Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, better known as Maximilien Robespierre or Maximilian Robespierre (Arras, May 6, 1758- Paris, July 28, 1794), was a French lawyer, writer, orator and politician nicknamed "the Incorruptible". He was one of the most prominent leaders of the French Revolution, a deputy, president of the National Convention on two occasions, a member of the Jacobins and the Committee of Public Safety, the entity that governed France during the revolutionary period known as the Terror.

Robespierre, a jurist by profession, began his career as a criminal judge for the diocese of Arras, in addition to working as a legal advocate, especially for the most dispossessed sectors, which, together with his then strong opposition to the death penalty and the notoriety he accumulated as a writer made him one of the most notorious lawyers in Arras. His fame soon led him to politics, being elected deputy for the Third Estate in the Estates General in 1789, since then heading towards a rapid political rise, reaching the presidency of the National Convention and becoming one of the most powerful leaders of the revolution. As a deputy from the Third Estate, he became one of the leading figures of the "Democrats"; in the Constituent Assembly, defending the abolition of the death penalty and slavery, the right to vote for people of color and Jews, as well as universal suffrage and equal rights against census suffrage. His intransigence soon earned him the nickname "the Incorruptible". A member of the Jacobin Club from the beginning, he gradually became one of its leading figures.

Between 1793 and 1794, in a context of military threats on the borders and revolts in the country, the Committee of Public Safety led the so-called "Reign of Terror", during which it governed France autocratically, plunging the country in a period of political persecution, general uncertainty and continuous executions for treason, sedition, conspiracy, among many other crimes. This period presented a firm, authoritarian Robespierre determined to purify France of any opponent of the Revolution, coming to justify in his defense the use of the death penalty to which he had been so opposed in the past. Robespierre's responsibility for the application of terror - which caused between 20,000 and 40,000 deaths - is controversial, given the multiplication of parallel, poorly coordinated and sometimes rival powers, over which the Public Safety Committee had only limited authority. Robespierre, who was in favor of terror, also tried to limit his excesses.

Finally, after Danton's execution, a series of political divisions broke out within the National Convention, and Robespierre reacted by concentrating more and more power in the Committee of Public Safety. This only further aggravated the situation, causing a body of soldiers opposed to his policies to storm the Paris City Hall, where he and several of his relatives were. During the assault, he was injured in the jaw under uncertain circumstances. He was arrested and guillotined on July 28, 1794 (10 Thermidor) along with twenty-one of his followers. His death was followed by a Thermidorian reaction that dismantled the Terror regime and shattered the purely revolutionary government, which was replaced by the more conservative Directory.

Robespierre is without a doubt the most controversial figure of the French Revolution. His detractors (the Thermidorians, the founders of the Third Republic and the historians of the & # 34; liberal school & # 34;) highlight his role in the establishment of Terror and the dictatorial character of the Committee of Public Safety. For others, Robespierre tried to limit the excesses of the Terror, and was above all a defender of peace, direct democracy and social justice, a spokesman for the poor and one of the actors in the first abolition of slavery in France. These historians point out that the fall of Robespierre coincided with the end of the social measures he had taken in favor of the poor (the law of the maximum general, for example, which controlled the price of bread and grain), and the triumph of liberalism. economic.

Childhood and youth

Maximilien Robespierre was the eldest son of Maximilien-Barthélémy-François de Robespierre, born in 1732, a lawyer before the Supreme Council of Artois, and Jacqueline-Marguerite Carraut, three years younger and daughter of a brewer from Arras. After meeting in 1757, the two young men were married on January 2, 1758.

Robespierre, who was born in Arras on May 6 of the same year, was conceived before the celebration of his parents' marriage.

His father was a scion of a family of jurists from Artois. His grandfather, Maximilien (1694-1762), had also been a member of the Supreme Council of Artois. His great-grandfather, Martin (1664-1720), had been a public prosecutor in Carvin, and his great-great-grandfather, Robert (1627-1707), had been a notary in Carvin and bayle de Oignies.

The couple had four more children: Charlotte, in 1760, Henriette-Eulalie-Françoise in 1761, and Augustin in 1763. The youngest was born on July 4, 1764, but the mother died eight days later, at the age of twenty-nine years old, and the newborn, below. Robespierre was then six years old.

