Recently Boris Johnson gave us a timely reminder of the first law of British foreign policy; when in doubt have a dig at the French. As fun as it would be to dissect the reasoning, or lack thereof, behind the Foreign Secretary’s decision to compare Francois Hollande to a Nazi prison camp commandant I am instead going back to the 18th Century to examine one of the key figures of the French Revolution and easily one of my favourite characters from world history. The reason I mentioned the latest incident from the Brexit debacle is that the aforementioned tenet of British foreign policy has played a key part in the reputation of Maximilien Robespierre who is far more famous as the architect of ‘the Reign of Terror’ rather than as ‘the Incorruptible’, a lawyer and theorist who changed the face of European history. Well in my opinion anyway.
Maximilien Robespierre was born into a reasonably wealthy family in Arras in 1758. His mother’s death a few years later had a devastating impact on his father, a prominent local lawyer, who left his children in the care of family members whilst he travelled Europe and descended into alcoholism. Robespierre was a promising student and in 1769, on the recommendation of a local bishop, was granted a scholarship to the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris which also boasts fellow revolutionaries Camille Desmoulins and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just as well as Voltaire, Victor Hugo and, more recently, Jacques Chirac amongst its alumni. At school Robespierre became fascinated with the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and began to forge his political views based on the Swiss philosopher’s ideas. So inspired was Robespierre by Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’ he carried an annotated copy on his person throughout his career. Robespierre graduated at the age of 23 as a lawyer and was awarded a substantial financial reward for his academic excellence and good conduct. Proof it’s always the quiet ones you need to keep an eye on.
Robespierre, no doubt checking his annotations of 'The Social Contract'.
Robespierre returned to Arras to begin his legal practice and, as with his studies, he flourished leading to his promotion to criminal judge for the diocese in March 1782. This promotion was to be short lived, however, as Robespierre resigned shortly afterwards due to the high number of capital verdicts being delivered in the region. Instead Robespierre turned his attentions to representing Arras’ poor clients often refusing to accept payment for his services. The only clients he refused to represent were those he believed to be guilty of their crimes and this, along with his resignation, is rumoured to be the origin of his sobriquet ‘the Incorruptible’. Upon his admittance to the academy of Arras in December 1783 he rose to prominence through his essay questioning the treatment of the families of convicted criminals and upon the announcement of elections to the Estates General by King Louis XVI in 1788 Robespierre emerged as the ideal candidate to represent the Third Estate, in other words everyone except the clergy and nobility, in the forthcoming elections. Despite his radically different views to the local gentry he was elected to the Estates General and headed to Versailles in May 1789.
I’ll spare you a crash course in the reign of King Louis XVI but the main reason he had called elections for the Estates General was to generate revenue to refill a treasury his profligacy had emptied. It’s hard not to have some admiration for a man who regularly ate two whole chickens washed down with a magnum of champagne for breakfast but Louis was a childish, stubborn and petty man who had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy. His belief in his divine right to rule had seen him dismiss his most able ministers and, despite growing discontent among the middle classes and peasantry, Louis had no intention to relinquish any of his power. This was no more evident than in the first meeting of the Estates General where each of Louis’ policies were passed by collective votes with one vote for each estate. The First Estate, the clergy, were exempt from taxation whilst the Second Estate, the nobility, benefitted from a plethora of bizarre laws and customs which exploited the peasantry who farmed their lands. Unsurprisingly laws and suggestions which benefitted Louis, the bishops and nobility were passed by two votes to one whilst those which raised the concerns of industrial workers and the peasantry were defeated by two votes to one.
Which brings us back to ‘the Incorruptible’ who, along with the majority of Third Estate deputies, found this version of democracy unpalatable and formed the National Assembly to change the French constitution. Within a year Louis XVI had been forced to accept the National Assembly, now styling itself as the National Convention, as the official government of France and Robespierre had risen from a nervous junior deputy to President of the Jacobin Club – the dominant force in revolutionary politics. Whilst he found the growing violence of the revolution distressing he remained committed to the National Assembly’s attempts to force through the universal rights of man despite the best efforts of Louis XVI. In 1791 Louis attempted to flee Paris along with his family in order to gather support from his wife, Marie Antoinette’s, Austrian relations to reclaim the city from the National Convention and reassert his absolute rule. En route Louis’ decision to lean out of his carriage for fresh air drew the attention of a postmaster and revolutionary sympathiser, named Drouet, who noticed the bloke in the carriage looked a lot like the bloke on the coins in his pocket. Louis was arrested and brought back to Paris to face trial for treason where he was met with silence from a crowd instructed by the National Convention that those who applauded the king would be flogged and those who insulted the king would be hanged.
You might respect his chicken and champagne breakfasts but you'd better think twice before applauding him when he comes back from his failed escape.
The non-committal views of the National Convention upon Louis XVI’s return to Paris were fully on display during his trial in late 1792 as the deputies, already agreed on a guilty verdict, struggled to agree on a suitable punishment for the now deposed monarch. Robespierre had spoken out against the use of the death penalty throughout his career and wrestled with his conscience during Louis’ sentencing before reaching the conclusion that the king must die for the revolution to live. When Louis was guillotined on January 21st 1793 Robespierre spent the day in his rooms among his papers.
The death of the king seems to have been a turning point for Robespierre and the last eighteen months of his life brought about several high profile executions including his own. The period known as ‘the Reign of Terror’ came about in the aftermath of Louis’ death and Robespierre justified the deaths of its victims as the only way to maintain the principles of the revolution as several prominent members of the National Convention aimed to shape French politics in their image. These varied and opposing views saw Robespierre attempt to eliminate his political rivals starting with the rival Girondin party and, as ‘the Incorruptible’ became more paranoid, his former allies and friends Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins. Left with only the most radical of his supporters Robespierre’s position as President of the National Convention became untenable and after a botched suicide attempt ahead of his arrest on July 27th 1794 he was guillotined the next day.
Robespierre's execution or perhaps a lost Lowry painting.
It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The man supposedly responsible for these words, British historian Lord Acton, described Robespierre as “the most hateful man in history” in the 1890s but this is hardly surprising. Robespierre’s political views espoused, above all, universal civil rights at a time of slavery and empire as well as showing that monarchies were fragile institutions effectively held in place by public consensus. Heaven forbid that in the heyday of the British Empire this public consensus would disappear and both the British working classes and the native people of Britain’s newly established colonies would begin to question the motives of their government. What makes Maximilien Robespierre such an intriguing character is the fact that, in an attempt to protect his core principles of liberté, egalité and fraternité, his actions during ‘the Reign of Terror’ sullied his life’s work leaving him to be remembered as a brutal dictator rather than as ‘the Incorruptible’. Both interpretations are valid but what is certain is that the latter, in British historiography at least, will often be ignored. Serves him right for being French I guess.
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