Robespierre's pathologies revealed by the 3D reconstruction of his face - Sciences et Avenir

SUFFERING. Smallpox, vision problems, jaundice… By digitally reconstructing the face of the famous revolutionary who died at the age of 36, Philippe Froesch, from the Visual Forensic Laboratory (Barcelona), a specialist in 3D facial reconstructions, and Philippe Charlier, from the medical and forensic anthropology team from the UFR des Sciences et de la Santé in Montigny-le-Bretonneux (UVSQ / AP-HP, Yvelines), have just given substance to the historical descriptions of Robespierre as a sickly being.

Skin rashes, jaundice and nosebleeds: an "Incorruptible" with fragile health

In an article published on December 20 in the journal The Lancet, the two specialists explain that they based themselves on the copy of a cast of the death mask, kept in Aix-en-Provence, to give it back this form of virtual life.

SMALLPOX. Philippe Charlier thus claims to be able to confirm the marked presence on the face of the "Incorruptible" of old scars linked to a smallpox infection contracted in childhood, which the portraits of the time however never represent.

But his investigations do not stop there. Taking up the descriptions of his contemporaries, the medical examiner drew up a list of all the pathologies from which the revolutionary suffered: frequent rashes, epitaxis (nosebleeds) - to the point of "covering his pillow with blood every night “according to some accounts – but also apparently from jaundice and asthenia (continuous fatigue).

So many symptoms that could well be linked to diffuse sarcoidosis, an inflammatory pathology that manifests itself in general fatigue, ophthalmic problems and lesions of the upper respiratory tract (nose, sinuses).

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"Green glasses to hide yellowish-white eyes"

"To counter this state of general fatigue, we do not know the treatments that his personal doctor, Joseph Souperbielle, gave him, but the consumption of fruit could have been part of it. We do know that Robespierre consumed oranges in excessive quantities and that 'he had a lot of bloodletting done,' explains Philippe Charlier.

"SARCOIDOSIS". "If sarcoidosis was described for the first time in 1877 by a doctor, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, our work seems to push back the age of this disease by almost 100 years: proof that additional medical and anthropological examinations can thus contribute to improving the historical knowledge of the pathologies from which the populations of the past suffered".

So many hypotheses also supported by the writings of the famous Madame Tussaud, author of the famous death mask (see box). In her Memoirs and Souvenirs* published in 1838, she indeed recounts that Robespierre "had his face pockmarked by smallpox, and wore green glasses to hide his yellowish-white eyes. He had poor eyesight".

Where does this mask come from? The death mask used to reconstruct Robespierre's virtual face by Philippe Charlier, of the medical and forensic anthropology team at the UFR des Sciences et de la Santé in Montigny-le-Bretonneux (UVSQ / AP- HP, Yvelines) and Philippe Froesch, from the Visual Forensic Laboratory (Barcelona) is kept at the National Museum of Natural History in Aix-en-Provence. This is a copy of the cast of the original mask kept in London, the country where its author, Madame Tussaud, was exiled (see second box). This cast itself belongs to the phrenological collection of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, known as the Dumoutier collection, purchased by the Museum in 1873. However, the authenticity of the pieces could be questionable, according to historian Hervé Leuwers , from Lille-3 University. According to this specialist in Robespierre, Marie Tussaud would "discredit herself on several occasions" in her memoirs and would never have been able to have access, contrary to what she affirms, to the remains of the Revolutionary to mold his face. "It designates the cemetery of La Madeleine as a place of burial or Robespierre was buried in that of Errancis, near Parc Monceau in Paris, which has now disappeared". Moreover, on 10 Thermidor, the day of the capital execution, an official order had been given to bury the guillotined as soon as possible so that no trace of them would remain. "It is hard to imagine, at a time when the revolutionary authorities ordered the bodies to disappear - until they were covered with quicklime -, allowing the molding of a face that we wanted to erase at all costs".

Madame Tussaud born Marie Grosholtz. Robespierre's death mask is said to be the work of Madame Tussaud, the very woman who founded the famous eponymous museum in London in 1835, presenting wax copies of famous people. Strange life than that of this little Alsatian, born Marie Grosholtz, who was trained in the technique of moldings by doctor John Christopher Curtius, a famous model doctor of German origin invited to France to practice his art. In her Memoirs, the young woman recounts having been led, during the Revolution, to make the death masks of celebrities who fell under the ax... including those of her former friends or protectors at court. These wax portraits – ancestors of photography – were already very popular during the reign of Louis XVI. The king, the queen, the members of the royal family like most of the great figures of the time had them. During her exile in London in 1802, it was with the effigies of all these characters that Marie Grosholtz, who would marry an engineer named François Tussaud, enjoyed success.

* Madame Tussaud, Memoirs and Souvenirs, Arlés Edition, Seuil distribution, 2005

**Hector Fleischmann (1911), Robespierre's Death Mask, new documents to serve as intelligence and conclusion to a historical polemic