Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (Template:IPA-fr; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage,Template:Sfn and the abolition both of celibacy for the clergy and of slavery. Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to carry arms in self-defence.<ref></ref><ref name="auto9">Template:Cite web</ref><ref></ref> He played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy in August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
As one of the leading members of the insurrectionary Paris Commune, Robespierre was elected as a deputy to the French Convention in early September 1792, but was soon criticised for trying to establish either a triumvirate or a dictatorship. In Spring 1793, after the defection of Dumouriez, he urged the creation of a "sans-culotte army" to sweep away any counter-revolutionary conspirators. In July he was appointed as a member of the powerful Committee of Public Safety.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 20</ref> He exerted his influence to suppress the Girondins to the right, the Hébertists to the left and the Dantonists in the centre.
Robespierre is best known for his role during the Reign of Terror, during which he oversaw the arrest and execution of numerous political adversaries and other individuals whom he and his allies deemed to oppose the Revolution. Historians have estimated that several thousand people were sentenced to death and guillotined during the Terror, and the extent to which defendants consistently received appropriate levels of due process before being executed remains controversial. Robespierre was eventually undone by his obsession with the vision of an ideal republic and his indifference to the human costs of installing it, which turned both members of the Convention and the French public against him.<ref></ref> The Terror ended when he and many of his allies were arrested on 9 Thermidor and then executed the day after, events that initiated a period known as the Thermidorian Reaction.Template:Sfn
The extent to which Robespierre was personally responsible for the excesses of the Terror remains the subject of intense debate among historians of the French Revolution.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn To some, Robespierre was the incarnation of the Terror during Year II (of the French Revolutionary calendar), but to others, he was the Revolution's principal ideologist and embodied the country's first democratic experience, marked by the (immediately suspended) French Constitution of 1793.<ref name="auto1">Template:Cite web</ref>
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Early politics
- 3 Jacobin Club
- 4 Opposition to war with Austria
- 5 The insurrectionary Commune of Paris
- 6 The National Convention
- 7 Reign of Terror
- 8 Abolition of slavery
- 9 Cult of the Supreme Being
- 10 Downfall
- 11 Legacy and memory
- 12 Notes
- 13 References
- 14 Sources
- 15 Further reading
- 16 External links
Early life
Maximilien de Robespierre was born in Arras in the old French province of Artois. His family has been traced back to the 15th century in Vaudricourt, Pas-de-Calais; one of his ancestors Robert de Robespierre worked as a notary in Carvin mid 17th century.<ref>Lavoine, A. (1914) La famille de Robespierre et ses origines. Documents inédits sur le séjour des Robespierre à Vaudricourt, Béthune, Harnes, Hénin-Liétard, Carvin et Arras. (1452–1790). In: Revue du Nord, tome 5, n°18, May 1914. p. 114. Template:Doi</ref> His paternal grandfather, also named Maximilien de Robespierre, established himself in Arras as a lawyer. His father, François Maximilien Barthélémy de Robespierre, was a lawyer at the Conseil d'Artois who married the pregnant Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, the daughter of a brewer. Maximilien was the eldest of four children and was conceived out of wedlock. His siblings were Charlotte (1760–1834),Template:Efn Henriette (1761–1780),Template:Efn and Augustin (1763–1794).<ref>Lavoine, A. (1914) La famille de Robespierre et ses origines. Documents inédits sur le séjour des Robespierre à Vaudricourt, Béthune, Harnes, Hénin-Liétard, Carvin et Arras. (1452–1790). In: Revue du Nord, tome 5, n°18, May 1914. p. 135</ref><ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>
Early in July 1764, Madame de Robespierre gave birth to a stillborn daughter; she died twelve days later, at the age of 29. Devastated by his wife's death, François de Robespierre left Arras around 1767 and travelled throughout Europe. His two daughters were brought up by their paternal aunts, and his two sons were taken in by their maternal grandparents.Template:Sfn Already literate at age eight, Maximilien started attending the collège of Arras (middle school).Template:Sfn<ref>Gérard Walter, Maximilien de Robespierre, Paris, Gallimard, 1989, p. 17</ref> In October 1769, on the recommendation of the bishop Hilaire de Conzié, he received a scholarship at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. His fellow pupils included Camille Desmoulins and Stanislas Fréron. In school, he learned to admire the idealised Roman Republic and the rhetoric of Cicero, Cato and other figures from classical history. He also studied the works of the Genevan philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau and was attracted to many ideas, written in his "Contrat Social". Robespierre became intrigued by the idea of a "virtuous self", a man who stands alone accompanied only by his conscience.Template:Sfn His study of the classics prompted him to aspire to Roman virtues, but he sought to emulate Rousseau in particular.Template:Sfn Robespierre's conception of revolutionary virtue and his programme for constructing political sovereignty out of direct democracy came from Rousseau, Montesquieu and Mably.<ref>Sonenscher, M. (2008) Sans-Culottes, an eighteenth-century emblem in the French Revolution, p. 231</ref> Robespierre studied law for three years at the University of Paris. Upon his graduation on 31 July 1780, he received a special prize of 600 livres for exemplary academic success and personal good conduct.Template:Sfn
Early politics
On 15 May 1781 Robespierre gained admission to the bar. The bishop of Arras, Hilaire de Conzié, appointed him as one of the five judges in the criminal court in March 1782. Robespierre soon resigned, owing to discomfort in ruling on capital cases arising from his early opposition to the death penalty.Template:Sfn His most famous case took place in May 1783 and involved a lightning rod in St. Omer. His defense was printed and he sent Benjamin Franklin a copy.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
On 15 November 1783, he was elected a member of the literary Academy of Arras.<ref></ref> In 1784 the Academy of Metz awarded him a medal for his essay on the question of whether the relatives of a condemned criminal should share his disgrace, which made him a man of letters.<ref></ref> He and Pierre Louis de Lacretelle, an advocate and journalist in Paris, divided the prize. Robespierre attacked inequality before the law, the indignity of natural children, the lettres de cachet (getting arrested without a trial) and the sidelining of women in academic life. Robespierre had particularly that of Louise-Félicité de Kéralio in mind.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1787 he became acquainted with the young officer and engineer Lazare Carnot and the year after with the teacher Joseph Fouché.<ref></ref> Robespierre claimed to have seen Rousseau in Ermenonville, shortly before he died.<ref></ref><ref></ref>
In August 1788 King Louis XVI announced new elections for all provinces and a gathering of the Estates-General for 1 May 1789 to solve France's serious financial and taxation problems. Robespierre participated in a discussion regarding how the French provincial government should be elected, arguing in his Address to the Nation of Artois that if the former mode of election by the members of the provincial estates was again adopted, the new Estates-General would not represent the people of France. In late February 1789, France saw a pressing crisis due to its desire for a new constitution, according to Gouverneur Morris.<ref></ref>
In his electoral district Robespierre began to make his mark in politics with his Notice to the Residents of the Countryside of 1789 in which he attacked the local authorities.Template:Efn With this, he secured the support of the country electors. On 26 April 1789 Robespierre was elected as one of 16 deputies for Arras to the Estates-General; others were Charles de Lameth and Albert de Beaumetz.<ref>Liste des noms et qualités de messieurs les députés et suppléants à l'Assemblée nationale. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 — Première série (1787–1799) sous la direction de Jérôme Mavidal et Emile Laurent. Tome VIII du 5 mai 1789 au 15 septembre 1789. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1875. p. VII. [1]</ref> Template:Efn He was almost 31, comparatively poor, and lacking patronage. When the deputies arrived at Versailles they were presented to the King and listened to Jacques Necker's three-hour-long speech about institutional and political reforms.<ref></ref> They were informed that all voting would be "by power" not "by head", so their double representation — on proposal of Necker — was to be meaningless. They refused this and proceeded to meet separately. On 13 June Robespierre joined the National Assembly declared by the Third Estate, which transformed itself on 9 July into the National Constituent Assembly and moved to Paris.