According to Charlotte's Mémoires, François de Robespierre would have abandoned his children after the death of his wife. Instead, according to the historian Gérard Walter, there are traces of his presence in Arras in March and October 1768. Furthermore, two letters of his sent from Mannheim confirm that he was living in Germany in June 1770 and October 1771. The following year, according to the record of the Council of Artois, he dealt with fifteen lawsuits between February 13 and May 22. Finally, in March 1778, on the death of his grandfather, he was absent, since he was represented in a trial before the Escabinado de Arras. From there, if this document is believed, he loses track of it.

Abbot Proyart, who claimed to have known Maximilien's father personally, recounts that, after having lived for some time in Cologne, he would have told him of his desire to travel to London and, from there, to the Caribbean. This hypothesis, discussed by Albert Mathiez, is rejected by Gérard Walter and Auguste Paris.

A burial record discovered by Irmgard Hörl in 1956 indicates that Maximilien's father died in Munich on November 6, 1777, where he had been a Sprachmeister language teacher. admit Catherine Fouquet and Henri Guillemin. In any case, after the death of their father, the two girls were taken in by their paternal aunts and the two boys by their maternal grandfather, Jacques Carraut (1701-1778).

In 1765 he was enrolled in the College of Orators of Arras. In 1769 he obtained a scholarship to study at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he excelled academically (especially in philosophy and law) and was a schoolmate of other future revolutionary leaders, including Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton. A widespread legend holds that, in June 1775, Robespierre was chosen from among all the students at Louis-le-Grand to recite some Latin verses to the newly crowned Louis XVI, and that the latter, after listening without the slightest interest to the young man, he would have left quickly, without even getting out of his carriage, to avoid getting wet in the rain. Robespierre graduated from the School of Law in 1781 and entered into private practice in his native Arras, with moderate success.

Beginnings in politics

Maximilien Robespierre in 1785. Oil of Pierre Roch Vigneron.

Robespierre decided to stand in the elections to the Estates General in April 1789, becoming known in his town for his pamphlet Adresse à la nation artésienne. Although the main landowners of the province stood for election, on April 26 Robespierre was elected as the fifth deputy of the Third Estate.

As the Estates General met at Versailles on May 5, 1789, Robespierre's passion began to be evident. Mirabeau said of him: "This young man believes what he says: he's going to go far." A fervent supporter of Rousseau's ideas, he was already beginning to give his own form in his speeches at the assembly, which were branded as extremists by the majority.

A great orator in the Constituent Assembly, to which he made some 150 speeches until 1791, he gradually emerged as one of the leaders of the small group of the extreme left contemptuously referred to by Mirabeau as "The Thirty Voices".

Since the time of the Estates General, Robespierre had participated in the club of «Friends of the Constitution», which, when moving its compound to the building of the Jacobin (Dominican) monks, would be recognized as the «Jacobins». Surrounded by people of similar social backgrounds, and becoming more and more of a very restricted club, Robespierre gained ground until he became the leader of the movement in the summer of 1792.

The king's escape and arrest at Varennes ruined the chances of a viable constitutional monarchy. Although Robespierre kept apparent caution, thousands of demonstrators decided to call for the king's abdication on the Champ de Mars on July 17, 1791, but were dispersed by bullets from the battalion commanded by La Fayette. The left leaders feared the reaction, Marat went into hiding, Danton to England and Robespierre remained in Paris, taking refuge in the house of Maurice Duplay, a cabinetmaker who lived on Rue Saint-Honoré and a Jacobin sympathizer, which reinforced his position by staying in Paris and with his club during this dire situation.

On September 30, in the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, Pétion and Robespierre, who enjoyed tremendous popular support, became two of the most representative figures of the moment.

