Was Robespierre solely responsible for the Terror ?

Was Robespierre solely responsible for the Terror?

The Reign of Terror which lasted from September 1793 to July 1794, was a brutal period in French history during which the terrorists of the revolution were the government and terror became a legal policy, having been voted for by the Convention. During this time Robespierre was the leader of the Committee of Public Safety, a member of the National Convention, and the most powerful man in France, thus it is without doubt that he is largely culpable for the implementation of Terror. He, however, cannot be solely blamed as he was put under a great deal of pressure by the sans-culottes to act and also, there were many other formidable members of the Convention who should be deemed guilty. Thus, Robespierre is responsible for the Terror, but it would be indeed incorrect to state that he is ‘solely’ responsible.

Firstly, the power that Robespierre possessed from 1793-1794 demonstrates his role in the Terror. On the 27th July 1793 he joined the National Convention and by the 4th of June 1794 he was elected as its President. He was also elected to the Committee of Public Safety in late July 1793 and although he had no specific leadership role on the Committee, often he was its spokesman on ‘questions of policy and principle’ (Gough, 1998: 45). Jordan points out that Robespierre’s appointment to the Committee put him at the center of the Revolution. ‘He became the living link between the Committee and the Convention, the Committee and the Jacobins, the Committee and the Commune, and the Committee and the sans-culottes’ (Jordan, 1985: 168).

In the Committee of Public Safety’s repressive policy towards Lyon, Robespierre could be described as the ‘guiding hand’ (Hardman, 1999: 111) indicated by the fact that on the 4th of August 1793, a week after he joined the Committee, orders were given to march on the city. By the time the siege had ended, the Convention changed the city’s name to ‘Liberated Town’ and ordered the houses of the rich to be destroyed, whilst Robespierre was congratulated for his creation of the slogan ‘Lyon n’est plus’. Moreover, there were around 1,800 executions, including the notorious ‘mitraillades’: murdering by cannon loaded with grapeshot. (Hardman, 1999: 112).

In September 1793 Terror became government policy after the Sans-Culottes invaded the Convention, and the ‘Law of Suspects’ was subsequently passed on the 17th by the Committee of Public Safety with ‘harrowing consequences’ (Dart, 1998: 38). It granted wide powers of arrest and ‘suspects’ became defined in very broad terms. As noted by poetess Helen Maria Williams in Paris in autumn 1793, “One person was sent to prison because aristocracy was written on his countenance; another because it was said to be written on his heart” (Dart, 1998: 38). Even though the law was a direct consequence of the Hébertist offensive, Korngold argues that Robespierre ‘believed in the necessity of the Terror, and even without the Hébertist offensive would, eventually, have had it adopted’ (Korngold, 1937: 241). The fact that Robespierre, who initially disagreed with the death penalty, grew increasingly more radical and came to the conclusion that in order to achieve a ‘republic of virtue’ one had to eliminate the opponents of the revolution, adds great substance to this argument. Moreover, the excessive use of the Revolutionary Tribunal rose with the increasing influence of Robespierre on the Committee of Public Safety and by the autumn of 1793, he had acquired control of the personnel of the Tribunal (Hardman, 1999: 102). For instance, by July 1794 the Tribunal had ordered the execution of 2,400 people across Paris, including Marie-Antoinette (HistoryWiz, n.d.).

Another example of Robespierre’s role in the Terror is that even the radical Jacobins, his supporters, grew to believe that the Terror must be stopped (HistoryWiz, n.d.). His culpability is evident when looking at his role in the death of some of his former friends, including Danton and Camille Desmoulins. When Danton rose in the Convention calling for an end to the Terror, the response of Robespierre was to pass a decree stating that any accused person who insulted the court should be prohibited from speaking in his own defense. Similarly, when the third issue of Desmoulins’ journal, ‘Le Vieux Cordelier,’ was seen as a satirical attack on the Law of Suspects and even further, ‘a veiled attack on the Committee of Public Safety’, Robespierre attempted to persuade Desmoulins to burn the journal publicly (Linton, 2006). Desmoulins refused and as a consequence, he, as well as Danton, was arrested in March 1794. To make matters worse, Linton points out that Robespierre ‘used his personal knowledge of the two men to supplement his notes for the official indictment against them’. In these notes Danton is accused of actions and affiliations during earlier years of the Revolution, which at that time were deemed innocent, but had since become criminal (Thompson, 1935: 111).

When examining the period between the death of Danton and the the death of Robespierre in July 1794, one gains a greater understanding of the latter’s key role in the Terror.  According to Hardman, the late Richard Cobb liked to call this period ‘Robespierre’s red summer.’ Upon the fall of the Hébertistes in March 1794 he became even more powerful, gaining control of the Commune, the National Guard and most of the ministries, which in turn put him in charge of the municipal government and armed force of Paris, thus making him the most powerful man in France (Hardman, 1999: 102). In addition, whilst Couthon played a large part in the passing of the Law of 22 Prairial, Robespierre was also greatly involved in its passing. Moreover, Thompson indicates that there can be no doubt that Robespierre, ‘whilst disliking the wholesale shooting of rebels, took a special interest in the discriminating execution of Government and local officials’ (Thompson, 1935: 116). As the Committee of Public Safety grew to become dissatisfied with the police work of the Committee of General Security, it set up its own ‘Bureau de Police Générale’, with the task of supervising “all the authorities and public agents… and to prosecute any of them who shall be found taking part in plots, or perverting the powers entrusted to them against the cause of liberty.” Conveniently, Robespierre was in charge of its management, along with his ‘special lieutenants’ Couthon and Saint-Just and some of their reports still exist today, with notes which are mostly written by Robespierre, such as “Arrest him” and “Send him to Paris” (Thompson, 1935: 116-117).

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