Maximilien Robespierre - Architect of the Terror Documentary

It is the evening of the 28th of July 1794, 10 Thermidor in the French Revolutionary Calendar. Cartloads of victims arrive to the Place de la Revolution, the scene of hundreds of decapitations after the downfall of the Monarchy. One by one the men are brought forward to their doom, until only one remains, a man seen by many as the figure head of the Revolution, who has used the Guillotine to execute tens of thousands of people. A bandage is removed from his face, where a bullet shattered his jaw during his arrest and he is brought forward. Moments

later, the blade falls and his screaming is silenced forever. The man’s name?…Maximilien Robespierre - The Architect of the Terror. The man known to history as Maximilien Robespierre was born in the town of Arras in the province of Artois in northern France on the 6th of May 1758. His father was Francois Maximilien Barthelemy de Robespierre, a lawyer on the Council of Artois in Arras, the highest court in the province. He hailed from a long line of lawyers, his family having worked in the French courts since the early seventeenth century. Maximilien’s mother, Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, came from

a less distinguished lineage than his father, being the daughter of the owner of a small brewery in the Artois region. Before he was even born, Maximilien’s life was shrouded in controversy, as his mother had been five months pregnant with him at the time of her marriage to Francois. Inevitably this caused considerable scandal in the conservative town of Arras, which at that time was dominated by the Catholic Church. Indeed Francois’ parents refused to attend the wedding ceremony out of shame for their son’s actions. Nevertheless, the couple entered a marriage that would see Jacqueline give birth to

three further children after Maximilien, with Charlotte, Henriette and Augustin following in quick succession. On the 16th of July 1764, when Maximilien was six years old, tragedy struck at the heart of the young family when Jacqueline Robespierre died, just nine days after delivering her fifth child, who also died during the birth. To make matters worse, Maximilien’s grieving father soon began abandoning his family for long periods of time and so, soon after their mother’s death, the Robespierre siblings were separated, with Maximilien and his brother Augustin being sent to live with their maternal grandparents at the brewery owned

by the Carraults. Many historians have argued that the tragic circumstances surrounding Maximilien’s childhood, helped to shape the man he would later become, with the scars of his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment forging traits such as an intense sensitivity towards anything which he perceived as treachery and corruption. Indeed, in her memoirs, his sister Charlotte describes a dramatic change in Robespierre’s character following his mother’s death, from a, quote, “noisy, boisterous and light-hearted” child to become a precociously serious and hard-working one who often engaged in quite solitary pursuits. By the age of eight, Maximilien had already learned

to read and write and after spending three years at the local College of Arras, he acquired a scholarship to the illustrious College Louis-le-Grand in Paris in 1769. It was here that Maximilien would receive the rest of his education, from the age of 11 to the age of 23. Throughout he was immersed in the curriculum of the eighteenth century, a mix of the humanist learning of the Renaissance, with its focus on classical rhetoric, oratory, political science and philosophy through the writings of Greek and Roman writers like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, and the new sciences and

rationalist writings of early modern Europe. He was devoted to his studies and won numerous prizes at the school, emphasizing his academic ability. In 1775 Robespierre was chosen out of the 500 pupils of the college to deliver a speech to Louis XVI on a visit there not long after his accession as King of France. Robespierre graduated from the Louis-le-Grand in 1781 as a lawyer. Upon leaving the college he received a payment of 600 livres for his academic excellence, an honour worth in excess of a year’s living allowance. During his formative years at the college Robespierre had

developed admiration for the classical virtues, as well as for the work of the philosopher and political scientists of the Enlightenment which France was at the centre of in the eighteenth century. In particular he was a great admirer of the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his concept of the “virtuous self”, the idea that a man should stand alone in the world accompanied only by his conscience. Rousseau’s political theories, as outlined in works such as his book The Social Contract, published in 1762, would have an enormous impact, not only upon the young Maximilien, but later upon France

as a whole, with its argument that absolutist monarchs of the kind which had ruled France for centuries were not divinely ordained and that governments had to earn the right to rule through just actions and the general will of their citizens. There were, though, elements within the work of Rousseau and other writers of the Enlightenment that could expose France to violent mob ruler and populism if pushed too far. These Enlightenment ideas would have an enormous bearing on Robespierre’s life and the events that would play out in France in the years to come. Robespierre returned to Arras

in 1781 and found success as a lawyer, gaining admission to the bar on the 15th of May 1781 and then appointed as a judge in the criminal court in March 1782 at a very young age. However, he soon resigned his position, due to the early opposition he felt towards the death penalty. He also opposed clerical celibacy and the slave trade. Yet it was his opposition to the excessive power of the Ancien Regime of monarchy, aristocracy and church in France that was most visceral. These views were heightened in Robespierre as the 1780s went on and France

became mired in an ever-worsening agrarian and fiscal crisis as state debt grew and grew owing to the country’s costly wars with Britain during the eighteenth century, such as the Seven Years’ War and French involvement in the American Revolutionary War, while famine also set in owing to poor weather in the mid-1780s. Many French men and women like Robespierre were also increasingly opposed to aiding the crown in relieving the fiscal crisis without political representation. The Estates General, the early modern French equivalent of parliament, had not been convened since 1614. Robespierre’s views in this respect were solidified through

