adorning himself. Insurrections taking place under a despotism are always salutary. Those which break out in a free state are sometimes dangerous for liberty itself, because the revolt usurps its sublime pretexts and its sacred name. Revolts in free states leave long and painful wounds which bleed a whole century.
(October 10, 1793) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 2 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), pp. 83-88]
Le législateur commande à l’avenir; il ne lui sert de rien d’être faible: c’est à lui de vouloir le bien et de le perpétuer; c’est à lui de rendre les hommes ce qu’il veut qu’ils soient: selon que les lois animent le corps social, inerte par lui-même, il en résulte les vertus ou les crimes, les bonnes mœurs ou la férocité.
The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate it; to make man what he desires to be: for the laws, working upon the social body, which is inert in itself, can produce either virtue or crime, civilized customs or savagery.
Tous les arts ont produit des merveilles: l'art de gouverner n'a produit que des monstres.
J’ai pensé que l’ordre social était dans la nature même des choses, et n’empruntait de l’esprit humain que le soin d’en mettre à leur place les éléments divers; qu’un peuple pouvait être gouverné sans être assujetti, sans être licencieux, et sans être opprimé; que l’homme naissait pour la paix et pour la liberté, et n’était malheureux et corrompu que par les lois insidieuses de la domination. Alors j’imaginai que si l’on donnait à l’homme des lois selon la nature et son cœur, il cesserait d’être malheureux et corrompu.
It has always seemed to me that the social order was implicit in the very nature of things, and required nothing more from the human spirit than care in arranging the various elements; that a people could be governed without being made thralls or libertines or victims thereby; that man was born for peace and liberty, and became miserable and cruel only through the action of insidious and oppressive laws. And I believe therefore that if man be given laws which harmonize with the dictates of nature and of his heart he will cease to be unhappy and corrupt.
Travaillons enfin pour le bonheur du peuple, et que les legislateurs qui doivent éclairer le monde prennent leur course d'un pied hardi, comme le soleil.