On 13 July the Assembly declared the formation of a "bourgeois militia". On 14 July, the day of the Storming of the Bastille, the National Guard was created in Paris.<ref>Florence Devenne, « La garde Nationale ; création et évolution (1789-août 1792) », Annales historiques de la Révolution française. N°283, 1990. p. 50</ref> On 15 July, Marquis de La Fayette was acclaimed their commander-in-chief. On 20 July 1789 the Assembly decided to establish National Guards in every commune in the country.<ref>Discussion suite à la motion de M. de Lally-Tollendal relative à l'établissement d'une milice bourgeoise, lors de la séance du 20 juillet 1789</ref><ref>[Discussion suite à la motion de M. de Lally-Tollendal relative à l'établissement d'une milice bourgeoise, lors de la séance du 20 juillet 1789. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 - Première série (1787-1799) Tome VIII du 5 mai 1789 au 15 septembre 1789. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1875. pp. 253-255.] http://www.persee.fr/doc/arcpa_0000-0000_1875_num_8_1_4699_t2_0253_0000_2</ref> Discussing the matter Robespierre defended the armed citizens in Paris.<ref>Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien Robespierre: ornés de son portrait et de ... by Maximilien de Robespierre, p. 522</ref><ref>Maximilien Robespierre: Oeuvres - N° 52</ref>
In October he was one of the few who supported Maillard after the Women's March on Versailles.Template:Sfn While the Constituent Assembly occupied itself with male census suffrage, Robespierre and few more deputies opposed the property requirements for voting and holding office.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Robespierre succeeded to attract the attention of the excluded classes, particularly Protestants in France, Jews,<ref></ref> blacks, servants and actors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
As a frequent speaker in the Assembly, Robespierre voiced many ideas in support of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and constitutional provisions for the Constitution of 1791 but rarely attracted a majority among fellow deputies according to Malcolm Crook.<ref></ref><ref></ref> Robespierre (always 'poudré, frisé, et parfumé') seems to have been nervous, timid and suspicious. Madame de Staël described Robespierre as 'very exaggerated in his democratic principles'. He supported the most absurd propositions with a coolness that had the air of conviction.Template:Sfn Before the end of the year 1789, he was seen as one of the leaders of the small body of the extreme left. Robespierre was one of "the thirty voices", as Mirabeau referred to them with contempt: "That man will go far—he believes everything he says."<ref></ref>
Jacobin Club
From October 1789, Robespierre lived at 9, Rue de Saintonge in Le Marais.<ref> La Maison de Robespierre, rue de Saintonge, à Paris by Georges Michon. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française (Jan.–Feb. 1924), pp. 64–66</ref> Pierre Villiers claimed he was his secretary for several months, and they shared the apartment on the third floor.<ref name="auto7">Template:Cite web</ref> Robespierre associated with the new Society of the Friends of the Constitution, commonly known as the Jacobin Club. Originally, this organization (the Club Breton) comprised only deputies from Brittany, but after the National Assembly had moved to Paris, the Friends admitted non-deputies, supporting the changes in France. As time went on, many of the more educated artisans and small shopkeepers joined the Jacobin club.Template:Sfn Among these 1,200 men, Robespierre found a sympathetic audience. Equality was the keystone of the Jacobin ideology. In January he held several speeches in response to the decision making the exercise of civil rights dependent on a certain sum in the tax. During the debate on the suffrage, Robespierre ended his speech of 25 January 1790 with a blunt assertion that ‘all Frenchmen must be admissible to all public positions without any other distinction than that of virtues and talents’.<ref>P. McPhee (2013) "My Strength and My Health Are not Great Enough": Political Crises and Medical Crises in the Life of Maximilien Robespierre, 1790-1794</ref> He began to acquire a reputation and on 31 March 1790 Robespierre was elected as their president.<ref></ref> In Summer 1790 the Paris Commune was divided up in 48 sections which elected Jean Sylvain Bailly as mayor.<ref>A Concise History of the French Revolution by Sylvia Neely p, 121</ref> On 5 December 1790 Robespierre delievered a speech on the urgent topic of the National Guard, a police force independent from the army.<ref>Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française 2013/1 (No. 371)</ref><ref>Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr</ref><ref>Œuvres complètes de Maximilien de Robespierre, tome 6, p. 642</ref> Robespierre coined the famous motto "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" by adding the word fraternity.Template:Efn<ref>Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution by Otto Dann, pl. 28</ref><ref>Fair Shares for All: Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice by Jean-Pierre Gross, p. 46</ref>
On 27 April 1791, Robespierre opposed the plans for reorganizing the National Guard and restricting its membership to active citizens.<ref>The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much ... by James Bronterre O'BRIEN, p. 417-421</ref> He demanded the reconstitution of the army on a democratic basis<ref name="Kappelsberger">Template:Cite journal</ref> to allow passive citizens. He felt that the army had to become the instrument of defence of the Revolution and no longer be a threat to it.<ref name="auto5">Template:Cite web</ref> On 28 April, despite Robespierre's intensive campaign, the principle of an armed bourgeois militia was definitively enacted in the Assembly.<ref>Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot</ref>
On 9 May the Assembly discussed the right to petition.<ref></ref> Article III specifically recognised the right of active citizens to meet together to draw up petitions and addresses and present them to municipal authorities.<ref></ref> On 12 May the National Assembly gave citizenship to mulattos, but the colonial whites refused the implement the decree.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 81</ref> On 16-18 May when the elections began, Robespierre proposed and carried the motion that no deputy who sat in the Constituent assembly could sit in the succeeding Legislative assembly.<ref></ref> This self-denying ordinance, designed to demonstrate the disinterested patriotism of the framers of the new constitution, accelerated political change.Template:Sfn Its principal tactical purpose was to block the ambitions of the old leaders of the Jacobins, Antoine Barnave, Adrien Duport, and Alexandre de Lameth.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn On 28 May Robespierre proposed all Frenchmen should be declared active citizens and eligible to vote.<ref name="auto6"></ref> On 30 May he delivered a speech on the abolishment of death penalty but without success.<ref>The Choices of Maximilien Robespierre by Marisa Linton</ref> The following day Robespierre attacked Abbé Raynal who sent an address, criticising the work of the Constituent Assembly and demanding the restoration of the royal prerogative.
On 10 June Robespierre delivered a speech on the state of the army and proposed to dismiss officers.<ref name="auto5"/> Five days later Pétion became president of the "tribunal criminel provisoire", after Duport refused to work with Robespierre.<ref></ref> On 14 June the abolition of the guild system was sealed; the Le Chapelier Law prohibited any kind of workers' coalition or assembly. (It concerned in the first instance as much collective petitioning by the political clubs as trade associations.<ref></ref>) Proclaiming free enterprise as the norm upset Jean-Paul Marat, but not the urban labourer nor Robespierre.<ref></ref> On 13 June L'Ami du roi, a royalist pamphlet, described Robespierre as a "lawyer for bandits, rebels and murderers".<ref>Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française 2013/1 (No. 371)</ref> On 18 June the public elected him public prosecutor of Paris.<ref>[2]</ref> After Louis XVI's failed flight to Varennes (undertaken to escape the turmoil in Paris), the Assembly decreed that the king be suspended from his duties on 25 June until further notice. Between 13-15 July the Assembly debated the restoration of the king and his constitutional rights.<ref>Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien Robespierre, p. 527</ref> Reflecting on Louis' fate, Robespierre declared himself "neither monarchist nor republican".<ref>Renoult-Saint-André, Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours, Firmin Didot 1866, vol. 42, p. 407.</ref> He frowned on the efforts to promote republican ideology, but had not yet acquired the unchallenged grip over the Jacobins for which he would be known. The crowd on the Champ de Mars approved a petition calling for the king's trial. Alarmed at the progress of the Revolution, the moderate Jacobins in favor of a constitutional monarchy founded the club of the Feuillants on the next day, taking with them 264 deputies. In the evening the King was restored in his functions.
On the 17 July La Fayette declared martial law.<ref>J. Israel (2014) p. 206</ref> After the Champ de Mars massacre, the authorities ordered numerous arrests. Robespierre, who attended the Jacobin club, did not dare to go back to the rue Saintonge where he lodged, and so asked Laurent Lecointre if he knew a patriot near the Tuileries who could put him up for the night. Lecointre suggested Duplay's house and took him there.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Maurice Duplay, a cabinetmaker and ardent admirer lived at 398 Rue Saint-Honoré near the Tuileries. After a few days Robespierre decided to move in permanently, although he lived there in the backyard and that he was constantly exposed to the sound of working.<ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref> He was motivated by a desire to live closer to the Assembly and the meeting place of the Jacobins in the Rue Saint-Jacques. Template:Efn According to his friend, the surgeon Joseph Souberbielle, Joachim Vilate, and Duplay's daughter Élisabeth, Robespierre became engaged to Duplay's eldest daughter Éléonore, but his sister Charlotte vigorously denied this; also his brother Augustin refused to marry her.<ref>Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 90-91</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
On 29 September, the day before the dissolution of the Assembly, Robespierre opposed Jean Le Chapelier, who wanted to proclaim an end to the revolution and restrict the freedom of the clubs. Robespierre had been carefully preparing for this confrontation and it was the climax of his political career up to this point.Template:Sfn Pétion and Robespierre were brought back in triumph to their homes. On 14 October a law passed to reorganize the National Guard in cantons and districts; officers and sub-officers were to be elected for only one year. On 16 October Robespierre arrived in Arras. On 28 November he was back in the Jacobin club, where he met with a triumphant reception. Collot d'Herbois gave his chair to Robespierre, who presided that evening.
Opposition to war with Austria
Since Marat, Danton and Robespierre were no longer delegates of the Assembly, politics often took place outside the meeting hall. On 18 December 1791 Robespierre gave a speech at the Jacobin club against the declaration of war.Template:Sfn Robespierre warned against the threat of dictatorship stemming from war, in the following terms:
On 25 December Guadet, the chairman of the Assembly, suggested that 1792 should be the first year of universal liberty.Template:Sfn Jacques Pierre Brissot stated on 29 December that a war would be a benefit to the nation and boost the economy. He urged that France should declare war against Austria. Marat and Robespierre opposed him, arguing that victory would throw up a dictator while defeat would restore the king to his former powers; neither end, he said, would serve the revolution.Template:Sfn
This opposition from expected allies irritated the Girondins, and the war became a major point of contention between the factions. In his third speech on the war, Robespierre countered in the Jacobin club, "A revolutionary war must be waged to free subjects and slaves from unjust tyranny, not for the traditional reasons of defending dynasties and expanding frontiers..." Indeed, argued Robespierre, such a war could only favour the forces of counter-revolution, since it would play into the hands of those who opposed the sovereignty of the people. The risks of Caesarism were clear, for, in wartime, the powers of the generals would grow at the expense of ordinary soldiers, and the power of the king and court at the expense of the Assembly. These dangers should not be overlooked, he reminded his listeners, "...in troubled periods of history, generals often became the arbiters of the fate of their countries."Template:Sfn Already by then Robespierre knew he lost as he failed to gather a majority. His speech was nevertheless published and sent to all clubs and Jacobin societies of France.<ref></ref>
On 10 February 1792 he gave a speech on how to save the State and Liberty, and did not use the word war. He began by assuring his audience that everything he intended to propose was strictly constitutional. He then went on to advocate specific measures to strengthen, not so much the national defences as the forces that could be relied on to defend the revolution.Template:Sfn Not only the National Guard but also the people had to be armed, if necessary with pikes. Robespierre promoted a people's army, continuously under arms and able to impose its will on Feuillants and Girondins in the Constitutional Cabinet of Louis XVI and in the Legislative Assembly.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 22. Yale University Press</ref> The Jacobins decided to study his speech before deciding whether it should be printed.<ref></ref>
The Girondins planned strategies for out-manoeuvring Robespierre's influence in the Jacobins.Template:Sfn He was accused by Brissot and Guadet of trying to become the idol of the people.<ref>V. Aulard (1892) Jacobins, III, p. 526</ref> On 26 March the latter accused Robespierre of superstition, relying on divine providence;Template:Sfn he was also accused of acting as a secret agent for the Austrian Committee.Template:Sfn On 10 April Robespierre resigned the post of public prosecutor, which he officially held since 15 February.Template:Sfn He explained his resignation to the Jacobin Club, on 27 April, as part of his speech in response to the accusations against him. He threatened to leave the Jacobins, claiming he preferred to continue his mission as an ordinary citizen.<ref>H. Leuwers (2014) Robespierre, p. 211</ref>
On 17 May, Robespierre published the first issue of his journal Le Défenseur de la Constitution (The Defender of the Constitution), in which he attacked Brissot and publicised his scepticism over the whole war movement.<ref></ref><ref></ref> The journal served multiple purposes: first of all to print his speeches, to counter the influence of the royal court in public policy, to defend him from the accusations of Girondist leaders and to give voice to the economic and democratic interests of the broader masses in Paris and defend their rights.<ref>Lang, Timothy, "Rousseau and the Paradox of the Nation-State" (2018). History Open Access Publications. 2. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/history_oapubs/2 pp. 10, 14, 24</ref>Template:Sfn
The insurrectionary Commune of Paris
