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'''Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre''' ({{IPA-fr|mak.si.mi.ljɛ̃ fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi i.zi.dɔʁ də ʁɔ.bɛs.pjɛʁ|lang}}; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the [[French Revolution]]. As a member of <!--the [[Estates-General of 1789|Estates-General]],--> the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|Constituent Assembly]] and the [[Jacobin|Jacobin Club]], he campaigned for [[universal manhood suffrage]],{{sfn|Moore|2007|pp=24, 53, 217}} and the abolition both of [[celibacy]] for the [[clergy]] and [[Abolitionism#First abolition of slavery (1794)|of slavery]]. Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a voice, for their unrestricted admission to the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]], to public offices, <!--and to the commissioned ranks of the army, for the [[right to petition]]--> and for the right to carry arms in self-defence.<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Brien |first=James Bronterre |title=The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much Calumniated Person was One of the Greatest Men ... |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA415 |year=1837 |pages=415–421}}</ref><ref name="auto9">{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maximilien-Robespierre |title=Maximilien Robespierre |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9SArAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT61 |title=Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre |first=David P. |last=Jordan |date=16 October 2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |via=Google Books |isbn=9781476725710}}</ref> He played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the [[French monarchy#House of Bourbon (1589–1792)|French monarchy]] in August 1792 and the summoning of a [[National Convention]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Political Ideas of Maximilien Robespierre during the Period of the Convention |first=Alfred |last=Cobban |date=1 January 1946|journal=The English Historical Review |volume=LXI |issue=CCXXXIX |pages=45–80 |doi=10.1093/ehr/LXI.CCXXXIX.45}}</ref>

<!--For a few weeks Robespierre acted as de facto "president" of the [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|insurrectionary Paris Commune]],-->As one of the leading members of the [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|insurrectionary Paris Commune]], Robespierre was elected as a deputy to the French Convention in early September 1792, but was soon criticised for trying to establish either a [[triumvirate]] or a dictatorship. In Spring 1793, after the defection of [[Dumouriez]], he urged the creation of a "''[[Sans-culottes|sans-culotte]]'' army" to sweep away any counter-revolutionary conspirators. In July he was appointed as a member of the powerful [[Committee of Public Safety]].<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 20</ref> He exerted his influence to suppress the [[Girondins]] to the right, the [[Hébertists]] to the left and the Dantonists in the centre.

Robespierre is best known for his role during the [[Reign of Terror]], during which he oversaw the arrest and execution of numerous political adversaries and other individuals whom he and his allies deemed to oppose the Revolution. Historians have estimated that several thousand people were sentenced to death and [[Guillotine|guillotined]] during the Terror, and the extent to which defendants consistently received appropriate levels of [[due process]] before being executed remains controversial. Robespierre was eventually undone by his obsession with the vision of an ideal republic and his indifference to the human costs of installing it, which turned both members of the Convention and the French public against him.<ref>{{cite book|last=Popkin|first=Jeremy D.|title=A Short History of the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d4qTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA71|date=2016-07-01|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-50892-4|page=71}}</ref> The Terror ended when he and many of his allies were arrested on [[9 Thermidor]] and then executed the day after, events that initiated a period known as the [[Thermidorian Reaction]].{{sfn|Serna|2005|p=370}}

The extent to which Robespierre was personally responsible for the excesses of the Terror remains the subject of intense debate among historians of the French Revolution.{{sfn|Mathiez|1988|pp=63, 70}}{{sfn|Martin|2006|p=224}} To some, Robespierre was the incarnation of the Terror during Year II (of the [[French Republican calendar#History|French Revolutionary calendar]]), but to others, he was the Revolution's principal ideologist and embodied the country's first democratic experience, marked by the (immediately suspended) [[French Constitution of 1793]].<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=http://projet.pcf.fr/96800|title=Aux origines d'une mémoire républicaine de Robespierre, Hervé Leuwers*|website=PCF.fr}}</ref>

==Early life==
Maximilien de Robespierre was born in [[Arras]] in the old French province of [[Artois]]. His family has been traced back to the 15th century in [[Vaudricourt, Pas-de-Calais]]; one of his ancestors Robert de Robespierre worked as a notary in [[Carvin]] mid 17th century.<ref>Lavoine, A. (1914) La famille de Robespierre et ses origines. Documents inédits sur le séjour des Robespierre à Vaudricourt, Béthune, Harnes, Hénin-Liétard, Carvin et Arras. (1452–1790). In: Revue du Nord, tome 5, n°18, May 1914. p. 114. {{doi|10.3406/rnord.1914.1244}}</ref> His paternal grandfather, also named Maximilien de Robespierre, established himself in Arras as a lawyer. His father, François Maximilien Barthélémy de Robespierre, was a lawyer at the ''Conseil d'Artois'' who married the pregnant Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, the daughter of a brewer. Maximilien was the eldest of four children and was conceived out of wedlock. His siblings were [[Charlotte de Robespierre|Charlotte]] (1760–1834),{{efn|Baptized ''Marie Marguerite Charlotte de Robespierre'', at the time of her brother's prominence, she was betrothed to [[Joseph Fouché]], who broke the engagement after the events of [[9 Thermidor]]. Charlotte became unmarriageable due to her name; she remained single until her death, aged 74.}} Henriette (1761–1780),{{efn|Baptized ''Henriette Eulalie Françoise de Robespierre'', she became a nun and entered in the ''couvent des Manarres'' on 4 June 1773. She died age 18.}} and [[Augustin Robespierre|Augustin]] (1763–1794).<ref>Lavoine, A. (1914) La famille de Robespierre et ses origines. Documents inédits sur le séjour des Robespierre à Vaudricourt, Béthune, Harnes, Hénin-Liétard, Carvin et Arras. (1452–1790). In: Revue du Nord, tome 5, n°18, May 1914. p. 135</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis|title=L' Immortalité de l'âme dans la conception religieuse de Maximilien Robespierre|trans-title=The Immortality of the soul in Maximilien Robespierre's religious thought|url=http://www.theses.fr/2007STR20036|publisher=Strasbourg 2|date=2007-01-01|degree=doctoral|first=James Damian|last=McDonald|oclc=494639395 | language=fr|page=16}}</ref>

Early in July 1764, Madame de Robespierre gave birth to a stillborn daughter; she died twelve days later, at the age of 29. Devastated by his wife's death, François de Robespierre left Arras around 1767 and travelled throughout Europe. <!--until his death, in Munich on 6 November 1777.--> His two daughters were brought up by their paternal aunts, and his two sons were taken in by their maternal grandparents.{{sfn|Scurr|2006|p=20}} 
Already literate at age eight, Maximilien started attending the [[Arras College|collège of Arras]] (middle school).{{sfn|Carr|1972|p=10}}<ref>Gérard Walter, Maximilien de Robespierre, Paris, Gallimard, 1989, p. 17</ref> In October 1769, on the recommendation of the bishop Hilaire de Conzié, he received a scholarship at the [[Lycée Louis-le-Grand|Collège Louis-le-Grand]]. His fellow pupils included [[Camille Desmoulins]] and [[Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron|Stanislas Fréron]]. In school, he learned to admire the idealised [[Roman Republic]] and the rhetoric of [[Cicero]], [[Cato the Younger|Cato]] and other figures from classical history. He also studied the works of the Genevan ''[[philosophe]]'' [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and was attracted to many ideas, written in his "[[Contrat Social]]". Robespierre became intrigued by the idea of a "virtuous self", a man who stands alone accompanied only by his conscience.{{sfn|Scurr|2006}} His study of the classics prompted him to aspire to Roman virtues, but he sought to emulate Rousseau in particular.{{sfn|Jenkins|2011}} Robespierre's conception of revolutionary virtue and his programme for constructing political sovereignty out of [[direct democracy]] came from Rousseau, [[Montesquieu]] and [[Gabriel Bonnot de Mably|Mably]].<ref>Sonenscher, M. (2008) Sans-Culottes, an eighteenth-century emblem in the French Revolution, p. 231</ref> Robespierre studied law for three years at the [[University of Paris]]. Upon his graduation on 31 July 1780, he received a special prize of 600 ''[[French livre|livres]]'' for exemplary academic success and personal good conduct.{{sfn|Scurr|2006|pp=22, 35}}

==Early politics==
[[File:Maison de Robespierre.jpg|thumb|upright|The house where Robespierre lived between 1787–1789, now on Rue Maximilien de Robespierre]]

On 15 May 1781 Robespierre gained [[admission to the bar]]. The [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Arras|bishop of Arras]], Hilaire de Conzié, appointed him as one of the five judges in the criminal court in March 1782. Robespierre soon resigned, owing to discomfort in ruling on capital cases arising from his early [[opposition to the death penalty]].{{sfn|Scurr|2006}} His most famous case took place in May 1783 and involved a [[lightning rod]] in [[Saint-Omer|St. Omer]]. His defense was printed and he sent [[Benjamin Franklin]] a copy.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Riskin | first=Jessica | url=https://history.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9471/f/lawyer.pdf | title=The Lawyer and the Lightning Rod | journal=Science in Context | publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) | volume=12 | issue=1 | year=1999 | issn=0269-8897 | doi=10.1017/s0269889700003318 | pages=61–99}}</ref>

On 15 November 1783, he was elected a member of the literary Academy of Arras.<ref>{{cite book|last=Drival|first=Eugène Van|title=Histoire de l'Académie d'Arras depuis sa fondation: en 1737, jusqu'à nos jours|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LPZnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA58|year=1872|publisher=Typ. de A. Courtin|page=58}}</ref> In 1784 the Academy of Metz awarded him a medal for his essay on the question of whether [[Collective punishment|the relatives of a condemned criminal should share his disgrace]], which made him a [[man of letters]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.academia.edu/25444943|title=Robespierre (Paris, Fayard, 2014; rééd. Pluriel, 2016) — extraits|first=Hervé|last=Leuwers|via=www.academia.edu|page=9}}</ref> He and [[Pierre Louis de Lacretelle]], an advocate and journalist in Paris, divided the prize. <!--Many of his subsequent essays were less successful.--> Robespierre attacked inequality before the law, the indignity of [[natural children]], the [[lettres de cachet]] (getting arrested without a trial) and the sidelining of women in academic life. Robespierre had particularly that of [[Louise-Félicité de Kéralio]] in mind.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cairn-int.info/focus-E_AHRF_371_0055--the-factums-of-robespierre-the-lawyer.htm|title=The Factums of Robespierre the Lawyer. Choices of Defence by Printed Legal Brief by Hervé Leuwers}}</ref>  In 1787 he became acquainted with the young officer and engineer [[Lazare Carnot]] and the year after with the teacher [[Joseph Fouché]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Drival|first=Eugène Van|title=Histoire de l'Académie d'Arras depuis sa fondation: en 1737, jusqu'à nos jours|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LPZnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA62|year=1872|publisher=Typ. de A. Courtin|page=62}}</ref> Robespierre claimed to have seen Rousseau in [[Ermenonville]]<!--in June 1788-->, shortly before he died.<ref>{{cite book|last=O'Brien|first=James Bronterre|title=The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much Calumniated Person was One of the Greatest Men ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA122|year=1837|page=122}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPfu1rE43KAC&pg=PA26|title=The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre|first=David P.|last=Jordan|date=15 July 1989|publisher=University of Chicago Press|via=Google Books|pages=32–33|isbn=9780226410371}}</ref>

In August 1788 King Louis XVI announced new elections for all provinces and a gathering of the Estates-General for 1 May 1789 to solve France's serious financial and taxation problems. Robespierre participated in a discussion regarding how the French provincial government should be elected, arguing in his ''Address to the Nation of Artois'' that if the former mode of election by the members of the provincial estates was again adopted, the new [[Estates General of 1789|Estates-General]] would not represent the people of France. In late February 1789, France saw a pressing crisis due to its desire for a new constitution, according to [[Gouverneur Morris]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MxUoBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT587|title=The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution|first=David|last=Andress|date=22 January 2015|publisher=OUP Oxford|via=Google Books|isbn=9780191009921}}</ref>

[[File:Louis Boilly Robespierre.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Robespierre by [[Louis-Léopold Boilly|Boilly]], c. 1791 ([[Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille]])]]

In his [[Bailiwick|electoral district]] Robespierre began to make his mark in politics with his ''Notice to the Residents of the Countryside'' of 1789 in which he attacked the local authorities.{{efn|According to himself he was elected as president of the Academy early 1789.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Reybaud|first1=Charles|last2=Robespierre|first2=Maximilien de|title=Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien de Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXdOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA279|year=1830|publisher=Moreau-Rosier|page=279}}</ref>}}  With this, he secured the support of the country electors. <!--When the provincial estates of Artois elected deputies to the Estates-General, Robespierre succeeded in getting elected – even though he was their chief opponent!--> On 26 April 1789 Robespierre was elected as one of 16 deputies for Arras to the Estates-General; others were [[Charles de Lameth]] and [[Bon-Albert Briois de Beaumetz|Albert de Beaumetz]].<ref>Liste des noms et qualités de messieurs les députés et suppléants à l'Assemblée nationale. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 — Première série (1787–1799) sous la direction de Jérôme Mavidal et Emile Laurent. Tome VIII du 5 mai 1789 au 15 septembre 1789. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1875. p. VII. [http://www.persee.fr/doc/arcpa_0000-0000_1875_num_8_1_4233]</ref> {{efn|The Third Estate had as many deputies as the other two orders together (in the ratio 4:4:8) on instigation of Jacques Necker.}} He was almost 31, comparatively poor, and lacking patronage. When the deputies arrived at [[Versailles (city)|Versailles]] they were presented to the King and listened to [[Jacques Necker]]'s three-hour-long speech about <!--financial health, [[constitutional monarchy]], and--> institutional and political reforms.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rOjhcv0vZrMC&pg=PA123 |title=A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748–1830 |first=Aurelian |last=Craiutu |date=26 February 2012 |pages=119–21 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |via=Google Books |isbn=978-1400842421}}</ref> They were informed that all voting would be "by power" not "by head", so their double representation — on proposal of Necker — was to be meaningless. They refused this and proceeded to meet separately. <!--The Estates-General was, from the very beginning, confronted by difficulties that seem, at least in retrospect, almost surmountable.<ref>J.F. Bernard (1973) Talleyrand: a biography, p. 75-76</ref>--> On 13 June Robespierre joined the [[National Assembly (French Revolution)|National Assembly]] declared by the [[Estates of the realm#Third Estate|Third Estate]], which transformed itself on 9 July into the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Constituent Assembly]] and moved to Paris.

On 13 July the Assembly declared the formation of a "bourgeois militia". On 14 July, the day of the [[Storming of the Bastille]], the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]] was created in Paris.<ref>Florence Devenne, « La garde Nationale ; création et évolution (1789-août 1792) », Annales historiques de la Révolution française. N°283, 1990. p. 50</ref> On 15 July, [[Marquis de La Fayette]] was acclaimed their commander-in-chief. On 20 July 1789 the Assembly decided to establish National Guards in every commune in the country.<ref>[https://www.persee.fr/doc/arcpa_0000-0000_1875_num_8_1_4699_t2_0253_0000_2 Discussion suite à la motion de M. de Lally-Tollendal relative à l'établissement d'une milice bourgeoise, lors de la séance du 20 juillet 1789]</ref><ref>[Discussion suite à la motion de M. de Lally-Tollendal relative à l'établissement d'une milice bourgeoise, lors de la séance du 20 juillet 1789. In: Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 - Première série (1787-1799) Tome VIII du 5 mai 1789 au 15 septembre 1789. Paris : Librairie Administrative P. Dupont, 1875. pp. 253-255.] http://www.persee.fr/doc/arcpa_0000-0000_1875_num_8_1_4699_t2_0253_0000_2</ref>  Discussing the matter Robespierre defended the armed citizens in Paris.<!--<ref>Robespierre: Erinnerungen, p. 88</ref>--><ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=-aRYKSox2gQC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=roi+p%C3%A9tion+robespierre&source=bl&ots=RSSpcwRlOt&sig=ACfU3U1JHQKhbOChkQOtaiPIxETgfNZ9ow&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje0IqDzMXkAhVDr6QKHfgPCr8Q6AEwGHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Tolendal%20&f=false Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien Robespierre: ornés de son portrait et de ... by Maximilien de Robespierre, p. 522]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=YLAGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT29&lpg=PT29&dq=lally+tollendal++20+juillet+1789+Robespierre&source=bl&ots=kFGzyZArPT&sig=ACfU3U008VJuQEdzOKfy2p5NcmTELcgz8A&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiuyeC9nc3kAhVNZ1AKHWZ8BvIQ6AEwAnoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=lally%20tollendal%20%2020%20juillet%201789%20Robespierre&f=false Maximilien Robespierre: Oeuvres - N° 52]</ref> 

In October he was one of the few who supported [[Stanislas-Marie Maillard|Maillard]] after the [[Women's March on Versailles]].{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=38}} While the Constituent Assembly occupied itself with [[Suffrage#Census suffrage|male census suffrage]]<!--on 22 October-->, Robespierre and few more deputies opposed the property requirements for voting and holding office.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/283|title=Robespierre, "Speech Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility," 22 October 1789 · Liberty, Equality, Fraternity|website=chnm.gmu.edu}}</ref> Robespierre succeeded to attract the attention of the excluded classes, particularly [[Protestantism in France|Protestants in France]], [[Jews in France|Jews]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLfHu0A6v1oC&pg=PA108|title=The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity|first=Ferenc|last=Fehér|date=1 January 1990|publisher=University of California Press|via=Google Books|pages=108–109|isbn=9780520071209}}</ref> [[Blacks in France|blacks]], servants and [[actors#history|actors]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Robespierre, "Speech Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility" | website=Liberty, Equality, Fraternity | date=22 October 1789 | url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/283/ | access-date=2019-08-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Maximilien Robespierre | website=eHISTORY, Ohio State University | date=1998 | url=https://ehistory.osu.edu/biographies/maximilien-robespierre | access-date=2019-08-16}}</ref>

As a frequent speaker in the Assembly, Robespierre voiced many ideas in support of the [[Declaration of the Rights of Man]] and constitutional provisions for the [[French Constitution of 1791|Constitution of 1791]] but rarely attracted a majority among fellow deputies according to [[Malcolm Crook]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.academia.edu/25444943|title=Robespierre (Paris, Fayard, 2014; rééd. Pluriel, 2016) — extraits|first=Hervé|last=Leuwers|via=www.academia.edu|edition=  Compte rendu par Malcolm Crook, In: French History, 2015|volume= 29| issue= 3| pages= 396–97}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Dumont|first=Etienne|title=Souvenirs sur Mirabeau et sur les deux premières assemblées législatives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6JoPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA61|year=1832|publisher=C. Gosselin|pages=61–62}}</ref> Robespierre (always 'poudré, frisé, et parfumé') seems to have been nervous, timid and suspicious. [[Madame de Staël]] described Robespierre as 'very exaggerated in his democratic principles'. He supported the most absurd propositions with a coolness that had the air of conviction.{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=24}} <!--In October he was appointed a judge of the Versailles tribunal.--> Before the end of the year 1789, he was seen as one of the leaders of the small body of the extreme left. Robespierre was one of "the thirty voices", as [[Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau|Mirabeau]] referred to them with contempt: <!--He was elected secretary of the Assembly in June 1790.{{cn}} By the law on [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]] in July 1790 the church was placed under the control fo the state, rather than of Rome.<ref>J.F. Bernard (1973) Talleyrand: a biography, p. 93, 96</ref> --> "That man will go far—he believes everything he says."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wtkEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA336|title=Mirabeau: A Life-history, in Four Books|last=Smith|first=John Stores|date=1848|publisher=Lea and Blanchard|location=Philadelphia|pages=336|language=en}}</ref>

==Jacobin Club==
[[File:Robespierre IMG 2303.jpg|thumb|upright|Terracotta bust of Robespierre by [[Claude André Deseine|Deseine]], 1791 ([[Musée de la Révolution française]])]]
[[File:DuplayHouseCourtyard.jpg|thumb|upright|Courtyard of the house of Maurice Duplay, Robespierre's landlord. Robespierre's room was on the second floor, above the fountain.]]

