ABSTRACT
The period from the end of what one might call the first part of the Revolution, with the death of Robespierre in 1794, until the very last years of Bernardin's life was an active one for an ageing man who was taking on a myriad of new tasks and roles at a time when post people of his age would be seeking a quiet life, if not complete retirement. The end of a life also provides an excellent perspective from which an individual can look back on a lifetime of achievement and assess the impact of that life on the cultural landscape in which he or she has lived. There is also, of course, the need to assess the accuracy of previous biographers, and in Bernardin's case this is not always easy. Without the work and effort of Aime-Martin our view of Bernardin would be undeniably partial and deficient in detail.
