|
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de
Robespierre
1758 - 1794
The French Revolutionary leader Maximilien François Marie
Isidore de Robespierre was the spokesman for the policies of the
dictatorial government that ruled France during the crisis
brought on by civil and foreign war.
Maximilien de Robespierre was an early proponent of political
democracy. His advanced ideas concerning the application of the
revolutionary principle of equality won for him the fervent
support of the lower middle and working classes (the
sans-culottes) and a firm place later in the 19th century in the
pantheon of European radical and revolutionary heroes. These
ideas and the repressive methods used to implement and defend
them, which came to be called the Reign of Terror, and his role
as spokesman for this radical and violent phase of the French
Revolution also won for him the opprobrium of conservative
opponents of the Revolution ever since.
Career before the Revolution
Robespierre was born on May 6, 1758, in the French provincial
city of Arras. He was educated first in that city and then at
the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Upon completing his studies
with distinction, he took up his father's profession of law in
Arras and soon had a successful practice. But he had developed a
sense of social justice, and as the Revolution of 1789 loomed,
he assumed a public role as an advocate of political change,
contributing to the pamphlet and cahier literature of the day,
and being elected at the age of 30 a member of the Third Estate
delegation from Arras to the Estates General, where he quickly
associated himself with the Patriot party.
Role in Early Revolution
During the first period of the Revolution (1789-1791), in which
the Estates General became the National (or Constituent)
Assembly, Robespierre spoke frequently in that body. But his
extremely democratic ideas, his emphasis on civil liberty and
equality, his uncompromising rigidity in applying these ideas to
the issues of the moment, and his hostility to all authority won
him little support in this moderate legislature. He favoured
giving the vote to all men, not just property owners, and he
opposed slavery in the colonies. On both of these issues he
lost, being ahead of his time.
Robespierre found more receptive listeners at the Paris Jacobin
Club, where throughout his career he had a devoted following
that admired him not only for his radical political views but
perhaps even more for his simple Spartan life and high sense of
personal morality, which won for him the appellation of "the
Incorruptible." His appearance was unprepossessing, and his
old-fashioned, pre-revolutionary style of dress seemed out of
place. He lacked the warmth of personality usually associated
with a popular political figure. Yet his carefully written and
traditionally formal speeches, because of his utter sincerity
and deep personal conviction, won him a wide following.
When his term as a legislator ended in September 1791,
Robespierre remained in Paris, playing an influential role in
the Jacobin Club and shortly founding a weekly political
journal. During this period (1791-1792) he was an unremitting
critic of the King and the moderates who hoped to make the
experiment in limited, constitutional monarchy a success.
Robespierre, profoundly and rightly suspicious of the King's
intentions, spoke and wrote in opposition to the course of
events, until August 1792, when events turned in his favour with
the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First
French Republic.
Period in Power
A Convention was quickly elected to perform the task of drafting
a constitution, this time for a democratic republic, and to
govern the country in the meantime. Robespierre was elected a
member for Paris. As a spokesman for the Mountain, the radical
Jacobin faction in the Convention, he played a prominent role in
the successive controversies that developed. He was an
uncompromising antagonist of the deposed king, who was finally
placed on trial, convicted, and executed in January 1793.
The moderate Girondin faction had incurred the enmity of
Robespierre and the leaders of the Mountain in the process, and
for this and other reasons, both personal and political, there
followed months of bitter controversy, climaxed by the victory
of the Robespierrist faction, aided by the intervention of the
Parisian sans-culottes, with the expulsion from the Convention
and arrest of the Girondins (June 2, 1793) and the execution
shortly thereafter of their leaders.
The dual crises of foreign war, in which most of Europe was now
fighting against the Revolutionary government in France, and
civil war, which threatened to overthrow that government, had
led to the creation of the crisis machinery of government, the
Reign of Terror. The central authority in this government was
the Committee of Public Safety. For the crucial months from
mid-1793 to mid-1794 Robespierre was one of the dominant members
of and the spokesman for this dictatorial body. Under their
energetic leadership the crisis was successfully surmounted, and
by the spring of 1794 the threat of civil war had been ended and
the French army was winning decisive victories.
Political controversy had continued, however, as Robespierre,
having prevailed against the moderate Girondins, now faced new
opposition on both the left and the right. The Hébertists, a
radical faction that controlled the Paris city government and
was particularly responsive to the grievances of the
sans-culottes concerning wartime shortages and inflation,
actively campaigned for rigorous economic controls, which
Robespierre opposed. Nor could he support their vigorous
anti-Christian campaign and atheistic Religion of Reason.
Robespierre and his colleagues on the committee saw them as a
threat, and in March 1794 the Hébertist leaders and their allies
were tried and executed.
Two weeks later came the turn of the Indulgents, or Dantonists,
the moderate Jacobins who, now that the military crisis was
ended, felt that the Terror should be relaxed. Georges Jacques
Danton, a leading Jacobin and once a close associate of
Robespierre, was the most prominent of this group. Robespierre
was inflexible, and Danton and those accused with him were
convicted and guillotined.
Robespierre and his associates, who included his brother
Augustin and his young disciple Louis de Saint-Just, were now in
complete control of the national government and seemingly of
public opinion. He thus could impose his own ideas concerning
the ultimate aims of the Revolution. For him the proper
government for France was not simply one based on sovereignty of
the people with a democratic franchise, which had been achieved.
The final goal was a government based on ethical principles, a
Republic of Virtue. He and those of his associates who were
truly virtuous would impose such a government, using the
machinery of the Terror, which had been streamlined, at
Robespierre's insistence, for the purpose. Coupled with this was
to be an officially established religion of the Supreme Being,
which Robespierre inaugurated in person.
Downfall and Execution
Opposition arose from a variety of sources. There were
disaffected Jacobins who had no interest in such a program and
had good reason to fear the imposition of such high ethical
principles. More and more of the public, now that the military
crisis was past, wanted a relaxation, not a heightening, of the
Terror. The crisis came in late July 1794. Robespierre spoke in
the Convention in vague but threatening terms of the need for
another purge in pursuit of his utopian goals. His opponents
responded by taking the offensive against him, and on July 27 (9
Thermidor by the Revolutionary calendar) they succeeded in
voting his arrest. He and his colleagues were quickly released,
however, and they gathered at the city hall to plan a rising of
the Parisian sans-culottes against the Convention, such as had
prevailed on previous occasions. But the opposition leaders
rallied their forces and late that night captured Robespierre
and his supporters. In the process Robespierre's jaw was
fractured by a bullet, probably from his own hand. Having been
declared outlaws, they were guillotined the next day. With this
event began the period of the Thermidorian Reaction, during
which the Terror was ended and France returned to a more
moderate government.
JACANA HOME PAGE
|
CLASSIC VIDEO CLIPS
|
JACANA ASTRONOMY SITE
JACANA PHOTO LIBRARY |
OLD MAUN PHOTO GALLERY |
MAUN PHONE DIRECTORY
FREE FONTS |
PIC OF THE DAY
|
GENERAL LIBRARY |
MAP LIBRARY |
TECHNICAL LIBRARY
HOUSE PLANS LIBRARY
|
MAUN E-MAIL, WEBSITE & SKYPE LIST
|
BOTSWANA GPS CO-ORDINATES
MAUN SAFARI WEB LINKS |
FREE SOFTWARE |
JACANA WEATHER PAGE
JACANA CROSSWORD LIBRARY |
JACANA CARTOON PAGE |
DEMOTIVATIONAL POSTERS
This web page was last updated on:
15 December, 2008
  |