From October 1789, Robespierre lived at 9, Rue de Saintonge in [[Le Marais]].<ref>
La Maison de Robespierre, rue de Saintonge, à Paris by Georges Michon. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française (Jan.–Feb.  1924), pp. 64–66</ref> [[Pierre Villiers]] claimed he was his secretary for several months, and they shared the apartment on the third floor.<ref name="auto7">{{Cite web|url=https://revolution-fr.livejournal.com/13518.html|title=Charlotte Robespierre's Memoirs|date=24 March 2007}}</ref> Robespierre associated with the new [[Jacobin|Society of the Friends of the Constitution]], commonly known as the Jacobin Club. Originally, this organization (the [[Club Breton]]) comprised only deputies from Brittany, but after the National Assembly had moved to Paris, the Friends admitted non-deputies, supporting the changes in France. As time went on, many of the more educated artisans and small shopkeepers joined the Jacobin club.{{sfn|Scurr|2006|p=114}} Among these 1,200 men, Robespierre found a sympathetic audience. Equality was the keystone of the Jacobin ideology. In January he held several speeches in response to the decision making the exercise of civil rights dependent on a certain sum in the tax. During the debate on the suffrage, Robespierre ended his speech of 25 January 1790 with a blunt assertion that ‘all Frenchmen must be admissible to all public positions without any other distinction than that of virtues and talents’.<ref>[https://www.cairn-int.info/focus-E_AHRF_371_0137--my-strength-and-my-health-are-not-great.htm P. McPhee (2013) "My Strength and My Health Are not Great Enough": Political Crises and Medical Crises in the Life of Maximilien Robespierre, 1790-1794]</ref> He began to acquire a reputation and on 31 March 1790 Robespierre was elected as their president.<ref>{{cite book|last=Aulard|first=François-Alphonse|title=La société des Jacobins: Mars à novembre 1794|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k116857x/|series=Recueil de documents pour l'histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris|volume=6|year=1897|publisher=Librairie Jouaust|pages=714, 717|language=fr|oclc=763671875}}</ref> <!--In December 1790 Robespierre held four speeches on the organization of courts;<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=-aRYKSox2gQC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=roi+p%C3%A9tion+robespierre&source=bl&ots=RSSpcwRlOt&sig=ACfU3U1JHQKhbOChkQOtaiPIxETgfNZ9ow&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje0IqDzMXkAhVDr6QKHfgPCr8Q6AEwGHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Tolendal%20&f=false Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien Robespierre, p. 526]</ref>--> In Summer 1790 the Paris Commune was divided up in 48 sections which elected [[Jean Sylvain Bailly]] as mayor.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=fccjTyOQiYwC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=bailly+1790+elections+Paris&source=bl&ots=kEyx3UwX64&sig=ACfU3U1ENEJV3Cj8BBzeJCaMAVOOIakq4g&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwji1877t-rmAhXBaVAKHdENDlYQ6AEwDHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=bailly%201790%20elections%20Paris&f=false A Concise History of the French Revolution by Sylvia Neely p, 121]</ref> <!--[[Jean Sylvain Bailly]] who won, allowed investors to begin the purchasing of church property.--> On 5 December 1790 Robespierre delievered a speech on the urgent topic of the National Guard, a police force independent from the army.<ref>[https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0115--robespierre-and-war.htm#xd_co_f=MTk1NGIyNDAtNWFjMC00MTg5LWFhNzEtYmE4NWEyM2E3YmI0~ Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française 2013/1 (No. 371)]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=76Kpqu_INJQC&pg=PT227&lpg=PT227&dq=Robespierre+5+december+1790&source=bl&ots=0N8Bf5mIjk&sig=ACfU3U0W0PWlglGUqTnpOqfMPGSwyGezoA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiN46v92_XkAhXPKFAKHS53AicQ6AEwD3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre%205%20december%201790&f=false Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr]</ref><ref>[https://fr.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Page:%C5%92uvres_compl%C3%A8tes_de_Maximilien_de_Robespierre,_tome_6.djvu/678&action=edit&redlink=1 Œuvres complètes de Maximilien de Robespierre, tome 6, p. 642]</ref> Robespierre coined the famous motto ''"[[Liberté, égalité, fraternité]]"'' by adding the word [[Fraternity (philosophy)|fraternity]].{{efn|The first use of the motto ''"Liberté, égalité, et fraternité"'' was in Robespierre's speech ''"On the organisation of the National Guard"'' on 5 December 1790, article XVI,<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=pNxBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&hl=de&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=fraternite&f=false Discours sur l'organisation des gardes nationales par Maximilien Robespierre]</ref> and disseminated widely throughout France by Camille Desmoulin in his journal "Les révolutions de France et de Brabant" among the associated Societies.}}<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=a0gACwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=Robespierre+5+december+1790&source=bl&ots=Y723QZ-x_-&sig=ACfU3U0lurkSpd5hZDB5ZrepZ_UClr042w&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiN46v92_XkAhXPKFAKHS53AicQ6AEwDnoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre%20&f=false Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution by Otto Dann, pl. 28]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=9gqLGoAsrxwC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=Robespierre+5+december+1790&source=bl&ots=H5rghTIijq&sig=ACfU3U0ogWFwsoarmKmEL-tcOj5KWwEwpA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiN46v92_XkAhXPKFAKHS53AicQ6AEwDXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre%205%20december%201790&f=false Fair Shares for All: Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice by Jean-Pierre Gross, p. 46]</ref> <!--Robespierre continued his attacks against the naval officers; on 28 January 1791-->

<!--After the death of [[Count Mirabeau]], the politicians competed with each other who would fill the gap.-->On 27 April 1791, Robespierre opposed the plans for reorganizing the National Guard and restricting its membership to [[active citizens]].<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=C1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA417&lpg=PA417&dq=ON+The+ORGANIZATION+OF+the+NATIONAL+GUARD+rOBespierre&source=bl&ots=81RisRIga2&sig=ACfU3U2d_XgmjcI8sVtCPl1URINEksdAbA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisgcvDgdLjAhVHr6QKHaKnC74Q6AEwCHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much ... by James Bronterre O'BRIEN, p. 417-421]</ref><!--<ref>Devenne Florence. La garde Nationale; création et évolution (1789 – août 1792), p. 58. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n° 283, 1990. {{doi|10.3406/ahrf.1990.1411}}</ref> In the same month he published a pamphlet in which he argued the case for [[universal manhood suffrage]].<ref name="auto6">{{cite book|last=Edelstein|first=Melvin|title=The French Revolution and the Birth of Electoral Democracy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYm1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|date=9 March 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-03127-7|page=48}}</ref> The pamphlet catapulted its author to instant fame, and every where Robespierre was hailed as the champion of the poor, the friend of the oppressed and the apostle of equality.<ref>Bernard, J.F. (1973) Talleyrand: A Biography, p. 108</ref>--> He demanded the reconstitution of the army on a democratic basis<ref name="Kappelsberger">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/21912112|title=Albert Mathiez: &quot;Robespierre.&quot;|first=Florian|last=Kappelsberger|via=www.academia.edu}}</ref> to allow [[passive citizens]]. He felt that the army had to become the instrument of defence of the Revolution and no longer be a threat to it.<ref name="auto5">{{Cite web|url=https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0115--robespierre-and-war.htm#xd_co_f=MTk1NGIyNDAtNWFjMC00MTg5LWFhNzEtYmE4NWEyM2E3YmI0~|title=Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot}}</ref> On 28 April, despite Robespierre's intensive campaign, the principle of an armed bourgeois militia was definitively enacted in the Assembly.<ref>[https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0115--robespierre-and-war.htm#xd_co_f=MTk1NGIyNDAtNWFjMC00MTg5LWFhNzEtYmE4NWEyM2E3YmI0~ Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot]</ref>

On 9 May the Assembly discussed the [[right to petition]].<ref>{{cite book|last=O'Brien|first=James Bronterre|title=The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much Calumniated Person was One of the Greatest Men ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA422|year=1837|pages=422–438}}</ref> <!--The next day a decree passed banning all petitions bearing "collective signatures".--> Article III specifically recognised the right of active citizens to meet together to draw up petitions and addresses and present them to municipal authorities.<ref>{{cite book|title=Journal des débats et des décrets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9OdIAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA28|volume=20|year=1791|publisher=Impr. Nationale|pages=28, 70–79}}</ref> On 12 May the National Assembly gave citizenship to [[mulattos]], but the colonial whites refused the implement the decree.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 81</ref> On 16-18 May when the elections began, Robespierre proposed and carried the motion that no deputy who sat in the [[Constituent assembly]] could sit in the succeeding [[Legislative assembly]].<ref>{{cite book|last=O'Brien|first=James Bronterre|title=The Life and Character of Maximilian Robespierre. Proving ... that that Much Calumniated Person was One of the Greatest Men ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA439|year=1837|pages=439–446}}</ref> This [[Self-denying Ordinance (French Revolution)|self-denying ordinance]], designed to demonstrate the disinterested patriotism of the framers of the new constitution, accelerated political change.{{sfn|Scurr|2006|p=136}} Its principal tactical purpose was to block the ambitions of the old leaders of the Jacobins, [[Antoine Barnave]], [[Adrien Duport]], and [[Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth|Alexandre de Lameth]].{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | pp=97-99}}{{efn|They shared the general view that the "new" France would not survive repeated physical intimidation from the Paris sections, unrestrained polemics from the clubs and the press and most important of all, the democratization of discipline in the army and navy.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=575}} }}<!--Robespierre stripped them of their political identity.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | pp=97-99}}--> On 28 May Robespierre proposed all Frenchmen should be declared active citizens and eligible to vote.<ref name="auto6">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYm1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|title=The French Revolution and the Birth of Electoral Democracy|first=Melvin|last=Edelstein|date=9 March 2016|publisher=Routledge|via=Google Books|page=48|isbn=9781317031277}}</ref> On 30 May he delivered a speech on the abolishment of [[Capital punishment|death penalty]] but without success.<ref>[https://www.academia.edu/20132338/The_Choices_of_Maximilien_Robespierre?email_work_card=view-paper The Choices of Maximilien Robespierre by Marisa Linton]</ref> The following day Robespierre attacked [[Abbé Raynal]] who sent an address, criticising the work of the Constituent Assembly and demanding the restoration of the [[royal prerogative]].

On 10 June Robespierre delivered a speech on the state of the army and proposed to dismiss officers.<ref name="auto5"/> Five days later [[Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve|Pétion]] became president of the "tribunal criminel provisoire", after Duport refused to work with Robespierre.<ref>{{cite book|last=Charavay|first=Étienne|title=Assemblée électorale de Paris, 18 novembre 1790-15 juin 1791|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2050527|year=1890|publisher=D. Jouaust|pages=XLVI–XLV| oclc=763860103 | language=fr}}</ref> On 14 June the abolition of the guild system was sealed; the [[Le Chapelier Law]] prohibited any kind of workers' coalition or assembly. (It concerned in the first instance as much collective petitioning by the political clubs as trade associations.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sonenscher|first=Michael|title=Sans-culottes: An Eighteenth-century Emblem in the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kIlzwhZC2NsC&pg=PA339|year=2008|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-12498-8|page=339}}</ref>) Proclaiming [[free enterprise]] as the norm upset [[Jean-Paul Marat]], but not the urban labourer nor Robespierre.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bernstein|first=Samuel|title=French Political and Intellectual History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Icxfcg43NswC&pg=PA21|year=1955|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-2396-8|page=21}}</ref> On 13 June [[:fr:L'Ami du roi|L'Ami du roi]], a royalist pamphlet, described Robespierre as a "lawyer for bandits, rebels and murderers".<ref>[https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0115--robespierre-and-war.htm#xd_co_f=MTk1NGIyNDAtNWFjMC00MTg5LWFhNzEtYmE4NWEyM2E3YmI0~ Robespierre and War, a Question Posed as Early as 1789? by Thibaut Poirot. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française 2013/1 (No. 371)]</ref>  On 18 June the public elected him [[public prosecutor]] of Paris.<ref>[https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C5%92uvres_de_Robespierre/Texte_entier]</ref> 
After Louis XVI's failed [[flight to Varennes]] (undertaken to escape the turmoil in Paris), the Assembly decreed that the king be suspended from his duties on 25 June until further notice. Between 13-15 July the Assembly debated the restoration of the king and his constitutional rights.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=-aRYKSox2gQC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=roi+p%C3%A9tion+robespierre&source=bl&ots=RSSpcwRlOt&sig=ACfU3U1JHQKhbOChkQOtaiPIxETgfNZ9ow&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje0IqDzMXkAhVDr6QKHfgPCr8Q6AEwGHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Tolendal%20&f=false Mémoires authentiques de Maximilien Robespierre, p. 527]</ref> <!--La Fayetter signed the order to bring the king back under escort and the Constituante stated that he had been abducted, had not gone to the border and had not abandoned his people. A kind of acquittal due to lack of evidence or malicious intent.--> Reflecting on Louis' fate, Robespierre declared <!--at the Jacobin Club on 13 July--> himself "neither [[monarchist]] nor [[republicanism|republican]]".<ref>Renoult-Saint-André, ''Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours'', Firmin Didot 1866, vol. 42, p. 407.</ref> <!--This stance was not unusual at this time since there were still few republicans among the politicians in France. Cordeliers like Danton suggested not to recognize Louis XVI as their king. --> He frowned on the efforts to promote republican ideology, but had not yet acquired the unchallenged grip over the Jacobins for which he would be known. The crowd on the [[Champ de Mars]] approved a petition calling for the king's trial. Alarmed at the progress of the Revolution, the moderate Jacobins in favor of a constitutional monarchy founded the club of the [[Feuillant (political group)|Feuillants]] on the next day, taking with them 264 deputies. <!--As a result, Robespierre, Pétion, Danton and Brissot dominated the Jacobin Club. [[Louise-Félicité de Kéralio|Kéralio]] and her husband circulated a petition declaring that Louis XVI had deserted his post, that by this act of perjury had in fact abdicated, and that the signatories no longer owed allegiance to the king. France should embark on a republic.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=105}}-->In the evening the King was restored in his functions. <!--On 17 July, Robespierre went to the Jacobin club to cancel the draft of the petition, according Matthiez. Robespierre persuaded the Jacobin clubs not to support the petition by Danton and Brissot.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=567}}-->

On the 17 July La Fayette declared [[martial law]].<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=LW6YDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=Robespierre+frowned+on+the+efforts+to+promote+republican+ideology&source=bl&ots=gM2RmMyCWv&sig=ACfU3U0bzhn-eqUxDp8MRdBgyBOHbBSGLA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPpoi3j6HlAhWBJFAKHUWIDA4Q6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre%20frowned%20on%20the%20efforts%20to%20promote%20republican%20ideology&f=false J. Israel (2014) p. 206]</ref> After the [[Champ de Mars massacre]], the authorities ordered numerous arrests.<!--Did the Commune, Bailly or LaFayette ban all gatherings? Danton took eventually refuge in London --> Robespierre, who attended the Jacobin club, did not dare to go back to the rue Saintonge where he lodged, and so asked [[Laurent Lecointre]] if he knew a patriot near the Tuileries who could put him up for the night. Lecointre suggested Duplay's house and took him there.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rodama1789.blogspot.com/2017/09/robespierre-chez-duplay-no366-rue-saint.html|title=Rodama: a blog of 18th century & Revolutionary French trivia: Robespierre chez Duplay - No.366 rue Saint-Honoré|date=22 September 2017}}</ref> [[Maurice Duplay]], a cabinetmaker and ardent admirer lived at 398 [[Rue Saint-Honoré]] near the [[Tuileries]]. After a few days Robespierre decided to move in permanently, although he lived there in the backyard and that he was constantly exposed to the sound of working.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://revolution-fr.livejournal.com/29026.html|title=Élisabeth Le Bas's Memoirs (Part III)|date=13 January 2008}}</ref> He was motivated by a desire to live closer to the Assembly and the meeting place of the Jacobins in the [[Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris|Rue Saint-Jacques]]. <!--[[Madame Roland]] named [[Pétion de Villeneuve]], [[François Buzot]] and Robespierre as the three incorruptible patriots in an attempt to honour their purity of principles, their modest ways of living, and their refusal of bribes.{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=88}} --><!--His steadfast adherence and defence of the views he expressed earned him the nickname ''l'Incorruptible''.{{sfn|Thompson|1988|p=174}}<ref>{{cite journal | last=Bart | first=Jean | title=Hervé Leuwers, Robespierre. Paris, Fayard, 2014 | journal=Annales historiques de la Révolution française | issue=380 | date=2015-06-01 | issn=0003-4436 | pages=183–186 | url=http://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/13531 | language=fr | access-date=2019-08-16}}</ref>-->{{efn|In September 1792 his younger sister and brother joined him and lived in the front house, but Charlotte insisted moving to 5 Rue St Florentin because of his increased prestige and her tensions with Madame Duplay.<ref name="auto7"/> <!--Augustin moved out from the Duplays when he was send on mission to the Midi (in August 1793). When he returned on 19 December Augustin decided not to move in with Charlotte; they were no longer on speaking terms)<ref>{{cite book|title=Thermidor: d'après les sources originales et les documents authentiques|url=http://bibliotheq.net/ernest-hamel/thermidor/page-133.html|last=Hamel|first=Ernest|page=133|oclc=1096803462}}</ref>-->}} According to his friend, the surgeon [[Joseph Souberbielle]], [[Joachim Vilate]], and Duplay's daughter Élisabeth, Robespierre became engaged to Duplay's eldest daughter [[Éléonore Duplay|Éléonore]], but his sister [[Charlotte Robespierre|Charlotte]] vigorously denied this; also his brother Augustin refused to marry her.<ref>[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5809871j/f1n198.pdf?download=1, Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 90-91]</ref>{{sfn|Robespierre|2006}}{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=87}} <!--The men in the family (Maurice, his son and nephew) were all actively involved in official duties thanks to Robespierre's patronage.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=241}}-->

On 29 September, the day before the dissolution of the Assembly, Robespierre opposed [[Jean Le Chapelier]], who wanted to proclaim an end to the revolution and restrict the freedom of the clubs. Robespierre had been carefully preparing for this confrontation and it was the climax of his political career up to this point.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=576-577, 579-580}} Pétion and Robespierre were brought back in triumph to their homes. On 14 October a law passed to reorganize the National Guard in cantons and districts; officers and sub-officers were to be elected for only one year. On 16 October Robespierre arrived in Arras. On 28 November he was back in the Jacobin club, where he met with a triumphant reception. [[Collot d'Herbois]] gave his chair to Robespierre, who presided that evening.