The Terror

Robespierre terracotta bust, by Deseine, 1792 (Vizille Castle)

Robespierre denounced the war of France against Austria (1792) considering that France was not prepared for a conflict of such magnitude. He was part of the National Convention, which was elected by universal suffrage, and in which he sat among the highlanders, so called because they have their seats at the top of the Chamber of the National Assembly. The support of the revolutionaries of Paris (the sans-culottes) in the assemblies of each district and municipality of the Parisian region, brought Robespierre to power: first as a member of the revolutionary Commune (the city council) that he held local power; then as a representative of the city in the National Convention that assumed all the powers, and in which Robespierre appeared as spokesman for the radical party of the Mountain (together with Danton and Marat). It was at this time that Robespierre openly manifested his republicanism. He fought firmly against the Girondins, the group of moderate deputies from the Bordeaux region, the Gironde, a conservative group that advocated a decentralized State and was inclined to maintain the constitutional monarchy or, in any case, carry out a revolution moderate. Already before, Robespierre was in disagreement with the Girondins on the convenience of war against the European monarchies, which the Girondins defended with the argument of bringing freedom to the subjects of the kings. Robespierre was against it, convinced that "no one wants armed missionaries." The Girondins constituted a very strong political pressure group in the National Assembly, but when opposing the line of radical republican firmness represented by the Jacobins and after their rejection of the execution of Louis XVI (which they considered excessive), Robespierre did not stop attacking them. wildly in his speeches. Finally, in 1793, Robespierre, supported by a suitably led popular masses, staged a coup d'état and dismantled the Girondin group, arresting all the main leaders he could capture.

The situation of the Republic in that year of 1793 was extremely serious, harassed on its borders and with serious disturbances inside. There was also a serious distrust of government power, and the Jacobin political line advocated that the National Assembly be the center of political power, with the ministers being mere executors of the policies emanating from the Assembly, with what Robespierre controlled from this way full power. The harassment suffered by the Republic led to the formation of the so-called Public Safety Committee, endowed with special powers, but which had to report to the Assembly on a monthly basis for its decisions and activity. On 9 Thermidor of the year I (July 27, 1793), Robespierre joined the Committee of Public Salvation and thanks to his prestige he became the main leader of the new republic, that of the "Jacobin dictatorship". forced to propose and execute exceptional measures that were considered essential to safeguard the Republic from serious threats, both internal (civil war in the Vendée region) and external.^{[citation required]}

Acting in the exercise of Virtue, that is, exercising it individually and collectively, is one of the keys to Robespierre's republican thought; but in the historical moments that France and its new popular democratic republic (that of the period of Jacobin rule) were going through, the danger posed by the enemies of the republic was real: the French legitimists, the French expatriates in England or in the German kingdoms and conflicts were a threat. Robespierre considered that the Republic should defend itself forcefully and quickly, seizing the initiative from its enemies, and he called this action "Terror", that is, according to him, the immediate application of republican justice with the aim of neutralizing the enemies of the Republic. In this way, Terror, in the Jacobin republican language, is an action in defense of Virtue, in order to defend the public good, the Republic, with the Public Safety Committee that assumed its defense being obliged to give a public account. of his actions. Unfortunately, the implementation of such principles at the hands of some "delegates on mission" (delegated commissars in the provinces) led to mass executions of anyone suspected of being a counterrevolutionary.

Caricature that shows Robespierre running to the executioner after guillotineing all the French.

The period of Terror meant the guillotine death of thousands of people, many of them workers and peasants, but above all it was a symbol of a total break with the absolutist past and the monarchy. Robespierre had been a staunch supporter of the abolition of the death penalty, but his perception changed when he assumed the obligation to defend the Republic from its enemies, coming to consider that it was justified, as long as the person executed was an "enemy". ».

The dynamics of continuous internal confrontations subjected the Republic of Robespierre to great tension. Robespierre played a more or less centrist role in the revolutionary government. He faced the ultra-revolutionaries or Hébertists (followers of Hébert) (March 24, 1794), as well as the so-called "Indulgent", grouped around Danton and Desmoulins (April 5, 1794). Acting according to standard procedure, the Committee of Public Safety proceeded to eliminate the opposition, just as the Girondins had been done: Danton, Desmoulins, and Hébert were arrested, summarily tried, and executed by guillotine.

Maximilien Robespierre then tried to impose his ideal of a democratic and virtuous republic: «Terror, without virtue, is disastrous. Virtue, without terror, is impotent." Robespierre's republican proposal assumed the values of the Enlightenment and developed them politically in practice, spiritually crowning it with the institution of the cult of the Supreme Being, actually a theistic concession against the most openly anti-religious sectors. The administrative system chosen was centralist, promoting French as the only language for teaching, which in the long term practically meant the eradication of the Romance languages of the south, Flemish, German, Breton and Basque.

