The first part of this humble monograph concluded with France fighting the preponderance of Europe in March 1793. Internal opposition to the war arose as well.
A revolt in the Vendee region against the Revolution,
ignited by massive war time conscription, broke out and Federalist revolts
(Girondins inspired) in Bordeaux, Lyon and elsewhere rose up in opposition to
the Parisian centrist control of the Revolution. At the same time as the Vendee
the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Committee for Public Safety, and “deputies-on-mission”,
the initial steps toward the Terror were established in March and April under
Danton’s Girondins Leadership. Opposition to the Revolution was bloodily and
brutally suppressed; hundreds of thousands of royalists in the region would die
in the conquest. One of the most odious incidents, four thousands of royalist
sympathizers and others suspected of not supporting the Revolution were killed in
Nantes in the Loire River in a series of mass drownings led by a one,
Jean-Baptiste Carrier, a deputy-on-mission. This revolt would be crushed but it
would take years to be completely extinguished.
In response to the Brunswick Manifesto on May 25, 1793
Robespierre at the Jacobin Club called the people to revolt. The powerful
Parisian sections (48) had their own militia. Robespierre crystalized the
violent demands of the Parisian mob (divided into 48 sections as they are called).
Paris and the country were suffering shortages, largely brought on by the
ravaging inflation, precipitated by the demands of war. It no longer profited
the peasantry to sell their goods; basic commodities were scarce. The Parisian
mob demanded solutions.
Robespierre buttressed mob violence in his speech, “On
Subsistence of Goods”. He would counter Girondins advocacy of the free market.
Among other ideas he would posit that, “The first social law is thus that which
guarantees to all society’s members the means of existence; all others are
subordinated to it. Property was only instituted or guaranteed to cement it. It
is in order to live that we have property in the first case.” And further, “No
man has the right to build up mountains of wheat, beside his fellow man dying
of hunger.” He took the moral position that free markets, in the guise of
hoarders and monopolists, couldn’t be allowed to fully seek optimum prices that
would lead to starvation of the populace. This is a powerful argument but
nonetheless when this inflation is largely a function of the Revolutionary
government printing unlimited Assignats, then Robespierre’s solution is to
demonize retailers and businesses caught in the vise of higher prices demanded of
them to purchase their inventory and the rabid populace incensed with the
higher prices for goods for sale. He’s
advocating an irrational, demented policy.
Shortly thereafter, a most dramatic moment occurred on May 30-31
and June 2; the Parisian mob in the thousands would invade the National
Assembly’s legislative chambers to intimidate the Convention into expelling
Girondinist delegates. They would be detained by the Commandant Hanriot, leader
of the Parisian Sections militia. This would end the Girondins as a party in the
Convention. Robespierre would continue to utilize this mob to spur the government
into a policy of unhinged terror.
The surrender of the naval port by the Royalist sympathizers
at Toulon to the British Navy would add to the general paranoia. Shortly
thereafter on September 5, 1793, Robespierre as President of the National
Convention oversees a vote on ‘terror as the order of the day’.
Some months prior to this, Robespierre, in his eyes the only
one able to truly direct the Revolution, makes his first strike against the
Left, denouncing former priest, enrage, Jacques
Roux, proto-Marxist and champion of the sans
culotte and working class earlier in June. Roux would be imprisoned and
later commit suicide. Robespierre would strike again at the Left in the future.
Only he would know the true course of the Revolution, according to his own
estimation, and no one else. This eliminated opposition of the Left.
The Paris mob, organized into the 48 Sections, was crucial,
having again intervened in the legislative process by invading the Convention’s
meeting hall, the salle de machines
that seated up to 8,000 spectators within the Tuileries palace on September 5,
1793. This assault would frighten once again the Convention to take a draconian
measure.
In another move to ensure control of the Parisian sections,
Robespierre supports limiting meetings to two per week of which they’d be paid
in a sop. Robespierre would know the revolution better than anyone; he would even
say at one point, “I am not the
courtier, nor the moderator, nor the tribune nor the defender of the
people, I am the people myself”.