==Opposition to war with Austria==

Since [[Jean-Paul Marat|Marat]], Danton and Robespierre were no longer delegates of the Assembly, politics often took place outside the meeting hall. On 18 December 1791 Robespierre gave a speech at the Jacobin club against the declaration of war.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=99}} Robespierre warned against the threat of dictatorship stemming from war, in the following terms:

{{quote|If they are [[Julius Caesar|Caesars]], [[Catilina]]s or [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwells]], they seize power for themselves. If they are spineless courtiers, uninterested in doing good yet dangerous when they seek to do harm, they go back to lay their power at their master's feet and help him to resume arbitrary power on condition they become his chief servants.{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|p=130|loc= in "Robespierre, the war and its organization" by Forrest, A}}}}

On 25 December Guadet, the chairman of the Assembly, suggested that [[1792]] should be the first year of universal liberty.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=594}} [[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] stated on 29 December that a war would be a benefit to the nation and boost the economy. He urged that France should [[First Coalition|declare war]] against Austria. Marat and Robespierre opposed him, arguing that victory would throw up a dictator while defeat would restore the king to his former powers; neither end, he said, would serve the revolution.{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=117}}

{{quote|The most extravagant idea that can arise in a politician's head is to believe that it is enough for a people to invade a foreign country to make it adopt their laws and their constitution. No one loves armed missionaries... The Declaration of the Rights of Man... is not a lightning bolt which strikes every throne at the same time... I am far from claiming that our Revolution will not eventually influence the fate of the world... But I say that it will not be today (2 January 1792).{{sfn|Bell|2007|p=118}}}}

This opposition from expected allies irritated the Girondins, and the war became a major point of contention between the factions. In his third speech on the war, Robespierre countered <!--on 25 January 1792--> in the Jacobin club, "A revolutionary war must be waged to free subjects and slaves from unjust tyranny, not for the traditional reasons of defending dynasties and expanding frontiers..." Indeed, argued Robespierre, such a war could only favour the forces of counter-revolution, since it would play into the hands of those who opposed the sovereignty of the people. The risks of [[Caesarism]] were clear, for, in wartime, the powers of the generals would grow at the expense of ordinary soldiers, and the power of the king and court at the expense of the Assembly. These dangers should not be overlooked, he reminded his listeners, "...in troubled periods of history, generals often became the arbiters of the fate of their countries."{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|loc= in "Robespierre, the war and its organization" by Forrest, A}} <!--Robespierre spoke for many deputies when queried the wisdom of spreading France's commitments too widely, or of risking the uncertainties of foreign war when there were enemies to be rooted out at home.<ref>A. Forrest (1990) Soldiers of the French Revolution, p. 9</ref>  "I [Robespierre] ask that we change the subject of discussion, that those who desire war will make a series of arguments without art and without eloquence, I will answer in the same way; I offer to discuss coldly to know which is the best."-->  Already by then Robespierre knew he lost as he failed to gather a majority. His speech was nevertheless published and sent to all clubs and Jacobin societies of France.<ref>{{cite book|last=Robespierre|first=Maximilien|title=Recueil des œuvrès de Max. J. Robespierre, et de pièces pour servir à son histoire. Recueillis, 1819|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4tWu3zdSY3oC&pg=PA35|year=1819|page=35}}</ref>

On 10 February 1792 he gave a speech on how to save the State and Liberty, and did not use the word ''war''. He began by assuring his audience that everything he intended to propose was strictly constitutional. He then went on to advocate specific measures to strengthen, not so much the national defences as the forces that could be relied on to defend the revolution.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=103}} Not only the National Guard but also the people had to be armed, if necessary with pikes. Robespierre promoted a people's army, continuously under arms and able to impose its will on Feuillants and Girondins in the [[Constitutional Cabinet of Louis XVI]] and in the Legislative Assembly.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) ''The People's Armies'', p. 22. [[Yale University Press]]</ref> The Jacobins decided to study his speech before deciding whether it should be printed.<ref>{{cite book |last=Robespierre |first=Maximilien |title=Recueil des œuvrès de Max. J. Robespierre, et de pièces pour servir à son histoire. Recueillis, 1819 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4tWu3zdSY3oC&pg=PA45 |year=1819 |page=45}}</ref>

The Girondins planned strategies for out-manoeuvring Robespierre's influence in the Jacobins.{{sfn|Linton|2013|p=108}} He was accused by Brissot and [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet|Guadet]] of trying to become the idol of the people.<ref>V. Aulard (1892) Jacobins, III, p. 526</ref> On 26 March the latter accused Robespierre of superstition, relying on [[divine providence]];{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=180-181}} he was also accused of acting as a secret agent for the Austrian Committee.{{sfn |Linton|2013|pp=119-120}} On 10 April Robespierre resigned the post of public prosecutor, which he officially held since 15 February.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=107-108}} He explained his resignation to the Jacobin Club, on 27 April, as part of his speech in response to the accusations against him. He threatened to leave the Jacobins, claiming he preferred to continue his mission as an ordinary citizen.<ref>H. Leuwers (2014) Robespierre, p. 211</ref> <!--On 20 April 1792 France declared war on the Habsburg Empire; Robespierre's rivals had won.<ref>{{cite web | last=Jourdan | first=Annie | title=Robespierre, An Indecisive Revolutionary | website=Books & ideas | date=2017-05-18 | url=http://www.booksandideas.net/Robespierre-the-Indecisive.html | access-date=2019-08-16}}</ref> Madame Roland finally broke with him.-->

On 17 May, Robespierre published the first issue of his journal ''Le Défenseur de la Constitution'' (''The Defender of the Constitution''), in which he attacked Brissot and publicised his scepticism over the whole war movement.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gough|first=Hugh|title=The Newspaper Press in the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLBTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT87|date=2016-06-10|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-21491-5|page=87}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Scurr|first=Ruth|title=Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=76Kpqu_INJQC&pg=PT291|date=2007-04-17|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|isbn=978-1-4668-0578-1|page=291}}</ref> The journal served multiple purposes: first of all to print his speeches, to counter the influence of the royal court in public policy, to defend him from the accusations of Girondist leaders and to give voice to the economic and democratic interests of the broader masses in Paris and defend their rights.<ref>Lang, Timothy, "Rousseau and the Paradox of the Nation-State" (2018). History Open Access Publications. 2. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/history_oapubs/2 pp. 10, 14, 24</ref>{{sfn|Soboul|2005|loc= in "Defenseur de la Constitution" by Mazauric, C.}}  <!--According to Madame Roland: "He spoke little, sniggered a great deal, uttered a few sarcasms and never gave an opinion."-->

==The insurrectionary Commune of Paris==
[[File:Bouillon Vérité Journée du 20 juin 1792 Couleurs 1796.jpg|thumb|[[Demonstration of 20 June 1792]] at the Tuileries]]
[[File:Sans-culotte avec sa redoutable pique - Lesueur.jpg|thumb|A sans-culotte with his pike]]

When the Legislative Assembly declared [[Campaigns of 1792 in the French Revolutionary Wars|war]] against Austria on 20 April 1792, Robespierre stated that the French people must rise up and arm themselves completely, whether to fight abroad or to keep a lookout for despotism at home.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 86</ref> <!--An isolated--> Robespierre responded by working to reduce the political influence of the officer class and the king. While arguing for the welfare of common soldiers, Robespierre urged new promotions to mitigate the domination of the officer class by the aristocratic and royalist [[École Militaire]] and the conservative National Guard.{{efn|The selling of all sorts of positions, military or otherwise, was rampant in the courts of the [[Ancien Régime]] and so the officer corps’ mass exodus from France naturally coincided with that of the aristocrats. Not all aristocrats were officers, but all officers were aristocrats.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.indiana.edu/~psource/PDF/Current%20Articles/Fall2014/4%20Scupham%20Fall%2014.pdf|title="Friends, Fellows, Citizens. and Soldiers": The Evolution of the French Revolutionary Army, 1792–1799 by WILLIAM SCUPHAM}}</ref>}} Along with other Jacobins, he urged in his magazine the creation of an "armée révolutionnaire" in Paris, consisting of 20,000 men,{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|pp=133–36|loc= in "Robespierre, the war and its organization" by Forrest, A}} with the goal to defend "liberty" (the revolution), maintain order in the sections and educate the members in democratic principles; an idea he borrowed from [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] and [[Machiavelli]].<ref name=snyder>{{cite book|last=Snyder|first=Claire R.|title=Citizen-Soldiers and Manly Warriors: Military Service and Gender in the Civic Republican Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S7R_Mvwlp_AC&pg=PA46|date=1999-08-28|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-0-7425-7353-6|pages=46, 55}}</ref> According to [[Jean Jaures]], he considered this even more important than the [[right to strike]].{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}<ref name="Kappelsberger"/>

On 29 May 1792, the Assembly dissolved the [[Constitutional Guard]], suspecting it of royalist and counter-revolutionary sympathies. In early June 1792, Robespierre proposed an end to the monarchy and the subordination of the Assembly to the [[General will]].{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|p=162|loc= in "Robespierre and the Terror" by Hampson, N}} Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to suppress [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy|nonjuring priests]] on 27 May, to raise a militia of volunteers on 8 June, and the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers dismissed on 12 June, the monarchy faced an abortive [[Demonstration of 20 June 1792|demonstration of 20 June]].{{sfn|Pfeiffer|1913|p=221}} [[Sergent-Marceau]] and [[:fr:Étienne-Jean Panis|Panis]], the administrators of police, were sent out by Pétion to urge the [[Sans-culottes]] to lay down their weapons, telling them it was illegal to present a petition <!--to apply the constitution, accept the decrees, and recall the ministers-->in arms, although their march to the Tuileries was not banned. They invited the officials join the procession and march along with them.<ref>Taine, H. (2011) The Origins of Contemporary France, p. 298.</ref>

Because French forces suffered disastrous defeats and a series of defections at the onset of the war, Robespierre and Marat feared the possibility of a military [[coup d'état]].<!--{{sfn|Thompson|1988|p=233}}--> One was led by the [[Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette|Marquis de Lafayette]], head of the National Guard, who at the end of June advocated the suppression of the Jacobin Club. Robespierre publicly attacked him in scathing terms: "General, while from the midst of your camp you declared war upon me, which you had thus far spared for the enemies of our state, while you denounced me as an enemy of liberty to the army, National Guard and Nation in letters published by your purchased papers, I had thought myself only disputing with a general... but not yet the dictator of France, arbitrator of the state."{{sfn|Laurent|1939|pp=165–66|loc= in Volume IV}}

On 2 July, the Assembly authorized the National Guard to go to the [[Festival of Federation]] on 14 July, thus circumventing a royal veto. <!--Section assemblies were permitting "passive" citizens to their National Guard companies without seeking formal permission.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=604}}--> On 11 July, the Jacobins won an emergency vote in the wavering Assembly, declaring the nation in danger and drafting all Parisians with pikes or pistols into the National Guard.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=252}} [[Billaud-Varenne]] in the Jacobin club on 15 July, outlined the program following the uprising; the deportation of all the Bourbons, the cleansing of the National Guard, the election of a Convention, the "transfer of the Royal veto to the people", the deportation of all "enemies of the people" and exemption of the poorest from taxation. This programme was repeated almost unchanged in the Manifesto on 29 July, drawn up by Robespierre.<!--On 17 July the municipality of Paris accepted all citizens armed with a pike to the National Guard.--> On 24 July a "Central Office of Co-ordination" was formed and the sections got the right to be in "permanent" session.<ref>{{cite book|last=Salvemini|first=Gaetano|title=The French Revolution, 1788-1792|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_cVQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT504|date=2018-03-12|publisher=Borodino Books|isbn=978-1-78912-072-1|page=504}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Fremont-Barnes|first=Gregory|title=Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30EEq8R2feIC&pg=PA572|volume=A-L|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-33446-7|page=572}}</ref> On 25 July, the allied commander, [[Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick]], issued a ferociously belligerent manifesto designed to spread panic in France, as it did.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=245}} This sentiment reflected the perspective of more radical Jacobins including those of the Marseille Club, who <!--in May and June 1792--> wrote to the deposed mayor Pétion and the people of Paris, "Here and at Toulon, we have debated the possibility of forming a column of 100,000 men to sweep away our enemies... Paris may have need of help. Call on us!" {{sfn|Kennedy|1981|pp=254–55}} At the end of July more than 3,000 ''[[Fédérés]]'' entered Paris useful in provoking various measures, notably the overthrow of the king.<!--; they were the first to introduce and sing “[[La Marseillaise]]”. They were allowed to join the National Guard, and would focus on the "enemy within". --> On 29 July Robespierre called for the deposition of the King and the election of a Convention.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14-IA87&lpg=PR14-IA87&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&source=bl&ots=9mj36Ba2-K&sig=ACfU3U0dgFkTRlC3cyUqlRT1XoaBaNQLYA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBi7eu9OTkAhUQfFAKHZ4RBYgQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre&f=false The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. viii]</ref><ref>N. Hampson (1988) Prelude to Terror. The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789–1791, p. 113–114</ref>

On 1 August news of the [[Brunswick Manifesto]] began sweeping through Paris. The assembly ordered the municipalities that pikes should be made and issued to all citizens. <!--Passive citizens were allowed to join the National Guard.<ref>Devenne Florence. La garde Nationale; création et évolution (1789 – août 1792), p. 64. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°283, 1990. {{doi|10.3406/ahrf.1990.1411}}</ref>--> On 3 August 47 sections demanded the deposition of the king. On 5 August Robespierre announced the uncovering of a plan for the king to escape to [[Château de Gaillon]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Melanie Randolph|title=Envoy to the Terror: Gouverneur Morris and the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=20rpo-yzDugC&pg=PT373|year=2011|publisher=Potomac Books, Inc.|isbn=978-1-61234-277-1|page=373}}</ref> <!--Robespierre and almost all the sections in Paris wanted to dethrone the king and set an ultimatum.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=David P.|title=The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPfu1rE43KAC&pg=PA109|date=1989-07-15|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-41037-1|pages=109–110}}</ref> Brissot called for the maintenance of the constitution, excluding both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=114}}--> On 7 August Pétion suggested to Robespierre to contribute to the departure of [[Fédérés]] in order to appease the capital.<ref>Max Gallo (2007) Robespierre, p. 169</ref> On the evening of 9 August around 80 commissionaires of 28 sections (Billaud-Varenne, [[Pierre Gaspard Chaumette|Chaumette]], Robespierre, [[Hébert]], [[Hanriot]], [[Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot|Fleuriot-Lescot]], [[Jean-Nicolas Pache|Pache]], [[François Louis Bourdon|Bourdon]]) gathered in the town hall. <!--Danton preferred to go to bed and Pétion had house arrest.--> At midnight the municipal government of the city was dissolved. [[:fr:Sulpice Huguenin|Sulpice Huguenin]], head of the sans-culottes of the [[Faubourg Saint-Antoine]], was appointed provisional president of the Insurrectionary Commune. <!--Brissot stopped visiting the Jacobin club.-->

