Maximilien Robespierre biography French revolutionary Reign of Terror Related link pages Maximilien Robespierre biography Maximilien Robespierre (Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre) was born on May 6th, 1758, in Arras where his father was based as an advocate. Robespierre and his three younger siblings were brought up by diverse relatives after their father dramatically lost his way in life after the death of his wife in childbirth in 1767. Robespierre was educated for a short time at a College in Arras and then in Paris initially at the very prestigious College of Louis-le-Grand and later at the College of Law. Robespierre qualified as an advocate in 1781 and sought to establish a legal practice at his home town of Arras. He became known both as a successful advocate and as a participant in local literary and philosophic circles. He was elected as a "Third Estate" (i.e.

a Commoner rather than an Aristocratic or Clerical) deputy of Artois to the Estates-General that convened at the Palace of Versailles, on May 5th 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, and subsequently served in the National Constituent Assembly, where his earnest and skillful oratory soon commanded attention. As he had grown into manhood Robespierre had become a fanatical devotee of the social theories of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He and some thirty other like-minded deputies became associated in a "Society of the Friends of the Constitution" later known as the Jacobin Club. In April 1790 he was elected president of the Jacobin Club and became increasingly popular as an enemy of the monarchy and as an advocate of democratic reforms. When the Constituent Assembly was dissolved on September 30th 1791 Robespierre and another prominent Jacobin Petion de Villeneuve were the only outgoing deputies recognised as "incorruptible patriots" by the more radically inclined amongst the people of Paris.

Robespierre "The Incorruptible" subsequently opposed the more moderate Girondists, the dominant faction in the newly formed Legislative Assembly, particularly over their support for war with Austria. In June 1791 King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette attempted to flee from France in order to seek refuge with powers opposed to the revolution - they were however recognised and detained at Varennes. Robespierre had hitherto been content with the sort of constitutional monarchy that had been in operation in France. The King's attempted defection altered the way he was perceived by Robespierre and others. In late August 1792 France was threatened with invasion by a mixed Austrian, Prussian, and French émigré force. The leader of this force, the Duke of Brunswick, issued the so-called " Brunswick Manifesto " which threatened all Frenchmen with dire punishment if they defended themselves against the advance of Brunswick's forces and threatened to lay waste to Paris if the French royal family were harmed. Given that King Louis XVI was suspect since his abortive " flight to Varennes " there was a move led by Danton and others for the overthrow of the French monarchy.

The palace of Versailles was stormed and the royal family were arrested after seeking refuge with the assembly. On September 21st a recently elected new assembly that called itself the Convention declared that the French monarchy was abolished and France was a Republic. On September 25th the Convention proclaimed that the "French Republic is one and indivisible". Robespierre spoke at King Louis XVI's trial as follows:- "You have not to pass sentence for or against a single man, but you have to take a resolution on a question of the public safety, and to decide a question of national foresight. It is with regret that I pronounce a fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die that the country may live." Citizen Louis Capet (formerly known as King Louis XVI) was subsequently sent to the guillotine on 21st January 1793. Girondin led France had little success in conflicts with foreign adversaries. There was an open "royalist" revolt against the central authority in the Vendée and there were demands for greater 'federalist' autonomy expressed by interests in southern regions of France.

Over the last days of May and first days of June 1793, Robespierre, supported by the Commune of Paris, forced the expulsion of the Girondists from the National Convention. On July 27th he was elected a member of the chief executive body, the Committee of Public Safety. Although Robespierre was from one point of view only one of twelve members of the committee he was the only one who, through the full support he enjoyed from the Jacobin Clubs and the Commune of Paris, represented a close link to the more radical supporters of the Revolution. France was in turmoil, and with the aim of restoring order and reducing the danger of invasion from abroad, Robespierre, backed by the committee, proceeded to ruthlessly eliminate all whom he considered to be enemies of the Revolution, both extremists and moderates. This policy led to the so-called Reign of Terror and to the execution of the revolutionary leaders Jacques René Hébert (March 24th 1794) and Georges Jacques Danton (April 6th 1794). Both Hébert and Danton were politicians whose preferred policies were inconsistent with the pure Rousseauism that was Robespierre's guiding principle.

The Hébertists had been suspected of preparing for a coup d'état and this may have contributed to the harshness with which they were treated. Danton was one of several prominent persons who were suspected of financial corruption thus polluting the virtue of the Revolution. Whilst the aims of the Terror were perhaps laudable from Robespierre's revolutionary perspective the means adopted towards those ends were terrible indeed. On May 7th, at Robespierre's insistence, the National Convention proclaimed as an official religion the Cult of the Supreme Being, which was based on Rousseau's theory of Deism. This decree antagonized both Roman Catholics and atheists, but Robespierre still had the powerful backing of the Commune of Paris. A Grand Fête in honour of the Supreme Being was celebrated on 8th June 1794 where Robespierre, who had been elected as the President of the Convention four days previously, played a major role.

Whatever appearance of justice the revolutionary tribunals that had been set up to investigate people's political loyalties may have had prior to these times a law of June 10th 1794 established a situation where witnesses could no longer be called for the defence and where such tribunals effectively became committees of condemnation. Between June 12th and July 28th almost 1300 people were sent to the Guillotine (an average of 28 beheadings a day). This intensification of the Reign of Terror, caused many influential members of the Convention and of the Jacobin Club to fear for their own safety. In recent months French military fortunes had been transformed largely as a result of a mass levy of all unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25 that had been authorised by the Convention on 23rd August 1793. A series of significant French military victories that were reported from diverse battlefields made the extreme security measures that had been followed seem less imperative, and a conspiracy was formed for the overthrow of Robespierre.