his interactions with like-minded professionals at the Academy of Arras, which he eventually became director of, and membership of the exclusive Rosati Society in 1787. Although he had gained a reputation as a lawyer within Arras by 1787, there was nothing to suggest that Maximilien would become anything more than a prominent local regional official there had it not been for the events which began on the national stage in the late 1780s. By 1787 the fiscal crisis was spiralling out of control and Louis XVI began appointing a series of emergency finance ministers to head his government from the

vast royal palace at Versailles outside of Paris. When these ministers failed to remedy the situation it was decided that there was no option but to convene the Estates General at Versailles in the summer of 1789 for the first time in 175 years. Representatives would come from all three estates of French society, the aristocracy, church and common people. The goal from the king and his ministers’ perspective was to convene the parliament for a short period of time and have them vote through a parliamentary subsidy, a one-time payment from the estates to the crown to deal with

the financial emergency. They would try to acquire this while granting as few concessions to the estates as possible and then dismiss the Estates General. This was how parliaments had functioned in many countries like England, France and Spain since medieval times, with the crown granting limited concessions in return for a sitting of the estates every few years and the passage of some concessions into law, but Louis and his ministers were delusional in thinking that in an age of revolutionary thinking about how politics should work, and with 175 years of pent up demands in France, that the

Estates General would vote through a large financial subsidy to bail out the government and then quickly be fobbed off with a few promises of political reform. In Arras, when news arrived of the convening of the Estates General, Robespierre viewed it as an opportunity to, what he described in his own words, as, quote, “articulate the grievances smouldering within [me]” about a political and social system which he believed was fundamentally unjust. In January 1789 he began his campaign to gain election to the Estates General. He first released a pamphlet in which he attacked the local social elites

of church and aristocracy, asserting that all the social problems which plagued the Artois region were the fault of this corrupt elite. In this early pamphlet, Robespierre’s two most prominent political ideas are already present, ideas which would define his political views for his entire life. The first of these was his insistence upon representation through elections and the second was his belief that the poor were deserving claimants of justice in a largely corrupt society. The higher estates and the wealthier citizens of French society had a strong say in who was elected to represent a region like Artois

when the Estates General would meet at Versailles. Therefore Robespierre’s attempts to portray himself as a champion of the common people boded ill for his potential selection to represent the region. However, all this changed when on the 7th of March 1789 the crown announced that Artois must select its representatives through popular election. Robespierre’s populist appeal accordingly resulted in his election. Throughout the process he continued to publish pamphlets with dramatic rhetoric about the miserable state of the province, blaming the elite for this. This gained him support, especially in rural areas, where destitution was most widespread. On the

20th of April 1789, more than one-thousand representatives of the three estates gathered in Arras and between the 24th and the 28th eight deputies were elected to represent the Third Estate, Maximilien being one of them. The Estates General would convene for the first time in 175 years on the 5th of May, meaning Robespierre would have only a week to prepare for his departure to Versailles. It was a relatively unimposing man who arrived to Versailles from Arras. At just five foot, three inches Robespierre was short even by the standards of the time. He was pale and thin,

a product perhaps of his workaholic nature and sparse diet, often having little more than some milk for breakfast. He also had an uncontrollable facial tick, one which damaged his eyesight over time and such was the poor quality of eyeglasses in the eighteenth century that he often had to wear two pairs of spectacles to see. Within weeks of his arrival at Versailles, Robespierre had associated himself with a radical faction of deputies known as the Breton Club, a cohort of delegates from the Brittany region of north-western France. The members of it pushed for each member of the

Estates to have one vote, rather than the three estates casting a vote each, an arrangement which allowed the aristocracy and the church to act together to stop popular reforms proposed by the Third Estate. One of the most notable deputies at the Estates General was the clergyman and political writer Abbé Sieyés, who believed that it was essential that the Third Estate must not be dominated by the interests of the first two estates. In a pamphlet published in January 1789 Sieyes had argued that the Third Estate was representative of the nation and had a right to reshape

the political structure of France independently. And so, from the 11th of May, the representatives of the third estate began to meet independent of the first and second estates. This was a radical move and it was clear by June 1789 that the king, his ministers and the aristocracy and church were losing control of the gathering at Versailles. The third estate eventually declared to be acting independent of the crown and higher estates in some of the first major events of the French Revolution. Robespierre joined them as a deputy on the 13th of June. Ultimately, Sieyès’ intention was

to promote change in a gradual way to establish a constitutional monarchy and in this early stage of the Revolution a moderate faction held power in the Assembly. It would only become more radical over time as the king and first and second estates consistently tried to impede the revolutionaries from establishing the reforms they wanted to introduce. By the start of July the Assembly was beginning to move its activities to Paris and was renamed the National Constituent Assembly in a move which was designed to side-line the king and his ministers even further. In the capital the new

legislature began a programme of fiscal and constitutional reforms. This was after the famous Tennis Court Oath at Versailles on the 20th of June, where Robespierre had been the 45th signatory of a statement in which the members of the Assembly declared that they would not disband until they had agreed on a new constitution for France. The fervour of Revolution was in the air, but this was not confined to Versailles. The financial and agrarian crisis had not abated and the people of Paris were unruly over the exorbitant price of bread. On the 13th of July, the Assembly

