Acte de Notoriété qui constate l’etat civil de Citoyen Charles Joseph Robillard dit Selim, Le Cap, 14 Germinal An 11 (April 4, 1803) ( detail), in Acte de Notoriété Pour Rectifier les Prénoms du S. Charles Joseph Robillard, 6 May 1806, Notaire Delacour MC/ET/XIX/828. Image courtesy Archives Nationales (France).

Charles Joseph Robillard

Charles Joseph Robillard is one the most important of Théodore Géricault’s Robillard relations in Paris. The two likely met when Théodore was about to enter the Lycée Impérial around 1806. Charles Joseph Robillard was born to Charles Stanislas Robillard and Katherine Roullit (also Marie Catherine Roullet) in 1789 in Borgne, Saint Domingue.* Katherine and Charles Joseph arrived in Paris sometime after 1800 and before 1806. His father, Charles Stanislas Robillard, probably died in 1790 in Saint Domingue, a topic we shall discuss elsewhere.

Charles Joseph almost certainly spent his all of his early life outside France, prior to his arrival in Paris. Charles Joseph was immersed from birth in a world of slaves and slavery. He was born on the large plantation of his great-uncle, Jean Guillaume Robillard, in the Plaine-du-Nord, which was attacked and burned in the great slave uprising of August, 1791. The world Charles Joseph Robillard first experienced and inhabited was one of war and battles in France’s most important island colony in the Antilles, at times in fear for his own life and that of his family. Certainly, Charles Joseph Robillard was a true habitant of Saint Domingue, heir to his father’s coffee plantation in Borgne, as well as part-owner of another plantation in Gros Morne.

Théodore Géricault lived his early years in Rouen, and in western Normandy in the summer. In that sense, Paris was a somewhat foreign place at least at first. Théodore may well have found Charles Joseph to be a very exotic individual. As we have noted, it was during this period of Théodore’s life that Géricault was witnessed speaking the language of the Caribbean. (See our article in our November 2019 issue.) How much time the two cousins spent together in Paris is an open question. We can be sure that Charles Joseph Robillard played an important role in the lives of Géricault’s Robillard relations in Paris, however, as we shall see.

Carte de l’isle St Domingue dressée pour l’ouvrage de M. L.E. Moreau de St Mery 1796 (detail).  Image courtesy of Gallica.

  * Edited for style and accuracy on July 25, 2022. The article originally stated that Charles Joseph Robillard was born in Borgne, Saint Domingue, where the family owned property.

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