On July 27th 1794 Robespierre was accused of tyranny, barred from speaking at the National Convention, and was placed under arrest as were several key supporters. Although these captives were promptly rescued by soldiers loyal to the Commune of Paris and brought to the Hotêl de Ville the Convention ordered the National Guard to move to recapture Robespierre who subsequently received a gunshot wound to the lower jaw during his recapture. On July 28th Robespierre together with his closest associates Louis Saint-Just and Georges Couthon and nineteen other supporters died on the guillotine. Eighty more followers of Robespierre were executed the next day. Thus perished a man who had been a successful, popular, and cultured provincial lawyer but who gained power in turbulent times and was able to pursue certain unproven social theories with a singleness of mind that could tolerate grievious human suffering if it was perceived as 'necessary' to the realisation and defence of a theoretically ideal society. With the demise of Robespierre the truly Revolutionary phase of the Revolution in France more or less came to an end. Power shifted away from the radicals and towards the conservatives.

The Jacobin Clubs were closed down in November and freedom of worship was restored in February 1795. Explore Inner Space!!! It is widely known that Plato, pupil of and close friend to Socrates, accepted that Human Beings have a " Tripartite Soul " where individual Human Psychology is composed of three aspects - Wisdom-Rationality, Spirited-Will and Appetite-Desire. Such a speculative representation of 'Tripartite?' Human Nature as this is backed by a great deal of evidence from such authorities as Plato, Shakespeare and Pythagoras. Such major World Faiths as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism see "Spirituality" as being relative to "Desire" and to "Wrath". For Indisputable Wisdoms about Human Nature please visit our:- Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that :- "...man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world..." Should that be true it would follow that individual Human Natures could well 'metaphysically' underpin, and be generally associable with, the 'Nature' and 'Form' of most "non-ideological" and "non-doctrinaire" Human societies!

This view presented above suggests that Societies themselves!!! often have a Tripartite character. Immanuel Kant, perhaps the most celebrated and influential western philospher of recent times, has something to say on this:- "Whatever concept one may hold, from a metaphysical point of view, concerning the freedom of the will, certainly its appearances, which are human actions, like every other natural event, are determined by universal laws.

However obscure their causes, history, which is concerned with narrating these appearances, permits us to hope that if we attend to the play of freedom of the human will in the large, we may be able to discern a regular movement in it, and that what seems complex and chaotic in the single individual may be seen from the standpoint of the human race as a whole to be a steady and progressive though slow evolution of its original endowment." Immanuel Kant Or to quote Emerson, from his famous Essay ~ History more fully:- "In old Rome the public roads beginning at the Forum proceeded north, south, east, west, to the centre of every province of the empire, making each market-town of Persia, Spain, and Britain pervious to the soldiers of the capital: so out of the human heart go, as it were, highways to the heart of every object in nature, to reduce it under the dominion of man. A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world. His faculties refer to natures out of him, and predict the world he is to inhabit, as the fins of the fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose air.

He cannot live without a world." Links to Particularly Popular Topics & Pages Archaeology + SparkNotes: The French Revolution (1789–1799): The Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction: 1792–1795 The Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction: 1792–1795 → The Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction: 1792–1795, page 2 page 1 of 3 September 22, 1792 France is declared a republic January 21, 1793 Louis XVI is executed April 6 National Convention creates Committee of Public Safety June 24 Constitution of 1793 is established September 5 Reign of Terror begins; lasts more than ten months September 29 Robespierre’s Maximum implements ceiling on prices October 16 Marie-Antoinette is executed July 27, 1794 Robespierre is overthrown December 24 Maximum is repealed; prices skyrocket Key People Louis XVI - French king; executed by new republican government in January 1793 Maximilien Robespierre - Jacobin leader who seized control

 of National Convention and Committee of Public Safety; later instituted Reign of Terror, targeting those whose philosophies differed from his own Lazare Carnot - Military strategist who helped reorganize the French war effort and successfully defended the country against foreign invaders Georges Danton - Longtime Jacobin and close associate of Robespierre who was executed after he began questioning the extremes to which Robespierre was going in the Reign of Terror The National Convention and the French Republic In the autumn of 1792, the revolutionary government, having written off the idea of a constitutional monarchy, set about electing a National Convention of delegates to oversee the country.

In late September, therefore, the first election took place under the rules of the Constitution of 1791. As it turned out, only a third of the newly elected convention members had sat on a previous assembly, and a great number of new faces belonged to either the Jacobins or the Girondins. The first action of the convention, on September 21, 1792, was to abolish the monarchy. The next day, the Republic of France was founded. The Execution of Louis XVI As a sign of the republic’s newfound resolve and contempt for the monarchy, the next proposal before the National Convention was the execution of Louis XVI. Once again, the moderates objected and eventually forced a trial, but the effort was in vain. Louis XVI was ultimately found guilty of treason and, on January 21, 1793, executed at the guillotine. Months later, on October 16, 1793, his wife, Marie-Antoinette, met the same fate. Symbolically speaking, the declaration of sovereignty and the beheading of the monarch were powerful motivators within France.

