The original in French is too long to post here; this is from Charlotte Robespierre’s memoirs, published in 1835.  I need to read the whole thing through, honestly, since I’ve really only read bits and pieces.  But here’s the pigeon story, which a) touches on some of the ridiculous post-Thermidor histories and b) makes me sniffle because I am a huge softie about animals and I can exactly picture this entire business and Charlotte Robespierre’s lifelong guilt.  (As always, sorry about my shoddy translation skills.  It’s kind of an entertaining exercise for me.)

I have read in some wretched biographies, where my brother Maximillien is painted in the blackest colors, that his favorite childhood pastime was making animals suffer, and that he entertained himself with cutting off birds’ heads to be ready one day to cut off those of men.  It must take a deep disdain for the public, and belief in their utter lack of common sense, to put out such absurdities.  What! my brother, as a student, some fifteen or twenty years before Guillotin invented that instrument of torture that bears his name, had invented a little guillotine to amuse himself with beheading birds!  Truthfully, it is an insult to the readers of these Memoirs to undertake to refute this kind of foolishness.  I leave it to their outrage to sear away these abominable accusations.

We would go every Sunday, my sister and I, to be with our two brothers.  They were happy days for us.  My brother Maximilien, who was making a collection of pictures and prints, would spread out his treasures and loved to see the pleasure we took in them.  He would also do the honors and show us his aviary, and place in our hands, one after the other, his sparrows and pigeons.  We desperately wanted him to give us one of his favorite birds; we begged him; he refused for a long time for fear that we wouldn’t take enough care.  But one day he gave in to our demands and let us have a beautiful pigeon.  My sister and I were enchanted.  He made us promise never to let it want for anything; we swore a thousand times and kept our word for several days, or rather would have kept our oath forever if the poor pigeon, forgotten by us in the garden, hadn’t died one stormy night.  At the news of this death, Maximilien’s tears flowed, he covered us with reproaches that we deserved only too well, and swore never to trust us again with one of his dear pigeons.

It’s sixty years now since by my childhood forgetfulness I was the cause of my brother’s pain and tears: Well!  My heart still bleeds; it seems as though I haven’t aged a day since the tragic end of that poor pigeon was so painful to Maximilien that I still feel it myself.