declared the formation of a ‘bourgeois militia’ to try and maintain law and order in the city and the following day the Marquis de Lafayette was declared their Commander-in-Chief who himself renamed it ‘The National Guard’ and proposed their symbol of the Red and Blue colours of Paris, accompanied by the Royal white, which was the origin of the French flag, the Tricolore. With the Revolution now firmly established, on the 14th of July 1789, in a search for weapons, the citizens of Paris stormed the Hotel des Invalides, a military hospital in the city, from which they stole cannons

and muskets to use later in the day when they attacked the imposing symbol of the tyranny of the monarchy, the Bastille fortress and prison. The crowd gathered outside calling for the small royal garrison within it to surrender. Scuffles followed outside and eventually gunfire was exchanged. Eventually after a tense standoff the governor of the prison capitulated and the crowd swept in to the Bastille to liberate it at 5.30pm. The crowd seized the governor and dragged him to the Hotel de Ville where they discussed what should be done with him. The badly beaten governor shouted “Enough! Let

me Die!” and kicked a pastry cook in the groin. It was then that the crowd attacked and repeatedly stabbed him until he died. Whilst some blamed the governor and the small garrison for the fall of the Bastille, others suggested that the blame lay with the 5,000 royal troops, stationed on the Champs De Mars, who failed to respond to the attack. The shocking news that the working people of Paris had stormed a fortress of the King, sent shockwaves around Europe and today the 14th of July is celebrated in France as Bastille Day, the day on which

the Revolution took a more radical turn. Robespierre’s reaction to these events was a mixture of shock and joy. He labelled the Paris protestors as a “patriotic army” and believed he was witnessing, quote, “the greatest events the history of mankind can reveal”. His reaction to the more violent aspects of the Paris uprising and the brutal murder of the governor of the Bastille was ominous and foreshadowed his own later belief in violence and bloodshed as a means of furthering the revolutionary cause. His words echoed the rhetoric he would later use to justify the Reign of Terror. In

the weeks following the fall of the Bastille unrest spread across France, with looting and violence widespread throughout the provinces. On the 4th of August, in order to quell the discontent in the country, the National Constituent Assembly decided formally to declare an end to feudalism in France and the old social hierarchies that had characterised the Ancien Regime. As the Assembly embarked on an all-night session, it abolished seigniorial relations between landlords and tenants, special privileges of the Parlements and the fiscal privileges of the first two estates. By systematically destroying these privileges in France, the National Constituent Assembly

had completely annihilated the social structures of the Old Regime and further advanced the Revolution. However, Robespierre did not play a prominent role in the debates surrounding the August decrees, nor the Declaration of the Rights of Man later that same month, only intervening to insist upon the freedom of the press and progressive taxation. The Declaration became a major statement of the goals of the French Revolution and how the ideals of Enlightenment philosophers and political thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire were to be implemented across France. On the 4th of October 1789, the people of Paris once again

rioted due to a severe shortage of bread in the capital. The following day a group of 7,000 women marched from Paris to Versailles in protest and forced the royal family and court to leave their remote surroundings on the outskirts of the city and remove to central Paris. This was largely achieved through a violent mob that broke into the Palace of Versailles and rampaged through the home of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. While the royal family was allowed to live in the plush surroundings of the Tuileries Palace in Paris thereafter, there was little denying

the fact that they were now effectively the quasi-prisoners of the revolutionaries in the capital. On the 19th of October the National Constituent Assembly reconvened in Paris to discuss drafting a new constitution for France and the issue of the King’s role in the new French state. By then Robespierre was growing in confidence and stature within the Assembly and asserted his consistently radical agenda by fiercely opposing those who believed that the King should be granted a power of veto over the promulgation of new laws within the new constitution. He asserted that ultimate sovereignty must instead reside with

the people’s representatives in the National Constituent Assembly. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby the Assembly did grant Louis XVI a veto, but this could only be used to delay legislation rather than block it altogether. This disappointed the pro-royalist deputies. It demonstrated that as 1790 dawned Robespierre had become an increasingly frequent participator in the debates and one of the Assembly’s leading advocates of radical revolutionary principles. Along with opposing the King’s veto, Maximilien also passionately combatted the Assembly’s plan to limit the right to vote to so-called ‘active citizens’ who paid above a minimum level of taxation, leaving

some of the most poor and vulnerable French citizens unable to vote. Furthermore Robespierre was a strong supporter of a law that allowed people to elect their own local church officials, demonstrating his commitment to a wide franchise and that every institution should be shaped by the will of the common French people. To this end he asserted in a speech in January 1790 that, quote, “all Frenchmen must be admissible to all public positions without any other distinction than that of virtue and talents.” On the 31st of March 1790 Robespierre was elected as a President of the Jacobin

clubs in Paris, a radical political group that had been founded during the first flushes of the Revolution in 1789 as an off-shoot of the informal Breton Club. Its members were intellectual radicals and self-appointed guardians of the Revolution who met to define the Revolution’s objectives and analyse the proceedings of the National Constituent Assembly. Jacobin clubs had quickly spring up all over France and could be considered the country’s first political party. As 1790 progressed, Robespierre’s profile within the Jacobins grew, until he gradually became a national political figure, one whose views on policy matters confronting the revolutionary government

