Marie Marguerite Charlotte de Robespierre (5 February 1760,

Arras Arras ( , ; pcd, Aro; historical nl, Atrecht ) is the prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department, which forms part of the regions of France, region of Hauts-de-France; before the regions of France#Reform and mergers of ...

– 1 August 1834,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a French writer, known for the memoirs she dictated about the life of her brothers during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

Life

She was the second daughter of François de Robespierre and Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, and the sister of Maximilien, Henriette and

Augustin Robespierre Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre (21 January 1763 – 28 July 1794), known as Robespierre the Younger, was a French people, French lawyer, politician and the younger brother of French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. His political v ...

. After the death of her mother, she and Henriette were both sent to live with their paternal aunts when her father left their home. They were given the typical education for middle- and upper class daughters in Pre-revolutionary France, and educated in a convent school. In 1781, she left the convent school to live with her two brothers in Arras (her sister having then died). In 1789, her brother Maximilian moved to Paris, and Charlotte and Augustin followed some time later. She lived with Augustin and moved about in the political circles of revolutionary Paris, though she did so only in the capacity of a sister and never played any personal political or public role. She never married, and was described as respectable and entirely devoted to her brothers, to whom she was fiercely loyal. When her brother were arrested in 1794, she unsuccessfully petitioned for permission to visit them. She was herself arrested and interrogated, but released. After the fall of her brother she lived under very limited circumstances, and was taken care of by friends. In 1803, she was given a modest pension. During her old age,

Albert Laponneraye Albert Laponneraye (8 May 1808 – 1 September 1849) was a French republican socialist and a journalist, popular historian, educator and editor of Robespierre's writings. He was a representative of the Neo-Babouvist tendency in the 1840s, alo ...

wrote her memoirs after her dictate. They are heavily focused on the lives of her brothers. Charlotte would outlive all her siblings and died in Paris in 1834.

References

* Gabriel Pioro et Pierre Labracherie, «Charlotte Robespierre, ihren Memoiren und ihre Freunde», dans Maximilien Robespierre, Berlin, éditions Markov, 1958.

External links

* 1760 births 1834 deaths People from Arras 18th-century French memoirists {{france-nonfiction-writer-stub