Unfortunately, the moment of bliss was brief, as the governmental powers quickly realized that all of their achievements were being threatened by internal and external fighting. The Committee of Public Safety In the weeks after the execution of the king, the internal and external wars in France continued to grow. Prussian and Austrian forces pushed into the French countryside, and one noted French general even defected to the opposition. Unable to assemble an army out of the disgruntled and protesting peasants, the Girondin-led National Convention started to panic. In an effort to restore peace and order, the convention created the Committee of Public Safety on April 6, 1793, to maintain order within France and protect the country from external threats. The Jacobins’ Coup The Committee of Public Safety followed a moderate course after its creation but proved weak and ineffective. After a few fruitless months under the committee, the sans-culottes finally reached their boiling point. They stormed the National Convention and accused the Girondins of representing the aristocracy.

Seeing an opportunity, Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the Jacobins, harnessed the fury of the sans-culottes to take control of the convention, banish the Girondins, and install the Jacobins in power. Once again, the sans-culottes proved to be a formidable force in effecting change during the Revolution. Already upset about the composition of the National Convention—which remained dominated by middle- and upper-class bourgeoisie and was influenced by big thinkers of the time—they became even more angry upon learning that many of the Girondin leaders expected them to bolster the failing war effort. Sieyès had originally rallied the Third Estate by reminding them that they numbered many and that their numbers gave them strength. This message clearly stuck with the sans-culottes throughout the Revolution, and they took advantage of their strength at every possible opportunity. 1 Robespierre: Selected Speeches Robespierre: Selected Speeches This resource is available for free click here to view it. Discussion Guide Price: $7.00 Review Everyone knows the monster named Maximilien Robespierre.

He was the leader of the French Revolutionï¿½s infamous Committee of Public Safety, the one who wielded the guillotine as others might wield a flyswatter. At the height of the Terror initiated by Robespierre, 1,285 men and women were executed in less than two months. And then the monster who lived by the guillotine, died by the guillotine. But Robespierre was not a werewolf or a vampire, nor was he insane. He was a mere man, and in the years leading up to the Terror he gave few indications of what he would become. In fact, in the first speech students will read, Robespierre is arguing against capital punishment! Incredibly, Robespierre delivered this speech less than three years before he acquired the power that led to the Terror. Nor was Robespierre a rabid atheist, intent on destroying every vestige of religiosity (a charge that could be placed at the feet of another tyrant, V.I. Lenin).

In a speech delivered less than two months before his death, Robespierre celebrates the ï¿½Supreme Beingï¿½ and says ï¿½it is he who has spread upon Nature her wealth and her majesty.ï¿½ Though other leaders in the French Revolution were staunchly atheistic, Robespierre often chastised them for allowing their extreme views to drive Catholics to extremes. It is wrong to view Robespierre as a monster. He is not an aberration; rather, he proves that Lord Actonï¿½s old maxim that ï¿½power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutelyï¿½ holds true for all of us. He did not believe himself capable of administering the death penalty; he spoke as though he believed in an authority higher than himself; but his sin nature ensnared him just as it ensnares every man. Robespierre used the guillotine so recklessly because he was a child of Adam, as we all are. To dismiss the Terror as an aberration in history initiated by a monster, or to dismiss Robespierre as merely a product of the social forces at work in that era, is to misunderstand the nature of man.

Robespierre was capable of the Terror for the same reason any unredeemed man is capable of the Terror: the stain of sin. by Jeff Baldwin Newsela | Famous Speeches: Robespierre's Justification of the Use of Terror 487 Portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre circa 1791. Image: Portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre circa 1790 Wikimedia Commons Famous Speeches: Robespierre's Justification of the Use of Terror Original speech from the public domain, adapted by Newsela staff Word Count 848 Editor's Note: Maximilien Robespierre was a leader governing the republic of France during part of the French Revolution. Robespierre and many other French citizens helped end the aristocracy's rule in France. After he gained power though, Robespierre became a dictator. He ruled in a strict way that punished many. His rule was called the Reign of Terror. If people appeared to disagree with him, they would be punished with death. He made the following speech in 1794 to explain why he used terror in governing the people of France. We must end the war. It is a war of freedom against oppression.

We must move safely through this revolution. To do this, we must establish and support a government in which people take part and live peacefully with constitutional laws. That is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have put into place. Your actions, then, should also be determined by the difficult situation in which the French Republic is placed. And the plan of your government must result from the spirit of revolution combined with the general principles of a democratic, or popular government. Now, what is the central principle of this democracy? What is the main thing that makes it work? It is virtue. I am speaking of the public righteousness which effected so many intelligent people in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more surprising ones in France. That virtue is nothing other than the love of country and of its laws... Virtue is necessary for both the people and for the government. When only the government lacks virtue, the people still have virtue. Though when the people are unethical, liberty is already lost... From all this let us understand a great truth: A government ruled by the people will have confidence in the people and will be hard on itself.

Our entire theory would end here if you had only to guide the French Republic through calm waters; but these are difficult times, and the revolution gives you another task. Our strengths and our weaknesses were caused by the same things. They resulted from the sincere way in which the French revolution came to be and the very greatness of its goal. These things make us strong because they give rise to truth over dishonesty. They also place the rights of the group over individuals. They make us weak because they rally evil men against us: men who in their hearts considered taking money and freedom from the people without punishment. This includes those who have rejected freedom. It also includes those who have embraced the revolution as their life's work and the people as their enemy. We have therefore seen many determined or greedy men leave our cause. They have abandoned us along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same goals. There are two opposing sides in this struggle. One might say they are fighting in this great period of human history to once and for all fix the world's future. France is the scene of this fearful battle. Without the fight, all of the oppressive leaders surround you.