Theory of the revolutionary government

The theory of the revolutionary government is as new as the revolution that has brought it. We must not look for it in the books of the political writers, who have not seen this Revolution at all, nor in the laws of the tyrants who are happy with abusing their power, do little to seek legitimacy; this word is not for the aristocracy more than a matter of terror; for the tyrants, a scandal; for many people a riddle. The principle of the constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of the revolutionary government is to establish it. The constitutional government deals primarily with civil freedom; and the revolutionary government of public freedom. Under the constitutional regime it is sufficient to protect individuals from abuses of public power; under the revolutionary regime, public power itself is obliged to defend itself against all the factions that attack it. The revolutionary government owes the good citizens all national protection; the enemies of the people owe only death.

Robespierre, The theory of the revolutionary government

Robespierre, under constant pressure and eager to implement his program without hindrance, began to absent himself from the formal meetings of the Committee of Public Safety; this caused great concern among members of the Convention and the Committee itself, even among those who had hitherto been supporters of terror (Fouché, Barras, the deputies of the Marais^{[citation needed]}), who feared, quite justifiably, following in the footsteps of Danton and Hébert. The establishment of the Great Terror (Pradial Law, year II — June 10, 1794) was considered unnecessary, since after the military victories (Fleurus, June 26, 1794) the Revolution was already consolidated and such a regime was not necessary. extremist. Thinking, not without reason, that the continuation of "The Incorruptible" at the head of the Committee of Public Safety would imply that Robespierre was now determined to cleanse the Republic of anyone who might rival him in the leadership of the nation, a war began to brew. coup d'état within the revolutionary power itself, whose leadership was full of non-confessed Girondins, Jacobins eager to avenge the deaths of Danton and Hébert, or simply people afraid of being accused of treason and executed accordingly by the inflexible Robespierre.^{[citation required]}

Fall and death

Nine Termidor (1864), by Valery Jacobi, preserved at the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow. Tumbado sobre una mesa, afectadas, en una sala del Comité de Salvación Pública, Robespierre is subject to the curiosity and insults of his guardians, in front of his friends, wastes

On 8 Thermidor of the year II (July 26, 1794), Robespierre delivered a strange speech that could be interpreted as a political testament, but also as a warning that he was going to denounce new traitors to the revolution before the Convention. The next day, one of his closest collaborators, Louis de Saint-Just, appeared to present a report to the Committee without first having read it to the other members of the Committee. Although it was a conciliation proposal, some deputies, terrified at the possibility that he was going to claim the purification by giving names, began to shout, preventing him from continuing with the speech. A group of deputies was especially active in this sense, since in the previous days they had planned the fall of the Robespierristas. Finally, after the center refused to support him, Robespierre was accused of being a dictator and arrested along with two other members of the Committee, Saint-Just and Georges Couthon. Robespierre's brother, Augustin, together with Philippe Le Bas, a member of the General Security Committee, asked to be arrested along with them.

Robespierre's execution. The decapitated man that is observed is Couthon; the body of La Bas is lying on the ground; Robespierre appears sitting in the car near the heap with a handkerchief on the mouth.

Freed from prison by the Paris commune, which supported them, the Robespierristas took refuge in the town hall building, backed by a section of the army commanded by General Hanriot. That same night, troops loyal to the Convention stormed the town hall, which had emptied as the hours passed. The building, after a firefight during which Robespierre was shot in the face at the level of the mouth (it is not known if it was self-inflicted or as a result of the skirmish), fell into Thermidorian hands. The next day, Robespierre was taken to the Place de la Revolution (today Place de la Concorde), where more than a thousand people had been beheaded during the previous months, and he was guillotined along with twenty-one collaborators, among whom were Saint -Just, Couthon and General Hanriot. Robespierre's body and that of the other convicts was buried in a common grave in the Errancis cemetery, into which quicklime was poured in order to erase all traces. His fall put an end to the Terror and the republican fury.

In literature

At the movies