Early in the morning ([[10 August (French Revolution)|Friday, 10 August]]) 30,000 Fédérés <!--the National Guard had abandoned their guns not willing to shoot on their own people--> and Sans-culottes militants from the sections led a successful assault upon the Tuileries;{{sfn|Soboul|2005|loc= in "Dix Aout" by Monnier, R |p=363}} according to Robespierre a triumph for the "passive" (non-voting) citizens. On the night of 11 August Robespierre was elected to the Paris Commune as a representative for the "Section de Piques". The governing committee called for the summoning of a convention chosen by [[universal male suffrage]],{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=120}} to form a new government and reorganize France. On 13 August Robespierre declared himself against the strengthening of the [[départment]]s.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 109</ref> On 14 August Danton invited him to join the Council of Justice. Robespierre published the twelfth and last issue of "Le Défenseur de la Constitution", both an account and political testament.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=David P.|title=The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPfu1rE43KAC&pg=PA112|date=1989-07-15|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-41037-1|pages=112–113}}</ref> <!--On 15 August four sections called for all priests and imprisoned suspects to be put to death before the volunteers departed. Robespierre proposed to erect a pyramide on [[Place Vendôme]] to remember the victims of 10 August. --> On 16 August, Robespierre presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly from the [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|Paris Commune]] to demand the establishment of a provisional [[Revolutionary Tribunal]] that had to deal with the "traitors" and "enemies of the people". The next day Robespierre refused to preside over it.<ref name="auto3">{{Cite web|url=https://erenow.net/modern/a-peoples-history-of-the-french-revolution/8.php|title=The journée of 20 June, the Brunswick Manifesto, the taking of the Tuileries, the end of the monarchy, the September massacres - A People's History of the French Revolution|website=erenow.net}}</ref> He declined any position that might take him out of the political arena.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=121}} <!-- On 18 August dissolution of all the religious congregations; the non-juring priests were again instructed to leave France within two weeks?--> The Prussian army crossed the French frontier on 19 August. <!--The assembly withdrew 100,000 volunteers from the National Guard for national defense.<ref>A. Soboul (1974) De Franse Revolutie, deel I, p. 181</ref>--> The Paris militias were incorporated in 48 battalions of the National Guard under [[Antoine Joseph Santerre|Santerre]]. In the evening, in the presence of 35000 people, a ceremony was held for the 300 killed while [[Insurrection of 10 August 1792|storming the Tuileries]].<ref>Rachel Rogers (2012) Vectors of Revolution: The British Radical Community in Early Republican Paris, 1792-1794, p. 467</ref>

The passive citizens still strived for acceptance and the supply of weapons.<!-- in between 60,000 volunteers; 35,000 without arms--> Danton proposed that the Assembly should authorize house searches ‘to distribute to the defenders of the patrie the weapons that indolent or ill-disposed citizens may be hiding’.<ref name="auto3"/> The Paris sections organized themselves as surveillance committees, conducting searches and making arrests.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/comparative_revolutions/programme/frenchrev2/furet_terror.pdf|title=F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989) A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, p. 139}}</ref> <!--Royalists who spoke of surrendering or a deal with the Prussian and Austrian army were arrested and detained. Likewise, the ones who refused to hand over their arms and horses.--> These raids began on the evening of 29 August and went on for another two days.<ref name="auto3"/> <!--Between 520–3,000 people were taken into custody?--> Marat, head of the Committee of Surveillance and Robespierre both disliked [[Condorcet]] who proposed that the "enemies of the people" belonged to the whole nation and should be judged constitutionally in its name.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=266}} A sharp conflict developed between the Legislative and the Commune and its sections.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=267}}{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=121}} <!--consisting of 288 members, more than three delegates per section.-->On 30 August the Girondin minister of Interior Roland and [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet]] tried to suppress the influence of the Commune; the Assembly, tired of the pressures, declared the Commune illegal and suggested the organization of communal elections.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=268}}

Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot, who promoted the [[Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel|Duke of Brunswick]], and [[Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière|Roland]], who proposed that the members of the government should leave Paris, taking the treasury and the king with it.<ref name="auto3"/> <!--With a sense of [[martyrdom]], not Robespierre but  Manuel ordered the sections to maintain their posts, and die if necessary.<ref>[[Jean Massin]] (1959) Robespierre, pp. 133–34</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Janes|first1=Dominic|last2=Houen|first2=Alex|title=Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-Modern to Contemporary Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a3pPAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT177|date=2014-05-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-937651-3|page=177}}</ref>-->  On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the national Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Rolland and Brissot arrested.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hardman|first=John|title=Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA56|year=1999|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-43755-5|pages=56–57}}</ref>{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=126}} <!--Their houses were attacked in the evening.--> [[Madame de Staël]] who tried to escape Paris was forced by the crowd to go to the town hall. She noted that Robespierre was in the chair that day, assisted by [[Collot d'Herbois]] and [[Billaud-Varenne]] as secretaries.<ref>{{cite book|last=Staël|first=Anne-Louise-Germaine de|title=Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mPANAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA70|year=1818|publisher=Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy|page=70}}</ref> However, according to Maximilien's sister Charlotte, he never presided over the insurrectionary commune.<ref name="auto7"/>

==The National Convention==
{{Main|National Convention}}
[[File:Alfred Loudet - Marat.jpg|thumb|Imaginary meeting between Robespierre, Danton and Marat by Alfred Loudet]]

On 2 September [[1792 French National Convention election]] began. In vain Robespierre proposed excluding deputies from the Assembly re-election to the Convention.<ref name="Jordan119">{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=David P.|title=The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPfu1rE43KAC&pg=PA119|date=1989-07-15|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-41037-1|page=119}}</ref>{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=127, 136}} However, in his management of the elections in Paris, he succeeded in excluding royalist candidates.<ref name="Jordan119"/> In Paris suspected Girondin and Feuillant candidates were boycotted; Robespierre made sure Brissot could not be elected in Paris.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14-IA87&lpg=PR14-IA87&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&source=bl&ots=9mj36Ba2-K&sig=ACfU3U0dgFkTRlC3cyUqlRT1XoaBaNQLYA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBi7eu9OTkAhUQfFAKHZ4RBYgQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre&f=false The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv, 126]</ref> In the afternoon the [[September Massacres]] began.<ref>{{cite book|last=Charavay|first=Étienne|title=Assemblée électorale de Paris 2 septembre 1792-17 frimaire an II|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k205053m|year=1905|publisher=D. Jouaust|page=xvi|oclc=764234804 | language=fr}}</ref> Not an outburst of passion, but coldly and carefully organized, according to [[Adolphe Thiers]], [[George Long (scholar)|George Long]] and [[Stanley Loomis]].<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=llcvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA161&dq=26+January+1791++Robespierre+speech&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJrPmhkf7kAhXDMewKHX_yDtMQ6AEISzAE#v=onepage&q=%20Robespierre%20&f=false France and Its Revolutions: A Pictorial History 1789-1848 by George Long, p. 206-207]</ref><ref>S. Loomis, p. 74, 81, 96, 143, 207</ref> [[Charlotte Corday]] held Marat responsible, [[Madame Roland]] Danton. Robespierre visited the [[Square du Temple#French Revoluton|Temple prison]] to check on the security of the royal family.<ref>{{cite book|last=Israel|first=Jonathan|title=Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpIpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA272|date=2014-03-23|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-4999-4|page=272}}</ref> On 5 September, Robespierre and Pétion were elected deputy to the National Convention by their [[constituency]]. According to his sister, Robespierre refused to talk to [[Pétion de Villeneuve]], who finally rallied to Brissot. <!--was also elected, resigned from being mayor and would become the first president of the Convention. Of the 24 Paris deputies, 16 came from the Commune.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=129}}--><ref>[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5809871j/f1n198.pdf?download=1 Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 76]</ref>

On 21 September the Jacobins and [[Cordeliers]] took the high benches at the back of the former [[Salle du Manège]], giving them the label the "[[the Mountain|Montagnards]]", or "the Mountaineers"; below them were the "Manège" of the Girondists, moderate Republicans and then [[the Plain]] of the independents, virtually leaderless and dominated by the radical Mountain.<ref>J.F. Bernard (1973) Talleyrand: a biography, p. 106</ref> On 26 September, the Girondist [[Marc David Alba Lasource|Marc-David Lasource]] accused Robespierre of wanting to form a dictatorship.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Robespierre|first1=Maximilien|last2=Laponneraye|first2=Albert|last3=Carrel|first3=Armand|title=Oeuvres|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSMVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA98|year=1840|publisher=Worms|page=98}}</ref> Rumours spread that Robespierre, Marat and Danton were plotting to establish a [[triumvirate]]. (From October 1791 until September 1792 the [[Legislative Assembly (France)|French Legislative Assembly]] saw an unprecedented turnover of four [[List of ministers of justice of France|ministers of Justice]], four [[List of Naval Ministers of France|ministers of Navy]], [[List of Interior Ministers of France|six ministers of the interior]], [[Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)|seven ministers of foreign affairs]], and [[Minister of the Armed Forces (France)|eight ministers of war]].<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=tcsUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA239&dq=13+juillet+1791+robespierre+jacobins&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja6tvzwaflAhUPK1AKHUuJAVUQ6AEIOTAC#v=onepage&q=13%20juillet%201791%20robespierre%20jacobins&f=false The French Legislative Assembly of 1791 by C. J. Mitchell, p. 174]</ref>) On 29 October, [[Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai|Louvet de Couvrai]] attacked Robespierre.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=23On-KwV6igC&pg=PA43|title=Rousseau, Robespierre and English Romanticism|first=Gregory|last=Dart|date=26 September 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|via=Google Books|pages=43–46|isbn=9780521020398}}</ref> He accused Robespierre of star allures,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/sycomore/fiche/(num_dept)/11798|title=Maximilien, François, Marie, Isidore, Joseph de Robespierre — Base de données des députés français depuis 1789 — Assemblée nationale|website=www2.assemblee-nationale.fr}}</ref> and having done nothing to stop the September massacre; instead, he had used it to have more Montagnards elected.<ref>{{cite book|last=Charavay|first=Étienne|title=Assemblée électorale de Paris 2 septembre 1792-17 frimaire an II|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k205053m|year=1905|publisher=D. Jouaust|page=xxiv|oclc=764234804 | language=fr}}</ref> Robespierre was given a week to respond. On 5 November, Robespierre defended himself, the Jacobin Club and his supporters in and beyond Paris:

{{quote|Upon the Jacobins, I exercise, if we are to believe my accusers, a despotism of opinion, which can be regarded as nothing other than the forerunner of dictatorship. Firstly, I do not know what a dictatorship of opinion is, above all in a society of free men... unless this describes nothing more than the natural compulsion of principles. In fact, this compulsion hardly belongs to the man who enunciates them; it belongs to universal reason and to all men who wish to listen to its voice. It belongs to my colleagues of the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|Constituent Assembly]], to the patriots of the Legislative Assembly, to all citizens who will invariably defend the cause of liberty. Experience has proven, despite Louis XVI and his allies, that the opinion of the Jacobins and of the popular clubs were those of the French Nation; no citizen has made them, and I did nothing other than share in them.{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=83–84|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}} }}

Turning the accusations upon his accusers, Robespierre delivered one of the most famous lines of the French Revolution to the Assembly:

{{quote|I will not remind you that the sole object of contention dividing us is that you have instinctively defended all acts of new ministers, and we, of principles; that you seemed to prefer power, and we equality... Why don't you prosecute the [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|Commune]], the Legislative Assembly, the Sections of Paris, the Assemblies of the [[Cantons of France|Cantons]] and all who imitated us? For all these things have been illegal, as illegal as the Revolution, as the [[10 August (French Revolution)|fall of the Monarchy]] and of the [[Storming of the Bastille|Bastille]], as illegal as liberty itself... Citizens, do you want a revolution without a revolution? What is this spirit of persecution which has directed itself against those who freed us from chains?{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=88–89|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}}}}

As his opponents knew well, Robespierre had a strong base of support among the women of Paris. [[John Moore (Scottish physician)]] was sitting in the galleries, and noted that the audience was ‘almost entirely ﬁlled with women’.<ref name=Shusterman2014>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/8715468|title=All of His Power Lies in the Distaff: Robespierre, Women and the French Revolution|first=N. C.|last=Shusterman|journal=Past &amp; Present|volume=223|issue=1|pages=129–160|via=www.academia.edu|doi=10.1093/pastj/gtu001|year=2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=John|last2=Anderson|first2=Robert|title=A journal during a residence in France ... 1792|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xcsdAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA473|year=1820|publisher=Stirling & Slade|page=473}}</ref> Condorcet stated: It is that the French Revolution is a religion and Robespierre is making it into a cult. He is a priest who has his devotees; but it is evident that all of his power lies in the [[distaff]]. 
Robespierre tried to appeal to women because in the early days of the Revolution, when he had tried to appeal to men, he had failed.<ref name=Shusterman2014 /> <!--According to John Moore "He refuses offices in which he might be of service, takes those where he can govern; appears when he can make a figure, disappears when others occupy the stage".<ref>L. Moore, p. 165</ref>--> 

===Execution of Louis XVI===
[[File:ExaminationLouistheLast.jpg|thumb|The interrogation of Louis XVI at the [[National Convention]]]]

The Convention's unanimous declaration of a [[French First Republic|French Republic]] on 21 September 1792 left the fate of the former king open to debate. A commission was therefore established to examine the evidence against him while the Convention's Legislation Committee considered legal aspects of any future trial. Most Montagnards favoured judgment and execution, while the Girondins were more divided concerning how to proceed, with some arguing for royal inviolability, others for clemency, and others advocating lesser punishment or banishment.{{sfn|Kennedy|1988|pp=308–10}} On 13 November Robespierre stated in the Convention that a Constitution which Louis had violated himself, and which declared his inviolability, could not now be used in his defence.{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|loc= in Tome IX, Discours|pp=104–05, [https://fr.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Page:Œuvres_complètes_de_Maximilien_de_Robespierre,_tome_9.djvu/122 120].}} Robespierre had been taken ill and had done little other than support [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]], who gave his first major speech to address and argue against the king's inviolability. On 20 November, opinion turned sharply against Louis following the discovery of a [[Armoire de fer|secret cache of 726 documents]] consisting of Louis's personal communications with bankers and ministers.{{sfn|Soboul|2005|loc= in "Armoir de Fer" by Grendron, F.|p=42}} At his trial, he claimed not to recognize documents clearly signed by himself.<ref>Hardman, John (2016) The life of Louis XVI, p. ?</ref>

With the question of the king's fate now occupying public discourse, Robespierre delivered on 3 December a speech that would define the rhetoric and course of Louis's trial.{{sfn|Thompson|1988|pp=292–300}} All the deputies from the Mountain were asked to attend. Robespierre argued that the dethroned king could now function only as a threat to liberty and national peace, and that the members of the Assembly were not to be impartial judges but rather statesmen with responsibility for ensuring public safety:

{{quote|Louis was a king, and our republic is established; the critical question concerning you must be decided by these words alone. Louis was dethroned by his crimes; Louis denounced the French people as rebels; he appealed to chains, to the armies of tyrants who are his brothers; the victory of the people established that Louis alone was a rebel; Louis cannot, therefore, be judged; he already is judged. He is condemned, or the republic cannot be absolved. To propose to have a trial of Louis XVI, in whatever manner one may, is to retrogress to royal despotism and constitutionality; it is a counter-revolutionary idea because it places the revolution itself in litigation. In effect, if Louis may still be given a trial, he may be absolved, and innocent. What am I to say? He is presumed to be so until he is judged. But if Louis is absolved, if he may be presumed innocent, what becomes of the revolution? If Louis is innocent, all the defenders of liberty become slanderers. <!--Our enemies have been friends of the people and of truth and defenders of innocence oppressed; all the declarations of foreign courts are nothing more than the legitimate claims against an illegal faction. Even the detention that Louis has endured is, then, an unjust vexation; the fédérés, the people of Paris, all the patriots of the French Empire are guilty; and this great trial in the court of nature judging between crime and virtue, liberty and tyranny, is at last decided in favour of crime and tyranny. Citizens, take warning; you are being fooled by false notions; you confuse positive, civil rights with the principles of the rights of mankind; you confuse the relationships of citizens amongst themselves with the connections between nations and an enemy that conspires against it; you confuse the situation of a people in revolution with that of a people whose government is affirmed; you confuse a nation that punishes a public functionary to conserve its form of government, and one that destroys the government itself. We are falling back upon ideas familiar to us, in an extraordinary case that depends upon principles we have never yet applied.-->{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=121–22|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}}}}

In arguing for a judgment by the elected Convention without trial, Robespierre supported the recommendations of [[Jean-Baptiste Mailhe]], who headed the commission reporting on legal aspects of Louis's trial or judgment. Unlike some Girondins, Robespierre specifically opposed judgment by primary assemblies or a referendum, believing that this could cause a civil war.{{sfn|Soboul|2005|p=867|loc= in "Procès du Roi" by Dorigny, M}} While he called for a trial of Queen Marie-Antoinette and the imprisonment of the Dauphin, Robespierre advocated that the king be executed in spite of his opposition to capital punishment:

{{quote|<!--As for myself, I abhor the death penalty administered by your laws, and for Louis I have neither love, nor hate; I hate only his crimes. I have demanded the abolition of the death penalty at your Constituent Assembly, and am not to blame if the first principles of reason appeared to you moral and political heresies. But if you will never reclaim these principles in favour of so much evil, the crimes of which belong less to you and more to the government, by what fatal error would you remember yourselves and plead for the greatest of criminals? You ask an exception to the death penalty for him alone who could legitimise it? -->Yes, the death penalty is in general a crime, unjustifiable by the indestructible principles of nature, except in cases protecting the safety of individuals or the society altogether. Ordinary misdemeanours have never threatened public safety because society may always protect itself by other means, making those culpable powerless to harm it. But for a king dethroned in the bosom of a revolution, which is as yet cemented only by laws; a king whose name attracts the scourge of war upon a troubled nation; neither prison, nor exile can render his existence inconsequential to public happiness; this cruel exception to the ordinary laws avowed by justice can be imputed only to the nature of his crimes. With regret I pronounce this fatal truth: Louis must die so that the nation may live.{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=129–30|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}}}}

The day of the last hearing of the king was 26 December 1792. <!--Robespierre was asked to repeat his speech on the fate of the King in the Jacobin club on 28 December.--> On 14 January 1793, the king was unanimously voted guilty of conspiracy and attacks upon public safety. On 15 January the call for a referendum was defeated by 424 votes to 287, which Robespierre led. On 16 January, voting began to determine the king's sentence and the session continued for 24 hours. During this time, Robespierre worked fervently to ensure the king's execution. Of the 721 deputies who voted, at least 361 had to vote for death. The Jacobins successfully defeated the Girondins' final appeal for clemency<ref>P. McPhee (2016) Liberty or Death, p. 172</ref> and Louis was [[Execution of Louis XVI|executed]] two days later on 21 January at the ''[[Place de la Concorde|Place de la Révolution]]''.{{sfn|Scurr|2006|pp=249–51}}

===Destruction of the Girondists===
[[File:La chute des Girondins.jpg|thumb|right|''Journées des 31 Mai, 1er et 2 Juin 1793'', an engraving of the riots organized by the Paris Commune]]
[[File:Hanriot.jpg|thumb|upright|200px|[[François Hanriot]] ''chef de la section des Sans-Culottes'' ([[Rue Mouffetard]]); drawing by [[Georges-François-Marie Gabriel|Gabriel]] in the [[Carnavalet Museum]]]]
[[File:The elimination of Girondins.jpg|thumb|right|The uprising of the Parisian sans-culottes from 31 May to 2 June 1793. The scene takes place in front of the Deputies Chamber in the Tuileries. The depiction shows [[Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles]] and [[Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud]].]]