When the Legislative Assembly declared war against Austria on 20 April 1792, Robespierre stated that the French people must rise up and arm themselves completely, whether to fight abroad or to keep a lookout for despotism at home.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 86</ref> Robespierre responded by working to reduce the political influence of the officer class and the king. While arguing for the welfare of common soldiers, Robespierre urged new promotions to mitigate the domination of the officer class by the aristocratic and royalist École Militaire and the conservative National Guard.Template:Efn Along with other Jacobins, he urged in his magazine the creation of an "armée révolutionnaire" in Paris, consisting of 20,000 men,Template:Sfn with the goal to defend "liberty" (the revolution), maintain order in the sections and educate the members in democratic principles; an idea he borrowed from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Machiavelli.<ref name=snyder></ref> According to Jean Jaures, he considered this even more important than the right to strike.Template:Citation needed<ref name="Kappelsberger"/>
On 29 May 1792, the Assembly dissolved the Constitutional Guard, suspecting it of royalist and counter-revolutionary sympathies. In early June 1792, Robespierre proposed an end to the monarchy and the subordination of the Assembly to the General will.Template:Sfn Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to suppress nonjuring priests on 27 May, to raise a militia of volunteers on 8 June, and the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers dismissed on 12 June, the monarchy faced an abortive demonstration of 20 June.Template:Sfn Sergent-Marceau and Panis, the administrators of police, were sent out by Pétion to urge the Sans-culottes to lay down their weapons, telling them it was illegal to present a petition in arms, although their march to the Tuileries was not banned. They invited the officials join the procession and march along with them.<ref>Taine, H. (2011) The Origins of Contemporary France, p. 298.</ref>
Because French forces suffered disastrous defeats and a series of defections at the onset of the war, Robespierre and Marat feared the possibility of a military coup d'état. One was led by the Marquis de Lafayette, head of the National Guard, who at the end of June advocated the suppression of the Jacobin Club. Robespierre publicly attacked him in scathing terms: "General, while from the midst of your camp you declared war upon me, which you had thus far spared for the enemies of our state, while you denounced me as an enemy of liberty to the army, National Guard and Nation in letters published by your purchased papers, I had thought myself only disputing with a general... but not yet the dictator of France, arbitrator of the state."Template:Sfn
On 2 July, the Assembly authorized the National Guard to go to the Festival of Federation on 14 July, thus circumventing a royal veto. On 11 July, the Jacobins won an emergency vote in the wavering Assembly, declaring the nation in danger and drafting all Parisians with pikes or pistols into the National Guard.Template:Sfn Billaud-Varenne in the Jacobin club on 15 July, outlined the program following the uprising; the deportation of all the Bourbons, the cleansing of the National Guard, the election of a Convention, the "transfer of the Royal veto to the people", the deportation of all "enemies of the people" and exemption of the poorest from taxation. This programme was repeated almost unchanged in the Manifesto on 29 July, drawn up by Robespierre. On 24 July a "Central Office of Co-ordination" was formed and the sections got the right to be in "permanent" session.<ref></ref><ref></ref> On 25 July, the allied commander, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, issued a ferociously belligerent manifesto designed to spread panic in France, as it did.Template:Sfn This sentiment reflected the perspective of more radical Jacobins including those of the Marseille Club, who wrote to the deposed mayor Pétion and the people of Paris, "Here and at Toulon, we have debated the possibility of forming a column of 100,000 men to sweep away our enemies... Paris may have need of help. Call on us!" Template:Sfn At the end of July more than 3,000 Fédérés entered Paris useful in provoking various measures, notably the overthrow of the king. On 29 July Robespierre called for the deposition of the King and the election of a Convention.<ref>The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. viii</ref><ref>N. Hampson (1988) Prelude to Terror. The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789–1791, p. 113–114</ref>
On 1 August news of the Brunswick Manifesto began sweeping through Paris. The assembly ordered the municipalities that pikes should be made and issued to all citizens. On 3 August 47 sections demanded the deposition of the king. On 5 August Robespierre announced the uncovering of a plan for the king to escape to Château de Gaillon.<ref></ref> On 7 August Pétion suggested to Robespierre to contribute to the departure of Fédérés in order to appease the capital.<ref>Max Gallo (2007) Robespierre, p. 169</ref> On the evening of 9 August around 80 commissionaires of 28 sections (Billaud-Varenne, Chaumette, Robespierre, Hébert, Hanriot, Fleuriot-Lescot, Pache, Bourdon) gathered in the town hall. At midnight the municipal government of the city was dissolved. Sulpice Huguenin, head of the sans-culottes of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, was appointed provisional president of the Insurrectionary Commune.
Early in the morning (Friday, 10 August) 30,000 Fédérés and Sans-culottes militants from the sections led a successful assault upon the Tuileries;Template:Sfn according to Robespierre a triumph for the "passive" (non-voting) citizens. On the night of 11 August Robespierre was elected to the Paris Commune as a representative for the "Section de Piques". The governing committee called for the summoning of a convention chosen by universal male suffrage,Template:Sfn to form a new government and reorganize France. On 13 August Robespierre declared himself against the strengthening of the départments.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 109</ref> On 14 August Danton invited him to join the Council of Justice. Robespierre published the twelfth and last issue of "Le Défenseur de la Constitution", both an account and political testament.<ref></ref> On 16 August, Robespierre presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly from the Paris Commune to demand the establishment of a provisional Revolutionary Tribunal that had to deal with the "traitors" and "enemies of the people". The next day Robespierre refused to preside over it.<ref name="auto3">Template:Cite web</ref> He declined any position that might take him out of the political arena.Template:Sfn The Prussian army crossed the French frontier on 19 August. The Paris militias were incorporated in 48 battalions of the National Guard under Santerre. In the evening, in the presence of 35000 people, a ceremony was held for the 300 killed while storming the Tuileries.<ref>Rachel Rogers (2012) Vectors of Revolution: The British Radical Community in Early Republican Paris, 1792-1794, p. 467</ref>
The passive citizens still strived for acceptance and the supply of weapons. Danton proposed that the Assembly should authorize house searches ‘to distribute to the defenders of the patrie the weapons that indolent or ill-disposed citizens may be hiding’.<ref name="auto3"/> The Paris sections organized themselves as surveillance committees, conducting searches and making arrests.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These raids began on the evening of 29 August and went on for another two days.<ref name="auto3"/> Marat, head of the Committee of Surveillance and Robespierre both disliked Condorcet who proposed that the "enemies of the people" belonged to the whole nation and should be judged constitutionally in its name.Template:Sfn A sharp conflict developed between the Legislative and the Commune and its sections.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn On 30 August the Girondin minister of Interior Roland and Marguerite-Élie Guadet tried to suppress the influence of the Commune; the Assembly, tired of the pressures, declared the Commune illegal and suggested the organization of communal elections.Template:Sfn
Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot, who promoted the Duke of Brunswick, and Roland, who proposed that the members of the government should leave Paris, taking the treasury and the king with it.<ref name="auto3"/> On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the national Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Rolland and Brissot arrested.<ref></ref>Template:Sfn Madame de Staël who tried to escape Paris was forced by the crowd to go to the town hall. She noted that Robespierre was in the chair that day, assisted by Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne as secretaries.<ref></ref> However, according to Maximilien's sister Charlotte, he never presided over the insurrectionary commune.<ref name="auto7"/>
The National Convention
On 2 September 1792 French National Convention election began. In vain Robespierre proposed excluding deputies from the Assembly re-election to the Convention.<ref name="Jordan119"></ref>Template:Sfn However, in his management of the elections in Paris, he succeeded in excluding royalist candidates.<ref name="Jordan119"/> In Paris suspected Girondin and Feuillant candidates were boycotted; Robespierre made sure Brissot could not be elected in Paris.<ref>The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv, 126</ref> In the afternoon the September Massacres began.<ref></ref> Not an outburst of passion, but coldly and carefully organized, according to Adolphe Thiers, George Long and Stanley Loomis.<ref>France and Its Revolutions: A Pictorial History 1789-1848 by George Long, p. 206-207</ref><ref>S. Loomis, p. 74, 81, 96, 143, 207</ref> Charlotte Corday held Marat responsible, Madame Roland Danton. Robespierre visited the Temple prison to check on the security of the royal family.<ref></ref> On 5 September, Robespierre and Pétion were elected deputy to the National Convention by their constituency. According to his sister, Robespierre refused to talk to Pétion de Villeneuve, who finally rallied to Brissot. <ref>Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 76</ref>
On 21 September the Jacobins and Cordeliers took the high benches at the back of the former Salle du Manège, giving them the label the "Montagnards", or "the Mountaineers"; below them were the "Manège" of the Girondists, moderate Republicans and then the Plain of the independents, virtually leaderless and dominated by the radical Mountain.<ref>J.F. Bernard (1973) Talleyrand: a biography, p. 106</ref> On 26 September, the Girondist Marc-David Lasource accused Robespierre of wanting to form a dictatorship.<ref></ref> Rumours spread that Robespierre, Marat and Danton were plotting to establish a triumvirate. (From October 1791 until September 1792 the French Legislative Assembly saw an unprecedented turnover of four ministers of Justice, four ministers of Navy, six ministers of the interior, seven ministers of foreign affairs, and eight ministers of war.<ref>The French Legislative Assembly of 1791 by C. J. Mitchell, p. 174</ref>) On 29 October, Louvet de Couvrai attacked Robespierre.<ref></ref> He accused Robespierre of star allures,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and having done nothing to stop the September massacre; instead, he had used it to have more Montagnards elected.<ref></ref> Robespierre was given a week to respond. On 5 November, Robespierre defended himself, the Jacobin Club and his supporters in and beyond Paris:
Turning the accusations upon his accusers, Robespierre delivered one of the most famous lines of the French Revolution to the Assembly:
As his opponents knew well, Robespierre had a strong base of support among the women of Paris. John Moore (Scottish physician) was sitting in the galleries, and noted that the audience was ‘almost entirely filled with women’.<ref name=Shusterman2014>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref></ref> Condorcet stated: It is that the French Revolution is a religion and Robespierre is making it into a cult. He is a priest who has his devotees; but it is evident that all of his power lies in the distaff. Robespierre tried to appeal to women because in the early days of the Revolution, when he had tried to appeal to men, he had failed.<ref name=Shusterman2014 />
Execution of Louis XVI
The Convention's unanimous declaration of a French Republic on 21 September 1792 left the fate of the former king open to debate. A commission was therefore established to examine the evidence against him while the Convention's Legislation Committee considered legal aspects of any future trial. Most Montagnards favoured judgment and execution, while the Girondins were more divided concerning how to proceed, with some arguing for royal inviolability, others for clemency, and others advocating lesser punishment or banishment.Template:Sfn On 13 November Robespierre stated in the Convention that a Constitution which Louis had violated himself, and which declared his inviolability, could not now be used in his defence.Template:Sfn Robespierre had been taken ill and had done little other than support Saint-Just, who gave his first major speech to address and argue against the king's inviolability. On 20 November, opinion turned sharply against Louis following the discovery of a secret cache of 726 documents consisting of Louis's personal communications with bankers and ministers.Template:Sfn At his trial, he claimed not to recognize documents clearly signed by himself.<ref>Hardman, John (2016) The life of Louis XVI, p. ?</ref>
With the question of the king's fate now occupying public discourse, Robespierre delivered on 3 December a speech that would define the rhetoric and course of Louis's trial.Template:Sfn All the deputies from the Mountain were asked to attend. Robespierre argued that the dethroned king could now function only as a threat to liberty and national peace, and that the members of the Assembly were not to be impartial judges but rather statesmen with responsibility for ensuring public safety:
In arguing for a judgment by the elected Convention without trial, Robespierre supported the recommendations of Jean-Baptiste Mailhe, who headed the commission reporting on legal aspects of Louis's trial or judgment. Unlike some Girondins, Robespierre specifically opposed judgment by primary assemblies or a referendum, believing that this could cause a civil war.Template:Sfn While he called for a trial of Queen Marie-Antoinette and the imprisonment of the Dauphin, Robespierre advocated that the king be executed in spite of his opposition to capital punishment:
The day of the last hearing of the king was 26 December 1792. On 14 January 1793, the king was unanimously voted guilty of conspiracy and attacks upon public safety. On 15 January the call for a referendum was defeated by 424 votes to 287, which Robespierre led. On 16 January, voting began to determine the king's sentence and the session continued for 24 hours. During this time, Robespierre worked fervently to ensure the king's execution. Of the 721 deputies who voted, at least 361 had to vote for death. The Jacobins successfully defeated the Girondins' final appeal for clemency<ref>P. McPhee (2016) Liberty or Death, p. 172</ref> and Louis was executed two days later on 21 January at the Place de la Révolution.Template:Sfn
Destruction of the Girondists
After the execution of the king, the influence of Robespierre, Danton and the pragmatic politicians increased at the expense of the Girondins who were largely seen as responsible for the inadequate response to the Flanders Campaign they had themselves initiated. At the end of February more than thousand shops were plundered in Paris. Protesters claimed that the Girondins were responsible for the high prices.<ref>L. Moore, p. 172</ref> On 24 February the Convention decreed a Levee en Masse. In March, the attempt to draft new troops set off an uprising in rural France. The Montagnards lost influence in Marseille, Toulon and Lyon. On 10 March 1793, a provisional Revolutionary Tribunal was established; the Convention appointed Fouquier-Tinville as the public prosecutor and Fleuriot-Lescot as his assistant.