were of increased significance. This was demonstrated by his frequent appearances in the French press and the immense number of letters he was receiving from across the country, while in June 1790 he was elected Secretary of the National Constituent Assembly, an important position within the revolutionary government. Then, throughout 1790, Robespierre’s support amongst the radical Parisian masses continued to grow, as shown in May 1790 when Maximilien and his friend and political ally, Jerome Petion, were cheered and applauded by an immense Parisian crowd outside the Tuileries Palace following their successful passage of a law blunting the king’s role

in the formation of French foreign policy. Throughout this time Robespierre used his ever increasing influence to spread fear of a plot to destroy the Revolution, giving numerous speeches throughout 1790 urging the populace to fear the counter-revolutionary elements that were a very real threat working to restore aristocratic and monarchical power in France. Although it was dismissed in much of the press, Robespierre’s claims resonated widely amongst the people of France. In 1790 he was also gaining important political allies, none more so than Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, a 23-year old member of the National Guard who began sending

Maximilien admiring letters praising his ability to stand up for the Revolution against its enemies. The two soon became friends through their correspondence, this being the beginning of an important political alliance that would last throughout the short lives of both Robespierre and Saint-Just. In the midst of this growing political alliance, on the 5th of December 1790, Robespierre gave perhaps the most important speech of his career. In it he referred to the National Guard that Saint-Just was a member of as being the preserver of the French Revolution, stating that the motto of the Revolution was, quote, “Liberté,

égalité, fraternité”, in the process popularising the term most synonymous with the French Revolution to this day. The President of the National Constituent Assembly and unofficial leader of the Third Estate, the Comte du Mirabeau, died on the 2nd of April 1791. He had been a moderate in the Assembly, one whose oratory genius and charisma helped him gain admiration amongst the deputies of the assembly and the population at large. There was tremendous grief amongst the people of Paris at the news of his death. However, the death of such an influential figure created a political vacuum for Robespierre

to step into. As an emerging unofficial leader of the Revolution Robespierre was very active during this time, proposing between May and June 1791 that all Frenchmen should be declared active citizens and thus eligible to vote and that the death penalty should be abolished, while also attacking Abbé Raynal for suggesting the return of the royal prerogative. He also proposed to dismiss officers from the army, whilst on the 11th of June he was appointed Public Prosecutor in Paris. These developments aside, L’Ami du Roi, a Royalist pamphlet, called Robespierre, quote, “a lawyer for bandits, rebels and murderers”. Robespierre’s

position was further strengthened however by the events of the 20th of June 1791 when the king and the royal family attempted to escape from Paris to the Austrian Netherlands to seek sanctuary with the government of the queen’s Austrian family, the House of Habsburg, the head of which, Emperor Leopold II, was Marie Antoinette’s brother. Despite making it to within 20 miles of their destination, the King was recognised in the town of Varennes and under orders from the National Constituent Assembly was returned to Paris in disgrace. The Assembly then decreed that the King was to be suspended

from all duties until further notice and from this point onwards the idea of the abolition of the monarchy and the formation of a French republic became a very distinct possibility. Robespierre reacted to these events in a speech to one of the Parisian Jacobin clubs on the 21st of June 1791. In this he accused all the members of the Assembly who defended the king of being counter-revolutionary traitors, denouncing not just the King but certain sections of the Assembly who had, earlier that day, defended the actions of the King by claiming that Louis was kidnapped against his

will. However, when the issue of the restoration of the king and his constitution rights was debated between the 13th and the 15th of July Robespierre declared himself neither “Monarchist nor Republican”. His accusations nevertheless created a schism within the Jacobins, with many members in favour of a constitutional monarchy leaving to form a moderate political club called the Feuillants. This allowed Robespierre to expand his influence over the Jacobin clubs, as with the departure of the moderate deputies the movement became far more radical and aligned with Robespierre’s political views. When the Assembly agreed that King Louis XVI should

retain his throne if he agreed to the new constitution, uproar ensued. The Jacobins led the protest against this proposal on the 17th of July at the Champ de Mars, where a crowd had gathered to sign a petition drawn up by Jacques Pierre Brissot calling for the deposing of the King. The gathered mob became violent and then, under the orders of the Marquis de Lafayette, the National Guard attempted to disperse the crowd by firing warning shots. When these were ignored, the Guards started firing on them, leading to the Champ De Mars massacre, in which between 12

and 50 demonstrators lost their lives. Among those calling for the King’s dethronement, were Jean-Paul Marat, an inflammatory journalist who through his periodical L’Ami du Peuple, meaning The Friend of the People, whipped up radical revolutionary sentiment among Parisians and attacked moderate politicians. Another prominent voice calling for Louis’ dethronement was Georges Danton, one of the greatest orators of the revolutionary period and the president of the Cordeliers club, a populist revolutionary movement named after the Parisian district where it originated. Both of these men would come to be key political allies of Robespierre in due course, sharing his belief

in the purity of the Revolution and his fears of counter-revolutionary movements. After the Massacre at the Champs de Mars the authorities ordered numerous arrests. Robespierre felt unsafe returning to his lodgings as these events occurred and so on the suggestion of Laurent Lecointre he stayed with Maurice Duplay, a cabinet-maker and admirer of Robespierre whose house was on the Rue Saint Honoré, near the Tuileries Palace. After a few days Robespierre decided he would live there permanently, as it was convenient for both the Assembly as well as the meeting place of the Jacobin club. He may even have

