French Crossings: III. The Smile of the Tiger

This article continues the theme of 'French Crossings' explored in other Presidential Addresses by focussing on the border zone between the human and the animal. The focus is on the allegedly tiger-like character attributed to Maimilien Robespierre, particularly after his fall from power and his execution in 1794. This theme is explored in terms of Thermidorian propaganda, French Revolutionary historiography and the ancient discipline of physiognomy, which was reactivated by Johann-Caspar Lavater in the late eighteenth century and still influential through much of the nineteenth. Robespierre's animal rather than human status was also held to emerge in his inability to smile or laugh, a significant point also in that the meaning of the smile was changing in the same period.