It was June 8th, 1794.
In the ancient régime, the people of France would have celebrated Pentecost.
Now, they celebrate the Cult of the Supreme Being, a religion which honoured virtue, an
ideal often discussed by Rousseau.
Robespierre had introduced this new religion just a month prior on his thirty-sixth birthday
and the following day, the National Convention had made it the civic religion of France.
And so, on this holy day, a procession left the Tuileries Palace and was now headed towards
the Champs de Mars.
It was led by the members of the national convention but also pregnant women and breastfeeding
mothers with their infants.
At its head, there was Robespierre, wearing an elaborate sky-blue suit, feathers in his
hat, and elevated shoes to offset his small stature.
Soon, he was far ahead of the procession as he walked quickly with an agitated air, as
he usually did.
The other members of the national convention trailed behind, either out of defiance or
apathy.
Many openly mocked the ridicule of the event.
But Robespierre didn’t seem to care as for him his festival was a resounding success.
Having arrived at the Champs de Mars, the convention now climbed atop an artificial
mountain where a Liberty Tree was planted.
There, Robespierre delivered two speeches in which he emphasized the importance of a
Supreme Being, before walking down the mountain under the applause of the crowd.
He was beaming with joy, and he had every reason to be.
Having been elected President of the National Convention just four days prior, Robespierre
was at the height of his power.
But this celebration, this joy, hid an underlying layer of tension, of exacerbation, of anger
as the stiffness and discomfort of the event reflected the state of the revolution.
And the prominent role of Robespierre and his recurrent allusions to Christianity, with
his descent from the mountain resembling Moses and the ten commandments, led to a growing
discontentment among the members of the national convention.
Some openly questioned whether the Supreme Being wasn’t Robespierre himself, with one
decrying, “Look at the bugger; it’s not enough for him to be master, he had to be
God.”
On June 10th, the National Convention passed the law of the 22 Prairial,
a law co-authored by Robespierre and Georges Couthon.
Feeling that France’s prisons were overcrowded and imagining enemies of the revolution at
every corner, the law hoped to solve these problems by drastically reducing the rights
of the accused.
As Couthon stated, “The guilty have no right to a counsel and the innocents do not need
any.”
As such, the accused were no longer entitled to a public trial, were no longer entitled
to counsel or a lawyer, and were no longer entitled to a review of the witnesses, who
were often made up.
Anyone deemed an “enemy of the people” could be deemed guilty, but the definition
of such an enemy was so broad that as little as “inspiring discouragement” could find
you guilty.
And now, all guilt meant death.
Execution rates, which were already quite high following the Law of Suspects, soared
to 80% and as a result, in just two months, the Revolutionary Government had executed
more than half as many people as they had executed the year prior.
In its pursuit of virtue, France had now entered the Great Terror.
On June 26, the Revolutionary Army decisively defeated the Coalition army during the Battle
of Fleurus, thus allowing France to capture the entirety of the Austrian Netherlands.
This victory also meant that Paris was no longer threatened by the royalist troops and
with this looming peril now gone, many members of the National Convention demanded an end
to the Reign of Terror, but Robespierre strongly objected to it.
However, the toll that the revolution was taking on him worsened and worsened his mental
and physical health to the point that Robespierre was increasingly absent from the Jacobin Club
and the National Convention.
This absence allowed the growth of conspiracies as Fouché worked tirelessly day and night
to organize Robespierre’s downfall, saying to each and every Deputy, “You perish tomorrow
if [Robespierre] does not.”
He quickly gained allies among the many deputies that Robespierre had disenfranchised, such
as the members of the Committee of General Security who felt marginalized by the law
of the 22 Prairial, which had been introduced without their consultation, and the increasing
amount of functions that the Committee of Public Safety had taken away from them.
Robespierre knew all too well that opinions were shifting against him as his speeches,
while fewer and farther between, became increasingly accusatory and filled with laments.
On July 1st, he denounced a conspiracy against him, saying, “In London I am denounced to
the French army as a dictator; the same slanders have been repeated in Paris.”
Two days later, following a heated argument, he stormed out of the committee, slamming
the door on his way out, shouting, “Well then, I release you from my tyranny; I withdraw.
Save the country without me, if you can.”
Repeatedly he attacked members of the convention and made no secrets of his intention to punish
them, thus further bolstering the ranks of the conspirators.
It was now July 26th, known as the 8th of Thermidor in the republican calendar, the
first appearance of Robespierre at the National Convention in forty days.
He wore the same sky-blue suit that he had worn during the Festival of the Supreme Being
and gave a two hour long speech where he defended himself against the accusations of dictatorship
and tyranny, lamented the fact that he was blamed for everything, threatened to kill
himself by drinking hemlock and claimed that England and the Committee of General Security
were plotting to bring him down.