After the execution of the king, the influence of Robespierre, Danton and the pragmatic politicians increased at the expense of the [[Girondins]] who were largely seen as responsible for the inadequate response to the [[Flanders Campaign#1793 campaign|Flanders Campaign]] they had themselves initiated. <!-- On 1 February the commission of general defense had declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. The economic situation in France was rapidly deteriorating (inflation) and the country was almost bankrupt. On 15 February Marquis de Condorcet presented the [[Girondin constitutional project]]. --> At the end of February more than thousand shops were plundered in Paris. Protesters claimed that the Girondins were responsible for the high prices.<ref>L. Moore, p. 172</ref> On 24 February the Convention decreed a [[Levee en Masse]]. <!--Many citizens would enter the National Guard, more than 110,000 men, willing to defend the revolution; about 2,400 men from every [[Revolutionary sections of Paris|section]].--> In March, the attempt to draft new troops set off an uprising in rural France. The Montagnards lost influence in Marseille, Toulon and Lyon. <!--The Paris Commune gained control of the Convention and established the Revolutionary Tribunal?{{cn}}--> On 10 March 1793, a provisional [[Revolutionary Tribunal]] was established; the Convention appointed [[Fouquier-Tinville]] as the public prosecutor and [[Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot|Fleuriot-Lescot]] as his assistant. <!--Robespierre was not enthusiastic and feared that it might become the political instrument of a faction.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=140}} Robespierre believed that all institutions are bad if they are not founded on the assumption that the people are good and their magistrates corruptible.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=168}}-->

On 12 March [[Charles-François Dumouriez]] criticized the interference of officials of the War Ministry which employed many Jacobins.<ref>I. Davidson, p. 108, 150</ref> The Jacobin leaders were quite sure that, after [[Battle of Neerwinden (1793)]], France had come close to a military coup mounted by Dumouriez and supported by the Girondins. <!--Dumouriez blamed the Jacobins for the disorganization of his retreating army. Dumouriez planned to persuade his troops to march on Paris and overthrow the revolutionary government. On 21 March, every commune in the country was equipped with committees of surveillance and citizens were encouraged to denounce anyone they suspected of uncertain loyalties.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=706}}--> On 22 March Dumouriez urged [[Louis Philippe I|the Duke of Chartres]] to join his plan to dissolve the Convention, to restore the [[French Constitution of 1791]], the restoration of a [[constitutional monarchy]] and to free Marie-Antoinette and her children.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=T2c-aPE3dCsC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=dumouriez+restore+monarchy+1794&source=bl&ots=_v2l7wHWmN&sig=ACfU3U0GjQYgGJZt7IGvtudVAvPpZskUmA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCxprV7ankAhVM66QKHfavCCUQ6AEwGXoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=dumouriez+restore+monarchy+1794&f=false|title=Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780-1850|first=J. R.|last=Dinwiddy|date=1 July 1992|publisher=A&C Black|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>[https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/patricia-chastain-howe-foreign-policy-and-the-french-revolution-charles-franccca7ois-dumouriez-pierre-lebrun-and-the-belgian-plan-1789-1793-2008.pdf, P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 175-176]</ref> On 26 March Robespierre became one of the 25 members of the Commission of Public Safety <!--(former Comité de Défense général) --> to coordinate war effort.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=llcvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA161&dq=26+January+1791++Robespierre+speech&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJrPmhkf7kAhXDMewKHX_yDtMQ6AEISzAE#v=onepage&q=%20Robespierre%20&f=false France and Its Revolutions: G. Long (1850) A Pictorial History 1789-1848, p. 265]</ref> <!--He called for the removal of Dumouriez, who was placed under arrest. For Robespierre the army had already more soldiers than it needed. Dumouriez was suspended by [[Armand-Gaston Camus]].--> The Montagnards launched a vigorous campaign against the Girondins by associating them with Dumouriez, who refused to surrender himself to the Revolutionary Tribunal.<ref>[https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/patricia-chastain-howe-foreign-policy-and-the-french-revolution-charles-franccca7ois-dumouriez-pierre-lebrun-and-the-belgian-plan-1789-1793-2008.pdf, P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 179-180]</ref> Suspicion rose against [[Phillipe Égalité]], because of the friendship of his eldest son, with Dumouriez. <!--From 29 March death sentence for anyone who favoured the return of royality. From 1 April anyone with "strong presumptions of complicity with the enemies of Libery" could be arrested. On 1 April 1793 [[parliamentary immunity]] was removed on the a proposal of Jean Birotteau, a Girondin.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=163}}--> On 3 April Robespierre declared before the Convention that the whole war was a prepared game between Dumouriez and Brissot with the aim of overthrowing the Republic. He left the Commission of Public Safety after eight days, not willing to cooperate with Brissot.<!--Dumouriez was without supplies, ammunition, or forage, and his army was abandoning him. On 5 April Dumouriez went over to the enemy, leaving the main French army in disarray. The betrayal of Dumouriez was accompanied by massive desertion of officers?--> On 6 April the [[Committee of Public Safety]] was installed with mainly members from the Plain. Robespierre was pessimistic about the prospects of parliamentary action and told the Jacobins that it was necessary to raise an army of sans-culottes to defend Paris and arrest infidel deputies, naming and accusing the Duke of Orleans, Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet and [[Armand Gensonné]].<ref>I. Davidson, p. 157</ref> Robespierre's speeches during the month of April 1793 reflect his growing radicalization. "I ask the sections to raise an army large enough to form the kernel of a Revolutionary Army that will draw all the sans-culottes from the departments to exterminate the rebels …"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://erenow.net/modern/a-peoples-history-of-the-french-revolution/10.php|title=From victory to defeat, the declaration of war against England and Spain, the insurrection in the Vendée, the fall of the Gironde - A People's History of the French Revolution|website=erenow.net}}</ref> "Force the government to arm the people, who in vain demanded arms for two years."{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=358, 383|loc=in Tome IX, Discours}} On 5 April Marat, president of the Jacobin club, called for expulsion of 22 Girondins.<ref name="The Jacobin Clubs">{{cite book|last=Kennedy|first=Michael|title=The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution, 1793-1795|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1yYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|date=2000-05-01|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-1-78920-576-3|page=17}}</ref>  On 6 April the [[Committee of Public Safety]], only nine members, was installed on proposal of [[Maximin Isnard]], who was supported by Georges Danton. <!-- to replace the larger Committee of General Defence. The Committee gathered in [[Pavillon de Flore#French Revolution|Pavillon de Flore]] twice a day.<ref>[http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8033.pdf Twelve who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution by R.R. Palmer, p. 4]</ref><ref>Raphael Matta Duvignau, " The Committee of public safety (6th April 1793 – 4th brumaire an IV) ", The French Revolution [online], 3 | 2012, online since 20 December 2012; {{doi|10.4000/lrf.773}}</ref> On 7 April the arrest of all Bourbons left in France was ordered. On 9 April the enemy crossed the French border. On 13 April Marat was brought to the Revolutionary Tribunal.--> Robespierre held furious speeches, denouncing the Girondins, encouraging hoarding and deliberately supporting the interests of the rich against the poor.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=433}} On 24 April 1793 Robespierre presented his version for the new [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793]] with four articles on the [[right of property]]; he advocated a [[progressive tax]] and fraternity between the people of all the nations.<ref name="auto11">{{Cite web|url=https://erenow.net/modern/a-peoples-history-of-the-french-revolution/15.php|title=The dramas of Germinal and Thermidor - A People's History of the French Revolution|website=erenow.net}}</ref> <!--and declared himself against the agrarian law.  There are only two parties according to Robespierre: the people and its enemies.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=144-146}} -->

On 1 May the crowds threatened armed insurrection if the emergency measures demanded were not adopted.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=436}}  On 8 and 12 May in the Jacobin club, Robespierre restated the necessity of founding a revolutionary sans-culottes army that would be funded by a tax on the rich and would be intended to defeat aristocrats and counter-revolutionaries inside both the Convention and across France. He said that public squares should be used to produce arms and pikes.{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|pp=490, 492, 514-515, 517, 543|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}} <!--Suspects should be arrested and locked up. On 8 May Boulanger was suggested to replace Santerre, as head of the National Guard, but his appointment was not accepted by the Convention; instead he became the assistant of Hanriot-->After hearing these statements, the Girondins became concerned. <!--(From 9 May the Convention held its meetings in the [[Théâtre des Tuileries|Salle des Machines]].)--> On 18 May [[Élie Guadet|Guadet]] proposed to examine the "exactions" and to replace municipal authorities.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=720}}<ref>The Cambridge Modern History, Band 8, p. 271</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=r5n-VpJfq6QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=morris+slavin&source=bl&ots=AY2hhQovlI&sig=oCgUiPwfr3k5lU4Dr5WT3ESrPls&hl=en&ei=b6rWS7fxAY3r-QaOy-2MBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false|title=The Making of an Insurrection: Parisian Sections and the Gironde|first=Morris|last=Slavin|date=9 September 1986|publisher=Harvard University Press|via=Google Books}}</ref><!--, to investigate the anarchy in the sections and the activities of the Sans-culottes. In Marseille that day some twenty Jacobins were arrested according to Andress.--> 
A [[Commission of Twelve|commission of inquiry of twelve members]], with a very strong Girondin majority, was set up on 21 May to examine all the prisoners taken last month and their plots against the Convention.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ternaux|first=Mortimer|title=Histoire de la terreur, 1792-1794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3fSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA266|volume=Vol 7|year=1869|publisher=Michel Lévy frères|page=266}}</ref> [[Hébert]], the editor of [[Le Père Duchesne]], was arrested for attacking the representatives. The next day, the Commune demanded that Hébert be released. [[Maximin Isnard]] threatened then with the total destruction of Paris. 

On 26 May Robespierre delivered one of the most decisive speeches of his career.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=442}} He openly called at the Jacobin Club "to place themselves in insurrection against corrupt deputies".{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=722}} <!--On 27th Marat questioned in the Convention the latest arrests in the sections.--> Isnard declared that the Convention would not be influenced by any violence and that Paris had to respect the representatives from elsewhere in France.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ternaux|first=Mortimer|title=Histoire de la terreur, 1792-1794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3fSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA276|volume=Vol 7|year=1869|publisher=Michel Lévy frères|page=276}}</ref> <!--Someone screamed discussing the rights of the people is more important than the Constitution. If Isnard had the courage to declare civil war, [[Bourdon de l'Oise]] would kill him. --> The Convention decided Robespierre would not be heard. Isnard hindered him to speak. The atmosphere became extremely agitated; some deputies were willing to kill if Isnard had the courage to declare civil war. On 28 May the Commune accepted the creation of a sans-culottes army to enforce revolutionary laws.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=722}} On 29 May, the delegates representing thirty-three of the Paris sections formed an insurrectionary committee.{{sfn|Soboul|1974|p=309}} Robespierre urged the arrest of the Girondists. "If the Commune does not unite closely with the people, it violates its most sacred duty."<ref>{{cite book|last=Alison|first=Archibald|title=History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNI_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA288|year=1848|publisher=W. Blackwood and sons|pages=288–291}}</ref>  On Friday 31 May 1793 the <!--Jacobins declared themselves in the state of [[Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793|insurrection]]. The--> Commune appointed [[Francois Hanriot|Hanriot]] to the position of provisionary "Commandant-General" of the Parisian National Guard.{{sfn|Robespierre|1958|p=543|loc= in Tome IX, Discours}} <!--Petitioners from the sections and the Commune appeared at the bar of the Convention at about five o'clock in the afternoon on 31 May. They demanded that a domestic revolutionary army should be raised in every town and that the price of bread should be fixed at three sous a pound, that nobles holding senior rank in the army should be dismissed, that armories should be created for arming the sans-culottes, the departments of State purged, suspects arrested, the right to vote provisionally reserved to sans-culottes only, and a fund set apart for the relatives of those defending their country and for the relief of aged and infirm.<ref>{{cite book|last=Alder|first=Ken|title=Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oHy-tqz6_Z0C&pg=PA261|date=2010-04-15|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-01265-0|page=261}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Alison|first=Archibald|title=History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNI_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA290|year=1848|publisher=W. Blackwood and sons|page=290}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Ternaux|first=Mortimer|title=Histoire de la terreur, 1792-1794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3fSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA341|volume=Vol 7|year=1869|publisher=Michel Lévy frères|page=341}}</ref>--><!--According to Hampson, the subject is quite extraordinary complicated and obscure.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=148}}--> The next day all Paris was in arms. <!--(on a promise to be paid by the public treasury.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ternaux|first=Mortimer|title=Histoire de la terreur, 1792-1794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3fSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA341|volume=Vol 7|year=1869|publisher=Michel Lévy frères|page=341, 396}}</ref>); two sections refused to be paid.--> The Convention met at the sound of the tocsin and drumming. Marat led the attack on the representatives to be removed from the Convention. He called for the arrest of nine members of the Commission of Twelve and repeated his call for expulsion of 22 Girondins, who in January had voted against the execution of the King.<ref name="The Jacobin Clubs" /> <!--Louis M. Ternaux, Pedro Ramirez and Ian Davidson employ the term "[[coup d'etat]]"; for [[Stanley Loomis]] it contributed also to the establishment of the Terror.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ternaux|first=Mortimer|title=Histoire de la terreur, 1792-1794|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3fSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA426|volume=Vol 7|year=1869|publisher=Michel Lévy frères|page=426}}</ref><ref>S. Loomis, p. 106, 12, 51</ref><ref>Alexander Guermazi, "Pedro Ramirez, The coup : Robespierre, Danton, and Marat against the first parliament elected by universal suffrage male", an historical Record of the French Revolution [online], 381 | July–September 2015, online since 8 January 2016, accessed 9 June 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/13656</ref><ref>I. Davidson, p. 162</ref>-->

During the [[Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793|insurrection]] Robespierre had scrawled a note in his memorandum-book:

{{quote|What we need is a single will (''il faut une volonté une''). It must be either republican or royalist. If it is to be republican, we must have republican ministers, republican newspapers, republican deputies, a republican government. The internal dangers come from the middle classes; in order to defeat the middle classes we must rally the people. ... The people must ally itself with the Convention, and the Convention must make use of the people.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=150}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=J. M.|title=Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pgQqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT428|volume=Vol 2|date=2017-06-28|publisher=Borodino Books|isbn=978-1-78720-518-5|page=428}}</ref>}}

The commune declaring itself duped, demanded and prepared a "Supplement" to the revolution. <!--The National Guard, at Robespierre's bidding, surrounded the Convention and expelled the Girondin party.--> Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard, by this time mostly existing of Sans-culottes, from the town hall to the [[Tuileries Palace|Palais National]].<ref name=Popkin66>{{cite book |last=Popkin |first=Jeremy D. |title=A Short History of the French Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d4qTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA66 |date=2016-07-01 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-50892-4 |pages=66–67}}</ref> <!--[[Madame Roland]] was arrested in the morning; her husband escaped the day before.--> In the evening on 2 June, a large force of supposedly 80,000 armed men surrounded the Convention with 160 cannons. "The armed force", Hanriot said, "will retire only when the Convention has delivered to the people the deputies denounced by the Commune."<ref name="gallica_12148">{{cite book |last=de LaBédollière |first=Emile |title=Histoire de la Garde nationale: récit complet de tous les faits qui l'ont distinguée depuis son origine jusqu'en 1848 |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6487209z |year=1848 |publisher=H. Dumineray et F. Pallier |oclc=944662819 |language=fr}}</ref> The Girondins attempted to exit, walked round the Palace in a theatrical procession and confronted on all sides by bayonets and pikes, <!--by an agitated Marat,--> returned to the meeting hall and submitted to the inevitable. With Marat presiding, the Twenty-Two were seized one by one after some juggling with names.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=447}} They decided that 31 deputies were not to be arrested, but were called upon to voluntarily to suspend the exercise of their functions. <!--on proposal of Couthon.--> The Montagnards now had unchallenged control of the Convention. The Girondins, going to the provinces, joined the counter-revolution.<ref>C.L.R. James (1938) ''The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture'', p. 138</ref> <!--Early October their trial began, 22 were executed in the following weeks. In his speech on 8 or 9 Thermidor Robespierre declared he remained steadfast in opposing any attempt to send the others before the Revolutionary Tribunal.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=229}}{{explanation needed|date=June 2019}} (Early 1795 73 members would return to the Convention.)-->

==Reign of Terror==
{{Main|Reign of Terror}}
[[File:Le Pont Royal et le Pavillon de Flore, 1814 - BnF.jpg|thumb|The [[Pavillon de Flore]], the seat of the Committee of Public Safety and General Police Bureau. Also, [[Joachim Vilate]] lived there in an apartment. Drawing in brown ink (1814)]]
[[File:Chouans in the Vendee.png|thumb|Peasants and commoners (insurgent royalists or [[Chouans]]) in the [[Vendée]], [[Maine (province)#French Revolution|Maine]], the south of Normandy or the eastern part of Brittany defending a Catholic church. Artist unknown]]