In June 1793 former
allies then rivals would become enemies of the Revolution, and find themselves
arrested. The Girondins, who advocated for a constitutional monarch, a limited
suffrage, for war with foreign powers, for a decentralized Revolution, (under
“Federalism”), who under Danton had utilized violence in September 1792, and
who themselves began to question the influence of the Parisian mob, become
objects of the Terror. They would go under the guillotine in October 1793.
Robespierre, along
with Desmoulins and Danton, found enemies on the Left in the group called the
Hebertists, led by Jacques Hebert, a journalist. They advocated the
de-Christianization campaign and state intervention into economic matters as in
governmental purchase of wine and grain to insure adequate supply for the poor.
Robespierre vigorously opposed de-Christianization, fearing it would set the
populace against the Revolution. Part of the de-Christianization campaign was promotion
of the Cult of Reason. An official nationwide Fête de la Raison was
supervised by Hébert. Churches across France were transformed into
modern Temples of Reason. Even the cathedral of Notre Dame in
Paris held a ceremony where the altar was replaced by an altar to Liberty
with the inscription "To Philosophy" carved in stone over the
cathedral's doors.
March 2, 1794 Jacque-Baptiste
Carrier, a Herbertist, was recalled from his slaughter of anti-revolutionary
opposition in the Vendee in Nantes. He and Herbert called to remove Robespierre
and the rest of the Montagard from the Convention. They had hoped to intimidate
the Convention, as it was done earlier to remove the Girondins, by summoning
the Sections, the Paris mob on March 4, 1794. The Paris Commune was not enticed
and failed to provide military support. They were arrested on March 13, were
tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal and Hebert went to the guillotine on March
24. Carrier dodged this round of Revolutionary retribution only to be harvested
in December.
During this moment, Robespierre would go on to defend his
brand of Revolutionary violence under the Terror, which had a mere pretense of
law:
If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times
of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined
with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which
virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is
then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural
consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing
wants of the country ... The government in a revolution is the despotism of
liberty against tyranny."
Two former political
allies and associates of Robespierre would find themselves subject to the
fierceness of the Terror. Georges Danton leader of the former Girondins,
the remainder of whom were now termed Indulgents, and a boyhood friend,
former classmate at the College Louis-le-Grand, Camille Desmoulins encountered
the displeasure of the Montagnards. Danton and Desmoulins were contributing to
a newspaper, Le Vieux Cordelier
critical of the Terror, calling for the end of the de-Christianization
campaign, negotiations to conclude the foreign wars, conclusion of the terror
and personal attacks on Robespierre. This alienated the members of the Committee
of Public Safety. Robespierre deemed them to be misguided and during the Terror
that could only me one thing. They would be guillotined on April 5, 1794.
Thus Robespierre had dispatched opposition on the Left and
the Right; under the axiom I am myself, the people. He embodied the Revolution.
The fanatic will abandon principles to achieve the objective; all measures no
matter how extreme are salutary when directed against the enemies of the
Revolution! They ignore that their own draconian measures and bungling policies
created much of the opposition in the first place.
On May 7 Robespierre made his speech on the Cult of the
Supreme Being. He thought a full scale campaign by the atheists to suppress
Christianity would cause too much opposition, be counterproductive and possibly
de-rail the Revolution. In addition he espouses the thoughts of Rousseau, his
intellectual founder, by saying, “Nature tells us that Man is born for freedom,
and the experience of the centuries shows us Man enslaved. His rights are
inscribed in his heart, and his humiliation in history…”. (Note the stark
contrast to the American Constitution where inalienable rights are from God and
does not rely on the putative justice of the public or the forbearance of the State.)
In this speech
Robespierre offers his State sponsored religious alternative. State backed
festivals, directed towards the Divine Being, could inspire the citizenry to
patriotic virtue and devotion to the Revolution. Belief in a Divine Being and a
higher moral code, he said, were "constant reminders of justice" and
thus essential to a republican society. These public festivals were conceived
to replace the antiquated, outdated Catholic religious rituals.