On 12 March Charles-François Dumouriez criticized the interference of officials of the War Ministry which employed many Jacobins.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 108, 150</ref> The Jacobin leaders were quite sure that, after Battle of Neerwinden (1793), France had come close to a military coup mounted by Dumouriez and supported by the Girondins. On 22 March Dumouriez urged the Duke of Chartres to join his plan to dissolve the Convention, to restore the French Constitution of 1791, the restoration of a constitutional monarchy and to free Marie-Antoinette and her children.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 175-176</ref> On 26 March Robespierre became one of the 25 members of the Commission of Public Safety to coordinate war effort.<ref>France and Its Revolutions: G. Long (1850) A Pictorial History 1789-1848, p. 265</ref> The Montagnards launched a vigorous campaign against the Girondins by associating them with Dumouriez, who refused to surrender himself to the Revolutionary Tribunal.<ref>P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 179-180</ref> Suspicion rose against Phillipe Égalité, because of the friendship of his eldest son, with Dumouriez. On 3 April Robespierre declared before the Convention that the whole war was a prepared game between Dumouriez and Brissot with the aim of overthrowing the Republic. He left the Commission of Public Safety after eight days, not willing to cooperate with Brissot. On 6 April the Committee of Public Safety was installed with mainly members from the Plain. Robespierre was pessimistic about the prospects of parliamentary action and told the Jacobins that it was necessary to raise an army of sans-culottes to defend Paris and arrest infidel deputies, naming and accusing the Duke of Orleans, Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet and Armand Gensonné.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 157</ref> Robespierre's speeches during the month of April 1793 reflect his growing radicalization. "I ask the sections to raise an army large enough to form the kernel of a Revolutionary Army that will draw all the sans-culottes from the departments to exterminate the rebels …"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "Force the government to arm the people, who in vain demanded arms for two years."Template:Sfn On 5 April Marat, president of the Jacobin club, called for expulsion of 22 Girondins.<ref name="The Jacobin Clubs"></ref> On 6 April the Committee of Public Safety, only nine members, was installed on proposal of Maximin Isnard, who was supported by Georges Danton. Robespierre held furious speeches, denouncing the Girondins, encouraging hoarding and deliberately supporting the interests of the rich against the poor.Template:Sfn On 24 April 1793 Robespierre presented his version for the new Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793 with four articles on the right of property; he advocated a progressive tax and fraternity between the people of all the nations.<ref name="auto11">Template:Cite web</ref>
On 1 May the crowds threatened armed insurrection if the emergency measures demanded were not adopted.Template:Sfn On 8 and 12 May in the Jacobin club, Robespierre restated the necessity of founding a revolutionary sans-culottes army that would be funded by a tax on the rich and would be intended to defeat aristocrats and counter-revolutionaries inside both the Convention and across France. He said that public squares should be used to produce arms and pikes.Template:Sfn After hearing these statements, the Girondins became concerned. On 18 May Guadet proposed to examine the "exactions" and to replace municipal authorities.Template:Sfn<ref>The Cambridge Modern History, Band 8, p. 271</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A commission of inquiry of twelve members, with a very strong Girondin majority, was set up on 21 May to examine all the prisoners taken last month and their plots against the Convention.<ref></ref> Hébert, the editor of Le Père Duchesne, was arrested for attacking the representatives. The next day, the Commune demanded that Hébert be released. Maximin Isnard threatened then with the total destruction of Paris.
On 26 May Robespierre delivered one of the most decisive speeches of his career.Template:Sfn He openly called at the Jacobin Club "to place themselves in insurrection against corrupt deputies".Template:Sfn Isnard declared that the Convention would not be influenced by any violence and that Paris had to respect the representatives from elsewhere in France.<ref></ref> The Convention decided Robespierre would not be heard. Isnard hindered him to speak. The atmosphere became extremely agitated; some deputies were willing to kill if Isnard had the courage to declare civil war. On 28 May the Commune accepted the creation of a sans-culottes army to enforce revolutionary laws.Template:Sfn On 29 May, the delegates representing thirty-three of the Paris sections formed an insurrectionary committee.Template:Sfn Robespierre urged the arrest of the Girondists. "If the Commune does not unite closely with the people, it violates its most sacred duty."<ref></ref> On Friday 31 May 1793 the Commune appointed Hanriot to the position of provisionary "Commandant-General" of the Parisian National Guard.Template:Sfn The next day all Paris was in arms. The Convention met at the sound of the tocsin and drumming. Marat led the attack on the representatives to be removed from the Convention. He called for the arrest of nine members of the Commission of Twelve and repeated his call for expulsion of 22 Girondins, who in January had voted against the execution of the King.<ref name="The Jacobin Clubs" />
During the insurrection Robespierre had scrawled a note in his memorandum-book:
The commune declaring itself duped, demanded and prepared a "Supplement" to the revolution. Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard, by this time mostly existing of Sans-culottes, from the town hall to the Palais National.<ref name=Popkin66></ref> In the evening on 2 June, a large force of supposedly 80,000 armed men surrounded the Convention with 160 cannons. "The armed force", Hanriot said, "will retire only when the Convention has delivered to the people the deputies denounced by the Commune."<ref name="gallica_12148"></ref> The Girondins attempted to exit, walked round the Palace in a theatrical procession and confronted on all sides by bayonets and pikes, returned to the meeting hall and submitted to the inevitable. With Marat presiding, the Twenty-Two were seized one by one after some juggling with names.Template:Sfn They decided that 31 deputies were not to be arrested, but were called upon to voluntarily to suspend the exercise of their functions. The Montagnards now had unchallenged control of the Convention. The Girondins, going to the provinces, joined the counter-revolution.<ref>C.L.R. James (1938) The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture, p. 138</ref>
Reign of Terror
After the fall of the Girondins, the French government faced serious internal challenges, when four provincial cities—Caen, Bordeaux, Lyon, and Marseille—rebelled against the more radical revolutionaries in Paris, threatening to plunge France into civil war. In July France threatened to fall apart, attacked by the aristocracy in Vendée and Brittany, by federalism in Lyon, in Le Midi and in Normandy, in a struggle with all Europe and the foreign factions;Template:Sfn 26 of the 83 departments were no longer under the control of Paris. French revolutionary politicians believed a stable government was needed to quell counterrevolutionary sentiments and activities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 172</ref> On 1 August, on a report by Barère, the Convention decreed the systematic destruction of the Vendée.<ref name="erenow.net">June to October 1793. The ‘federalist’ uprisings, the Committee of Public Safety, the assassination of Marat, the Enragés and the popular movement, the general maximum</ref>
On 13 July the day that Marat was murdered Robespierre defended the plans of Louis-Michel le Peletier to teach revolutionary ideas in schools.<ref></ref> He denounced the schemes of the Parisian radicals known as the Enragés, who were using the rising inflation and food shortage to stir up the Paris sections.<ref name="auto9"/> On 27 July 1793, Robespierre was added to the Committee of Public Safety, after Gasparin resigned his place on the Committee "for reasons of health".<ref>S. Loomis, p. 254</ref> He himself said he joined reluctantly. It was the first time he held any executive office. Robespierre became a kind of Minister without Portfolio,Template:Sfn apparently as the unofficial prime-minister—the committee was non-hierarchical.<ref>Raphael Matta Duvignau, "The Committee of public safety (6th April 1793 — 4th brumaire an IV)", The French Revolution [online], 3 | 2012, online since 20 December 2012, accessed 25 February 2019. DOI : 10.4000/lrf.773</ref> On 4 August the French Constitution of 1793 passed through the Convention, containing four articles by Robespierre which affirm the unity of the human race, the need for solidarity between the peoples and the rejection of kings.<ref name="auto1"/> The right of association, right to work and public assistance, right to public education, right of rebellion (and duty to rebel when the government violates the right of the people), and the abolition of slavery, were all written into the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Though the Constitution was overwhelmingly popular and its drafting and ratification buoyed popular support for the Montagnards, the convention set it aside indefinitely until a future peace.<ref>Kennedy, M. L. "The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: 1793–1795," p. 53. Berghahn Books, New York: 2000.</ref>
On 4 September, the Sans-culottes again invaded the Convention. They demanded tougher measures against rising prices and the setting up of a system of terror to root out the counter-revolution.<ref></ref> On 5 September Terror was formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention. A "Sans-culotte army" was formed in Paris, to sweep away conspirators.<ref name="auto4">Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 22</ref> Barère voiced the Committee of Public Safety's support for the measures desired by the assembly: he presented a decree that was passed immediately, establishing a paid armed force of 6,000 men and 1,000 gunners ‘designed to crush the counter-revolutionaries, to execute wherever the need arises the revolutionary laws and the measures of public safety that are decreed by the National Convention, and to protect provisions’<ref name="erenow.net"/> In a proclamation, Barère said, "It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads. It is time to horrify all the conspirators. So legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! Let us be in revolution because everywhere counter-revolution is being woven by our enemies. The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty." The next day the ultra's Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne were elected in the Committee of Public Safety.Template:Sfn
Robespierre was particularly concerned that the public officials should be virtuous.<ref></ref> He had sent his younger brother (and sister) to Nice in the Provence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Committee of General Security which was tasked with rooting out crimes and preventing counter-revolution began to manage the country's internal police and finance. On 8 September, the banks and exchange offices were closed to prevent the exchange of forged assignats and the export of capital.<ref>Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution by Thomas J. Sargent and François R. Velde. In: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 103, No. 3 (Jun., 1995). Published by: The University of Chicago Press. Template:JSTOR pp. 504–05</ref> On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the imprisonment of vaguely defined "suspects". The Revolutionary Tribunal was divided into four sections, of which two were always active at the same time.
