1808 Amédée Selim Robillard
Gericault Life
“Explosion d’une Machine Infernale” (detail) A Paris chez Basset Marchand d’Estampes et Fabricant de Papiers peints, rue Jacques au coin de celle des Mathurins. Image Courtesy of Gallica.
Amédée Selim Robillard
Amédée Selim Robillard was born in Paris on October 4th, 1792. Amédée Selim was the younger brother of Pierre Robillard, and the second son of Jacques Florent Robillard and Angélique Louise Morize. Amédée Selim was born one year and one week after Théodore Géricault, who was born in Rouen on September 26th, 1791. Amédée Selim was the only one of Théodore’s cousins in Paris who was not older, and was also the closest in age to Théodore.
As we noted in our discussion of Amédée Selim’s older brother, Pierre Robillard, Théodore likely met his Robillard cousins in Paris around 1795 during family gatherings at the Hôtel de Longueville or on the rue de Belle Chasse. Théodore Géricault moved to Paris with his family after 1796. How close Théodore and Amédée were while growing up is an open question. We know from contemporary sources that children in the Tuilleries played in the garden of the Infante, close by the Louvre and the Robillard family home at the Hôtel de Longueville. As a young child in Paris, Théodore likely did not wander far from the family home on the rue de l’Université. However, once Théodore was older, we can be fairly sure that he was trusted to play near the Hôtel de Longueville, where his father worked, and where his uncle Jean Baptiste Caruel lived among the family’s Robillard relations.
Amédée Selim Robillard was an infant during the guillotining of 1792 outside the family home at the Hôtel de Longueville. He certainly learned of the fact as he grew older. Amédée Selim would have been three during the royalist attack on the Tuileries of October 5, 1795. Napoleon set up canon outside the family home. Musket fire, canon fire, screams and battle cries would have filled the air. Four years later, an attempt to assassinate Napoleon outside the Hôtel de Longueville using explosives sent horses, carriages and people into the night air, leaving the walls of the Hôtel de Longueville blackened and scarred. The porter of the Hôtel de Longueville and his son, individuals Géricault family members certainly knew, were injured in the attempt. We can only guess what effect this repeated exposure to violence had upon Amédée Selim and his older brother Pierre.
Violence, death, and struggles are major themes Théodore Géricault’s art. We find that the artist lived the life of a protected only child whilst growing up in Rouen and in Paris. The assassination attempt on Napoléon was likely Théodore’s first contact with violence of this kind. His uncle Jean Baptiste Caruel’s apartment windows likely shook or broke during the blast. As we see, however, in our introduction to Charles Joseph Robillard, Pierre Robillard, and Amédée Selim Robillard, his cousins in Paris, close to his age, did experience repeated instances of violence both in Paris and in Saint Domingue.
Théodore Géricault’s unusual curiosity in death, suffering, and executions likely has some roots in the stories and experiences of his cousins. The boyhood experiences of cousins, lived and real, shared again and again may well have had a profound impact on Théodore. What boy of ten would not want to hear of battles fought outside the family home, or of the morbid terror of ritual executions? Géricault had no similar experiences stories of his own to tell. The artist’s fascination with pain, suffering, and death as he grew older can be seen, in some sense, as an effort to fill this void and experience more fully what his cousins, uncles, and aunts experienced first-hand outside family homes in Paris and in Saint Domingue.