Within the fight, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until you have no more hope. We must smother the enemies both inside and outside of the Republic or we will die with it. Now in this situation, you should plan to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror. If the motivation of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the motivations of popular government in revolution are both virtue and terror. Terror is deadly without virtue. And virtue is powerless without terror. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it therefore flows from virtue. It is not so much a special principle as it is a result of democracy being applied to our country's most serious needs. It has been said that a strict, oppressive government rules with terror. Does your government therefore look like this? Yes. Just as the sword gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty, the people who help oppressive rulers have weapons. Let the oppressor rule his hurt subjects by terror. He is right, as an oppressor. Use terror to quiet the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as builders of the Republic. The revolutionary government is how freedom fights against oppression....

Society owes protection only to peaceful citizens. For the Republic, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not unbreakable? Are the enemies within not on the same side as the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country, the conspirators who pay off honest citizens and the traitors who sell them are all accountable. So are the crooked supporters hired to disgrace the people's cause and to kill the people's desire to do good. They stir up the fire of civil disharmony. They prepare governmental counterrevolution by honest counterrevolution. Are all those men less responsible or less dangerous than the oppressors whom they serve? Sign up for a free account to read the full article. French Revolution - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Prelude to the French Revolution: Monarchy in Crisis As the 18th century drew to a close, France’s costly involvement in the American Revolution and extravagant spending by King Louis XVI (1754-1793) and his predecessor had left the country on the brink of bankruptcy.

Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but two decades of poor cereal harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes yet failed to provide relief by rioting, looting and striking. Did You Know? Over 17,000 people were officially tried and executed during the Reign of Terror, and an unknown number of others died in prison or without trial. In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802), proposed a financial reform package that included a universal land tax from which the privileged classes would no longer be exempt. To garner support for these measures and forestall a growing aristocratic revolt, the king summoned the Estates-General (“les états généraux”)–an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle class–for the first time since 1614.

The meeting was scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from each locality would compile lists of grievances (“cahiers de doléances”) to present to the king. The French Revolution at Versailles: Rise of the Third Estate France’s population had changed considerably since 1614. The non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now represented 98 percent of the people but could still be outvoted by the other two bodies. In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation and the abolishment of the noble veto–in other words, they wanted voting by head and not by status. While all of the orders shared a common desire for fiscal and judicial reform as well as a more representative form of government, the nobles in particular were loath to give up the privileges they enjoyed under the traditional system. By the time the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the highly public debate over its voting process had erupted into hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who had convened it.

On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath (“serment du jeu de paume”), vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. Within a week, most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new assembly. The French Revolution Hits the Streets: The Bastille and the Great Fear On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet at Versailles, fear and violence consumed the capital. Though enthusiastic about the recent breakdown of royal power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending military coup began to circulate. A popular insurgency culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution. The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria quickly swept the countryside.

Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and the seigniorial elite. Known as the Great Fear (“la Grande peur”), the agrarian insurrection hastened the growing exodus of nobles from the country and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789, signing what the historian Georges Lefebvre later called the “death certificate of the old order.” The French Revolution’s Political Culture: Drafting a Constitution On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (“Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen”), a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. Drafting a formal constitution proved much more of a challenge for the National Constituent Assembly, which had the added burden of functioning as a legislature during harsh economic times.

For months, its members wrestled with fundamental questions about the shape and expanse of France’s new political landscape. For instance, who would be responsible for electing delegates? Would the clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church or the French government? Perhaps most importantly, how much authority would the king, his public image further weakened after a failed attempt to flee in June 1791, retain? Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794), Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794) and Georges Danton (1759-1794), who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government and the trial of Louis XVI.

The French Revolution Turns Radical: Terror and Revolt In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through warfare. On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic. On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) suffered the same fate nine months later. Following the king’s execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention ushered the French Revolution into its most violent and turbulent phase.

In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity. They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (“la Terreur”), a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794. His death marked the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction, a moderate phase in which the French people revolted against the Reign of Terror’s excesses. The French Revolution Ends: Napoleon’s Rise On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France’s first bicameral legislature. Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory (“Directoire”) appointed by parliament.

Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field. On November 9, 1799, as frustration with their leadership reached a fever pitch, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France’s “first consul.” The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe. Tags History Essays - Maximilian Robespierre History Essays - Maximilian Robespierre Last Edited: 23rd March, 2015 This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.

Far from being the monster of historical legend Robespierre was in fact a visionaryat the mercy of circumstance. History has a way of distorting thetruth like none of the other arts. Myth becomes fact and voids in culturalknowledge are filled with hearsay and conjecture with the result that many ofthe great historical figures, from Henry VIII to Kaiser Wilhelm, have been madeto play a posthumous role for which their lives were not the correct dressrehearsal. Clearly, there is a case to state that there must exist smoke tocreate a historical fire but in instances such as those outlined above, andthat of the infamous French revolutionary Maximilian Robespierre, are out ofall proportion to the deeds they enacted in their political lives. The negativehistorical portrayal of Robespierre, like Richard III before him, has beenexacerbated by his short tenure in office; his influence upon the FrenchRevolution was limited, essentially, to twelve months, from July 1793 to July1794; therefore the brevity of his influence upon the Revolution only served toincrease the shadow he cast over posterity.