On 11 and 29 September, Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne introduced the General maximum,<ref name="auto4" /> particularly in the area which supplied Paris.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 48, 52</ref> On 10 October they paved the way for the law recognizing the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme "Revolutionary Government".<ref name="auto8"></ref> The provisional government would be revolutionary until peace. Commissioners were ordered not to report to the Convention, but to the Committee of Public Safety. Danton quit politics, decided to leave Paris and set off to Arcis-sur-Aube (with his 16-year-old wife).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On 12 October when Hébert accused Marie-Antoinette during her trial of incest with her son, Robespierre had dinner with Barère, Saint-Just and Joachim Vilate. Discussing the matter, Robespierre broke his plate with his fork and called Hébert an "imbécile".<ref></ref>Template:Sfn<ref></ref> According to Vilate Robespierre then had already two or three bodyguards. On 25 October the Revolutionary government was accused of doing nothing.Template:Sfn At the end of the month, several members of the General Security Committee assisted by armées revolutionnaires were sent into the provinces to suppress active resistance against the Jacobins. Barras and Fréron went to Marseille and Toulon. Fouché and Collot-d'Herbois halted the revolt of Lyon against the National Convention, Jean-Baptiste Carrier ordered the drownings at Nantes. Tallien succeeded in feeding the guillotine in Bordeaux and Joseph Lebon in Somme and Pas-de-Calais. Saint-Just and Le Bas visited the Rhine Army to watch the generals and punish officers for the least sign of treasonous timidity, or lack of initiative.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 23</ref> On 31 October Brissot and 21 Girondins were guillotined in 36 minutes.
On the morning of 14 November 1793 François Chabot burst into Robespierre's room dragging him from bed with accusations of counter-revolution and a foreign conspiracy, waving a hundred thousand livres in assignat notes, claiming that a band of royalist plotters gave it to him to buy Fabre d'Eglantine's vote, along with others, to liquidate some stock in the French East India Company.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn Chabot was arrested three days later; Courtois urged Danton to return to Paris immediately. On 25 November 1793, the remains of Comte de Mirabeau were removed from the Pantheon on the initiative of Robespierre when it became known that in his last months the count had secretly conspired with the court of Louis XVI.Template:Sfn
On 4 December, by the Law of Revolutionary Government, the independence of the départements came to an end, when extensive powers of Committee of Public Safety were codified. This law, submitted by Billaud, was seen as a deeply drastic decision against the independence of municipalities and federalism; stability and centralization became more important than democratic principles. The departmental armées revolutionnaires (except in Paris) were banned on proposal of Tallien.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 523-526</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The sections lost all rights to control their delegates and officials. On 12 December the Indulgents mounted an attack on the Committee of Public Safety.Template:Sfn Robespierre replied to Danton's plea for an end to the Terror on 25 December (5 Nivôse, year II). Robespierre presented a report to the Convention on the principles of the revolutionary government, justifying the collective dictatorship of the National Convention, administrative centralization, and the purging of local authorities. He protested against the various factions [Hébertists and Dantonists] that threatened the government.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Construire une nouvelle catégorie politique: Robespierre et la théorie du gouvernement révolutionnaire par Hervé Leuwers, p. 12</ref> Robespierre strongly believed that the Terror should be increased in intensity, rather than diminished.: Template:Quote According to Donald Clark Hodges, this was the first important statement in modern times of a philosophy of dictatorship.<ref></ref> The Committee became a War Cabinet with unprecedented powers over the economic as well as the political life of the nation, but it had to get the approval of the Convention for any legislation and could be changed any time.Template:Sfn In the winter of 1793–94, a majority of the Committee decided that the ultra-left Hébertists would have to perish or their opposition within the Committee would overshadow the other factions due to its influence in the Commune of Paris. Robespierre also had personal reasons for disliking the Hébertists for their atheism and "bloodthirstiness", which he associated with the old aristocracy.Template:Sfn Under intense emotional pressure from Lyonnaise women, Robespierre suggested that a secret commission be set up to examine the cases of the Lyon rebels, to see if injustices had been committed. This is the closest he came to adopting a public position against the use of terror.Template:Sfn Early January Robespierre the younger was shocked at the changed atmosphere in the Jacobin club.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By now the revolutionaries feared one another.<ref></ref>
The "enemy within"
In December 1793 the journalist Camille Desmoulins launched a new journal, Le Vieux Cordelier, attacking François Chabot in the first issue. He defended Danton and warned not to exaggerate the revolution in the second issue. In the next he compared Robespierre with Julius Caesar and arguing that the Revolution should return to its original ideas en vogue around 10 August 1792.<ref></ref> Robespierre came into conflict with Desmoulins, who had taken up the cause of the 200,000 defenceless civilians and had been detained in prisons as suspects.<ref>Press in the French Revolution by John Thomas Gilchrist, p. 19</ref> According to Desmoulins, a Committee of Grace had to be established. On 7 January Robespierre proposed that copies of Le Vieux Cordelier be burned in the brazier of the Jacobin club, but decided to withdraw this suggestion after heavy attacks on the freedom of the press. Robespierre attacked the authenticity of Desmoulins by giving the blackest interpretation to words and actions that he had witnessed from the privileged position of being a trusted friend.Template:Sfn Desmoulins counselled Robespierre not to attempt to build the Republic on such a rare quality as virtue.
In his Report on the Principles of Political Morality of 5 February 1794, Robespierre praised the revolutionary government and argued that terror and virtue were necessary:
If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country ... The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.<ref name="morality">Template:Cite web</ref>
Virtue meant devotion to family, to work, to the ideals of the Revolution. It also meant getting rid of the "enemies of Virtue". "Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie [the 'fatherland']."<ref>Robespierre, "On Political Morality"</ref> Aulard sums up the Jacobin train of thought, "All politics, according to Robespierre, must tend to establish the reign of virtue and confound vice. He reasoned thus: those who are virtuous are right; error is a corruption of the heart; error cannot be sincere; error is always deliberate."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Rude, George (ed.), Robespierre, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 136.</ref> According to the German journalist K.E. Oelsner, Robespierre behaved "more like a leader of a religious sect than of a political party. He can be eloquent but most of the time he is boring, especially when he goes on too long, which is often the case."Template:Sfn
On 26 February 1794, Saint-Just delivered a speech before the Convention in which he directed the assault against Danton, claiming that the Dantonists wanted to slow down the Terror and the Revolution. Self-indulgent over-eating, especially when flaunted in public, was an indication of suspect political loyalties, according to Saint-Just.
From 13 February to 13 March 1794, Robespierre had withdrawn from active business on the Committee due to illness.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (On 19 February, Maximilien decided therefor to return to the Duplays.<ref>L. Jacob (1960) Hébert, Le Père Duchesne. Chef des sans-culottes, p. 326.</ref>) On 15 March, he reappeared in the Convention. Subsequently, he joined Saint-Just in attacks on the Hébertists.Template:Sfn Hébert, the voice of the Sans-culottes, had been using the latest issue of Le Père Duchesne to criticise Robespierre. On the same evening, 13–14 March, Hébert and 18 of his followers were arrested on charges of complicity with foreign powers and guillotined on 24 March. (Hanriot was denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as an accomplice of Hébert, but protected by Robespierre.<ref name="romantic-circles.org">The Morning Chronicle (18 August) and Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel (29 July)</ref>) Their death was a sort of carnival, a pleasant spectacle according to Michelet's witnesses.