become engaged to Duplay’s eldest daughter Eléonore at this time, though the evidence on this front is unclear and based exclusively on a later statement by Eléonore’s sister, Élisabeth. In the end Robespierre would not have any children or marry during his lifetime. Despite the growing anger towards the royals, the new French Constitution was formally accepted on the 3rd of September 1791. Due to a provision proposed by Robespierre none of the deputies of the Assembly could stand for election into the new Legislative Assembly. Thus Maximilien was set to return home to Arras. On the final day of

the Assembly, Robespierre and his friend Pétion emerged on the streets of Paris to a jubilant crowd, who crowned them with wreaths of laurel and led them triumphantly through the streets, Robespierre had emerged as a relentless defender of the more radical wing of the revolutionaries during his years as a deputy. His unwavering beliefs made him one of the most prominent political figures in the nation and a man adored by the sans-culottes, the name given to the militant, working-class patriots of Paris who played a prominent role in the Revolution through popular agitation in the capital. On the

16th of October Robespierre arrived back in Arras and was given a triumphant reception. He spent 46 days in Artois before returning to Paris on the 28th of November. On his travels back to his home region, which bordered the Austrian Netherlands in what is now Belgium, a nation that there was a distinct possibility would soon declare war on France in defence of Queen Marie Antoinette, an Austrian archduchess by birth, he became convinced that France was woefully under prepared for a potential conflict with Prussia and Austria. Therefore, on his return to Paris, Robespierre used his position amongst

the Jacobins to lead an anti-war campaign, as well as continuing to give speeches arousing suspicion of internal enemies, warning against the threat of dictatorship and promoting trust in the good of the people. King Louis XVI had pinned all his hopes at this time on foreign intervention, hoping that a quick military defeat for the revolutionary government would seem him restored in his position to full authority. Prompted by Queen Marie Antoinette, Louis ignored his counsellors’ advice to implement the Constitution of 1791 and instead plotted covertly with counter-revolutionary forces. Meanwhile Brissot was lauding the possibility of a war,

stating in December 1791 that it would boost the nation’s economy. He urged his countrymen accordingly to declare war against Austria. However, Robespierre opposed him, stating that neither victory and dictatorship or loss and restoration of the monarchy, would be beneficial to France. However, despite Robespierre’s campaigning, the tide of public opinion both in France and the Jacobin clubs was turning in favour of a war with Austria and Prussia, to both unite the French people against a common enemy and to defeat what they perceived to be an imminent attempt to return Louis XVI to the throne. Thus, on

the 20th of April 1792, France pre-emptively declared war on Austria. Prussia quickly responded by coming to Austria’s aid against France. It was the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars. The start of the war went badly for the French. They lost entire regiments to the enemy in the opening weeks, as soldiers abandoned their generals and discipline evaporated. Fear of the approaching foreign armies caused political division and factionalism to heighten in Paris. Robespierre, who was increasingly isolated from former allies, founded his own political journal in May of 1792 and used it to attack his rivals. In the

ascendancy in 1792 was the faction led by Robespierre’s former friend, Jacques Brissot, who were strongly represented in the Legislative Assembly and who, in opposition to Robespierre, supported the war with Austria. However, two months into the war, Robespierre’s views on the conflict changed, as he began to espouse the importance of a war for liberty, with France spreading justice and equality to the oppressed peoples of Europe through conquest. With the advancing armies causing fear and paranoia of a royal conspiracy, Robespierre sensed that an insurrection in Paris was impending and hoped that when it came, it would sweep

the King, his ministers and the overly moderate Legislative Assembly out of the way, ushering in a new more radical phase of the Revolution. In the end it was Georges Danton who led this. On the night of the 9th of August 1792 the 48 districts of Paris formed the Insurrectionary Commune and overthrew the municipal government of Paris, storming the Hotel de Ville where it was based. Led by Danton, the Insurrectionary Commune then formed an armed mob and stormed the Tuileries Palace, where the royal family were virtual prisoners and which was heavily guarded. This occurred on the

10th of August. Hundreds were wounded and some killed in the violence before the mob drove out the royal bodyguards from the Tuileries palace. This was the end of efforts to forge a constitutional monarchy like the one which had developed in Britain in the course of the seventeenth century. Instead it was now clear that the Revolution would move towards the creation of a French Republic. Later that evening, Robespierre rose at a Parisian Jacobin club to proclaim a new beginning for the Revolution and that the spirit of 1789 had been recaptured after three years of prevarication since

late 1789. On the 13th of August, the day the King was officially arrested and imprisoned in the ancient Paris fortress of the Temple, Robespierre was elected to the Paris Commune and fought for its legitimacy against the Legislative Assembly, the members of which sought to shut it down as a rival source of power. However, as foreign armies approached ever nearer to Paris, chaos and fear began to reign in the streets, leading to the violence known as the September Massacres. During these, between the 2nd and 6th of September 1792, the mob that brought down the monarchy, made

up of Guardsmen, revolutionaries and sans-culottes, killed over a thousand prisoners throughout Parisian jails. To satisfy people’s impatience for justice, Robespierre demanded the establishment of a Revolutionary Tribunal to investigate counter-revolutionary activities. This was achieved and between the 10th of August and the end of 1792 28 people were sentenced to the guillotine by the Tribunal. It was also during this period that there was at last a piece of good news for the French armies, as on the 20th of September 1792 they defeated the invading Prussian forces at the Battle of Valmy, effectively preventing the foreign occupation of