Moreover, his heyday coincided withthe zenith of the Terror, and Robespierre's association with this upsurge inviolence in the provinces has severely curtailed any effort by his supportersto switch the focus towards his more visionary political achievements, as thefollowing excerpt from Jones (2003:58) underscores. The ending of Terror as aninstrument of government can be fairly precisely dated to the upheaval of 9Thermidor II (17 July 1794), which removed Robespierre and his supporters frompower. Robespierre's political testimonyhas largely been inserted by the men that usurped him and it is a view thatpersists to this day. The case of Robespierre proves, once again, that historyis often the account of the victors over the vanquished. The challenge within this essay isto evaluate the true role of Robespierre upon the Revolution, to dispel themyths and to sift through the rhetoric and propaganda. The greatest dilemmawill be in ascertaining whether Robespierre was indeed at the mercy ofcircumstance or whether he, in some way, engineered events to suit his broaderpolitical agenda. His status as a visionary is beyond question.

His followersare testimony to this fact; historical legacy is always measured in imitation. Itis prudent to chronologically examine the political career of Robespierre inlight of his reputation as a monster of historical legend to gauge the verityof the accusations levelled against him. It has been claimed with goodreason that the French Revolution was the most important single event in modernwestern history. It shaped not only the course of one country but set in motiona chain of events that catapulted the continent into the modern era, as Biddis(1994:416) highlights. During the 1790's the policies pursued by France undoubtedly contributed to mass political mobilisation elsewhere in Europe.It is within this unprecedented and experimental context that Robespierre firstappears, in the midst of a national crisis and within a country that aimed tofollow in the parliamentary tradition of England without first sewing the seedsupon which the Glorious Revolution (1688) germinated.

Robespierre's chief period of influencein the nascent Republic came during the period 17921794, although he was a formativefigure in the embryonic years of discord before then, playing a key role in theestablishment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which causedLouis XVI to flee Paris on 5 October 1789. As George Lefebvre (1969:210)detailed the essential work of the Revolution of 1789 may be found registeredin the resolutions of the 4 August and in the Declaration of the Rights of Manand the Citizen. Thus, Robespierre set out his stallearly on as a visionary in terms of egalitarian ideology and as an opponent ofautocratic rule. Furthermore, Robespierre was the most vocal opponent of theconcept of 'active' and 'passive' citizenry as promulgated in the Declarationof Man, correctly identifying that it was the passive citizens that made upthe core of the influential Paris mob.

The paradigm of nationwide electionwas also an important byproduct of the period of consolidation, which can betraced to 1791, and, again Robespierre was a key figure in its implementation. Henceforth,elections were to be held in the capital and in the countryside, incorporatingmunicipal, judicial and clerical institutions. This was indeed a revolutionaryconcept and constituted a complete break with the feudal bonds of the past. AsJohn Hardman (1999:21) highlights, the cumulative effect was total politicalrevolution in France. Eventually, in July 1792, the legal straightjacket ofcitizenship distinctions was removed and Robespierre was as responsible asanyone for bringing it about.

Robespierre was motivated duringthis time (though many commentators use the word 'converted') by the distorteddemocratic leanings of JeanJacques Rousseau (1968:141), who advocated a morestringent form of representative government, claiming that the system inEngland did not make the people free, rather, it is only free during theelection of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected, thepeople is enslaved; it is nothing.Robespierre felt as if he was fulfilling Rousseau's moralistic politicaltestament, which rests upon the notion of interpreting national will withouttrusting the people to know what they really want. Robespierre's organic philosophicalconnection to Rousseau acts as an illustration of the effect of selectivehistorical memory and the impossibility of shedding a type cast image. Whereasone man is considered a hero of the Revolution, posthumously relocated to thePantheon in 1794, the other has since become the enemy of liberty and theinstigator of brutal political repression in France.

Furet (1981:204) waskeener to ally Robespierre with the wider eighteenth century Jacobinphenomenon, and he warned of the historical and ideological perils of,approaching Robespierre through Rousseau and seeing him as an admirer of the SocialContract grappling with the constraints of public safety Robespierre isnot so much the heir of Enlightenment as the product of the new system calledJacobinism, the beginning of modern politics. Despite his well founded and rigidpolitical ideology, Robespierre was also a great opportunist. With thealienation of the King, the flight of thousands of nobles after the storming ofthe Bastille and the schism in the clergy after 1790, the traditionaltriumvirate that had ruled France for centuries had vacated the political arenaand created a power vacuum. There is little doubt that any politician withambition caught up in such a vortex would be heavily influenced by the role offate. Furthermore, circumstance gradually ensured that Robespierre would bepermitted to practice his own vision of postrevolutionary France within the nascent leftist Jacobin Republic.

The war with Austria, declared on 20 April 1792 was a key moment in the perpetuation of the Revolutionand a vital occurrence in the background to Robespierre's seizure of power. Theactions of extraterritorial nationstates such as Austria, Prussia and Britainwere clearly beyond the control of Robespierre yet he used the impetus they broughtto the Republic to his own advantage, as the concept of perpetual war meant ahardening of revolutionary doctrine in the Convention and an opportunity tospread revolutionary ideology across the both the country and the continent. Thissiege effect of external threat and internal strife acted as a catalyst thatpropelled Robespierre and his vision to power, as Lewis (2005:2345) ascertains. The combination of foreign war andinternal counterrevolution largely dictated the ideological course of theRevolution after 1792, pushing it to the left during the successive militarycrises from the spring of 1792 to the spring of 1794 then swinging thepolitical pendulum back to the political centreground once those crises hadbeen overcome.

