Robespierre: Monster or Scapegoat?

This week focuses on the historical enigma that is Maximilien Robespierre. A successful lawyer from the northern town of Arras, Robespierre joined the National Assembly in 1789 and played a crucial role in the Jacobin Club through to 1794. Thermidorians, like many historians, attribute the Terror to him. Most historians these days, however, see him as one figure within larger dynamics over which he had little control. It was convenient for Thermidorians to blame Robespierre after executing him to conceal their own complicity in the Terror. There is some debate over how much we should let Robespierre off the hook. Wherever one comes down on these questions, the subject of Robespierre offers a case-study for understanding the tragic and paradoxical course of the French Revolution. The 'Incorruptible', as he was sometimes called at the time, fought for many principles that the Terror would seem to have contradicted: freedom of expression, abolition of the death penalty and popular sovereignty.

Core primary sources

Robespierre, Report on the Principles of Political Morality (5 February 1794), in Mason and Rizzo, The French Rev Document Collection, pp. 254-258. (See Moodle).

 

Core secondary sources

Listen to:

Colin Jones, 'The Fall of RobespierreLink opens in a new window' (podcast, 2021, 1h)

 or

'The Robespierre ProblemLink opens in a new window' (Discussion/debate between Peter McPhee and Colin Jones [video, 2015, 45 mins])

 

OPTION: Watch film by Andrzej Wajda, DantonLink opens in a new window (1983) (Online).

 

Read

Marisa Linton, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authority in the French Revolution (2013), chapter 8 'The Enemy Within' (see Moodle)

 

The Robespierre Problem: H-France Salon, Vol. 7, Issue 14 (online)

• Read the introduction and one other contribution below:
  The Robespierre Problem: An IntroductionLink opens in a new window, Peter McPhee, University of Melbourne
  The Robespierre Problem, David AndressLink opens in a new window, University of Portsmouth
  The Choices of Maximilien Robespierre, Marisa LintonLink opens in a new window, Kingston University
• For those with French:
  Robespierre pris au piège des mécanismes d’épuration politique, Michel BiardLink opens in a new window, GRHis, Normandie Université, Rouen
  Aux origines du « problème » Robespierre: l’historien face à ses interrogations, Hervé LeuwersLink opens in a new window, Université Lille 3 - UMR IRHiS

 

Questions

1. Why do historians still argue over Robespierre?

2. How responsible do you think Robespierre was for the Terror?

3. Did Robespierre have choices? Or was he a victim of the force of circumstances?

4. Does consideration of the emotions alter the debate over Robespierre and the Terror?

 

Further reading/watching/listening

Awkward BBC documentary on the Terror but helpful for grasping the larger implications of debates over Robespierre

P. McPhee, Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life (2012)

C. Jones lecture (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7aPwwx6Y1w

C. Jones, The Fall of Robespierre: 24 hours in revolutionary Paris (2021)

F. Furet, ‘Terror’ in Furet/Ozouf (eds.), Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989)

N. Hampson, Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre (1974)

D.P. Jordan, The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre (1985)

J. Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (2015)

M. Linton, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution (2013)

R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled (1941)

Haydon & W. Doyle (eds), Robespierre (1999)

R. Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (2007)

C. Haydon & W. Doyle (eds), Robespierre (1999)

N. Hampson, Danton (1978)

N. Hampson, Saint-Just

L. Gershoy, Bertrand Barère (1962)

 

 

 

For those who read French, two good recent biographies include

J-C Martin, Robespierre: La fabrication d’un monster (2016)

H. Leuwers, Robespierre (2014)

G. Lefebvre, ‘Sur la lois du 22 priarial an II’, in idem, Études sur la Révolution française (1963)

F. Brunel, Thermidor, La Chute de Robespierre (1989)

M. Belissa and Y. Bosc, Robespierre La Fabrication d'un Mythe (2013)