History Characters / APlaceOfGreaterSafety

* FaceOfAThug: He knows it, and knows how to use it to his advantage.

* {{Foil}}: For Robespierre.

* FourPhilosophyEnsemble: The Cynic.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Sanguine.

* OpportunisticBastard: But he's smart enough to make it work.

* SlouchOfVillainy: And in the King's chair, no less!
* TooCleverByHalf: Him and Camille both fit this trope perfectly.

* YoungFutureFamousPeople

* BrokenPedestal: First Mirabeau, then Marat.

* TheConsigliere: Basically his role with regards to Danton.

* DepravedBisexual: How Gabrielle sees him, at first.
-->'''Camille''': I’m afraid it’s just my mere existence that irks Gabrielle. Imagine, my desperate finacée turns up at her doorstep, and she still thinks I’m trying to inveigle you into bed with me.
-->'''Danton''': Aren't you?

* DyingAsYourself: Tragically averted.

* FourPhilosophyEnsemble: An unsually dark version of the Optimist.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Choleric.
* TheGadfly: And it turns out to come in very handy!
-->'''Danton''': Visualize it: Our man [Saint-Just] the picture of starched rectitude, and looking like he’s just devoured a beefsteak, Camille will make some pithy remarks at his expense, and talk about ’89. Cheap trick, but the galleries will love it. What we must do is provoke the young fellow to anger. Not an easy task, but I ''guarrantee'' Camille can do it.
* GreenEyedMonster: To Louise Danton and Antoine Saint-Just.

* {{Narcissist}}: Annette accuses him of being this.

* NumberTwo: Danton's.
* OffToBoardingSchool: At age seven.

* ReallyGetsAround: As Danton puts it, he's "bloody horizontal."

* SoapboxSadie: The reason he's such a bad lawyer.
-->''A gaggle of students followed him, as if he was some great jurist... They noted his ability to to twist the most mundane judicial dictum into the pronouncement of some engirt tyrant, whose fortress he and he alone must storm.''
-->–
-->'''Camille''': I object to the use of the courts as instruments of the intrusive moralizing state.

* SugarAndIcePersonality: Extremely so, to an almost bipolar degree.

* {{Unperson}}: Becomes this after his execution.

* ClassicalAntiHero: Starts out as one of these.
* ConfirmationBias: Too many examples to list. Indulging in this trope constantly becomes a serious problem for him.
-->'''Danton''': He feels something, in his heart, and then he works out a way to it in his head. Then he tells us the head part came first, and we believe him.

* EvilVirtues: It would be easier to list the ones he doesn't have.

* {{Foil}}: For Danton.
* FourPhilosophyEnsemble: A cross between the Realist and the Conflicted.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: A cross between Phlegmatic and Melancholic.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Except Camille.

* LawfulStupid

* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: The real reason he never marries.

* RedheadInGreen: In his final appearance.

* RousseauWasRight: Literally, Rousseau is his idol.

* YoungFutureFamousPeople

* HairTriggerTemper

* WetBlanketWife
* MyMasterRightOrWrong

[[folder:Legendre]]
!!Legendre
!!!Legendre the Butcher
-->''"I was their first target, you know. It was supposed to be me."''

Danton's downstairs neighbor; a master butcher. Sits with the Montagnards at the Convention. He is notably antagonistic towards Camille, who in turn treats him as an opportunistic blowhard and mocks his lack of formal education. A fair-weather friend.
----
* YesMan: To Danton.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Laclos]]
!!Pierre Cholerdos de Laclos

!The Hébertists

[[folder:René Hébert]]
!!René Hébert
!!!Le Père Duchesne, The Ghost of Marat
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jacques Roux]]
!!Jacques Roux
[[/folder]]

!The Old National Assembly

[[folder:The Marquis de La Fayette]]
!!Honoré Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert de Mottié, the Marquis de La Fayette
!!!de Mottié, Washington pot-au-feu
-->''"Sometimes I wish I were not such an honorable gentleman."''

The celebrated general, already the decorated hero of both France and America when this story starts to heat up in earnest. He is the same age as Danton, and the unknowing object of his ambitious resentment when Danton is still a disaffected legal clerk. Lafayette is also the commander of the National Guard. Much like Necker, he is a intelligent and well-meaning man whose level-headed and potentially life-saving advice is steadfastly ignored by his liege lords and ladies, and indeed most of Lafayette's blunders are caused by the obstinacy of the First Estate in general and the Royal family in specific. Unlike Necker, however, Lafayette sticks around long enough to see himself named a traitor to the Republic.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Comte de Mirabeau]]
!!Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, the Comte de Mirabeau
-->''"Liberty's a bitch who likes to get fucked on a mattress of corpses."''