France was therefore movinginexorably towards a militant leftist environment during 1792, yet Robespierrewas likewise aided in the administrative changes that beset the Republic atthis time. The fundamental key to Robespierre's success was the CPS (Committeeof Public Safety), a direct byproduct of the disorder that had reined since1789. According to Halsall (1997:Marxists.org website), the committee wasamong the most creative executive bodies ever seen - and rapidly put intoeffect policies which stabilised the French economy and began the formation ofthe very successful French army. The CPS voted Robespierre a memberin July 1793 though he was in effect its leader, in addition to controlling theformation of the police state in the capital. Moreover, the Jacobins found that Paris represented their nexus of influence and, as its most celebrated memberRobespierre was virtually assured of electoral success in Paris. Robespierre's tenure as leader ofthe French Revolution can be seen as a continuation of the broader Jacobinpolicies of his predecessor, the Brissotins.

Viewed in the context of theBrissotins' draconian interpretation of power, Robespierre does not appear tobe a monster, rather a continuum of a core revolutionary ideology. As Bell(2001:1217) explains: the construction of the nation required a laboriousprocess of national education. At the behest of the Jacobin Left,the atmosphere within the Convention grew ever more volatile - certainly beforeRobespierre's control of the political process. As Nigel Aston (2004:38)details the separation between supporters and opponents of the Revolution wascarrying events along a previously untested path with unforeseen and bloodyresults. In March 1793 a revolutionarytribunal was inaugurated to try what were loosely termed counterrevolutionaryoffences. Not to be proactive in the cause of the revolutionary state wasbecoming sufficient to propel any individual into that category. Much of the criticism aimed atRobespierre is in light of the actions of the Revolutionary Tribunal and itsrole as a catalyst during the Terror.

Yet, as Broers (1991:69) admits, bloodand gore are important parts of the truth, but they are not the whole truth.Robespierre ought not to be singled out as the instigator of a republic thathad long since divorced itself from reason and allied itself to terror, butmerely one proponent of a powerful but ultimately directionless revolutionaryzeal. Even a cursory glance at themanifestation of Robespierre's power base reveals a radical split betweenideology and practicality. Taken solely as a man of ideas, Robespierre can beviewed as a visionary, defender of justice and champion of meritocracy. Hisspeech to the Convention on 5 February 1794 (1993:68) highlights his vision forthe Republic. We wish an order of things whereall low and cruel passions are enchained by the law, all beneficent andgenerous feelings awakened where distinctions arise only from equality itselfwhere the country secures the welfare of each individual we wish in a word tofulfil the course of nature, to accomplish the destiny of mankind. Moreover, Robespierre lived his ownlife by this maxim.

He never used the trappings of power for his own economicends and was known in his lifetime as The Incorruptible. Robespierre lived arelatively moderate existence until his death as a lodger of fellow Jacobin,Maurice Duplay at no. 366 Rue SaintHonorÃÂ© and surrounded himself withsimilarly fanatical yet austere political personnel. 'Patriots', as he termedthem, were more important to Robespierre than men of administrative acumen. Hebelieved that his will was the will of the Jacobins who represented the truedesires of republican France. As Eagan (1978:12) transcribes, his soleexplanation for ever move was that France demanded it.And though his policies may seem extreme and inhumane today, there can belittle questioning of his deepseated revolutionary desire. At this juncture, Robespierreappears anything but a selfserving political ogre in the mould of the greatmultitude of modern dictators but it was his methods of achieving his visionthat marked Robespierre out as a calculated political assassin and foreverdamaged his reputation in history.

Most historians use the word 'purge' to describehis consolidation of power after July 1793 and there is a very strong case tosupport this argument. For instance, he told members of the CPS that he aimedto purge the bureaux and the civil service of any remnants of nobility orindeed any faction averse to the perpetuation of the revolutionary edicts. With the establishment of the lawof 14 Frimaire in the Republican Calendar (December 1793), power wasfurther centralised within the CPS, which necessitated a diminishing of theinfluence of the Convention. A police state now existed throughout France that acted as the eyes and ears of the closeknit but ultimately isolated followersof Robespierre. It is this move which helped to facilitate the state centricityof the Terror, as revolutionary ideology was emitted beyond the districts of Paris into the French countryside, where some 80% of the population still resided. ButRobespierre and his followers should not be judged solely upon the purging ofofficialdom between 17934, as Bouloiseau (1983:2278) argues.

Revolutionary power encompassedall powers because it was revolutionary. For the same reason it created its ownlegality, which justified its excesses. It made a single cause out of thedefence of the homeland and the defence of the Republic social grievances tooksecond place. As the dictatorship intensified, it called with increasingfrequency for equality, justice and virtue. The regime's intentions were pure,but it lacked the means to put them into practice. Though by no means offering anexcuse for state sponsored terrorism, Bouloiseau makes the important point ofthe essential dynamics at work during the early years of the French Revolution.It is immensely difficult for any historian writing today to appreciate thesense of novelty that must have pervaded the National Convention, the CPS,Paris and indeed 'la patrie' as a whole during the early 1790's. The ideologyprevailed that the catalyst to revolutionary success was in its implementationacross the country and across the continent. Though we may see the actions ofRobespierre as antagonistic and aggressive, his revolutionary contemporariesviewed it as a necessary and formative stage in the liberation of humanity.

