It was in the multi-volume study of the French Revolution by the great Romantic historian Michelet that Huizinga read one of those anecdotes ‘whose apparent triviality bears the hallmark of their high probability’. Huizinga loved trivialities of this kind. For instance, the detail that convinced him that Beatrice was a woman of flesh and blood – rather than merely a literary symbol – was that Dante called her by the pet name of Bice. Michelet's anecdote is about Robespierre. Many years after the Revolution, the aging Merlin de Thionville was asked why he had helped to secure Robespierre's conviction. The old man paused before answering, creating a brief impression of regret. Then he suddenly rose to his feet with a fierce gesture, saying: ‘Robespierre! Robespierre! … ah! si vous aviez vu ses yeux verts, vous l’auriez condamné comme moi.’ Only those who had seen Robespierre's green eyes could understand why the man known as the ‘Incorruptible’ had been found guilty. ‘Could anything provide a more unequivocal lesson,’ concluded Huizinga, ‘of true historical motivation, and of the misguided bias of an approach that reduces all those men consumed with hatred, fury and delusions to an inventory of political or economic forces? That little anecdote tells us resoundingly: Never forget passion.’

FORMS OF PASSION

For Huizinga, this episode must have produced a shock of recognition. As a young Sanskrit scholar poring over his early dissertation on the vidûshaka, passion had already burst through his artful prose. To illustrate what he called ‘the skittishness of love’, he gave the following quotation: ‘If you and your lover are not yet reconciled, dear lady, do cover the fresh marks of nails on your breast with your robe.’ Anyone who is inclined to attribute the use of such an example to the testosterone generally associated with a young PhD student should consult the mature historian of The Waning of the Middle Ages, where Huizinga revels in the phallic symbolism of wedding night rituals. He describes the battle song for the hymen, the Hymen o Hymenae, as a ‘full-bodied roar’ that no church-ingrained chastity could muffle. Though his descriptions are often couched in formal and indeed at times roundly censored language, Huizinga was no stranger to passionate love, and well knew the havoc it could wreak in a human heart.