The French Revolution

Robespierre was honestly working for the good of the people. He once stopped 75 Girondins from being tried for signing a secret protest against their leaders’ arrests, knowing they would be executed (Hampson 139). Much of the public understood and loved Robespierre. When he was finally arrested, the prison guard refused to hold him (Gaxotte 223). Instead of fleeing, he returned to Paris where a crowd of his followers congregated. He absolutely forbid them to fight for him, as they were planning (Geib). His altruistic efforts suggest some outside force caused the change in his allowing of the more brutal manner of reformation, later, when the many thousands of people were executed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have influenced Robespierre with his strong nationalist views, being an important, and influential role-model for Robespierre. It is said that Robespierre slept with a copy of Rousseau’s Social Contract next to him (Halsall). Rousseau thought that it was the greatest of all sins to continue in life when one believes there is a better way (Searle). Robespierre knew there was another way; a republic, free of the uncaring rule of powerful monarchs. This idea may have encouraged Robespierre to press for reformation at all costs.

With all of the chaos and commotion going on with the Revolution, a sense of victory without the people was impossible. Robespierre once said, "The domestic danger comes from the bourgeois; to defeat the bourgeois we must rally the people." This concept helped to create a defense policy that rested on the Sansculottes and the middle bourgeoisie, this of which Robespierre became that symbol (Soboul 56). The Jacobins and Sansculottes forced this revolutionary of national defense upon the French leadership and upper class. This is where Robespierre 's villainous side begins to emerge. Upon implementation of this strategy, overthrow and mass executions began to appear.

The radical views of Robespierre cost thousands of people’s lives. He ordered the death of 45,000 to 50,000 throughout all of the Reign of Terror. Nothing compared to the levée en masse deaths by people just fighting for their right to worship God. In October 1793, Revolutionaries decided to reenact an example of counterrevolutionaries in Lyons. One day, revolutionaries destroyed 1600 homes and chopped off 12 heads just in 5 minutes. Robespierre is sending his revolutionary followers basically just to torture people and take away their rights. The people the revolutionaries were members of the aristocracy, priests, farmers, and townspeople especially. He killed them because he thought they weren’t in support of the French Revolution, they didn’t support him, or they supported the Catholic Church. By August of 1793, people were fed up of Robespierre and his radical ways so they started revolting against him. 3,000 national guardsman were sent to establish order and peace in Niort, France (Doc D). Even this wasn’t enough as a government official had to ask the National Convention for more troops and assistance in calming

As the Reign of Terror came into effect, triggering the most radical phase of the Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre was determined to reconstruct France as a new republican democracy. According to Robespierre, this system could only be achieved if every and all forms of resistance to the Republic were to be eradicated. He declared that anyone who did not support the revolution as radically as he did was a traitor, a threat to the country, and deserved to be executed.

Maximilien Robespierre was one of the most important leaders during the French Revolution who was responsible for thousands of suspected enemies throughout the Reign of Terror. This period began in 1793-1794, with the ascension of the radicalized Jacobins into power by Robespierre. But before that, Robespierre originally began as a lawyer for poor people and a deputy of the Third Estate, with a gradual rise to power. Eventually, Robespierre would have much influence over the organizations that controlled the Terror. But what kind of a man was he in order to direct the mass executions of the French people?

Maximilien De Robespierre was a very complex revolutionary political leader who greatly influenced the French Revolution. Although he was a left-wing bourgeoisie inspired by Enlightenment principles and philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu, many considered his actions a “Reign of Terror”. I feel that by definition he was more of a hero than tyrant. No matter what people thought of him they cannot deny the results or influence Maximilien De Robespierre had on France and the French Revolution.

Kate Connolly Mrs. Collesano AP Global- Period 1 12/3/2017 Maximilien Robespierre played a significant role in the French Revolution that changed the course of the restructuring of France. He was a leading political figure that gained more power and influence throughout the events leading to the development of the revolution. The events that led to his domination were history altering events for the history of France. Robespierre’s goal was to rid France of anyone who seemed like a threat to him by using terror and death. He had many points that were used to justify why exactly the Terror was used to help the revolution.

