|
MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE:
Reason by Contradiction,
Justice by Murder
J. Andrew McLaughlin
© 1996
In the foreword to Robespierre's
"Speech to the National Convention -- February 5, 1794: The Terror Justified",
presented in Dennis Sherman's Western Civilization, Sherman testifies to
historians' debate regarding the life and career of Maximilien Robespierre. Was he a
"bloodthirsty individual with the major responsibility for the executions during the
Reign of Terror"? Or was he rather a "sincere, idealistic, effective
revolutionary leader"? (1) Did Robespierre continue to represent the ideals people had fought for
since the start of the French Revolution? Moreover, was Robespierre in fact
justified? He was not. Robespierre was indeed a murderous political despot and
hypocrite in his own right. It can be argued that by the time of his death, he had
become that which the original aims of the Revolution had railed against.
Robespierre was a superb orator and opportunist who appears to have used the Nationalist
sentiments of the time to further his own interests and career and to justify the murders
of all who stood in his way. He was the type of man who could pay lip service to
enlightenment principles while at the same time advocating the violation of one of its
most fundamental goals: freedom of opinion. Such was his talent for manipulation of
words. Though it was his murderous actions which eventually cost him his head in
1794, his words are what most betray his hypocrisy. In his speech "The Terror
Justified", made before the French National Assembly in February of that same year,
he explains that he felt he must "...lead the people by means of reason and the
enemies of the people by terror..." -- Robespierre proclaims his dedication to
"...virtue without which terror is murderous, terror without
which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice;
it flows, then, from virtue."
In spite of these strong words, the speech as a whole can be seen to have a touch of
guilt in its tone; he was a man attempting to rationalize cold - blooded murder and he
knew it. That he knew it is certain and demonstrable: he is condemned by words he
himself spoke before The Terror first took post - revolutionary France in its grip.
The vast discrepancy between the socioeconomic realities facing the French people
before the revolution and the actual social structures in place at the time are evident in
the writings of Arthur Young. He recounts that the people were simply full of discontent,
and spoke of liberty and freedom without much knowledge of what they entailed;
".....but I meet with so few men that have any just ideas of
freedom, that I question much the species of this new liberty that is to arise..." (2)
This does much to explain some of the events which took place during and following the
revolution. The writings presented in Sherman's book are full of enlightenment
spirit which was somehow lost on people like Maximilien Robespierre. The events of
The Terror can have taken little inspiration from such work. Consider the Cahier of the
Third Estate of Carcassonne, or the writings of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, which seem to
embody many of the ideals first brought to light by the Enlightenment, and which provide
considerable insight into the real feelings of revolution era middle - class French
society. Sieyes' pamphlet What is the Third Estate? published in 1789
emphasizes those feelings without the revolutionary rhetoric of which Robespierre was so
fond;
"Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything
shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an
everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be
infinitely better without the others..." (3)
This moderate tone is despite the fact that at the time, the social
imbalance which was at the root of France's problems was still in place; Robespierre, on
the other hand, can be seen to have been conducting a witch - hunt of epic proportions by
the time of The Terror. The privileged order had already been abolished by the
National Assembly in mid - 1789.
Robespierre can be further shown at odds with the revolution's original
spirit by examining the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, passed by
that same National Assembly a short time later. Several points of the Declaration directly
contradict the actions of Robespierre and his compatriots during The Terror. Article 2
states that the government exists to preserve "...the natural and imprescriptable
rights of man. There rights are liberty, prosperity, security and resistance to
oppression." (4).
Indeed, there are many more instances which illustrate Just such fundamental differences;
"Article 8. The law shall provide only for such punishments only as
are strictly and obviously necessary..."
"Article 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions.
. . "
"Article 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most
precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print
with freedom." (5)
It is hard not to see that the executions which took place essentially for reasons of
political dissidence directly oppose the spirit of the Declaration. It is notable,
however, that Robespierre does not claim in his Terror Justified to have abided
by the Declaration in his methods. Rather he claims that his methods were simply a
necessity "...to consolidate among us this democracy, to realize the peaceable rule
of constitutional laws." (6) In other words, "Do as I say, not as I do.". The Reign of Terror
was
"...a political weapon directed impartially against all who might
oppose the revolutionary government ... For many Europeans of the time, however, the Reign
of Terror represented a terrifying perversion of the generous ideals that had existed in
1789." (7)
How would this appeal to a man like revolutionary soldier Francois-Xavier Joliclerc?
Joliclerc reveals himself in his writings to be full of unquestioning patriotic
fidelity to the republic. He does not express any conscious regard for enlightenment
ideas such as free thought. Indeed, his words belie him as a man who might have
been, in earlier times, the type to subscribe to religious fanaticism. It is evident
in the following quotes that he would probably have agreed wholeheartedly with Robespierre
and the events of The Terror;
"...Our life, our wealth and our talents do not belong to
us. It is to the nation, la patrie, that all that belongs ... I have always been
republican in spirit, although obliged to live in a monarchy..." (8)
"Every good man who knows what's what ought to fly to the aid of his country in
danger ... If I should perish there, you ought to rejoice. Can one make a finer sacrifice
than to die for one's country? ... No! Would you rather see me die ... working with wood
or stone? ... [la patrie] is our only rudder, and it is she who guides us and gives us
happiness..." (9)
From reading this, one might surmise that if the cause of "la patrie" had
been something other, Joliclerc might have been Just as willing to die for that too.
