WHAT had appeared to be an eternal winter with no spring in sight and rain and snowfall on the daily menu, has finally ceded way to a pleasant summer and longer days, also warmer and brighter.

Here in the Loire Valley Count André de la Roche hides not his joy to be back working on his vineyards. His friends give him a helping hand and the ends of the days in his chateau’s garden are animated with lively conversation.

The subject this evening is the conscience-haunted angry young man of today, more precisely Edward Snowden and his rebellion against the established order.

“Yes,” says the count, “the angry young man revolted by state terror and social injustice and connected with the electronic media may appear to be a very contemporary figure, but in fact the phenomenon has existed for as long as human history itself has existed.“If you allow me, I’d like to talk to you about the angriest young man of them all; and it might be no surprise to some of you to learn that he was a Frenchman.

“Following the French revolution in 1789 and then the unsuccessful attempt by King Louis XVI to escape from house arrest, a heated discussion raged for many hours on Nov 13, 1792, in the newly elected national assembly (or National Convention, if you prefer) over the trial of the dethroned, then recaptured monarch.

“Suddenly a young voice rose impatiently from the back benches: ‘the honourable house is wasting its time, and people’s time, on the fruitless debate as to what Louis XVI did and what he didn’t do. Let’s come straight to the point: he should be sentenced to death for the crime of being a king, as no king reigns innocently!’

“Following a thunderous applause, formalities were quickly dropped and Louis XVI was guillotined two months later, on Jan 21, 1793, to be exact, on charge of being the king of France; no less, no more.

“The wrathful young parliamentarian in question was nobody else but Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, the revolutionary son of an aristocrat who hated the aristocracy, the nobility and the monarchy.

“Saint-Just was the author in 1791 of an epic poem Organt in the Greek romantic style about a young hero who fights for freedom against the powerful and the wealthy. A year later, shedding off his adolescent romantic pretentions, Saint-Just wrote a sombre five-volume work, The Spirit of Revolution.

“An admirer of Robespierre, the powerful figure in the Revolutionary Council, Saint-Just was elected to the National Convention as its youngest member. He would later play a leading role in the drafting of the Republican constitution in 1793.

“Despite his hectic political schedule, Saint-Just, often described by biographers as ‘wild, more or less permanently indignant and transgressively handsome’, was sent by Robespierre as military commissar to the war fronts in Alsace and Belgium following reports of sagging discipline. He resolved the problem by executing hundreds of soldiers on charges of inaction, cowardice and betrayal.

“When a rift broke out between the Jacobins, with whom St-Just sympathized, and the Girondins, he was elected President of the National Convention.

“He used his new power to launch what is remembered by historians today as the 'reign of terror’. People were sent to the scaffold not just for opposing the revolutionary regime but often for sympathizing with the aristocracy. At the highest point of the terror, even keeping quiet was deemed a crime punishable by death. You had to be an outspoken revolutionary or you were sent to the guillotine.

“Saint-Just was personally responsible for the executions of close to 4,000 people. All over France more than 40,000 were decapitated on the charge of being hostile to the Republican regime.

“The reign of terror finally came to an end when Robespierre, Saint-Just and many Jacobin leaders were arrested on July 27, 1794. While the others panicked, Saint-Just held his head high and walked on proudly, a hard-bound volume of the constitution clutched in his right hand.

“This author of serious philosophical and political oeuvres at age 23, then of the Constitution itself, a member, then president of the national assembly and Angel of Death as he was called during the reign of terror, was executed the next day.

“Many of the condemned had to be carried forcibly to the guillotine but Saint-Just stayed on his feet, arrogantly refusing all assistance and still holding on to the Constitution. On his way he stopped abruptly, turned and flung the volume at the crowd: ‘take good care of it, and never forget who wrote it.’

“Can anyone tell me how old was this maddest and angriest of all angry young men at the time of his death?”

All of us, including the Count’s golden labrador Schweppes, looked at each other questioningly then turned blankly back toward André de la Roche.

“On the day of his execution, July 28, 1794, Louis Antoine Saint-Just was only 26.”

The writer is a journalist based in Paris. (ZafMasud@gmail.com)