Fatal Purity: Robespierre and The French Revolution, by Ruth Scurr, was written in attempt to answer questions about Maximilien Robespierre. These questions include, “At what point exactly did the lawyer from Arras begin to believe in the image that the Revolution reflected back to him? Why did that image become so dangerously hypnotic, for him personally, for his contemporaries, and for posterity? And why is it so hard to break the spell, to understand--perhaps imperfectly, but at least clearly--who Robespierre was and what he meant.”(pg. 8) Ruth Scurr answers these questions throughout her book. Ruth Scurr is is a writer, historian and literary critic. She is very qualified and attended St. Bernard's Convent, Slough; Oxford University,

Maximilien Robespierre is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures of the French Revolution. He assumed a leadership role during this movement, so when the French Revolution took a dark turn, Robespierre was deemed responsible for this change. Although some believe he took necessary progressive action to go fourth with the revolution, he enacted a number of principles that appropriated mass murders of counter- revolutionaries. Though Robespierre was heavily inspired by Enlightenment philosophy and government documents, he had a predilection to distort the core principles by interpreting them very literally while applying them to his own pursuits. Therefore, the promotion of cruelty, violence, and terror was justified, as it was

Terror dominates our perceptions of the french Revolution. Terror was a brief but deadly period where Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunals, condemned thousands of people to die on the guillotine. The Reign of Terror was not driven by one man, one body,or one policy; It was shape by different forces and factors. The Reign of Terror was certainly the most violent period of the French Revolution. Between the years of 1793 and 1794 more than 50,000 people were killed for suspected counter -revolutionary activity or so called “crimes against liberty” One third of this number died under the falling blade of the guillotine.

In the spring of 1789 Robespierre was elected as the leader of a radical political group called the Jacobins. He did take part in the very important moments as in the signing of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen and the foundation of the French constitution. During the summer of 1789 the people of Paris rose against King Louis XVI and Robespierre thought it was the perfect moment to take control and successfully argued for the execution of King Louis XVI. Maximilien wasn’t done after the execution of King Louis, he needed more, so after he was elected in the Committee of Public Safety he ordered for more executions. He did this with a vision of controlling the government as a dictator. This is the time where the Robespierre that was all for the minorities and poor soon left and the new power hungry and dictator came

Maximilien Robespierre declared at the trial of King Louis XVI. “The King must die so that the nation can live.” Robespierre advocated the kings demise and with it the ways of the Ancien Régime. However, in an ironic twist of fate his words also foreshadowed his own rise and fall as the leader of the French Revolution. Known as “The Incorruptible”, or alternately “Dictateur Sanguinaire” Robespierre is a monumental figure of the French Revolution, but which was he? Was he the incorruptible revolutionist fighting to overthrow the Ancien Regime or a raging radical that implemented his own absolute tendencies under the cover of the revolution? When dissecting the dichotomy of Robespierre’s life and actions during the French Revolution and

Most notably, Marissa Linton, a member of the Société des Études Robespierristes, wrote the article “Robespierre and the Terror” in History Today. In this work, Linton defends Robespierre on the individual level because he “deplored the violent excesses of some of the Jacobin deputies. ” However, she also criticizes the “stark contrast between [his] ideals and what he became. ” Furthermore, David William Bates, in his book Enlightenment Aberrations: Error and Revolution in France, finds the similarities between Rousseau and Robespierre existed in theory but not practice. The most distinct manifestation of this discrepancy appears in that “Robespierre opposed the death penalty … precisely for this reason … that the ‘voice of reason and justice’ tells us that no human judgment is so certain that society could punish by death someone condemned by other humans, ” a policy clearly left unheeded during the reign of

After the downfall of the monarchy, Robespierre was elected the first deputy of Paris to the National Convention (BBC - History - Historic Figures: Maximilien Robespierre). The convention got rid of the monarchy, declared France to be a republic, and had ultimately lead the king to be publically executed (BBC - History - Historic Figures: Maximilien Robespierre). Robespierre had then started an event now referred to as the “Reign of Terror”, killing all threats to the revolution (BBC - History - Historic Figures: Maximilien Robespierre). These people included revolution figures such as Georges Danton, who was the first president of the committee of public safety. Robespierre had also insisted that France would get a new official religion – the cult of the Supreme Being. In the climax of the “Reign of terror”, Robespierre had become very unpopular in France, and a conspiracy was formed to overthrow him (BBC - History - Historic Figures: Maximilien Robespierre). On July 28th 1794, Robespierre was executed at the guillotine. Although Robespierre could be seen as a man who’s been up to no good, people must remember that he was the main driving force in the French revolution, ridding the country of a monarchy nobody was happy about. If I were given the opportunity to interview this mad politician, I would ask him what drove him to kill so many people, even after

The Reign of Terror led by Maximilien Robespierre in late 18th century France. It was a major component of the French Revolution. Robespierre, along with most of the French common people, became disillusioned with the aristocracy. Many people were angered by the lavish banquets and the wares of the rich, while they struggled to find scraps of bread. In addition, the people of France feared that the aristocratic society was plotting ways to snuff out the revolution. As a result, Robespierre and many of his colleagues set out to stop the counter-revolution before it had a chance to begin.