On 30 March the two committees decided to arrest Danton and Desmoulins without chance to be heard in the Convention.Template:Sfn On 2 April the trial began on charges of conspiracy, theft and corruption; a financial scandal involving the French East India Company provided a "convenient pretext" for Danton's downfall.<ref>W. Doyle (1990) The Oxford History of the French Revolution, pp. 272–74.</ref> The Dantonists, in Robespierre's eyes, had become false patriots who had preferred personal and foreign interests to the welfare of the nation. Robespierre was sharply critical of Amar's report, which presented the scandal as purely a matter of fraud. Robespierre insisted that it was a foreign plot, demanded that the report be re-written, and used the scandal as the basis for rhetorical attacks on William Pitt the Younger he believed was involved.<ref>Matrat, J. Robespierre Angus & Robertson 1971 p. 242</ref> Legendre attempted to defend Danton in the Convention but was silenced by Robespierre. No friend of the Dantonists dared speak up in case he too should be accused of putting friendship before virtue.Template:Sfn The juror Souberbielle asked himself: "Which of the two, Robespierre or Danton, is the more useful to the Republic?"Template:Sfn The death of Hébert had rendered Robespierre master of the Paris Commune; the death of Danton, master of the Convention.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On the day her husband was executed Lucile Desmoulins was imprisoned. She was accused of trying to raise money to free her husband and Danton. She admitted to having warned the prisoners of a course of events as in September 1792, and that it was her duty to revolt against it. Robespierre was not only their eldest friend but also witnessed at their marriage in December 1790, together with Pétion and Brissot.<ref>Jean-Joseph Gaume (1856) La Révolution, recherches historiques, Quatrième partie, Paris, Gaume frères, pp. 136–37</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On 1 April 1794 Lazare Carnot proposed the executive council be suppressed and the ministries be replaced by twelve Committees reporting to the Committee of Public Safety.<ref name="auto11"/> The proposal was unanimously adopted by the National Convention and set up by Martial Herman from 8 April. When Barras and Fréron paid a visit to Robespierre, they were received extremely unfriendly. (Robespierre was without the spectacles he usually wore in public.) On 16 April, the Committee of Public Safety received the power to search and to bring accused persons before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On 23 April a General Police Bureau was set up, tasked with gathering information and mostly report directly to Robespierre.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv</ref> Within a week Robespierre took over the running and expanded its remit when Saint-Just left Paris for the army in the north.Template:Sfn The decree of 8 May suspended the revolutionary court in the provinces and brought all political cases for trial in the capital.<ref>Thompson, J.M. Robespierre p. 505 Basil Blackwell 1988</ref>
Georges Couthon introduced the drastic Law of 22 Prairial, which was enacted on 10 June. Under this law, the Tribunal became a simple court of condemnation refusing suspects the right of counsel and allowing only one of two verdicts – complete acquittal or death and that based not on evidence but on the moral conviction of the jurors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 11 July the shopkeepers, craftsmen, etc. were temporarily released from prison. In the next three days, 156 people were sent in batches to the guillotine, which had been moved to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine three weeks before in order to stand out less. According to François Furet, the prisons were overpopulated; they housed over 8,000 "suspects" at the beginning of Thermidor year II.Template:Sfn The city also had to solve serious problems on the cemeteries because of the smell. Mid-July two new mass graves were dug at Picpus Cemetery in the impermeable ground.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Abolition of slavery
Throughout the Revolution, Robespierre (at times ambivalently and at others outspokenly) opposed slavery on French soil or in French territories and he played an important role in abolishing it.<ref></ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In May 1791 Robespierre argued passionately in the National Assembly against the Colonial Committee, dominated by slaveholders in the Caribbean. The colonial lobby declared that political rights for Black people would cause France to lose her colonies. Robespierre responded, "We should not compromise the interests humanity holds most dear, the sacred rights of a significant number of our fellow citizens," later shouting, "Death to the colonies!"Template:Sfn Robespierre was furious that the assembly gave "constitutional sanction to slavery in the colonies," and argued for equal political rights regardless of skin colour.Template:Sfn Robespierre did not argue for slavery's immediate abolition, but slavery advocates in France regarded Robespierre as a "bloodthirsty innovator" and a traitor plotting to give French colonies to England.Template:Sfn Only months later, hundreds of thousands of slaves in St Domingue led a revolution against slavery and colonial rule.Template:Sfn
In the following years, the slaves of St. Domingue effectively liberated themselves and formed an army to oppose re-enslavement. Robespierre denounced the slave trade in a speech before the Convention in April 1793.Template:Sfn The radical 1793 constitution supported by Robespierre and the Montagnards, which was ratified by a national referendum, granted universal suffrage to French men and explicitly condemned slavery. However, the constitution was never implemented.Template:Sfn In November 1793, Robespierre supported a proposal to investigate the colonial general Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, a Girondist who had freed slaves in the colonies.Template:Sfn At the same time, Robespierre denounced the French minister to the newly formed United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt, who had sided with Sonthonax.Template:Sfn
By 1794, French debates concerning slavery reached their apogee. In late January, delegations representing both former slaveholders as well as former slaves arrived in France to petition respectively for the abolition of slavery and its abolition.Template:Sfn After being briefly imprisoned, the delegation opposing slavery was freed on the orders of the Committee of Public Safety, on which Robespierre sat. Receiving the delegation on their release, the National Convention passed a decree banning slavery on 4 February.Template:Sfn At the same time, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety heard a petition from the slaveholders but did not adopt it. On the day after the emancipation decree, Robespierre delivered a speech to the National Convention in which he praised the French as the first to "summon all men to equality and liberty, and their full rights as citizens," using the word slavery twice but without specifically mentioning the French colonies.Template:Sfn Despite petitions from the slaveholding delegation, Robespierre and the Committee decided to endorse the decree in full.Template:Sfn
Several weeks later, in a speech before the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre linked the cruelty of slavery with serfdom:
He attended a meeting of the Jacobin club in June 1794 to support a decree ending slavery, and later signed orders to ratify it.Template:Sfn The decree led to a surge in popularity for the Republic among Black people in St-Domingue, most of whom had already freed themselves and were seeking military alliances to guarantee their freedom.Template:Sfn
Cult of the Supreme Being
Robespierre's desire for revolutionary change was not limited only to the political realm. He also opposed the Catholic Church and the pope, particularly their policy of clerical celibacy.Template:Sfn Having denounced the Cult of Reason and other perceived excesses of dechristianization undertaken by political opponents in France, he sought to instill a spiritual resurgence across the nation predicated on Deist beliefs. On 6 May 1794 Robespierre announced to the Convention that in the name of the French people, the Committee of Public Safety had decided to recognize the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul. Accordingly on 7 May, Robespierre delivered a long presentation to the Convention ‘on the relation of religious and moral ideas to republican principles, and on national festivals’.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre supported a decree that the Convention passed to establish an official state religion called the Cult of the Supreme Being. The notion of the Supreme Being was based on the creed of the Savoy chaplain that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had outlined in Book IV of Emile.
In the afternoon of 8 June (also the Christian holiday of Pentecost) a "Festival of the Supreme Being" was helt. Everything was arranged to the exact specifications that had been drawn up previously set before the ceremony. The ominous and symbolic guillotine had been moved to the original standing place of the Bastille. The choirs were composed by Étienne-Nicolas Méhul and François-Joseph Gossec, with lyrics from the obscure poet fr:Théodore Désorgues. Pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers with their babies were specifically invited to walk in the procession which started at the Tuileries.Template:Sfn (Joachim Vilate had invited Robespierre to have lunch in the Pavillon de Flore, but he ate little.)
The festival was also Robespierre's first appearance in the public eye as a leader for the people, and also as president of the Convention, to which he had been elected only four days earlier.Template:Sfn Witnesses state that throughout the "Festival of the Supreme Being", Robespierre beamed with joy. He was able to speak of the things about which he was truly passionate, including virtue, nature, deist beliefs, and his disagreements with atheism. He dressed elaborately, wearing feathers on his hat and holding fruit and flowers in his hands, and walked first in the festival procession. According to Michelet: "Robespierre, as usual walked quickly, with an agitated air. The Convention did not move nearly so fast. The leaders, perhaps maliciously and out of a perfidious deference, remained well behind him, thereby isolating him."<ref>Michelet, J. The History of the French Revolution (Charles Cocks, trans., 1847 online.</ref> The procession ended on the Champ de Mars, which was renamed the Champ de la Réunion ("Field of Reunion") for that day. The Convention, climbed to the summit, where a liberty tree had been planted.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre delivered two speeches in which he emphasized his concept of a Supreme Being:
Is it not He whose immortal hand, engraving on the heart of man the code of justice and equality, has written there the death sentence of tyrants? Is it not He who, from the beginning of time, decreed for all the ages and for all peoples liberty, good faith, and justice? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power. He created men to help each other, to love each other mutually, and to attain to happiness by the way of virtue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Robespierre came down the mountain in a way that resembled Moses as the leader of the people. To offset his small stature (5’3"), he wore elevated shoes with silver buckles. While for some it was exciting to see him at his finest, other deputies agreed that Robespierre had played too prominent a role. Thuriot, was heard saying, "Look at the bugger; it's not enough for him to be master, he has to be God".Template:Sfn Five days later, on 15 June, the president of the Committee of General Security Vadier on behalf of the two committees, presented a report on a "new conspiracy". He insinuated that Robespierre fitted the prophecies by Catherine Théot.Template:Sfn Robespierre with his ‘tyrannical habit of judging’ demanded the heads of nine people, who opposed his republic of virtue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Madame de Staël, it was from that time he was lost.<ref>G. Rudé (1967) Robespierre, p. 127</ref>
Downfall
On 20 May Robespierre personally signed the warrant for Theresa Cabarrus' arrest. Never did Robespierre pursue a victim more remorselessly.<ref>L. Moore, p. 287</ref> On 23 May, Cécile Renault was arrested after having approached Robespierre's residence with two penknives; dressed in a red smock she was executed together with her parents (and 52 others) one week later. Robespierre used this assassination attempt against him as a pretext for scapegoating the British.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
On 10 June the Law of 22 Prairial was introduced without consultation from the Committee of General Security, which deepened the conflict between the two committees and doubled the number of executions.Template:Sfn Collot d'Herbois, Carrier and Tallien feared for their lives, due to the excesses carried out by them in various regions of France to stamp out opposition to the revolutionary government.<ref>Jean Jaurès, "The Law of Prairial and the Great Terror (Fall, year IV)", in Socialist History of the French Revolution (translated by Mitchell Abidor), Marxists.org</ref> Almost all the deputies agreed it had become dangerous. Some were uneasy and asked for the debate to be adjourned so the clauses could be examined. Robespierre refused and demanded immediate discussion. On 11 June Robespierre attacked Fouché, accusing him of leading a conspiracy.
On 28 June Saint-Just arrived in Paris and discovered that Robespierre's political position had degraded significantly. Carnot and Cambon proposed to end the terror. Carnot described Saint-Just and Robespierre as "ridiculous dictators".<ref name="auto11"/> <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 1 July Robespierre denounced in the Jacobin club a conspiracy against him: "In London I am denounced to the French army as a dictator; the same slanders have been repeated in Paris."<ref name="auto11"/> On 3 July he left the Committee slamming the door and shouting "Then save the country without me".<ref>Petites Chroniques #14 : La Révolution française — 1790 à 1794 ..., Band 14</ref> He attacked Tallien and Dubois-Crancé and had them excluded from the Jacobins on 11 July.<ref></ref> He made no secret of the fact that he intended to have them punished. On 14 July Robespierre had Fouché, who refused to meet his enemy face to face, expelled from the Jacobin Club. To evade arrest, which usually took place during the night, about fifty deputies avoided staying at home. On 22 and 23 July, the two committees met in a plenary session. Both Committees were responsible for suppressing counterrevolution, but ended targeting each other.<ref name="auto8"/><ref></ref> Saint-Just declared in negotiations with Barère that he was prepared to make concessions on the subordinate position of the Committee of General Security.<ref>Albert Soboul (1974), pp. 345, 347?</ref>Template:Sfn Couthon agreed to more cooperation between the two committees. For Robespierre, the Committee of General Security had to remain subordinate to the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre wanted to take away the authority of the Committee of General Security.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
For forty days - it seems - Robespierre rarely appeared in the Convention, but signed five decrees by the Committee of Public Safety, and continued his work with the police bureau till the end of June 1794.<ref>Robespierre by John Hardman</ref> Not long after Robespierre decided to make himself clear in a new report.