It was only when he turned hisanger upon enemies within the Convention itself that Robespierre made aninescapable political noose for himself. When the politically moderate butculturally popular Danton was sent to the guillotine on 5 April 1794 underfabricated charges of international conspiracy the seeds of revolutionaryrevenge against Robespierre were effectively sewn, as Munro Price (2003:346)ascertains. The death of Danton tore the soul out of the Jacobin dictatorship.Robespierre and his colleagues grew increasingly isolated, from both thepopular movement in the streets and the deputies in the Convention. The zenith of the Terror occurredduring the months from March to August 1794. Clearly Robespierre's inflammatoryrevolutionary ideology played a part in the accumulation of terror in France but there were also other factors at work that are imperative in the comprehensionof the manufactured myth of Robespierre. There were other influentialcharacters such as Arman Herman, who became head of the home civil service inthe spring of 1794, and who drove the desire of the Revolutionary Tribunal toensure that no stone was left unturned in the purging of the provinces.

Toindict Robespierre as the sole manufacturer of the Terror is to misunderstandthe context of France at this time in addition to mistakenly naming him adespot. Furet was an advocate of the idealistic notion of historiographypreferring not to call Robespierre a dictator and rejecting the relationshipbetween foreign War and internal counter revolution. The accumulation of the Terror acquireda momentum of its own and ought to be seen as a necessary stage in theconstruction of revolutionary France, as Lewis (1993:48) underscores. TheTerror went on because defeat over the enemies of the Revolution marked but thefirst stage in this process of regeneration and rebirth whose roots lay in theeighteenthcentury Enlightenment. Furthermore, France at this time lacked the prerequisites for the establishment of a more stable formof representative parliamentary democracy. For example, whereas in England money was regulated by a national bank, the economy in the First French Republic was akin to a ship without oars. Foreign policy was similarly rudderless withthe sum of international relations being reduced to a 'with us or against us'type scenario, accentuating existing hostilities. National debate wasrestricted to access to the capital and was dependent upon a consistentlychanging body of personnel.

All of these factors contributed to ensure thatRobespierre's time at the helm of the Revolution would be limited, and it wasindeed curtailed on the infamous 9th Thermidor (27 July 1794). But, in the end, as William Doyle (1989:281) explains, the ninth of Thermidor markednot so much the overthrow of one man or group of men as the rejection of a formof government. Conclusion Robespierre can be likened in manyways to Oliver Cromwell. Both idealistically set out to destroy the political,religious and cultural machinations of the late medieval state only to slipinto a form of dictatorship as the result of a distorted vision ofrepresentative democracy. Having played a major role in removing the autocraticmonarch and national symbol from power Robespierre, like Cromwell, did nottrust the people with the will of the nation. Thus a revolution took placewithin a revolution time and again. Robespierre was a visionary who wasinfluenced by circumstance though he cannot be considered a victim ofcircumstance.

He was caught up in the revolutionary quagmire of doctrine yet hecould have chosen a less divisive, less centralised form of rule, which, ironically,was one of the chief damnations levelled at Louis XVI's reign. Historical accounts that placeRobespierre in the same context as characters such as Stalin are whollyinappropriate and display a lack of insight into the reality of revolution andinterim government. Although he was without doubt an overtly moralisticadherent of draconian revolutionary dogma, Robespierre dedicated his life tothe political ideals in which he believed; celebrated two hundred years afterthe event under the broader historical umbrella of 'Revolution.' As Hardmanconcludes (1999:215), he had that characteristic quality of the fanatic ofnever consciously doing wrong. BIBLIOGRAPHY N. Aston, The French Revolution, 17891804: Authority, Liberty and the Search for Stability (Palgrave Macmillan; London, 2004) M. Bouloiseau (translated by J.

Mandelbaum), The Jacobin Republic, 17921794 (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, 1983) M. Crook, Napoleon comes to Power: Democracy andDictatorship in Revolutionary France, 17951804 (University of Wales;Cardiff, 1998) W. Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution(Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1989) J.M. Eagan, Maximilian Robespierre: Nationalistic Dictator(Farrar, Straus & Giroux; New York, 1978) F. Furet (translated by E. Forster), Interpreting theFrench Revolution (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, 1981) G. Lefebvre (translated by R.R. Palmer), The Coming of theFrench Revolution (Princeton University Press; Princeton, 1969) J. Hardman, Robespierre (Longman; London & NewYork, 1999) M. Jones, The French Revolution, 17871804 (Pearson; London, 2003) G.

Lewis, The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate(Routledge; London & New York, 1993) G. Lewis, France 17151804: Power and the People(Pearson; London, 2005) P. McPhee, A Social History of France, 17801880(Routledge; London & New York, 1993) M. Price, The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI,Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil (Pan Macmillan; London, 2003) J-J Rousseau, The Social Contract (Penguin; London,1968) Journals D.A. Bell, The Unbearable Lightness of Being French: Law,Republicanism and National Identity at the End of the Old Regime, in, TheAmerican Historical Review (October 2001), Volume 106, No. 4 (AmericanHistorical Association; Princeton, 2001) M.