The promotion of a Civic Deity culminated at the Festival of
Supreme Being on June 8, 1794. It is said nearly all of Paris turned out, some
half a million Parisians. It was a colossal event. Nonetheless, there appears
to have been some undercurrent of discontent, gauging by audible sneers and innuendo.
A former member of the Committee of Public Safety, an ally of Danton, was heard
to mutter: “Look at the bugger. It is not enough for him to be master. He has
to be God.”
Robespierre here did the upmost to create a stupefying
celebration. He employed the famous artist Jacques-Louis David to construct a
colossal plaster of paris mountain some five stories high with a Liberty on
top, a 2400 member chorus, a pageant to the Champ de Mars, all geared to
impress the multitude. Despite the monumental effort cracks began to appear in
Robespierre’s image; he had overdone things, reached too far in his effort to
produce a religious cult of the Revolution.
Two days after the Festival the Convention passed the Law of
22 Prairial, written by Robespierre, that reduced the trial of
anti-revolutionary suspects to a mere formality. It seems too many brought
before Revolutionary Tribunal were being acquitted. Jails in Paris were filled
to the brim. Under this law no defense attorney would be in attendance, nor
evidence need be presented. Juries were to come to judgement entirely on the
basis of the accusation and the accused's own defense. Among the charges 'slandering
patriotism', 'seeking to inspire discouragement', 'spreading false news' and
'depraving morals, corrupting the public conscience and impairing the purity
and energy of the revolutionary government'.
On June 26, 1794 a watershed battle was fought and won by
the French Revolutionary army at Fleurus over the First Coalition (Britain,
Hanover, Dutch Republic and Austria) that halted the immediate threat to the
French Republic. France could take a breath from its enemies or could it?
According to Robespierre danger continued to lurk in hidden internal enemies. The
Terror would need to be continued.
There was beginning to be dissension in the Committee of
Public Safety; there were those on the Committee fearful of Robespierre. Those
connected to the Hebertists (largely struck down by the guillotine) were
anxious because of the associations and those associated with Joseph Fouche
(member of the Jacobin Club), who led a brutal repression in Lyon of those
deemed to be enemies of the Revolution, as well had reason to wonder if they
would be next. Agents of the Committee like Fouche and Carrier who were
overzealous in their repressions were right to be uneasy. Robespierre, despite
his advocacy of continued Terror, looked askance at these butchers, who gave
the Revolution a bad name. Incidentally, Carrier and Fouche had shared wine and
poetry six years earlier with Robespierre, who you have noted saw his
classmate, Desmoulins go under the blade. When Fouche mocked Robespierre’s Festival
of the Supreme Being, Robespierre exchanged an angry message with him and then
Robespierre attempted to throw him out of the Club June 14. Fouche, in hiding,
actively worked to gather support against him.
On June 28 a stormy argument took place within the joint
meeting of the Committee of Public Safety and General Security (police). Carnot, an associate on the Committee of
Public Safety, delegated to military matters,
accused Robespierre and his co-delegate, Saint Just, (adept on military
matters) of being ridiculous dictators. Robespierre stormed out and didn’t
attend the Committee for a month. He did attend the Jacobin Club sporadically
and made a speech on July 9, outlining the threats to the Revolutionary
Government, responding to calls to relax vigilance. The vigilance (Terror)
couldn’t cease until “execution of the laws of nature, which require that every
man be just, and in virtue, the fundamental basis of society”. Man would need
to become more virtuous before this Terror would end, it seems.
Under the new Law of 22 Prairial convictions increased. 726
were guillotined between June 19 and July 18, nearly doubling the number. That
is only one out of five were ruled innocent as opposed to prior when about
half.