Paris and saving the Revolution. The following day, the 21st of September 1792, the absolute monarchy was formally abolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed by the Assembly. Following the fall of the monarchy, Robespierre began campaigning for election to the new National Convention that was set to be formed to succeed the Legislative Assembly that had only existed for just around a year since the autumn of 1791. This was to be in charge of drafting France’s first fully republican constitution. Robespierre was top of the list of Paris deputies elected to the Convention, with fellow Parisian radicals

Danton and Marat also selected. Upon the opening of the Convention on the 20th of September 1792, Robespierre and his radical allies sat on the top left seats of the hall, becoming known as the Montagnards or the Mountain, whilst the rival more moderate faction, became known as the Girondins, led by Maximilien’s political rival Jacques Brissot. Political warring soon ensued between the two factions, with the Girondins accusing Robespierre of aspiring to be a tyrant and Maximilien and his allies working to expel the Girondin deputies from the Jacobin clubs. On the 5th of November 1792, Robespierre delivered one

of his most important speeches, defending himself and his reputation, as well as sanctioning the recent violence as indispensable for the advancement of the Revolution. The speech was celebrated in the Jacobin clubs as a resounding success and helped to shore up Robespierre’s position in the Convention, following the attacks from his rivals. In November 1792 the fate of King Louis XVI began to be debated by the Convention. In a speech that mesmerized the Convention, the 25-year-old deputy from Picardy, Robespierre’s admirer, Saint-Just, argued that Louis was an enemy of the people and so must, quote, “reign or die.”

Robespierre himself followed this two weeks later by insisting that the king had to be executed in order to preserve the Revolution. Consequently, on the 14th of January 1793, after placing him on trial, the Convention unanimously found the King guilty of high treason. Three days later 361 deputies voted for the execution of Louis, now known simply as Citizen Louis Capet, achieving a majority by a single vote, with Robespierre proclaiming that a great deed had been done. Robespierre achieved his ambition when King Louis XVI was executed a few days later by guillotine, the only King of France

ever to be executed. Following the execution of the king the foreign war escalated, with the Convention declaring war on Britain and the Dutch Republic. Within France itself Royalist and Catholic revolts broke out in the provinces, particularly in the south around Marseille and Toulon and in the Vendée region of the west of the country, while continued rioting and destitution in the capital convinced Danton and Robespierre that the Revolution was not yet secure. Together they called for the re-establishment of a Revolutionary Tribunal to root out counter-revolutionary forces, with Robespierre further proposing that capital punishment should be applied

to enemies of the Revolution. The Convention soon agreed to the tribunal and it was established in March, consisting of twelve jurors, selected by the Insurrectionary Commune. There was to be no appeal against its judgements. However, the sending of Marat to the Revolutionary Tribunal upon Girondin orders, where he was acquitted by his Jacobin colleagues on the 13th of April, angered the Parisian sans-culottes and on the 11th of May the Paris Sections demanded that the Convention expel the Girondin deputies. As the Girondin support resided primarily in the provinces, whilst Robespierre’s Montagnards were massively popular within Paris, this

gave Robespierre a decided advantage over his rivals, as he could use the Parisian sans-culottes to intimidate and destroy his opponents. So it was that on the 2nd of June 1793 another Parisian insurrection dramatically altered the fate of the Revolution, once again in Robespierre’s favour. In the course of this a crowd of Parisian sans-culottes marched into the Convention’s meeting hall and demanded political changes, as well as the expulsion of the Girondins, to which the intimidated deputies in the Convention agreed. The Girondin leaders who had not already fled were arrested. In the aftermath of the fall of

the Girondins, the Jacobin deputies drafted a new constitution by the 10th of June, with universal male suffrage and state education for all. However, it soon had to be suspended, as by mid-June 1793 sixty of France’s eighty-three departments or provinces were in open revolt against the Parisian leadership of the Revolution. Robespierre, along with Saint-Just, Danton and Marat, had long believed that the only way to save the Revolution was through harsh state terror to destroy the counter-revolution and this latest emergency now allowed them to put their beliefs into practice. On the 27th of July, Robespierre was elected

to the 12-member Committee of Public Safety, alongside his ally Saint-Just, but after ascending to power Robespierre immediately faced another grave challenge to the Revolutionary government, as with food becoming ever more scarce in the capital news reached Paris on the 2nd of September that counter-revolutionary rebels had surrendered the great naval base at Toulon on the Mediterranean French Riviera to the British. It was at this point in early September, when the Convention was again confronted by an angry mob in Paris, that the Revolutionary Tribunal was expanded, with all jurors to be appointed by the Committee of Public