He shows himself to be puffed up with nationalistic pride and a thirst for glory --
things which have for centuries been used in just such a way to rile young men to action.
Joliclerc would probably have agreed with anything Robespierre proclaimed good for
the Republic, and were it not for many like- minded young men, the Terror could never have
happened.
One cannot say that Robespierre's tactics were simply random acts of violence, however.
Maps and charts 9.1-9.2 in Sherman's text illustrate that incidences of execution
were distributed around, but not necessarily confined to, areas of political unrest.
Additionally, they demonstrate the demographics of such; in several instances the
ratio of number of executions among certain social classes to the percentage of the total
population which those classes comprised is very much out of proportion. For
example, the working and middle classes made up 31% and 25% of all executions
respectively, but the working class made up only 8% of the population, and the combined
middle classes only 4%. These are the most notable figures (numbers for the clergy
and nobility are also slightly disproportionate) and also the most telling. The
reason is that after all, these classes were made up of those who had been the
revolution's progenitors and who had potentially the most to gain from its success.
They really had no reason to oppose it. Robespierre made them the victims of that
same revolution.
In his Justification, Robespierre states that Justice comes from a judiciary which is
responsible to the people -- however in his political actions he had justice dispensed
according to nothing but his own agenda. During The Terror he instituted courts
which were
"...special revolutionary courts responsible only to [the]
Committee of Public Safety. These courts ignored normal legal procedures and judged
severely." (10)
This helps to show that at the height of his power, Robespierre evidently no longer
thought of himself as simply an elected member of a committee. By this time he was
no longer presenting his ideas in a wholly democratic setting, but rather issuing
"instructions" to the National Assembly with little or no resistance. (11) At the end, Robespierre had begun to
execute even his former supporters for what was essentially disobedience. One such
man was Danton, who had realized the lack of humanitarianism in Robespierre's nationalism.
He was quoted as saying "I would rather be guillotined than guillotine.".
(12) In his book,
Norman Hampson says
"The fact that Danton, Desmoulins, Hebert, Chaumette and all the
others had been executed after trials that were mere political conveniences, meant that no
one was safe. The same sort of 'evidence' could be produced against any of the
Montagnards. What Baudot said... could be applied to the whole period: 'Principles had
nothing to do with it; it was a matter of killing."' (13)
However, as stated before, it is Robespierre's own words which can be best used to
convict him. In G. H. Lewes' book. he observes that this quote is
"strange". This quote is much more than strange, given the historical
circumstances. It is in fact surprising that this excerpt from a speech before the
National Assembly -- in which Robespierre wholly decries, in no uncertain terms, the
barbarism of the death penalty -- is not regularly contrasted with his "Terror
Justified",
"...I am about to pray ... to efface from the code of the French
those laws of blood which command Judicial murders; and which our feelings and the new
constitution alike repel. I will prove that the punishment of death is essentially unjust
... In the eyes of Justice and mercy, therefore, these death scenes ... are nothing less
than base assassinations; solemn crimes committed not by individuals, but by entire
nations ... human Judgements are never certain enough for society to condemn a man to
death..." (14)
By these words, then, Robespierre was a murderer. When one contrasts this with
his Justification, he must also be called a hypocrite. If history can be capable of
Judging a man by any standards -- those of his time, or those of our time -- surely it
might judge him by his own standards. In The Terror Justified, Maximilien
Robespierre speaks of virtue and reason. However, "base assassinations"
and "solemn crimes" can hardly be called virtuous, and in reason and logic,
contradictions are the most basic disproof of any argument. The above quotation is a
direct contradiction of Robespierre's actions and subsequent rationalizations. It
can be argued that Robespierre and his contemporaries created of themselves a dictatorship
more insidious than could be boasted by any monarchy that had existed in France during
their lifetimes. The privileged order had already been toppled. They used
nationalism to gain power, and terror to hold it; it must at least be possible that their
actions really had very little to do with the original spirit of the French Revolution.
"Principles had nothing to do with it; it was a matter of killing".
Indeed.
(1) Sherman, Dennis. "Western Civilization:
Sources, Images, and Interpretations", Second edition (New York: McGraw - Hill Inc.,
1991), P. 182
(2) Ibid. P. 173
(3) Ibid. P. 176
(4) Ibid. P. 179
(5) Ibid. P. 180
(6) Ibid. P. 183
(7) McKay, John P., Hill, Bennett D Buckler, John. "A History of
Western Society" Volume B, 5th Edition (Boston: Houghton - Mifflin Company 1995) p.
712
(8) Sherman, P. 184
(9) Ibid. P. 185
(10) McKay, Hill, Buckler. P. 711
(11) Lewes, G. H. "The Life of Maximilien Robespierre" (London:
Chapman and Hall, 1849) P. 177
(12) Eagan, James Michael. "Maximilien Robespierre: Nationalist
Dictator" (New York: Octagon Books, 1938) pp. 139-140
(13) Hampson, Norman. "The Life and Opinions of Maximilien
Robespierre" (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1974) P. 262
(14) Lewes, pp. 183-184
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sherman. Dennis. "Western Civilization: Sources. Images and Interpretations"
Second edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc. 1991.
McKay, John P.. Hill, Bennett D.. Buckler. John. "A History of Western
Society" Volume B, 5th Edition Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1995
Lewes. G. H. "The Life of Maximilien Robespierre" London: Chapman and Hall,
1849.
Eagan, James Michael. "Maximilien Robespierre: Nationalist Dictator" New
York: Octagon Books, 1938.
Hampson, Norman. "The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre" Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1974
| |
|