During the month of July absent the Convention, Robespierre
ordered the release of 320 suspects in the department of Aube, the recall of
nine other deputies-on-mission (carrying out the dictates of the Committee of
Public Safety in the departments), and expulsion of Fouche from the Jacobin. As
already stated these raised the suspicions of the many nervous there would be a
purge of those who had been excessive in their repression of anti-revolutionary
elements. Robespierre had continued to meet with those on board of the
Revolutionary Tribunal (court of those put on trial for revolutionary offenses)
and continued to order some arrests. The divisions on the Committee were
becoming more heated. Several attacking Robespierre and Saint Just for their
utopianism.
On 23 July the Commune published a new wage maximum,
limiting the wages of employees (in some cases by half) and provoking a sharp
protest in the sections. Almost all the workers in Paris were on strike. This
could not have endeared the sans-culottes
to the Commune. This would have import shortly.
On July 26, after nearly a month’s absence, he addressed the
Convention in a largely vague two hour speech. He reaffirmed his belief in
virtue.
Virtue is a natural
passion no doubt… this profound horror of tyranny, this sympathetic zeal for
the oppressed , this sacred love of the patrie, this most sublime and most holy
love of humanity….you can feel it at this very moment burning in your souls; I
feel it in mine…
The crisis was not over, he would declaim. He repeated that
there was a criminal conspiracy a foot that reached into the Convention and
even into the Committees. He distanced himself from the innocents that had
fallen under the guillotine, claiming instead his enemies had wanted to place
the blame on him.
This speech put everyone on edge. He hadn’t named names. All
were suspect. Robespierre delivered the same speech at the Jacobin Club that
evening.
The next day on July 27 (9 Thermidor) there was upheaval in
the Convention when first Saint Just attempted to speak then Robespierre
stepped to the podium. Shouts were heard “down with the tyrant!” He was
silenced with cries of “Down with him! Down with him!” He was not allowed to
speak. Others shouted, “It’s Danton’s blood that is choking him”, as he
struggled in shock to speak. The Convention arrested Robespierre, his brother
Augustin, Saint Just and two other delegates of the Committee of the Public
Safety, among other arrestees. They were eventually sent to various prisons,
but no one wanted to risk taking them. They found their way to the Hotel de Ville. And here Hanriot (leader
of the militia of the sections), Paris’ mayor and others summoned a special
meeting of the Commune then called the National Guard and closed the city
gates. A call went out to the forty eight sections to mobilize. Only thirteen
Sections responded but those couldn’t be persuaded to march on the Convention. Execution
of the Hebertists and the faction represented by Danton and Desmoulins
(Robespierre’s boyhood friend) severed connection between the sans-culottes and the Convention.
As for the Convention it declared the five delegates lawbreakers.
It collected armed forces of its own. The Parisian sections (the Paris mob) had
melted away in front of the Hotel de Ville by this time. In the midst of
signing his frantic petition to his Sections des Piques, Robespierre was
interrupted. The document was blood spattered. Robespierre’s section chose to
ignore the call to arms. This lack of response would not be a complete
surprise, since the Jacobins had been attempting to reduce the influence of the
Parisian Sections and their political clubs by eliminating the Herbertists
(Left Opposition) and restricting the Sections to meet only 2 times a
Revolutionary Ten day week. The Convention in efforts to dilute the fervor of
the sections began to pay attendees, insuring participation of less zealous
attendees.
The Convention’s forces broke in the Hotel de Ville to arrest the delegates once again at 2:30 AM. An
associate LeBas, a former Convention’s Commissioner to the armies, had two
pistols and committed suicide. It’s seems plausible that Robespierre used one
of them and attempted the same, only shattering his left cheek, teeth and jaw
in the process. At 3:30 AM he was taken to a waiting room at the Convention. At
5 AM he was administered bandages to soak up the blood. He was taken to be
condemned to death at 11:00 AM, where he could only moan in response to the
accusations. Twenty one other prisoners accompanied him at 6:00PM in three
carts by a long journey through taunting crowds to the guillotine. At 7:30 PM
the executions would begin. He would be 21st to die. Just before his
seventeen hours of torture would be ended, his bandages were ripped off; he
gave out a hideous scream of agony. The pain would end when his head fell into
the basket. His younger brother, Augustin, joined him under the guillotine.