Biddis, Nationalism and the Moulding of Europe, in, Journal of the Historical Association (October 1994), Volume 79, No.257 (Blackwell; London, 1994) M. Broers, Can we stop the French Revolution? :Reflections on the Revisionist Revolution, in, Journal of the HistoricalAssociation (February 1991), Volume 76, No. 240 (Blackwell; London, 1991) M. Linton, Recent Books on theFrench Revolution, in, Journal of the Historical Association(January 2003), Volume 88, No.289 (Blackwell; London, 2003) Websites P.

Halsall, Robespierre February 1794: Justification ofthe use of Terror (August 1997), in, Marxists.org website; Association of the friends ofRobespierre; The French Revolution, in,International Socialist Tendency website; The Intellectual Origins ofModern Terror, in, Queens University (Canada) website; BBC - History - Historic Figures: Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) z Maximilien Robespierre © Robespierre was a French lawyer and politician who became one of the most influential figures of the French Revolution. Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre was born in Arras on 6 May 1758, the son of a lawyer. He was educated in Paris and entered the same profession as his father. He was elected a deputy of the estates-general (a form of parliament, but without real power) that met in May 1789, and subsequently served in the National Constituent Assembly. Robespierre became increasingly popular for his attacks on the monarchy and his advocacy of democratic reforms. In April 1790, was elected president of the powerful Jacobin political club.

After the downfall of the monarchy in August 1792, Robespierre was elected first deputy for Paris to the National Convention. The convention abolished the monarchy, declared France a republic and put the king on trial for treason, all measures strongly supported by Robespierre. The king was executed in January 1793. In the period after the king's execution, tensions in the convention resulted in a power struggle between the Jacobins and the more moderate Girondins. The Jacobins used the power of the mob to take control and the Girondin leaders were arrested. Control of the country passed to the Committee of Public Safety, of which Robespierre was a member. He rapidly became the dominant force on the committee. Against a backdrop of the threat of foreign invasion and increasing disorder in the country, the committee began the 'Reign of Terror', ruthlessly eliminating all those considered enemies of the revolution. These included leading revolutionary figures such as Georges Danton. In May 1794, Robespierre insisted that the National Convention proclaim a new official religion for France - the cult of the Supreme Being. This was based on the thinking of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau of whom Robespierre was a passionate advocate.

The intensification of the 'Reign of Terror' and Robespierre's autocracy made him increasingly unpopular. French military successes served to undermine the justification for such ruthlessness and a conspiracy was formed to overthrow Robespierre. On 27 July 1794, he was arrested after a struggle. The following day Robespierre, wounded from a bullet to the jaw, and 21 of his closest supporters were executed at the guillotine. Newsela | Famous Speeches: Robespierre's Justification of the Use of Terror 487 Portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre circa 1791. Image: Portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre circa 1790 Wikimedia Commons Famous Speeches: Robespierre's Justification of the Use of Terror Original speech from the public domain, adapted by Newsela staff Word Count 854 Editor's Note: Maximilien Robespierre was the leader of the Committee of Public Safety, which governed France during the radical part of the French Revolution. Robespierre was a leader in the revolution fighting for a Republic in France.

However, after gaining power, Robespierre became a brutal dictator, unleashing a Reign of Terror in France and executing nearly 300 people. He made the following speech in 1794 to explain why he used terror in governing the people of France. To establish and reinforce democracy, to achieve the peaceable reign of the constitutional laws, we must end the war of liberty against tyranny and pass safely across the storms of the revolution. Such is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have enacted. Your actions, then, ought also to be regulated by the stormy situation in which the republic is placed; and the plan of your administration must result from the spirit of the revolutionary government combined with the general principles of democracy. Now, what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government — that is, the essential spring which makes it move? It is virtue. I am speaking of the public virtue which effected so many intellects in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more surprising ones in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing other than the love of country and of its laws... Republican virtue can be considered in relation to the people and in relation to the government; it is necessary in both.

When only the government lacks virtue, the people still have virtue; but when the people itself is corrupted, liberty is already lost... From all this let us deduce a great truth: the characteristic of popular government is confidence in the people and severity towards itself. The whole development of our theory would end here if you had only to guide the Republic through calm waters; but the tempest roars, and the revolution imposes on you another task. This great purity of the French revolution's basis, the very magnificence of its objective, is precisely what causes both our strength and our weakness. It causes our strength because it gives us truth's rise over deceit, and the rights of the public interest over private interests. It causes our weakness because it rallies all vicious men against us, all those who in their hearts contemplated depriving the people and all those who intend to let people be deprived without punishment. This includes those who have rejected freedom as a personal calamity and those who have embraced the revolution as a career and the Republic as prey. Hence the retreat of so many ambitious or greedy men who since the point of departure have abandoned us along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same destination in view.

The two opposing spirits that have been represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human history to fix irrevocably the world's destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first principle of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror. If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it therefore flows from virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs. It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism?

Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the oppressor govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as an oppressor. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny... Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny — is it not unbreakable? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the conspirators who buy the consciences that hold the people's mandate, the traitors who sell them, the corrupt people putting out pamphlets who were hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil disharmony, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution —are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?

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Question: What was the first forename of the infamous, French revolutionary leader Robespierre?
Answer: MAXIMILIEN