He finished with a call for more purges, demanding that we, “Punish the traitors, purge the
bureaux of the Committee of General Security … purge the Committee of Public Safety itself…”
These vague accusations targeting no one in particular meant that everyone felt they could
fall victim of these new purges.
And that night, the conspirators met up again, adamant that they needed to end Robespierre
before he ended them.
It was now the 9th of Thermidor.
Saint-Just had just started a long tirade before he was abruptly interrupted by a deputy
who threatened to use his dagger if the National Convention didn’t have the courage to arrest
Robespierre.
Soon, more and more accusations from the deputies were thrown at Robespierre and his allies,
who, feeling increasingly uneasy, increasingly overwhelmed, rushed to the Plain, appealing
for them to defend him against the Montagnards but they shouted him down, remembering all
too well the numerous peers he had sent to the guillotine.
Robespierre was at a loss for words, alone.
Unable to defend himself without stammering, a deputy shouted, “The blood of Danton chokes
him!” to which Robespierre replied, finding his composure again, “Is it Danton you regret?
… Cowards!
Why didn’t you defend him?”
As he was dragged down the tribune by the members of the convention, he shouted that
the revolution was lost before he was arrested along with his little brother, Augustin Robespierre,
and his closest supporters, Couthon and Saint-Just.
Soon after, Hanriot rallied the sans-culottes and much like his insurrection against the
Girondins, he was now on his way to the Tuileries Palace along with 3,000 soldiers of the National
Guard to take over the Convention.
But as soon as they arrived, Hanriot was arrested by the Committee of General Security, and
having lost their leader and seeing that Barras and his troops were heading towards them,
the National Guard decided to retreat to the Hôtel de Ville.
But the capture of Robespierre and his supporters, including Hanriot, didn’t last long as the
prison guards released them, and they had now taken shelter in the Hôtel de Ville with
the National Guard.
There, a long standoff started with either side unsure on what to do next and, receiving
no new orders and no supplies while suffering under the intense summer heat, many soldiers
of the National Guard simply returned home until eventually, Robespierre and his supporters
were left with only 51 men to defend them.
As such, when the Convention declared them outlaws and ordered Barras with 4,000 men
to arrest them, Robespierre knew he was lost, and he attempted suicide by shooting himself
in the mouth but only succeeded in destroying his jaw.
Although other accounts claim that it was a soldier that shot him while he was attempting
to escape.
His little brother, Augustin, also attempted an escape by jumping out of a window but only
succeeded in shattering his pelvis while Hanriot was found severely injured in a gutter and
an eye out of its socket after he had been defenestrated.
Couthon was found at the bottom of a staircase, seriously injured after he had fallen off
his chair during the assault while Saint-Just, unmoved, simply surrendered without a word.
The following day, Robespierre and twenty-one of his supporters were sent to the guillotine.
The same guillotine that had executed Louis XVI, Danton, Desmoulins, Hébert, and many
more.
It was the 10th of Thermidor, a day of rest and festivity.
A vast mob had gathered around the scaffold, where they eagerly cursed the accused and
cheered their execution.
As Saint-Just was brought to the guillotine, he kept his head high, full of pride, and
said nothing but one last “Adieu” to Robespierre while Couthon screamed of pain as they forced
him under the blade, his crippled body being too rigid to properly lay on the machine.
Robespierre at first, said nothing, still in shock from his shattered jaw, from the
events that had just unravelled, from the realization he would soon die and along with
him, his virtuous Republic.
But as the executioner removed his bandager to clear his neck, he left out an agonizing
scream.
A scream only silenced by the blade of the guillotine.
Echoing in la Place de la Révolution, announcing the end of a Reign.
Epilogue The victory of the Revolutionary Army against
the Coalition Army at Fleurus marked a turning point in the war as France would maintain
this momentum to victory.
Against all odds, despite fighting the greatest powers of its time, despite going through
a violent revolution and just as violent counter revolutions, despite being torn apart by the
Vendée and Federalist revolts, despite dealing with hyperinflation and food shortages, the
young French republic not only survived but succeeded in gaining significant territorial
concessions, annexing Savoy, Nice and the Austrian Netherlands while creating multiple
sister republics in Italy and the Netherlands.
Finally, in 1797, France decisively defeated the Austrians at the battle of Rivoli, allowing
France to capture Mantua and thus forcing Austria to sue for peace and putting an end
to the first coalition war.
During this Italian campaign, a young artillery officer, recently promoted to the rank of
General, particularly distinguished himself by his tactical genius and prowess.
A certain Napoléon Bonaparte.