On Saturday 26 July Robespierre reappeared at the Convention and delivered a two-hour-long vague and disjointed speech on the villainous factions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Dressed in the same sky-blue coat and nankeen trousers which he had worn on the proclamation of the Supreme Being, he defended himself against charges of dictatorship and tyranny, and then proceeded to warn of a conspiracy against the Committee of Public Safety. Calumny, he charged, had forced him to retire for a time from the Committee of Public Safety; he found himself the most unhappy of men. He complained of being blamed for everything.Template:Sfn Not only England but also members of the Committee of General Security were involved in intrigue to bring him down. Specifically, he railed against the bloody excesses he had observed during the Terror.Template:Sfn Finishing his speech with "Punish the traitors, purge the bureaux of the Committee of General Security, purge the Committee itself, and subordinate it to the Committee of Public Safety, purge the Committee of Public Safety itself and create a unified government under the supreme authority of the Convention".Template:Sfn
Intoxicated with his virtue, Robespierre proposed to keep the two committees going, announcing a new wave of purification. When called upon to name those whom he was accusing, however, he refused. Cambon flew to the rostrum. "One man paralyzes the will of the National Convention".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Convention decided not to have the text printed, as Robespierre's speech had first to be submitted to the two committees. It contained matters sufficiently weighty that it needed to first be examined.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 175, 183</ref> Robespierre was surprised that his speech would be sent to the very deputies he had intended to sue. In the evening, Robespierre delivered the same speech, which he called his last will and testament, at the Jacobin Club, where it was very well received.Template:Sfn He spoke of drinking hemlock, and David, the painter, cried out: ‘I will drink it with you.’ According to Couthon, not his speech, but the conspiracy had to be examined. Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne were driven out because of their opposition to the printing and distribution of the text. Billaud managed to escape before he was assaulted, but Collot was knocked down and his clothes torn to shreds. They set off to the Committee of Public Safety, where they found Saint-Just working on his speech. Saint-Just replied he sent the beginning to a friend and refused to show them his notes. Gathering in secret at five in the morning nine members of the two committees decided that it was all or nothing; Robespierre had to be voted off. Barras said they would all die if Robespierre did not. Each one of them prepared his part in the attack, according to Laurent Lecointre, the instigator of the coup.<ref name="auto2">Template:Cite web</ref> His fellow members were: Barère, Fréron, Barras, Tallien, Thuriot, Courtois, Rovère, Garnier de l’Aube and Guffroy; Fouché was no longer involved and had hidden himself.<ref>G. Rudé (1967) Robespierre, p. 110</ref> They decided that Hanriot, his aides-de-camp, Lavalette and Boulanger,<ref>Cobb, Richard, The people's armies: the armées révolutionnaires: instrument of the Terror in the departments, April 1793 to Floréal Year II, trans. Elliott, Marianne(New Haven, CT, and London, 1987), pp. 65–6. Google Scholar</ref> the public prosecutor Dumas, the family Duplay and the printer Charles-Léopold Nicolas had to be arrested first, so Robespierre would be without support.<ref name="auto2"/>
At eleven Saint-Just arrived at the Convention, prepared to blame everything on Billaud, Collot and Carnot.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He began: "I am from no faction; I will contend against them all.<ref name="romantic-circles.org"/> Template:Sfn After a few minutes, Tallien —having a double reason for desiring Robespierre's end, as, on the evening before, Robespierre refused to release Theresa Cabarrus — interrupted him and began the attack on him. "Yesterday a member of the government was left quite isolated and made a speech in his own name; today another one has done the same thing." "Yesterday, the president of the revolutionary tribunal openly proposed to the Jacobins that they should drive all impure men from the Convention." For Billaud-Varennes, they had organized a spy system among the representatives of the people whom they wanted to destroy. According to Barère the committees asked themselves why there still existed a military regime in the midst of Paris; why all these permanent commanders, with staffs, and immense armed forces? The committees have thought it best to restore to the National Guard its democratic organization.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 190–191, 195, 196</ref> For Tallien "Robespierre wanted to attack us by turns, to isolate us, and finally he would be left one day only with the base and abandoned and debauched men who serve him" and demanded the arrest of Hanriot and Dumas. As the accusations began to pile up, Saint-Just remained silent. Robespierre rushed toward the rostrum, appealed to the Plain to defend him against the Montagnards, but his voice was shouted down. Robespierre rushed to the benches of the Left but someone cried: "Get away from here; Condorcet used to sit here". He soon found himself at a loss for words after Vadier gave a mocking impression of him referring to the discovery of a letter under the mattress of the illiterate Catherine Théot.Template:Efn When Garnier witnessed Robespierre's inability to respond, he shouted, "The blood of Danton chokes him!"Template:Sfn Robespierre then finally regained his voice to reply with his one recorded statement of the morning, a demand to know why he was now being blamed for the other man's death: "Is it Danton you regret? ... Cowards! Why didn't you defend him?"<ref>Korngold, Ralph 1941, p. 365, Robespierre and the Fourth Estate Retrieved 27 July 2014</ref>
Arrest
Around two in the afternoon fr:Louis Louchet called for Robespierre's arrest; Robespierre the Younger and Le Bas demanded to share his fate. The whole Convention agreed including the two other members of the triumvirate, Couthon and Saint-Just. Robespierre shouted that the revolution was lost, when he descended the tribune. The five deputies were taken to the Committee of General Security and questioned. Around three in the afternoon Hanriot was ordered to appear in the Convention; Hanriot said he would only show up accompanied by a crowd. On horseback, Hanriot warned the sections that there would be an attempt to murder Robespierre and mobilized three thousand National Guards in front of the town hall.<ref name="auto11"/>Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> What had happened was not very clear; either the Convention was closed down or the Paris Commune. Nobody explained anything.<ref name=Sanson1876></ref> The Paris Commune had closed the gates and summoned an immediate meeting of the sections to consider the dangers threatening the fatherland.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 212</ref>
Around seven o'clock the five deputies were taken to different prisons. Robespierre to the Palais du Luxembourg, Couthon to "La Bourbe" and Saint-Just to the "Écossais". Augustin was taken from Prison Saint-Lazare to La Force Prison,<ref></ref> like Le Bas who was refused at the Conciergerie.<ref name="openedition_1591 p67">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Biard2015"></ref><ref name="auto"/> The Paris Commune was in league with the Jacobins to bring off an insurrection, asking them to send over reinforcements from the galleries, ‘even the women who are regulars there’.<ref name=Shusterman2014 /> The Jacobins and the Convention had declared themselves to be in continuous session. Around eight Hanriot appeared at the Place du Carrousel in front of the Committee but Hanriot was taken prisoner by Philippe Rühl when he entered the building.Template:Sfn According to fr:Eric Hazan: "Now came the turning-point of this journée: instead of taking advantage of its superiority, in both guns and men, to invade the nearby hall where the Convention was sitting, the column, lacking orders or leaders, returned to the Maison-Commune."<ref name="auto11"/> After nine the vice-president of the Tribunal Coffinhal went to Committee of General Security 1,200 men from the sections and their artillery; he succeeded in freeing Hanriot and his adjutants.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 235</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
How the five deputies escaped from prison was disputed. According to Courtois,<ref name="openedition_1591 p67"/> and Fouquier-Tinville the police administration was responsible.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, p. 117</ref> Louis Blanc mentioned a secret order by the insurrectionary Commune who sent municipals to the jailors.<ref name="Blanc1869.74"></ref> According to Louis Madelin the mayor Lescot-Fleuriot was responsible. Possibly their jailors, faced with two contradictory orders and uncertain of where the real power in France lay that afternoon, complied with the Commune's orders and released their charges.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Escorted by two municipals Robespierre the younger was the first to arrive.<ref></ref><ref name="oup_13188">Template:Cite journal</ref> Around eight Robespierre the older arrived at the police administration on Île de la Cité, and insisted being received in a prison.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 223</ref> He hesitated for legal reasons for possibly two hours. Around ten in the evening, the mayor appointed a delegation to go and convince Robespierre to join the Commune movement.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre was taken to the town hall by an "administrateur de police".<ref name="Blanc1869.74" /><ref></ref><ref></ref> Around eleven Saint-Just was delivered by a "municipal",<ref></ref> after which Le Bas and Dumas were brought in by two "administrateurs".<ref name="openedition_1591 p67"/> An Executive Committee was established to save the country. Both Hanriot and Le Bas suggested attacking the Convention.<ref></ref> The Convention declared the five deputies (plus the supporting members of the "Conseil-Général", like Payan, Dumas, Hanriot, Coffinhal and Lescot-Fleuriot) to be outlaws. The Convention then appointed Barras, and ordered troops (4,000 men) to be called out.<ref name="Bienvenu 1968 p225"/>
After a warm day spent waiting in vain for action by the Commune, losing time in bootless deliberation, without supplies or instructions, the men began to disperse. According to Colin Jones apathy prevailed with most of them drifting back to their homes.<ref name="oup_13188"/> Around 400 men from three sections seem to have stayed on the Place de Grève according to Courtois, whose report has a poor reputation.<ref></ref><ref name="Sydenham2006"></ref> At one a.m. a crowd moved in the direction of the town hall, but the street was blocked by a gunner.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 221</ref> At around two in the morning, Barras, his troops and six members of the Convention (Fréron, Rovère, Legendre, Féraud, the two brothers Marc and Léonard Bourdon), arrived in two columns. Barras deliberately advanced slowly, in the hope of avoiding conflict by a display of force.<ref name="Sydenham2006" /><ref name="Bienvenu 1968 p225">Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 225</ref> Grenadiers burst into the Hotel de Ville; 51 insurgents were gathering in the main hall on the first floor. It seems Robespierre and his allies had withdrawn in the smaller "secrétariat".<ref name="Méda1825.394"></ref>
While some (Barère) argued that Robespierre tried to commit suicide with a pistol,<ref></ref><ref>L. Blanc (1861) Histoire de la Révolution Française, Vol. 11, p. 270</ref><ref name="Biard2015" /> according to Bourdon he was shot by Méda, who wounded him in the left jaw,<ref></ref> and also succeeded hitting Couthon's helper in his leg.<ref>L. Blanc (1861) Histoire de la Révolution Française, Vol. 11, book 12, ch. 7, p. 256</ref>Template:Sfn<ref name="Méda1825.394" /><ref name=Sanson1876 /><ref>E. Hamel, pp. 337–38</ref>Template:Efn Couthon was found lying at the bottom of a staircase in a corner, having fallen from the back of his helper. In order to avoid capture, Augustin Robespierre took off his shoes and jumped from a broad cornice.<ref>Arrest of Robespierre by G. Lenotre (Théodore Gosselin)</ref> He landed on some bayonets resulting in a pelvic fracture and several serious head contusions, in an alarming state of "weakness and anxiety".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Le Bas committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The unperturbed Saint-Just gave himself up without a word. Dumas and 15-20 conspirators were locked up in a room inside the town hall.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 219</ref> Most sources say that Hanriot was thrown out of a window by Coffinhal after being accused of the disaster. (According to Ernest Hamel it is one of the many legends spread by Barère.<ref>E. Hamel, p. 342</ref>) Hanriot seems to have landed in a small courtyard on a heap of glass or manure.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> He had strength enough to crawl into a drain where he was found in the early afternoon.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> One of his eyes came out of its socket when he was arrested. Coffinhal, the only one who succeeded escaping, was arrested seven days later, totally exhausted.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Execution