After the fall of the Girondins, the French government faced serious internal challenges, when four provincial cities—Caen, Bordeaux, Lyon, and Marseille—rebelled against the more radical revolutionaries in Paris, threatening to plunge France into civil war. <!--Marat and Le Peletier were murdered and Robespierre feared for his own life.--> In July France threatened to fall apart, attacked by the aristocracy in [[War in the Vendée|Vendée]] and Brittany, by [[Federalist revolts|federalism]] in Lyon, in [[Le Midi]] and in Normandy, in a struggle with all Europe and the foreign factions;{{sfn|Rudé|1975}} 26 of the 83 departments were no longer under the control of Paris. French revolutionary politicians believed a stable government was needed to quell counterrevolutionary sentiments and activities.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=An-pr2ZliLkC&pg=PA191&dq=1793+chaos+French+revolution&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD7KuK4Y_kAhVKJFAKHc_nASs4ChDoAQguMAE#v=onepage&q=1793+chaos+French+revolution&f=false |title=The French Revolution and the People |first=David |last=Andress |date=1 January 2004 |publisher=A&C Black |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>[https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/patricia-chastain-howe-foreign-policy-and-the-french-revolution-charles-franccca7ois-dumouriez-pierre-lebrun-and-the-belgian-plan-1789-1793-2008.pdf, P.C. Howe (1982) Foreign Policy and the French Revolution, p. 172]</ref> <!--The [[War of the First Coalition]] forced changes in the monetary-fiscal experiment. The growth of [[paper money]] accelerated to almost 9 per cent per month. Debt payments were suspended indefinitely, and the [[assignat]] was converted from its initial purpose to become the main means of financing the war.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 2138696|title = Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution|journal = Journal of Political Economy|volume = 103|issue = 3|pages = 474–518|last1 = Sargent|first1 = Thomas J.|last2 = Velde|first2 = François R.|year = 1995|doi = 10.1086/261992}}</ref> France had set fourteen armies on foot in July.--> On 1 August, on a report by Barère, the Convention decreed the systematic destruction of the Vendée.<ref name="erenow.net">[https://erenow.net/modern/a-peoples-history-of-the-french-revolution/11.php June to October 1793. The ‘federalist’ uprisings, the Committee of Public Safety, the assassination of Marat, the Enragés and the popular movement, the general maximum]</ref>

On 13 July the day that Marat was murdered Robespierre defended the plans of [[Louis-Michel le Peletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau|Louis-Michel le Peletier]] to teach revolutionary ideas in schools.<ref>{{cite book|last=Baczko|first=Bronislaw|title=Ending the Terror: The French Revolution After Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lBX4-PoMuHIC&pg=PR208|year=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-44105-6|page=208}}</ref> He denounced the schemes of the Parisian radicals known as the [[Enragés]], who were using the rising inflation and food shortage to stir up the Paris sections.<ref name="auto9"/> <!--At the end of June, he attacked Jacques Roux by presenting him as a foreign agent. their leader [[Jacques Roux]] was ejected from the Jacobin club.--> On 27 July 1793, Robespierre was added to the Committee of Public Safety, after Gasparin resigned his place on the Committee "for reasons of health".<ref>S. Loomis, p. 254</ref> He himself said he joined reluctantly. It was the first time he held any executive office. Robespierre became a kind of [[Minister without Portfolio]],{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=157, 175, 225}} apparently as the unofficial prime-minister—the committee was non-hierarchical.<ref>Raphael Matta Duvignau, "[http://journals.openedition.org/lrf/773 The Committee of public safety (6th April 1793 — 4th brumaire an IV)]", The French Revolution [online], 3 | 2012, online since 20 December 2012, accessed 25 February 2019. DOI : 10.4000/lrf.773</ref> On 4 August the [[French Constitution of 1793]] passed through the Convention, containing four articles by Robespierre which affirm the unity of the human race, the need for solidarity between the peoples and the rejection of kings.<ref name="auto1"/><!--{{efn|On 21 August 1793 Robespierre was elected as the president of the Convention.<ref>[http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/sycomore/fiche/(num_dept)/11798 Mandats à l’Assemblée nationale ou à la Chambre des députés]</ref>}} --> The [[right of association]], [[right to work]] and [[public assistance]], right to [[public education]], [[right of rebellion]] (and duty to rebel when the government violates the right of the people), and the [[abolitionism|abolition of slavery]], were all written into the [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://serious-science.org/robespiere-6997|title=Maximilien Robespierre|website=Serious Science}}</ref> Though the Constitution was overwhelmingly popular and its drafting and ratification buoyed popular support for the [[Montagnard (French Revolution)|Montagnards]], the convention set it aside indefinitely <!--on 10 October 1793--> until a future peace.<ref>Kennedy, M. L. "The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: 1793–1795," p. 53. Berghahn Books, New York: 2000.</ref> <!--(The right of rebellion was left out in the [[Constitution of 1795]].)-->

On 4 September, the Sans-culottes again invaded the Convention. They demanded tougher measures against rising prices and the setting up of a system of terror to root out the counter-revolution.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VGDFBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA439|title=The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution|first=Timothy|last=Tackett|date=23 February 2015|page=299|publisher=Harvard University Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780674736559}}</ref> <!--Severe penalties were introduced for hoarding foodstuffs.--> On 5 September <!--[[Jacques Roux]] was arrested. Robespierre presided the Convention, but not feeling well, went home according to Korngold. -->Terror was formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention. A "Sans-culotte army" was formed in Paris, to sweep away conspirators.<ref name="auto4">Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 22</ref> Barère voiced the Committee of Public Safety's support for the measures desired by the assembly: he presented a decree that was passed immediately, establishing a paid armed force of 6,000 men and 1,000 gunners ‘designed to crush the counter-revolutionaries, to execute wherever the need arises the revolutionary laws and the measures of public safety that are decreed by the National Convention, and to protect provisions’<ref name="erenow.net"/> <!--(A force of citizen-soldiers which could go into the countryside to supervise the requisition of grain, to prevent the manoeuvres of rich ''égoistes'' and deliver them up to the vengeance of the laws'.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 34-35, 48</ref>) For that reason, twelve travelling tribunals (with moveable guillotines) were set up.--> In a proclamation, Barère said, "It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads. It is time to horrify all the conspirators. So legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! Let us be in revolution because everywhere counter-revolution is being woven by our enemies. The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty." The next day the ultra's Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne were elected in the Committee of Public Safety.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=198}} 

Robespierre was particularly concerned that the public officials should be virtuous.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPfu1rE43KAC&pg=PA99|title=The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre|first=David P.|last=Jordan|date=15 July 1989|publisher=University of Chicago Press|via=Google Books|pages=156|isbn=9780226410371}}</ref> He had sent his younger brother (and sister) to Nice in the [[Provence]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/sycomore/fiche/(num_dept)/11837|title=Augustin, Bon, Joseph de Robespierre - Base de données des députés français depuis 1789 - Assemblée nationale|website=www2.assemblee-nationale.fr}}</ref>

The [[Committee of General Security]] which was tasked with rooting out crimes and preventing counter-revolution began to manage the country's [[National Gendarmerie|internal police]] and finance. On 8 September, the banks and exchange offices were closed to prevent the exchange of forged [[assignats]] and the export of capital.<ref>Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution by Thomas J. Sargent and François R. Velde. In: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 103, No. 3 (Jun., 1995). Published by: The University of Chicago Press. {{JSTOR|2138696}} pp. 504–05</ref> On 17 September, the [[Law of Suspects]] was passed, which authorized the imprisonment of vaguely defined "suspects". The [[Revolutionary Tribunal]] was divided into four sections, of which two were always active at the same time. 

On 11 and 29 September, Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne introduced the [[General maximum]],<ref name="auto4" /> particularly in the area which supplied Paris.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 48, 52</ref> <!--The [[Price fixing|fixed prices]] caused inflation to decrease.--> On 10 October they paved the way for the law recognizing the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme "[[National Convention#Revolutionary government|Revolutionary Government]]".<ref name="auto8">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ziOfGMr28hIC&pg=PA91|title=Deep Republicanism: Prelude to Professionalism|first=Donald Clark|last=Hodges|date=25 April 2003|publisher=Lexington Books|via=Google Books|page=94|isbn=9780739105535}}</ref> The provisional government would be revolutionary until peace. Commissioners were ordered not to report to the Convention, but to the Committee of Public Safety. Danton quit politics, decided to leave Paris and set off to [[Arcis-sur-Aube]] (with his 16-year-old wife).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Danton|title=Georges Danton &#124; French revolutionary leader|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref>

On 12 October when Hébert<!--, one of the spokesmen for the Sans-culottes, who became more extreme after the death of [[Jean-Paul Marat|Marat]],--> accused Marie-Antoinette during her trial of incest with her son, Robespierre had dinner with [[Barère]], Saint-Just and [[Joachim Vilate]]. Discussing the matter, Robespierre broke his plate with his fork and called Hébert an "imbécile".<ref>{{cite book|last=Vilate|first=Joachim|title=Causes secrètes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k41180s |year=1794 |pages=12–13 |oclc=764013318 | language=fr}}</ref>{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=799}}<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IR5mAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA197|title=The French Revolution: Faith, Desire and Politics|date=15 October 2013|publisher=Routledge|via=Google Books|page=197|isbn=9781134455935}}</ref> According to Vilate Robespierre then had already two or three bodyguards. On 25 October the Revolutionary government was accused of doing nothing.{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=246}} At the end of the month, several members of the General Security Committee assisted by ''armées revolutionnaires'' were sent into the provinces to suppress active resistance against the Jacobins. Barras and Fréron went to Marseille and Toulon. Fouché and Collot-d'Herbois halted the [[revolt of Lyon against the National Convention]], [[Jean-Baptiste Carrier]] ordered the [[drownings at Nantes]]. Tallien succeeded in feeding the guillotine in Bordeaux and [[Joseph Lebon]] in Somme and Pas-de-Calais. Saint-Just and Le Bas visited the [[Army of the Rhine (1791–1795)|Rhine Army]] to watch the generals and punish officers for the least sign of treasonous timidity, or lack of initiative.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 23</ref> On 31 October Brissot and 21 Girondins were guillotined in 36 minutes. <!--Early November the heads of Philippe Égalité, [[Olympe de Gouges]] and Madame Roland fell; the last shouted on the scaffold: "Oh [[liberty]], what crimes they commit in your name!"{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=252}}-->

On the morning of 14 November 1793 [[François Chabot]] burst into Robespierre's room dragging him from bed with accusations of counter-revolution and a foreign conspiracy, waving a hundred thousand livres in assignat notes, claiming that a band of royalist plotters gave it to him to buy [[Fabre d'Eglantine]]'s vote, along with others, to liquidate some stock in the [[French East India Company]].<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=3679069|title=François Chabot and His Plot|first=N.|last=Hampson|date=1 January 1976|journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society|volume=26|pages=3|doi=10.2307/3679069}}</ref>{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=203, 208-209}} Chabot was arrested three days later; Courtois urged Danton to return to Paris immediately. On 25 November 1793, the remains of [[Comte de Mirabeau]] were removed from the [[Panthéon|Pantheon]] on the initiative of Robespierre when it became known that in his last months the count had secretly conspired with the court of Louis XVI.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=652, 656}}

On 4 December, by the [[Law of Frimaire|Law of Revolutionary Government]], the independence of the [[département]]s came to an end, when extensive powers of Committee of Public Safety were codified. This law, submitted by Billaud, was seen as a deeply drastic decision against the independence of municipalities and [[federalism]]; stability and centralization became more important than democratic principles. The departmental <!--and communal--> ''armées revolutionnaires'' (except in Paris) were banned on proposal of Tallien.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 523-526</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title='Fonder la République'. The French National Convention and the revolutionary government (1793–94)|first=Alessandro|last=Isoni|date=2 January 2014|journal=Parliaments, Estates and Representation|volume=34|issue=1|pages=40–54|doi=10.1080/02606755.2014.893715}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www2.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter1/interviews/filetodownload,20545,en.pdf|title=The Terror in the French Revolution by Marisa Linton, Kingston University, UK How was the Terror organized?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=UT7WpHqpYbEC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=7+germinal+1794+armee+revolutionnaire&source=bl&ots=69ZVxBkW-H&sig=ACfU3U2966yl7xDLqqk_qgkqiWtudT45pA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH9N7Y2KfkAhWHEVAKHbRlB1sQ6AEwEnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=7+germinal+1794+armee+revolutionnaire&f=false|title=The Jacobin Republic 1792-1794|first=Marc|last=Bouloiseau|date=17 November 1983|publisher=Cambridge University Press|via=Google Books}}</ref> The sections lost all rights to control their delegates and officials. <!--On 6 December Robespierre warned in the Convention against the dangers of [[dechristianization]], and attacked 'all violence or threats contrary to the [[freedom of religion]]'.--> On 12 December the [[Modérantisme|Indulgents]] mounted an attack on the Committee of Public Safety.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=217}} Robespierre replied to Danton's plea for an end to the Terror on 25 December (5 [[Nivôse]], year II). Robespierre presented a report to the Convention on the principles of the revolutionary government, justifying the collective dictatorship of the National Convention, administrative centralization, and the purging of local authorities. He protested against the various factions [Hébertists and Dantonists] that threatened the government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maximilien-Robespierre|title=Maximilien Robespierre|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref><ref>Construire une nouvelle catégorie politique: Robespierre et la théorie du gouvernement révolutionnaire par Hervé Leuwers, p. 12</ref> Robespierre strongly believed that the Terror should be increased in intensity, rather than diminished.<!--, for a long time a staunch believer in the teachings of Rousseau-->: {{quote|The theory of the revolutionary government is as new as the revolution that created it. We must not look for it in the books of political writers, who have not foreseen this revolution, nor in the laws of tyrants who, content to abuse their power, do little to seek its [[political legitimacy|legitimacy]]..." Robespierre would suppress chaos and anarchy; "the Government has to defend itself" and "to the enemies of the people it owns only death.”<ref>G. Rudé (1967) Robespierre, p. 58-67</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fau.edu/athenenoctua/pdfs/James%20Read.pdf|title=Rousseau, Robespierre, and the French Revolution by James Read, p. 4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Popkin|first=Jeremy D.|title=A Short History of the French Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d4qTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA72|date=2016-07-01|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-50892-4|page=72}}</ref>}} According to [[Donald Clark Hodges]], this was the first important statement in modern times of a philosophy of [[dictatorship]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ziOfGMr28hIC&pg=PA91|title=Deep Republicanism: Prelude to Professionalism|first=Donald Clark|last=Hodges|date=25 April 2003|publisher=Lexington Books|via=Google Books|pages=91–92|isbn=9780739105535}}</ref> The Committee became a [[War Cabinet]] with unprecedented powers over the economic as well as the political life of the nation, but it had to get the approval of the Convention for any legislation and could be changed any time.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=166}} In the winter of 1793–94, a majority of the Committee decided that the ultra-left Hébertists would have to perish or their opposition within the Committee would overshadow the other factions due to its influence in the Commune of Paris. Robespierre also had personal reasons for disliking the Hébertists for their [[atheism]] and "bloodthirstiness", which he associated with the old aristocracy.{{sfn|Matrat|1975}} Under intense emotional pressure from Lyonnaise women, Robespierre suggested that a secret commission be set up to examine the cases of the Lyon rebels, to see if injustices had been committed. This is the closest he came to adopting a public position against the use of terror.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=207}} Early January Robespierre the younger was shocked at the changed atmosphere in the Jacobin club.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=mbdEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT253&lpg=PT253&dq=5+janvier+1794+Augustin+H%C3%A9bert&source=bl&ots=J6Gf9PZRyd&sig=ACfU3U0oSoNn2eMZke5Vz7sgJl0BHhecMw&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUrIWqgKrkAhWB-qQKHd56ChQQ6AEwDnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=5+janvier+1794+Augustin+H%C3%A9bert&f=false|title=Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: Un rêve de république|first=Hervé|last=Leuwers|date=24 January 2018|publisher=Fayard|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=4LR7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT39&lpg=PT39&dq=5+janvier+1794+Augustin+H%C3%A9bert&source=bl&ots=xn3YrPruKE&sig=ACfU3U1vI6533Di0BsF_TauWA00vWB8x2w&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUrIWqgKrkAhWB-qQKHd56ChQQ6AEwC3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=5+janvier+1794+Augustin+H%C3%A9bert&f=false|title=Hébert: Le Père Duchesne, chef des Sans-Culottes|first=Louis|last=Jacob|date=1 January 1960|publisher=Gallimard (réédition numérique FeniXX)|via=Google Books}}</ref> By now the revolutionaries feared one another.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y9cWBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA484|title=Marisa Linton (2015) Terror and Politics, p. 480. In: The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution|first=David|last=Andress|date=22 January 2015|publisher=OUP Oxford|via=Google Books|isbn=9780191009914}}</ref>

===The "enemy within"===
[[File:Robespierre guillotinant le boureau après avoir fait guillot.r tous les Français.jpg|thumb|Cartoon showing Robespierre guillotining the executioner after having guillotined everyone else in France.]]
[[File:Triumvirate Robespierre Couthon Saint Just.jpg|thumb|right|Triumvirate of : (L-R) Saint-Just, Robespierre, and Couthon]]