A bankrupt renegade noble sitting for the Commons, or the Third Estate. The face of the Revolution in the years leading up to '89, and the patriarch of the National Assembly. With the Abbé Sieyѐs, he is the progenitor of the early Revolutionary movement. In the beginning of that year, Camille allows himself to be bought by Mirabeau, who finances and promotes Camille's first few pamphlets and later helps him set up a newspaper. In exchange, Camille endorses his policies in the press. Camille's attitude towards him is conflicted and vaguely masochistic, and foreshadows his later relationship with Danton. In the spring of 1790 he falls ill suddenly and dies in a coma.
----
* ShadowArchetype: To Danton.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Bailly]]
!!Jean-Sylvain Bailly

An astronomer and Mayor of Paris during the summer of '89.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Barnave]]
!!Antoine Barnave
!!!Tiger
[[/folder]]

!The Dutch East India Company Conspirators

[[folder:Chabot]]
!!Deputy Chabot

A not-too-bright sansculotte deputy and ex-Capuchin friar. Fabre successfully scapegoats him for conspiracy and speculation at the time when he is still believed to have nothing to do with it, but it doesn't last. According to Robespierre, Chabot became enmeshed in the foreign conspiracy when he married the "sister" of con men Emmanuel and Junius Frei, a wealthy Prussian Jew. After being imprisoned in the Luxembourg, Chabot tries to poison himself but falls into a coma instead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Julien]]
!!Deputy Julien
[[/folder]]

[[folder:"The Brothers Frei"]]
!!Emmanuel Dobruska and Siegmund Gotleb, a.k.a. "Emmanuel and Junius Frei"
[[/folder]]

!Assorted Characters

!!!The Court

[[folder:Louis XVI]]
!!King Louis XVI of France
!!!Louis Capet, Citizen Capet
-->''"You're lucky. I wish I could resign."''

The last hereditary monarch in France. Crowned at age sixteen, executed at age thirty-nine. Among the revolutionaries, he is known as 'Louis Capet'.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Marie-Antoinette]]
!!Queen Marie-Antoinette of France
!!!Madame Deficit, Madame Veto, Madame Capet, The Capet woman, The Capet whore, The King's wife
-->''"We must show character."''

The famous profligate queen. Marie-Antoinette in this version is portrayed mainly through the lens of her antagonism with Lafayette, the two of whom are the competing strategists behind Versailles' response to the insurrection (and later the Constitution). Among the revolutionaries, she is only ever referred to as "Capet's wife" or "the Capet woman".
----
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Camille has this reaction to seeing her at her trial.
* FaceDeathWithDignity
* MaliciousSlander
* TooDumbToLive
* UngratefulBitch: To Lafayette, whom she despises despite the fact that he has saved her life several times and is one of the few important people who gives a damn about her.
[[/folder]]

!!!At the Île Saint-Louis

[[folder: Maître Vinot]]
-->''"Have comprehensible ambitions, my boy. Keep us comfortable."''

A prosperous, pugnacious Parisian lawyer in whose chambers Georges-Jacques Danton is a pupil. Georges-Jacques finds him ridiculous, and kowtowing to Vinot chafes his pride (the feeling is not mutual).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Maître Perrin]]

[[/folder]]

!!!At the Louis-le-Grand

[[folder:Father Poignard]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Father Proyart]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Father Hérivaux]]

[[/folder]]

!!!Others

[[folder:Citizen de Sade]]
-->''"They're murdering the prisoners in the Bastille!"''

Formerly the Marquis de Sade. Pays a visit to Camille in '94, after which he is promptly arrested (again). However, he survives the Terror.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Henri Sanson]]

The public executioner. Inherited his vocation from his father, also named Henri Sanson, who once sued Camille Desmoulins for libel in 1788.
[[/folder]]

* BigBadDuumivirate: With Robespierre, in the view of the Gironde.

* ProtagonistsJourneyToVillain: Much of the the story’s development is concerned with showing how Robespierre goes from a place of absolute pacifism to the point where he is able to sanction the murder of his only real friend.

* BlackSheep: Initially the [[ParentalFavoritism favorite child]], Camille becomes this in his teenage years.

* OutDamnedSpot: A variant. Robespierre spits up blood into a handkerchief in the scene where he finally signs Danton’s death warrant. Possibly also an allusion to his real-life suicide attempt.

* MemeticBadass: In-universe. "Daylight holds no fears for me!"

