Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"We must force the people to be free" "In Albert Camus's The Rebel (1951), Saint-Just is discussed extensively in the context of an analysis of rebellion and man's progression towards enlightenment and freedom. Camus identifies Saint-Just's successful argument for the execution of Louis XVI as the moment of death for monarchical divine right, a Nietzschean Twilight of the Idols. Saint-Just's dedication to "the sovereignty of the people and the sacred power of laws" is described as "a source of absolutism" and indeed "the new God". His kind of "deification of the political" is examined as the source of the creeping totalitarianism which grew so powerfully in Camus' own lifetime."--Sholem Stein |
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Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794), usually known as Saint-Just, was a French revolutionary and military leader. Closely allied with Robespierre, he served with him on the Committee of Public Safety, becoming heavily involved in the Reign of Terror and was executed with him after the events of 9 Thermidor at the age of twenty-six.