In December 1793 the journalist [[Camille Desmoulins]] launched a new journal, ''[[Le Vieux Cordelier]]'', attacking [[François Chabot]] in the first issue. He defended Danton and warned not to exaggerate the revolution in the second issue. In the next he compared Robespierre with [[Julius Caesar]] <!--as dictator--> and arguing that the Revolution should return to its original ideas en vogue around [[10 August 1792]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Funck | first=F. | last2=Danton | first2=G.J. | last3=Châlier | first3=M.J. | title=1793: Beitrag zur geheimen Geschichte der französischen Revolution, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Danton's und Challier's, zugleich als Berichtigung der in den Werken von Thiers und Mignet enthaltenen Schilderungen | publisher=F. Bassermann | year=1843 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IsxBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA52 | language=de | page=52}}</ref> Robespierre came into conflict with Desmoulins, who had taken up the cause of the 200,000 defenceless civilians and had been detained in prisons as suspects.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=y2vy9y9LDvwC&pg=PA36&dq=18+May+1793+Convention+Paris+Commune&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi25a-60_jjAhUHzKQKHdIACTwQ6AEIQDAD#v=onepage&q=sans-culottes&f=false Press in the French Revolution by John Thomas Gilchrist, p. 19]</ref> According to Desmoulins, a Committee of Grace had to be established. <!--(Shortages and the black market prevailed during the winter of 1793–1794, so the prisons were full of shopkeepers. Collot suggested to blow up the prisons.)--> On 7 January Robespierre proposed that copies of ''Le Vieux Cordelier'' be burned in the [[brazier]] of the Jacobin club, but decided to withdraw this suggestion after heavy attacks on the [[freedom of the press]]. Robespierre attacked the authenticity of Desmoulins by giving the blackest interpretation to words and actions that he had witnessed from the privileged position of being a trusted friend.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | pp=211-214, 220}} Desmoulins counselled Robespierre not to attempt to build the Republic on such a rare quality as virtue. <!--Fabre and not Desmoulins was banned from the Jacobin club.{{clarify |date=June 2019 |reason=Fabre is not mentioned in the preceding paragraph so it is not clear why he was banned or what bearing that had on the relationship with Desmoulins}} -->

In his ''Report on the Principles of Political Morality'' of 5 February 1794, Robespierre praised the revolutionary government and argued that terror and virtue were necessary:

<blockquote>If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country ... The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.<ref name="morality">{{cite web| url = http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1794robespierre.html
| title = On the Principles of Political Morality, February 1794| publisher=Modern History Sourcebook|year=1997}}</ref></blockquote>

Virtue meant devotion to family, to work, to the ideals of the Revolution. It also meant getting rid of the "enemies of Virtue". "Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the ''patrie'' [the 'fatherland']."<ref>[http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/3098 Robespierre, "On Political Morality"]</ref> Aulard sums up the Jacobin train of thought, "All politics, according to Robespierre, must tend to establish the reign of virtue and confound vice. He reasoned thus: those who are virtuous are right; error is a corruption of the heart; error cannot be sincere; error is always deliberate."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fau.edu/athenenoctua/pdfs/James%20Read.pdf|title=Rousseau, Robespierre, and the French Revolution by James Read, p. 3}}</ref><ref>Rude, George (ed.), Robespierre, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 136.</ref> According to the German journalist K.E. Oelsner, Robespierre behaved "more like a leader of a religious sect than of a political party. He can be eloquent but most of the time he is boring, especially when he goes on too long, which is often the case."{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=82}}

{{quote box
| width=30%
|To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is barbarity.
|source=—Maximilien Robespierre, 5 February 1794{{sfn|Dunn|2000|p=118}}
|align=right
|salign=right
}}

<!--Hanriot ordered the arrest of all those who disregarded the regulations of the municipality.<ref name="gallica_12148" /> Transport of goods passing the city gates was intensified. Although the corruption of politicians and government officials without much experience was an immense problem. It was ambition, not virtue, that motivated the great majority of people who held public office.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | pp=217, 231}}-->
On 26 February 1794, Saint-Just delivered a speech before the Convention <!--(Robespierre and Couthon were ill, and Saint-Just was the most ardent disciple of Robespierre)--> in which he <!--advocated implementation of Hébertists Terrorist plans. He--> directed the assault against Danton, claiming that the Dantonists wanted to slow down the Terror and the Revolution. Self-indulgent over-eating, especially when flaunted in public, was an indication of suspect political loyalties, according to Saint-Just. <!--Danton became exasperated by Robespierre's repeated references to virtue. It was decided that the goods of people who had been declared as "enemies of the republic" would be confiscated. Nobody was allowed to leave the country without permission. Elections would not take place in the next five months if seats were released from sections of the Commune. The vacated posts were filled with Jacobins; in many cases appointed by the triumvirate.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA134|title=Robespierre|first=John|last=Hardman|date=25 April 1999|publisher=Longman|via=Google Books|pages=134–135|isbn=9780582437555}}</ref> The influence of the Paris Commune was at its lowest point. There was no money for the provision of food to the poor; half of Paris was going hungry. At the beginning of March, the treasury was almost empty; besides France was flooded with false English and almost worthless [[assignats]]. Foreigners were no longer allowed to enter Paris. To move around in the city one needed a ''card de securité''.<ref name=Popkin66 />--> 
<!--On 4 March there were rumours of uprising in the Cordeliers club. The Hébertists hoped that the National Convention would expel Robespierre and his Montagnard supporters.<ref name="Scurr306">Scurr, 306.</ref> sansculottes did not respond and on 5 March Hanriot and Chaumette refused to cooperate. On 6 March Barère attacks Hébertists and Dantonists.-->

From 13 February to 13 March 1794, Robespierre had withdrawn from active business on the Committee due to illness.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cairn-int.info/focus-E_AHRF_371_0137--my-strength-and-my-health-are-not-great.htm|title="My Strength and My Health Are not Great Enough": Political Crises and Medical Crises in the Life of Maximilien Robespierre, 1790–1794 by Peter McPhee}}</ref> (On 19 February, Maximilien decided therefor to return to the Duplays.<ref>L. Jacob (1960) Hébert, Le Père Duchesne. Chef des sans-culottes, p. 326.</ref>) <!--He seems to have suffered from acute physical and mental exhaustion, exacerbated by an austere personal regime according to McPhee. [[Yersinia pseudotuberculosis|pseudotuberculosis]] or [[sarcoidosis]].--> On 15 March, he reappeared in the Convention. <!--The next day he denounced a petition demanding that all merchants should be excluded from public offices whilst the war lastet.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hardman|first=John|title=Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA135|year=1999|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-43755-5|page=135}}</ref>--> Subsequently, he joined Saint-Just in attacks on the Hébertists.{{sfn|Scurr|2006}} Hébert, the voice of the Sans-culottes, had been using the latest issue of ''Le Père Duchesne'' to criticise Robespierre. <!--and on 4 March in the Cordelier club--> On the same evening, 13–14 March, Hébert and 18 of his followers <!--On 18 March Bourdon attacked the Commune and the Sans-culottes army.  ([[Charles-Philippe Ronsin|Ronsin]], [[François-Nicolas Vincent|Vincent]], [[Antoine-François Momoro|Momoro]], Clootz, etc.)--> were arrested on charges of complicity with foreign powers<!--([[William Pitt the Younger]]), etc.--> and guillotined on 24 March. (Hanriot was denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as an accomplice of Hébert, but protected by Robespierre.<ref name="romantic-circles.org">[https://romantic-circles.org/editions/robespierre/moniteur_comp.html The Morning Chronicle (18 August) and Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel (29 July)]</ref>) <!--According to Hanriot on 10 April  the one who despises the current government is an agent of the English faction.<ref name="gallica_12148"/>)--> Their death was a sort of carnival, a pleasant spectacle according to [[Jules Michelet|Michelet]]'s witnesses. <!--According to Korngold, part of the setting was organized by Desmoulins? --> <!--On 27 March the infantery and cavallery of the ''armée revolutionnaire'',<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=uZBCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=%2228+mars%22+1794+armee+revolutionnaire&source=bl&ots=EiIdXzFMuE&sig=ACfU3U2bQeeegHj4bmRMoVhfYChQ7AcOLg&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilxeqUq6LkAhXNb1AKHWTJA38Q6AEwCnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%2228%20mars%22%201794%20armee%20revolutionnaire&f=false Collection complète des lois, décrets d'intérêe général, traités ..., Band 7, p. 149]</ref> in a sense Robespierre's brain-child,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA208|title=Robespierre|first=John|last=Hardman|date=25 April 1999|publisher=Longman|via=Google Books|page=208|isbn=9780582437555}}</ref> for eight months active in Paris and surroundings, was finally disbanded, except their artillery.<ref>Cobb, R. (1987) The People's Armies, p. 601, 607, 611, 617</ref> <ref>[Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment ... by Michael Rapport, p. 203]</ref>--> <!--This largely improvised system, dependent of enthusiastic amateurs, nevertheless permitted the Montagnards to govern country more effectively than any of the earlier revolutionary regimes. Popkin, p. 71, Bourdon accused the Sans-culottes army to be involved in Hébertist uprising earlier that month? Hanriot and Lavalette. Barère changed his mind (since 5 September). On proposal of Barère the Sans-culottes army was dissolved on 28 March.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=jDoHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=7+germinal+1794+armee+revolutionnaire&source=bl&ots=O5LPUPBjOG&sig=ACfU3U0kLKAJ6jnQzE-iV-gaF0gxya2xKQ&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH9N7Y2KfkAhWHEVAKHbRlB1sQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=7%20germinal%201794%20armee%20revolutionnaire&f=false Fiction and the Frontiers of Knowledge in Europe, 1500–1800 by Richard Scholar, Alexis Tadié, p. 135] </ref>--> <!--the Commune was reorganized. The Committee of Public Safety did not want a military institution in particular, who could oppose it? Carnot feared the influence of the ''armée révolutionnaire'' in Paris and would succeed to send the gunners to the army of the north. Saint-Just was against this proposal but agreed on 8 Thermidor according to Eric Hazan.

Danton made a triumphant speech announcing the end of the Terror.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=816-817}} As Robespierre listened, he was convinced that Danton was pushing for leadership in a post-Terror government. If Robespierre did not counter-attack quickly, the Dantonists could seize control of the National Convention and bring an end to his Republic of Virtue.-->  <!--For several months he had resisted killing Danton.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=219}} According to Linton, Robespierre had to choose between friendship and virtue. His aim was to sow enough doubt in the minds of the deputies regarding Danton's political integrity to make it possible to proceed against him. Robespierre refused to see Desmoulins and rejected a private appeal.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=222}} Robespierre even used Danton's well-fed look against him. Then Robespierre broke with Danton, who had angered many other members of the Committee of Public Safety with his more moderate views on the Terror, but whom Robespierre had, until this point, persisted in defending. -->

On 30 March the two committees decided to arrest Danton and Desmoulins <!--[[Hérault de Séchelles]], [[Pierre Philippeaux]]--> without chance to be heard in the Convention.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=225}} On 2 April the trial began on charges of conspiracy, theft and corruption; a financial scandal involving the [[French East India Company#Liquidation scandal|French East India Company]] provided a "convenient pretext" for Danton's downfall.<ref>W. Doyle (1990) The Oxford History of the French Revolution, pp. 272–74.</ref> <!--(The directors of the Company were never interrogated at all.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=219}}) At his trial Danton made such a commotion that Fouquier-Tinville, was unnerved. Saint-Just had a bill rushed through the Convention, cutting off further debate at the Tribunal, prevented any accused from speaking in his own defense. --> The Dantonists, in Robespierre's eyes, had become false patriots who had preferred personal and foreign interests to the welfare of the nation. Robespierre was sharply critical of <!--incompetent--> [[Jean-Pierre-André Amar|Amar]]'s report, which presented the scandal as purely a matter of fraud. Robespierre insisted that it was a foreign plot, demanded that the report be re-written, and used the scandal as the basis for rhetorical attacks on [[William Pitt the Younger#French Revolution|William Pitt the Younger]] he believed was involved.<ref>Matrat, J. ''Robespierre'' Angus & Robertson 1971 p. 242</ref> Legendre attempted to defend Danton in the Convention but was silenced by Robespierre.  No friend of the Dantonists dared speak up in case he too should be accused of putting friendship before virtue.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=226}} The juror Souberbielle asked himself: "Which of the two, Robespierre or Danton, is the more useful to the Republic?"{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=222-223, 258}} The death of Hébert had rendered Robespierre master of the Paris Commune; the death of Danton, master of the Convention.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=uekvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA418&lpg=PA418&dq=Robespierre+master+of+the+convention&source=bl&ots=XU_X7YLGsa&sig=ACfU3U1jaXC34J5vxyUYZUPVW1kmUCs_wA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_q6ek76nkAhVCNOwKHRSsDQcQ6AEwGHoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre+master+of+the+convention&f=false|title=History of the Girondists: Or, Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution|first=Alphonse de|last=Lamartine|date=9 September 1848|publisher=Henry G. Bohn|via=Google Books}}</ref>

On the day her husband was executed [[Lucile Desmoulins]] was imprisoned. She was accused of trying to raise money to free her husband and Danton. She admitted to having warned the prisoners of a course of events as in [[September Massacres|September 1792]], and that it was her duty to revolt against it. <!--Robespierre kept his mouth shut.--> Robespierre was not only their eldest friend but also witnessed at their marriage in December 1790, together with Pétion and Brissot.<ref>[[Jean-Joseph Gaume]] (1856) La Révolution, recherches historiques, Quatrième partie, Paris, Gaume frères, pp. 136–37</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cairn-int.info/focus-E_AHRF_371_0137--my-strength-and-my-health-are-not-great.htm#re10no10|title=P. McPhee (2013) "My Strength and My Health Are not Great Enough": Political Crises and Medical Crises in the Life of Maximilien Robespierre, 1790–1794. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française 2013/1 (No. 371)}}</ref> 

On 1 April 1794 [[Lazare Carnot]] proposed the executive council be suppressed and the ministries be replaced by twelve [[Commissioners of the Committee of Public Safety|Committees]] reporting to the [[Committee of Public Safety]].<ref name="auto11"/> The proposal was unanimously adopted by the National Convention and set up by [[Martial Herman]] from 8 April. <!--On 3 April Fouché was invited to Paris. On 9 April he appeared in the Convention; in the evening he visits Robespierre at home. On 12 April Fouché defended himself in "Le Moniteur".)-->  When Barras and Fréron paid a visit to Robespierre, they were received extremely unfriendly. (Robespierre was without the spectacles he usually wore in public.) On 16 <!--and 24--> April, the Committee of Public Safety received the power to search and to bring accused persons before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On 23 April a General Police Bureau was set up, tasked with gathering information and mostly report directly to Robespierre.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://coggle.it/diagram/WkuNXbpn_gABEF3f/t/to-what-extent-was-robespierre-the-driving-the-great-terror|title=To What Extent Was Robespierre the Driving Force of the Great Terror?…|website=coggle.it}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14-IA87&lpg=PR14-IA87&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&source=bl&ots=9mj36Ba2-K&sig=ACfU3U0dgFkTRlC3cyUqlRT1XoaBaNQLYA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBi7eu9OTkAhUQfFAKHZ4RBYgQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre&f=false The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv]</ref> Within a week Robespierre took over the running and expanded its remit when Saint-Just left Paris for the army in the north.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=235}} The decree of 8 May suspended the revolutionary court in the provinces and brought all political cases for trial in the capital.<ref>Thompson, J.M. ''Robespierre'' p. 505 Basil Blackwell 1988</ref> <!--Between March 1793 and March 1794, approximately 170 or 190,000 Vendéens and 30,000 republican troops died, and in some areas, 20% of the buildings were destroyed especially churches.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.h-france.net/vol4reviews/vol4no26McPhee.pdf|title=Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée. Review by P. McPhee. In: H-France Review Vol. 4 (March 2004), No. 26}}</ref> Controversy has centred on whether this may be called a 'genocide' or 'mass killing'.<ref>[[Jean-Clément Martin]] (dir.), ''Dictionnaire de la Contre-Révolution'', [[Éditions Perrin|Perrin]], 2011, p. 504.</ref><ref>Levene, Mark, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3PsLXeDflfMC&dq ''Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: The rise of the West and the coming of Genocide''], p. 118, I.B. Tauris 2005</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=The Terror in the French Revolution |first=Marisa |last=Linton |url=http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter1/interviews/filetodownload,20545,en.pdf |publisher=Kingston University |format=PDF |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117152123/http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter1/interviews/filetodownload%2C20545%2Cen.pdf |archivedate=17 January 2012 }}</ref> Saint-Just stated: "Everything that happens is terrible but necessary."-->

[[Georges Couthon]] introduced the drastic [[Law of 22 Prairial]], which was enacted on 10 June. Under this law, the Tribunal became a simple court of condemnation refusing suspects the right of counsel and allowing only one of two verdicts – complete acquittal or death and that based not on evidence but on the moral conviction of the jurors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1983-4/mcletchie.htm|title=Maximilien Robespierre, Master of the Terror|website=people.loyno.edu}}</ref><!--without the need of witnesses if there was written evidence. According to Laurent Lecointre the law was written by Robespierre! [https://ia801607.us.archive.org/11/items/robespierre00unse/robespierre00unse.pdf p. 33] Some consider it an attempt to extend his influence into a dictatorship, while others argue it was adopted to expedite the passage of the reformist, land-redistributive [[Ventôse Decrees]].{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=841}} Hanriot seems to have written on that day: Always remember that the national Convention is the centre of government; remember, and never forget, that the civil authority is the first in which all military authorities are inevitably subordinated.-->  On 11 July the shopkeepers, craftsmen, etc. were temporarily released from prison. In the next three days, 156 people were sent in batches to the guillotine, which had been moved to the [[Faubourg Saint-Antoine]] three weeks before in order to stand out less. According to [[François Furet]], the prisons were overpopulated; they housed over 8,000 "suspects" at the beginning of [[Thermidor]] year II.{{sfn|Furet|Ozouf|1989b|pp=143}} The city also had to solve serious problems on the cemeteries because of the smell. Mid-July two new mass graves were dug at [[Picpus Cemetery]] in the impermeable ground.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pariscemeteries.com/picpus-1|title=Picpus (12)|website=Paris Cemeteries}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.0642292.0036.011|title=Spaces of Mourning:The Cemetery of Picpus and the Memory of Terror in Post-Revolutionary France|first=Ronen|last=Steinberg|date=9 September 2008|journal=Proceedings of the Western Society for French History|volume=36}}</ref>

==Abolition of slavery==
Throughout the Revolution, Robespierre (at times ambivalently and at others outspokenly) opposed slavery on French soil or in French territories and he played an important role in abolishing it.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cex9CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT139|title=Leaders, Dreamers And Rebels – An Account Of The Great Mass-Movements Of History And Of The Wish-Dreams That Inspired Them|last=Fülöp-Miller|first=Rene|date=2013|publisher=Read Books Ltd|isbn=978-1473383692|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historytoday.com/marisa-linton/robespierre-and-terror|title=Robespierre and the Terror {{!}} History Today|website=www.historytoday.com|access-date=19 September 2017}}</ref>