For the remainder of the night, Robespierre was laid in an antechamber of the Committee of General Security.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He lay on the table with his head on a deal-box bleeding profusely. At five in the morning, his brother and Couthon seem to have been taken to the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris to see a doctor. Barras denied that Robespierre himself went; the circumstances did not permit it.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 227</ref> At six a doctor was invited to check Robespierre and removed some of his teeth. Robespierre was then placed in the cell in the Conciergerie and deposited on the bed in which Danton had slept one night while detained.<ref name=Sanson1876 />
In the afternoon of 10 Thermidor (a décadi, a day of rest and festivity) the Revolutionary Tribunal condemned Robespierre and 21 "Robespierrists" (c.q. 13 members of the insurrectionary Commune) by the rules of the law of 22 Prairial, only checking their identity. Halfway through the proceedings, Fouquier-Tinville, who did not want to try his friend the mayor Fleuriot-Lescot, took off his official robe.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, pp. 120–22</ref> In the late afternoon, the convicts, whose average age was 34 years old, were taken to the Place de la Révolution along with the last president of the Jacobins, Nicolas Francois Vivier, and the cobbler Antoine Simon, the jailor of the Dauphin. A vast mob screaming curses followed them right up to the scaffold. His face still swollen, Robespierre kept his eyes closed throughout the procession. He was the tenth called to the platform, and he ascended the steps of the scaffold without any assistance.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> When clearing Robespierre's neck, executioner Charles-Henri Sanson tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing him to produce an agonising scream until the fall of the blade silenced him.Template:Sfn Sanson's grandson wrote that his grandfather did this carefully but Robespierre nevertheless roared like a tiger.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> After his execution, applause and joyous cries arose from the crowd, which reportedly persisted for 15 minutes.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Later, Robespierre and his guillotined associates were buried in a common grave at the newly opened Errancis Cemetery (near what is now the Place Prosper-Goubaux).Template:Efn
Legacy and memory
Though nominally all members of the committee were equal, during the Thermidorian Reaction Robespierre was presented as the most responsible by the surviving protagonists of the Terror, especially by Bertrand Barère, a prominent member of the Plain. The day after his death, Barère described him as the "tyrant" and "the Terror itself". On that day half of the delegates of the Paris commune (conseil-général), around 70 people, were sent to the guillotine. The following day, on Thuriot's proposal, the Revolutionary Tribunal, ‘peopled by Robespierre’s creatures’, was suspended and replaced by a temporary commission.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 30 July Courtois took in custody Robespierre's books by Corneille, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mably, Locke, Bacon, Pope, articles by Addison and Steele in The Spectator, an English and Italian dictionary, an English grammar and a bible.<ref>Ratineau Fabienne. Les livres de Robespierre au 9 thermidor. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°287, 1992. pp. 131–35. Template:DOI</ref> On 1 August the Law of 22 Prairial was abolished. Mid August Courtois was appointed by the Convention to collect evidence against Robespierre, Le Bas and Saint-Just.<ref>A Letter from Danton to Marie Antoinette by Carl Becker. In: The American Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Oct. 1921), p. 29 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Template:JSTOR</ref> At the end of the month Tallien stated that all that the country had just been through was the "Terror" and that the "monster" Robespierre, the "king" of the Revolution, was the orchestrator. In fact, a whole new political mythology was being created.Template:Sfn
Robespierre's reputation has gone through several cycles of re-appraisal.<ref></ref> François Crouzet collected many interesting detail from French historians dealing with Robespierre.<ref>François Crouzet (1999) Historians and the French Revolution: the case of Maximilien Robespierre, p. 256-261</ref> It peaked in the 1920s after the influential French Marxist Albert Mathiez argued that he was an eloquent spokesman for the poor and oppressed, an enemy of royalist intrigues, a vigilant adversary of dishonest and corrupt politicians, a guardian of the French Republic, an intrepid leader of the French Revolutionary government, and a prophet of a socially responsible state.Template:Sfn In more recent times, his reputation has suffered as historians have associated him with an attempt at a radical purification of politics through the killing of enemies.<ref>Joseph I. Shulim "Robespierre and the French Revolution," American Historical Review (1977), 82#1, pp. 20–38 Template:JSTOR.</ref>Template:Sfn In 1989, Francois Furet argued that this reappraisal of Robespierre has been technically inaccurate:
There are two ways of totally misunderstanding Robespierre as a historical figure: one is to detest the man, the other is to make too much of him. It is absurd, of course, to see the lawyer from Arras as a monstrous usurper, the recluse as a demagogue, the moderate as a bloodthirsty tyrant, the democrat as a dictator. On the other hand, what is explained about his destiny once it is proved that he really was the Incorruptible? The misconception common to both schools arises from the fact that they attribute to the psychological traits of the man the historical role into which he was thrust by events and the language he borrowed from them. Robespierre is an immortal figure not because he reigned supreme over the Revolution for a few months, but because he was the mouthpiece of its purest and most tragic discourse.Template:Sfn
By making himself the embodiment of virtue and of total commitment, Robespierre took control of the Revolution in its most radical and bloody phase: the Jacobin republic. His goal in the Terror was to use the guillotine to create what he called a "republic of virtue", wherein terror and virtue would be imposed at the same time.Template:Citation needed
In terms of historiography, he has several defenders. Marxist Albert Soboul viewed most of the measures of the Committee for Public Safety as necessary for the defence of the Revolution and mainly regretted the destruction of the Hébertists and other enragés:
Robespierre's main ideal was to ensure the virtue and sovereignty of the people. He disapproved of any acts which could be seen as exposing the nation to counter-revolutionaries and traitors, and became increasingly fearful of the defeat of the Revolution. He instigated the Terror and the deaths of his peers as a measure of ensuring a Republic of Virtue; but his ideals went beyond the needs and wants of the people of France. He became a threat to what he had wanted to ensure and the result was his downfall.Template:Sfn
Soboul argues that he and Saint-Just "were too preoccupied in defeating the interest of the bourgeoisie to give their total support to the sans-culottes, and yet too attentive to the needs of the sans-culottes to get support from the middle class."Template:Sfn
Jonathan Israel is sharply critical of Robespierre for repudiating the true values of the radical Enlightenment. He argues, "Jacobin ideology and culture under Robespierre was an obsessive Rousseauiste moral Puritanism steeped in authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, and xenophobia, and it repudiated free expression, basic human rights, and democracy."Template:Sfn
William Doyle writes, "It is not violent fulminations that characterize Robespierre's speeches on the Terror. It is the language of unmasking, unveiling, revealing, discovering, exposing the enemy within, the enemy hidden behind patriotic posturings, the language of suspicion."Template:Sfn Doyle argues that Robespierre was never a dictator nor meant to become one, but that his own paranoia, in the face of plots and assassination attempts, drove him into mortal conflict with his political opponents in the Revolution.Template:Sfn
In the Soviet era, he was used as an example of a Revolutionary figure.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the October Revolution and Red Terror, Robespierre found ample praise in the Soviet Union, resulting in the construction of two statues of him: one in Saint Petersburg, and another in Moscow (the Robespierre Monument). The monument was commissioned by Vladimir Lenin, who referred to Robespierre as a "Bolshevik avant la lettre" or a "Bolshevik before his time".Template:Sfn Due to the poor construction of the monument (it was made of tubes and common concrete), it crumbled within three days of its unveiling and was never replaced.Template:Sfn
Robespierre remains controversial to this day. Apart from one Metro station in Montreuil (a Paris suburb) and several streets named after him in about 20 towns, there are no memorials or monuments to him in France.<ref>François Crouzet (1999) Historians and the French Revolution: the case of Maximilien Robespierre, p. 282</ref> In Arras itself, Robespierre's memory no longer arouses the discord it did in 1933 when a bust of Robespierre presented to the town had to be locked in a basement. Today there is a Lycée Robespierre (from 1969) and a small museum in his honour.<ref>Gillion Anne. La Mémoire de Robespierre à Arras. In: Revue du Nord, tome 71, n° 282–83, Juillet-décembre 1989. La Révolution française au pays de Carnot, Le Bon, Merlin de Douai, Robespierre... pp. 1037–50. Template:DOI</ref>
Notes
References
Sources
- A collection of essays covering not only Robespierre's thoughts and deeds, but also the way he has been portrayed by historians and fictional writers alike.
- Template:Webarchive by Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books, Vol. 22, No. 7, p. 30 March 2000.
- Lewes, G.H. (1849) The life of Robespierre
- Template:Cite journal
- A political portrait of Robespierre, examining his changing image among historians and the different aspects of Robespierre as an 'ideologue', as a political democrat, as a social democrat, as a practitioner of revolution, as a politician and as a popular leader/leader of revolution. It also touches on his legacy to future revolutionary leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
-
- Template:Webarchive by Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books, Vol. 28 No. 8, 20 April 2006.
- Reviewed by Sudhir Hazareesingh in The Times Literary Supplement, 7 June 2006.
Further reading
According to David P. Jordan: "Any comprehensive bibliography would be virtually impossible. In 1936 Gérard Walter drew up a list of over 10,000 works on Robespierre, and much has been done since." Template:Refbegin
- Bienvenu, Richard, ed. The Ninth of Thermidor: the fall of Robespierre (Oxford University Press, 1968)
- Brinton, Crane. The Jacobins: An Essay in the New History. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011.
- Cobban, Alfred. "The Fundamental Ideas of Robespierre", English Historical Review Vol. 63, No. 246 (January 1948), pp. 29–51 Template:JSTOR
- Richard Cobb, Les armées révolutionnaires. Instrument de la Terreur dans les départements. Avril 1793-Floréal An II, Paris-La Haye, Mouton and C°, 1961–1963, 2 volumes in-8°, VIII–1017, présentation en ligne, présentation en ligne.
- Cobban, Alfred. "The Political Ideas of Maximilien Robespierre during the Period of the Convention", English Historical Review Vol. 61, No. 239 (January 1946), pp. 45–80 Template:JSTOR
- Presents Robespierre as the origin of Fascist dictators.
- Everdell, William R. The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- Goldstein Sepinwall, Alyssa. "Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited," Journal of Modern History Vol. 82, No. 1 (March 2010), pp. 1–29 Template:JSTOR argues he was an early feminist, but by 1793 he joined the other Jacobins who excluded women from political and intellectual life.
- Hodges, Donald Clark (2003) Deep Republicanism: Prelude to Professionalism. Lexington Books.
- Linton, Marisa. "Robespierre and the Terror", History Today, August 2006, Volume 56, Issue 8, pp. 23–29 Template:Webarchive
- Linton, Marisa, 'Robespierre et l'authenticité révolutionnaire', Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, 371 (janvier-mars 2013): 153–73.
- A sympathetic study of the Committee of Public Safety.
- Shulim, Joseph I. "Robespierre and the French Revolution", American Historical Review (1977) 82#1 pp. 20–38 Template:JSTOR
- Soboul, Albert. "Robespierre and the Popular Movement of 1793–4", Past and Present, No. 5. (May 1954), pp. 54–70. Template:JSTOR
External links
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