Safety. To fortify this new regime of state coercion, on the 17th of September the Law of Suspects was passed, with Robespierre being a strong advocate of it, allowing anyone who showed themselves to be an enemy of the Revolution to be arrested and executed. Then, on the 29th September, price fixing was extended to cover not only grain and bread but also other essential goods and wages. Furthermore, it was decreed on the 10th of October that, quote, “the provisional government shall be revolutionary until peace”. The revolutionary period known to history as ‘The Terror’ had begun. Over the

space of the next nine months approximately 16,000 people were condemned to death, with thousands more killed in the repression of revolts in Lyon, the Vendée and southern France. This policy of repression in the provinces and military campaigning effectively ended the provincial revolt by the end of autumn 1793. One of the 177 people guillotined in Paris between October and the end of 1793 was Queen Marie Antoinette, who was executed on the 16th of October 1793. Robespierre did not pay much attention to the fate of the Queen, as his focus was upon the Girondins, 21 of whom

were put before the Tribunal on the 24th of October and in a rushed trial were declared guilty and guillotined a week later. With the execution of the Girondins, Robespierre had not just eliminated a rival ideology, one that supported a federal political structure in France to weaken the influence of Paris, but in their leader Brissot he had eliminated a bitter political rival. The work of the National Convention continued and on the 4th of February 1794 it decreed the abolition of slavery in France and its colonies. The following day, Robespierre’s vision for the country, once in government,

was laid out in a significant speech given to the National Convention. In this he argued for the development of a society of virtuous individuals, uncorrupted and patriotic, where frivolous activities were shunned in favour of honourable pursuits. He insisted that the work of the Committee for Public Safety was essential, as, quote, “without terror, virtue has no power.” In the weeks that followed in Paris, Saint Just proposed what are known as the Ventose Decrees. These sanctioned the confiscation of the property of aristocratic and counter-revolutionary exiles, many of which had fled over the Channel to England and other

nations which France was now at war with. At the same time, divisions had emerged within the Jacobins and the extreme revolutionary, Jacques-Rene Hébert, who was prominent within the Paris Commune and drew support from the most radical revolutionaries in Paris, clashed bitterly with Robespierre over religious policy, as Maximilien denounced Hébert’s militant atheism. On the other side of the political spectrum were individuals like Danton, who now seemed more like moderates, and were calling for an end to the bloody terror. Hébert and his radical Jacobin faction tried to launch an insurrection and overthrow Robespierre on the 4th of

March 1794 and attempted to rally the people of Paris to their cause. However, Robespierre remained popular amongst the sans-culottes and when the revolt failed to materialize Maximilien saw his opportunity to strike against this faction and took it, denouncing Hébert, who was arrested and accused of complicity with foreign powers. Along with 18 of his allies he was guillotined on the 24th of March. With the fall of Hébert and his allies, Robespierre was able to greatly enhance his power, remodelling the Paris Commune and the National Guard by filling it with allies, cementing his control over the capital.

With one rival faction of the Jacobins eliminated, it was Danton and his moderate faction who were now vulnerable to Robespierre’s Montagnards. Following Hébert’s demise, Danton made a speech announcing the end of ‘The Terror’, which Robespierre viewed as an attempt to seize the leadership of a post-Terror government. In response he had Danton arrested on charges of conspiracy, theft and corruption. The trial of Danton and his allies began on the 2nd of April 1794, but was cut short when Saint-Just passed a law in the Convention banning certain prisoners from pleading their cases before the Tribunal, despite the

vocal protests of Danton. Thus, on the 5th April, Georges Danton and his allies were guillotined. As with the death of the king, Robespierre was not present to watch the execution of his former revolutionary ally. He then supported Saint-Just’s recommendations to the Convention, ten days after Danton’s death, of tightening police laws further. On the 7th of May Robespierre turned his attention to the matter of religion, as rather unusually for a radical revolutionary he was a staunch opponent of atheism. In a speech, Robespierre insisted on the existence of a God and an afterlife, arguing that a public

religion of some kind was essential for the good of the Revolution and for the development of a virtuous society. Indeed, Robespierre proposed a new public religion, approved by the Convention that same day, the Cult of the Supreme Being. By creating a religion for France, Robespierre was attempting to impose his own values, the values that he believed made up a virtuous society, such as the honour of poverty and a traditional family life. A belief in God was at the heart of this, though not in line with the established Christian churches. Consequently, historians have termed Robespierre’s religious

views a form of theocratic deism. On the 8th of June, the first festival of the Supreme Being, a holiday within this new belief system, was held in Paris. Robespierre’s recent election as President of the Convention meant that he would officiate at the inaugural ceremony, where half a million Parisians gathered to witness Robespierre set fire to a statue that was meant to symbolise atheism. As the celebrations continued, on the Champ de Mars it appeared to Robespierre that the excitement and optimism of the early revolutionary years had been revived. However, even as the festivals were held, the

Terror was becoming ever more extreme and the day following the ceremony, Robespierre drew up laws to invent a new category of criminals known as “enemies of the people”. This included anyone who spoke ill of patriotism or discredited the National Convention, among other vague offences. The punishment for being found an enemy of the people was death. The new laws also deprived the accused of the right to any form of legal defence, leaving the French people at the complete mercy of the Committee of Public Safety. The Terror reached its peak between the 10th of June 1794 and

the 27th of July, with 1,376 people guillotined in Paris due to the law proposed by Georges Couthon, which simplified the judicial process and so sped up the work of the Revolutionary Tribunal, resulting in this period of the Revolution becoming known as ‘The Great Terror’. The French military victory at the Battle of Fleurus in the Low Countries on the 26th of June 1794 would mark a turning point in the Revolution as the French Republican forces led by General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan defeated the coalition forces of Austria, Hanover and the Dutch Republic in a significant battle of the