* NouveauRiche

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Among the common people. Danton boasts that if every citizen had a vote, he could be King of France, and it's not an exaggeration.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: A combination of this trope and the above-mentioned [[HundredPercentAdorationRating 100% Adoration Rating]] is how he takes over the government in '91.

* IdleRich: Which Camille never gets tired of mocking him for.
* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Hérault does intially have a day job, though he’s filthy rich; he becomes this trope after the Revolution, when he becomes a politician and spends all his time gambling and getting high.

* AmbiguousDisorder: There's a pretty strong argument to be made that Camille has some form of bipolar disorder. Disappearing for weeks without notice, neglect of his own physical needs, episodes of extreme excitement and energy followed by prolonged depressive lethargy, exaggerated and changeable emotional impressions, random self-destructive impulses...
* AttentionWhore

* SurvivorsGuilt: It's suggested that Camille is dealing with some repressed [[SurvivorsGuilt Survivor's Guilt]] after his failure to save Suleau, and this gets turned [[UpToEleven Up To Eleven]] during [[TheReignOfTerror the Terror.]]

* OutnumberedSibling: The youngest of his siblings and the only boy, and benefitted from no small degree of [[ParentalFavoritism Parental Favoritism]]. His birth was a relief to his parents, as [[HeirClubForMen a male child is required to pass on the family name]], and too many girls is considered a financial drain on a lower-middle-class family.

* IllBoy: Chronically–he has asthma, anemia, and is physically frail. His various health problems worsen as the story continues: he develops stomach ulcers and facial tics from stress, lacks appetite, is bedridden every few months, and looks prematurely aged.

* {{Asexuality}}: Possibly, though how much it has to do with his various Freudian hang-ups (and being [[RaisedCatholic Raised Catholic]]) is debatable. After he and Eléonore have [[TheirFirstTime Their First Time]], the first words out of his mouth are [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny "I'm sorry."]]

A respectable if dangerously ambitious lawyer. Though he is regarded as a thug and a demogogue by both the Orléanists and smaller players like Brissot, Danton's personal magnetism and gift for oratory gathers a devoted following. He is congenial, talented, charmingly belligerent, and genuinely likes people. A hulking beast of a man with a fierce, scarred countenance, Danton also has a reputation for brutality which he never quite lives up to; his fondness for intimidation tactics is far outweighed by his personable nature and ability to make friends easily. Makes his fortune and niche in history when he near-single-handedly overthrows the French monarchy on August 10, 1792, and is elected Minister of Justice under the new government. He remains (with the exception of Robespierre) the most influential statesman in France until he is executed three years later, on charges of corruption and counter-revolution.

* NightmareFetishist: During the last few months of his life, Hérualt becomes obsessed with public displays of violence during the Terror: he attends the executions at the Place de la Révolution religiously, and seeks out the most horrific denunciations ([[OffingTheOffspring parents against children]], children against parents). He's trying to desenstitize himself to what he sees as the "humiliation" of death.

* SoapboxSadie: What he's like in court, especially when he was younger.

* ForeignCultureFetish: A collector of English literature and poetry, who also speaks several foreign languages fluently. One of his main regrets is that his choice of path in life restricts him from indulging in his wanderlust, expect when overseeing military campaigns in Belgium. This naturally gets used against him once the French Republic is officially at war with England, and serves as a contrast with the homebody Robespierre.

* FamousLastWords: “Show my head to the people, will you? It’s worth a look.”

* FamousLastWords: “Please take this to Annette Duplessis at number 18 on the rue Condé. It’s very important. Thank you.”

* BerserkButton: Danton pushes his ''hard'' when he gloats to Robespierre about Camille dabbling in sodomy and implies that Camille is attracted to him. It's particularly effective because it fuses all of Robespierre's most sensitive and deep-seated issues: his obsession with moral perfection, his fear of the erotic, his perception of Danton as a corruptive influence, and his own feelings of inadequacy. Danton basically forces him to confront the fact that the people he loves and considers good aren't necessarily able or willing to conform to his moral code, completely shattering his projected "innocent" image of Camille. Robespierre finds this revelation to unbearably painful to consider and represses it, and this interaction becomes further emotional fodder against Danton.

* AmbiguousDisorder: There's a pretty strong argument to be made that Camille has some form of bipolar disorder.

* {{Unperson}}: Robespierre declares him this after his death, though unlike most examples it's a result of guilt rather than betrayal.

* AmbiguousDisorder: His various 'idiosyncracies' suggest some degree of mental instability: extreme mood swings and exaggerated emotional impressions, obsessive and erratic behavior, compulsive promiscuity, and random self-destructive impulses. He forgets to eat for days on end, disappears for weeks without notice, and causally threatens to harm himself.