French Revolutionary Wars. However, in Paris the victory undermined the argument that the Reign of Terror was necessary because of the military threat to France’s existence. It thus was a major factor in the subsequent Thermidorian Reaction a month later. During the month of July, a series of actions by Robespierre also angered his allies and enemies alike. These included his outburst on the 1st of July that there was a conspiracy against him, the exclusion of various members of the Jacobin clubs and his insistence that the Committee of General Security should remain subordinate to The Committee of Public

Safety. Later in the month of July, Robespierre withdrew from the Committee of Public Safety. Then, on the 26th of July, the man who had become known as the Incorruptible delivered what would be his final speech to the Convention. Over two hours Robespierre defended himself and his reputation in a rambling, disjointed speech in which he attempted to rebut the accusations made against him in recent times. He asserted that his enemies blamed all of the failings of the Revolution on him, both its excesses and its shortcomings, and he defended himself against accusations of both tyranny and dictatorship.

The Incorruptible stated that, just like the Revolution itself, he had remained virtuous and pure and had risen above the various factions that had attempted to destroy him and lay claim to the Revolution. Then he intoned that the time had come to move against the latest set of conspirators, though he did not mention them by name, merely alluding to the traitors in his speech. This caused a wave of fear and anxiety throughout the Convention, as every deputy became terrified that they were the alleged enemies of Robespierre and would be his next victims. But while many were

dismayed, the ever-faithful Jacobins rallied to Robespierre, while Robespierre’s greatest political ally, Saint-Just, also remained loyal. The 27th of July 1794, according to the French Republican Calendar, was the 9th day of the month of Thermidor in the Year II. For this reason, the events of this day have become known as the Thermidorian Reaction, as there was a reaction against the Terror and the leaders of it, Robespierre chief amongst them. Concerted attacks were launched against Robespierre and his allies that day as many members of the Convention began to fear that they would be his next targets following

his incendiary speech the previous day. When Robespierre and Saint-Just entered a hostile Convention, it became clear that his enemies were determined to overthrow him. As Saint-Just tried to speak, he was interrupted by deputies. Then, when Robespierre attempted to intervene, he was drowned out by chants of, quote, “Down with the tyrant! Arrest him!”, which echoed around the Convention. Thus, Maximilien was unable to make himself heard above the din of the hostile deputies. In the midst of the chaos, the Convention voted to arrest Robespierre, Saint-Just and their main allies. Although, the leaders of the Paris Commune tried

to intervene in defence of Robespierre, only 13 of the city’s local councils concurred with their decision, tired after a year of endless bloodshed and terror orchestrated by Robespierre and his allies. Meanwhile, Robespierre himself had fled to the Hotel de Ville to take refuge there, but in the early hours of the 28th of July soldiers sent by the Convention broke into the Hotel and arrested Robespierre. As the Convention had declared he and his main allies to be outlaws, they could be executed within 24 hours without a trial. During his arrest, Robespierre’s jaw was shot, either by

a gendarme named Merda or in a failed attempt to kill himself. His shattered jaw was bandaged and later that morning Robespierre and his allies stood before the Revolutionary Tribunal and were found guilty. They were put into carts to be taken to the guillotine at the Place de la Revolution, today’s Place de la Concorde, where so many executions were carried out during the Terror. There, on the afternoon of the 28th of July 1794, ‘The Incorruptible’ was executed by the same device that he had consigned so many French people to the fate of over the past year.

With this the Reign of Terror was over. Following his execution, the Convention declared France as saved from the ‘tyrant’, and the Jacobins were denounced. This brought the most radical period of the French Revolution to an end and a more moderate government headed by figures like Paul Barras now came to power. Five years later a military dictatorship would be established under Napoleon Bonaparte. Robespierre had predicted this himself, claiming that the revolutionary fervour could only be controlled in the long run by a strongman who would impose order. Maximilien Robespierre was vilified in the decades following his death,

with all the crimes and excesses of the Terror attributed to him. However, by the early twentieth century, a more positive view of Robespierre had begun to emerge, with historians acknowledging that while the Reign of Terror was a bloody episode, Robespierre’s unwavering belief in and commitment to the principles of the Revolution could not be questioned. Moreover, when he rose to become the most important figure in the French government in 1793, France was mired in a very difficult situation, facing counter-revolutionary revolts all around the country and invasions by the Austrians, Prussians and British. In this political and

military emergency, harsh and difficult measures were needed. However, there is no doubting that by 1794 the military and political emergency was waning as the ports of southern France were won back into revolutionary control and the revolutionary armies began to win major victories over the Austrians and their allies in the Low Countries. This was the juncture at which the Terror should have been brought to an end, but by that time Robespierre had become corrupted by his own power and addicted to the bloodshed unleashed through the Terror. When they moved against him in the Thermidorian Reaction, Robespierre’s

enemies were justified in doing so against a revolutionary hero who had become a revolutionary tyrant. What do you think about Maximilien Robespierre? Was he a revolutionary tyrant who destroyed the early idealism of the French Revolution in a wave of bloodshed in 1793 and 1794 or was the Terror necessary to preserve the Revolution from its many foes? Please let us know in the comment section and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.