In May 1791 Robespierre argued passionately in the National Assembly against the Colonial Committee, dominated by slaveholders in the Caribbean. The colonial lobby declared that political rights for Black people would cause France to lose her colonies. Robespierre responded, "We should not compromise the interests humanity holds most dear, the sacred rights of a significant number of our fellow citizens," later shouting, "Death to the colonies!"{{sfn|McPhee|2012|pp=86–87}} Robespierre was furious that the assembly gave "constitutional sanction to slavery in the colonies," and argued for equal political rights regardless of skin colour.{{sfn|Doyle|2002}} Robespierre did not argue for slavery's immediate abolition, but slavery advocates in France regarded Robespierre as a "bloodthirsty innovator" and a traitor plotting to give French colonies to England.{{sfn|McPhee|2012|pp=86–87}} Only months later, hundreds of thousands of slaves in [[St Domingue]] led a revolution against slavery and colonial rule.{{sfn|McPhee|2012|p=113}}

In the following years, the slaves of St. Domingue effectively liberated themselves and formed an army to oppose re-enslavement. Robespierre denounced the slave trade in a speech before the Convention in April 1793.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} The radical 1793 constitution supported by Robespierre and the Montagnards, which was ratified by a national referendum, granted universal suffrage to French men and explicitly condemned slavery. However, the constitution was never implemented.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} In November 1793, Robespierre supported a proposal to investigate the colonial general [[Léger-Félicité Sonthonax]], a Girondist who had freed slaves in the colonies.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} At the same time, Robespierre denounced the French minister to the newly formed United States, [[Edmond-Charles Genêt]], who had sided with Sonthonax.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}}

By 1794, French debates concerning slavery reached their apogee. In late January, delegations representing both former slaveholders as well as former slaves arrived in France to petition respectively for the abolition of slavery and its abolition.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} After being briefly imprisoned, the delegation opposing slavery was freed on the orders of the Committee of Public Safety, on which Robespierre sat. Receiving the delegation on their release, the National Convention passed a decree banning slavery on 4 February.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} At the same time, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety heard a petition from the slaveholders but did not adopt it. On the day after the emancipation decree, Robespierre delivered a speech to the National Convention in which he praised the French as the first to "summon all men to equality and liberty, and their full rights as citizens," using the word slavery twice but without specifically mentioning the French colonies.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}} Despite petitions from the slaveholding delegation, Robespierre and the Committee decided to endorse the decree in full.{{sfn|Popkin|2010|pp=350–70}}

Several weeks later, in a speech before the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre linked the cruelty of slavery with serfdom:

{{quote|Ask a merchant of human flesh what is property; he will answer by showing you that long coffin he calls a ship... Ask a gentleman [the same] who has lands and vassals... and he will give you almost the identical ideas.|Robespierre, "The Principles of Property", 24 April 1794.{{sfn|McPhee|2012|pp=173–74}}{{sfn|Jordan|2013}}}}

He attended a meeting of the Jacobin club in June 1794 to support a decree ending slavery, and later signed orders to ratify it.{{sfn|McPhee|2012|pp=173–74}} The decree led to a surge in popularity for the Republic among Black people in St-Domingue, most of whom had already freed themselves and were seeking military alliances to guarantee their freedom.{{sfn|Doyle|2002}}

==Cult of the Supreme Being==
{{Main|Cult of the Supreme Being}}

[[File:Naudet Fête de l'être Suprême 8 juin 1794.jpg|thumb|Stage of the Festival of the Supreme Being (June 8, 1794)]]
[[File:Fête de l'Etre suprême 2.jpg|thumb|''The Festival of the Supreme Being'', by [[Pierre-Antoine Demachy]] (1794)]]

Robespierre's desire for revolutionary change was not limited only to the political realm. He also opposed the Catholic Church and the pope, particularly their policy of clerical celibacy.{{sfn|Scott|1974|p=107}} Having denounced the [[Cult of Reason]] and other perceived excesses of [[Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution|dechristianization]] undertaken by political opponents in France, he sought to instill a spiritual resurgence across the nation predicated on [[Deist]] beliefs. On 6 May 1794 Robespierre announced to the Convention that in the name of the French people, the Committee of Public Safety had decided to recognize the [[existence of God]] and the [[immortality]] of the human soul. Accordingly on 7 May, Robespierre delivered a long presentation to the Convention ‘on the relation of religious and moral ideas to republican principles, and on national festivals’.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre supported a decree that the Convention passed to establish an official state religion called the [[Cult of the Supreme Being]]. The notion of the Supreme Being was based on the creed of the Savoy chaplain that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had outlined in Book IV of ''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]]''.

In the afternoon of 8 June (also the Christian holiday of [[Pentecost]]) a "Festival of the Supreme Being" was helt. Everything was arranged to the exact specifications that had been drawn up previously set before the ceremony. The ominous and symbolic guillotine had been moved to the original standing place of the [[Bastille]]. The choirs were composed by [[Étienne-Nicolas Méhul]] and [[François-Joseph Gossec]], with lyrics from the obscure poet [[:fr:Théodore Désorgues]]. Pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers with their babies were specifically invited to walk in the procession which started at the [[Tuileries]].{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=291}} ([[Joachim Vilate]] had invited Robespierre to have lunch in the Pavillon de Flore, but he ate little.) 

The festival was also Robespierre's first appearance in the public eye as a leader for the people, and also as president of the Convention, to which he had been elected only four days earlier.{{sfn|Andress|2006|p=308}} Witnesses state that throughout the "Festival of the Supreme Being", Robespierre beamed with joy. He was able to speak of the things about which he was truly passionate, including virtue, nature, deist beliefs, and his disagreements with atheism. He dressed elaborately, wearing feathers on his hat and holding fruit and flowers in his hands, and walked first in the festival procession. According to Michelet: "Robespierre, as usual walked quickly, with an agitated air. The Convention did not move nearly so fast. The leaders, perhaps maliciously and out of a perfidious deference, remained well behind him, thereby isolating him."<ref>Michelet, J. ''The History of the French Revolution'' (Charles Cocks, trans., 1847 [https://books.google.com/books?id=GPcDAAAAQAAJ online].</ref> The procession ended on the [[Champ de Mars]], which was renamed the ''Champ de la Réunion'' ("Field of Reunion") for that day. The Convention, climbed to the summit, where a liberty tree had been planted.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre delivered two speeches in which he emphasized his concept of a Supreme Being:

<blockquote>Is it not He whose immortal hand, engraving on the heart of man the code of justice and equality, has written there the death sentence of tyrants? Is it not He who, from the beginning of time, decreed for all the ages and for all peoples liberty, good faith, and justice? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power. He created men to help each other, to love each other mutually, and to attain to happiness by the way of virtue.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/robespierre-supreme.asp|title=Robespierre, M. "The Cult of the Supreme Being", in Modern History Sourcebook, 1997|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Robespierre came down the mountain in a way that resembled [[Moses]] as the leader of the people. To offset his small stature (5’3"), he wore elevated shoes with silver buckles. <!--He was about 5.3 inches tall, with a slight build, a small head on broad shoulders, and light chestnut hair--> While for some it was exciting to see him at his finest, other deputies agreed that Robespierre had played too prominent a role. <!--Robespierre was ridiculed by the deputies, watching the spectacle from a special platform.--> [[Jacques-Alexis Thuriot de la Rosière|Thuriot]], was heard saying, "Look at the bugger; it's not enough for him to be master, he has to be God".{{sfn|Andress|2006|p=310}} <!--According to him: "Robespierre proclaimed to believe in the Supreme Being, and who only believed in the power of crime." Robespierre was also criticized by Vadier, Barère, Courtois and Fouché, members of the Committee of General Security.--> Five days later, on 15 June, the president of the Committee of General Security [[Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier|Vadier]] on behalf of the two committees, presented a report on a "new conspiracy". He insinuated that Robespierre fitted the prophecies by [[Catherine Théot]].{{sfn|Schama|1989|pp=840}} <!--Many of her followers were also supporters or friends of Robespierre, which made it seem as if he was attempting to create a new religion, with him as its god. Although Robespierre had nothing to do with Catherine Théot or her followers, many assumed that he was on a path to dictatorship, and it sent a current of fear throughout the Convention, contributing to his downfall the following July.-->Robespierre with his ‘tyrannical habit of judging’ demanded the heads of nine people, who opposed his republic of virtue.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ia800701.us.archive.org/10/items/josephfoucheduke01fouciala/josephfoucheduke01fouciala.pdf|title=Memoirs by Joseph Fouché (1824)}}</ref> According to [[Madame de Staël]], it was from that time he was lost.<ref>G. Rudé (1967) Robespierre, p. 127</ref>

==Downfall==
{{Main|Fall of Maximilien Robespierre|Thermidorian Reaction}}

<!--[[File:Cécile Renault arrêtée chez Robespierre.jpeg|thumb|The arrest of Cécile Renaud in the courtyard of Duplay's house on 22 May 1794, etching by Matthias Gottfried Eichler after a drawing by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux]]--> [[File:Tuileries, façade regardant la cour du Carrousel (dessin) – Destailleur Paris tome 6, 1292 – Gallica 2013 (adjusted).jpg|thumb|The Committee of General Security was located in Hôtel de Brionne on the right; it gathered on the first floor. (The [[Tuileries Palace]], which housed the Convention, is on the left)]]
[[File:Тальен на трибуне 9 термидора.jpg|thumb|On [[9 Thermidor]] [[Tallien]] threatened in the Convention to use his dagger if the National Convention had not the courage to order the arrest of Robespierre.]]
[[File:Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois.jpg|thumb|[[Collot d'Herbois]] ]]
[[File:Max Adamo Sturz Robespierres.JPG|thumb|The Fall of Robespierre in the Convention on 27 July 1794]]

On 20 May Robespierre personally signed the warrant for [[Theresa Cabarrus]]' arrest. Never did Robespierre pursue a victim more remorselessly.<ref>L. Moore, p. 287</ref> <!--On 21 May 1794 the government decided that the Terror would be centralised, with almost all the tribunals in the provinces closed and all the trials held in Paris.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14-IA87&lpg=PR14-IA87&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&source=bl&ots=9mj36Ba2-K&sig=ACfU3U0dgFkTRlC3cyUqlRT1XoaBaNQLYA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBi7eu9OTkAhUQfFAKHZ4RBYgQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=government%20decided%20that%20the%20Terror%20would%20be%20centralised&f=false The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv]</ref>--> On 23 May, <!--one day after the attempted assassination of [[Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois|Collot d'Herbois]]--> [[Cécile Renault]] was arrested after having approached Robespierre's residence with two penknives; dressed in a red smock she was executed together with her parents (and 52 others) one week later. Robespierre used this assassination attempt against him as a pretext for scapegoating the British.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Robespierre, the Duke of York, and Pisistratus During the French Revolutionary Terror|first1=Simon|last1=Macdonald|first2=Colin|last2=Jones|date=25 September 2018|journal=The Historical Journal|volume=61|issue=3|pages=643–672|doi=10.1017/S0018246X17000267}}</ref> <!--(In the [[Atlantic campaign of May 1794]], France suffered from a series of operations conducted by the British Royal Navy against the French Navy, with the aim of preventing the passage of a strategically important French grain convoy travelling from the United States to France.)--> 

On 10 June the [[Law of 22 Prairial]] was introduced without consultation from the Committee of General Security, which deepened the conflict between the two committees and doubled the number of executions.{{sfn|Schama|1989|p=836}} <!--Moderate judges were dismissed; Robespierre only allowed his creatures.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA146|title=Robespierre|first=John|last=Hardman|date=25 April 1999|publisher=Longman|via=Google Books|page=146|isbn=9780582437555}}</ref>--> <!--(Between June 10 (22nd Prairial) and July 27 (9th Thermidor) another one thousand three hundred and sixty-six (1,284?) were executed.)--> Collot d'Herbois, Carrier and Tallien feared for their lives, due to the excesses carried out by them <!--(with the assistance of the sans-culottes army)--> in various regions of France to stamp out opposition to the revolutionary government.<ref>Jean Jaurès, "[http://www.marxists.org/archive/jaures/1901/history/great-terror.htm The Law of Prairial and the Great Terror (Fall, year IV)]", in ''Socialist History of the French Revolution'' (translated by Mitchell Abidor), Marxists.org</ref>  Almost all the deputies agreed it had become dangerous. Some were uneasy  <!--in particular, about the removal of their [[parliamentary immunity]], since 1 April 1793.{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=163}}--> and asked for the debate to be adjourned so the clauses could be examined. Robespierre refused and demanded immediate discussion. On 11 June Robespierre attacked Fouché, accusing him of leading a conspiracy. <!--(Early April Robespierre had them recalled to Paris to account for their actions.)  On 12 June, he appeared in the Convention to accuse his opponents of trying to turn the Montagnards against the Government. He claimed a conspiracy to discredit him. <s>One day he shouted so loudly that several citizens gathered on the Tuileries terraces. Robespierre is said to have burst into tears and it was from about this time that he stopped attending the meetings of the Committee; {{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=278}}</s> His presidency of the Convention ended on 18 June. According to Vilate Robespierre went for 2-hour walk each day with his Danish dog, called Brunt. On 27 June he demanded the revocation of Fouquier-Tinville, too bound to his eyes, to the Committee of General Security.--><!-- (His former colleagues [[Petion de Villeneuve]] and [[François Buzot]] committed suicide in a forest near Bordeaux; their bodies were found on 18 June. Vilate was arrested on 21 June. )-->

On 28 June Saint-Just arrived in Paris and discovered that Robespierre's political position had degraded significantly.<!--(In the northeast, however, a series of military victories unfolded. The victory at [[Battle of Fleurus (1794)|Fleurus]] on 26 June ended the threat of Austrian troops on French soil.)--> Carnot and [[Pierre-Joseph Cambon|Cambon]] proposed to end the terror. <!--Robespierre objected to the disbandment of the war government.{{sfn|Scurr|2007|p=340}}--> Carnot described [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]] and Robespierre as "ridiculous dictators".<ref name="auto11"/> <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lazare-Carnot|title=Lazare Carnot, French military engineer|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> <!--<ref>[https://ia800701.us.archive.org/10/items/josephfoucheduke01fouciala/josephfoucheduke01fouciala.pdf Memoirs by Joseph Fouché (1824)]</ref>-->  On 1 July Robespierre denounced in the Jacobin club a conspiracy against him: "In London I am denounced to the French army as a dictator; the same slanders have been repeated in Paris."<ref name="auto11"/> On 3 July he left the Committee slamming the door and shouting "Then save the country without me".<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=OxzbCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT291&lpg=PT291&dq=14+juillet+1794+Paris&source=bl&ots=PKf9mYXr14&sig=ACfU3U3P8Bj7wIEWhxZf5evFf92p0t0fIg&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjY87DQ-IblAhVJK1AKHQJbDUIQ6AEwFnoECAkQAQ#v=snippet&q=3%20juillet&f=false Petites Chroniques #14 : La Révolution française — 1790 à 1794 ..., Band 14]</ref> He attacked Tallien and Dubois-Crancé and had them excluded from the Jacobins on 11 July.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vilate|first=Joachim|title=Causes secrètes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k41180s |year=1794 |pages=39 |oclc=764013318 | language=fr}}</ref> He made no secret of the fact that he intended to have them punished. On 14 July Robespierre had Fouché, who refused to meet his enemy face to face, expelled from the Jacobin Club. To evade arrest, which usually took place during the night, about fifty deputies avoided staying at home. On 22 and 23 July, <!--4 and 5 Thermidor--> the two committees met in a plenary session. Both Committees were responsible for suppressing counterrevolution, but ended targeting each other.<ref name="auto8"/><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA158|title=Robespierre|first=John|last=Hardman|date=25 April 1999|publisher=Longman|via=Google Books|page=158|isbn=9780582437555}}</ref> Saint-Just declared in negotiations with Barère that he was prepared to make concessions on the subordinate position of the Committee of General Security.<ref>Albert Soboul (1974), pp. 345, 347?</ref>{{sfn | Linton | 2013 }} Couthon agreed to more cooperation between the two committees. For Robespierre, the Committee of General Security had to remain subordinate to the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre wanted to take away the authority of the Committee of General Security.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 41920292|title = La Politique de Robespierre et le 9 Thermidor Expliqués Par Buonarroti|journal = Annales Révolutionnaires|volume = 3|issue = 4|pages = 481–513|last1 = Mathiez|first1 = Albert|year = 1910}}</ref> 

For forty days - it seems - Robespierre rarely appeared in the Convention, but signed five decrees by the Committee of Public Safety, and continued his work with the police bureau till the end of June 1794.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=4LSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT87&lpg=PT87&dq=Robespierre+10+Messidor+an+II+Saint+Just&source=bl&ots=HKlUttzGYD&sig=ACfU3U38WKTbcDFS_tALfZawGM9Nu39hgg&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3_fTsltXkAhVBZVAKHWlXDSEQ6AEwA3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Robespierre%2010%20Messidor%20an%20II%20Saint%20Just&f=false Robespierre by John Hardman]</ref> <!--To escape from the pressure it seems he occasionally went to [[Maisons-Alfort]], 12&nbsp;km outside of Paris, and stayed on a farm, owned by François-Pierre Deschamps, his courrier.<ref>{{cite book|title=Robespierre. De la Nation artésienne à la République et aux Nations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dFZVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA107|year=2018|publisher=Publications de l’Institut de recherches historiques du Septentrion|isbn=978-2-905637-93-2|pages=107–108}}</ref> Robespierre walked through the fields or along the [[Marne (river)|Marne]]. Robespierre's position was desperate; he was losing his grip, both on himself and on power.<ref>M. Linton (2006) Robespierre and the Terror, p. 27</ref> He had four friends in the revolutionary government, Couthon and Saint-Just in the "Comité de Salut Public" and the painter [[Jacques-Louis David]] and [[Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas|Joseph Le Bas]] in the "Comité de Sureté Générale", whom he met also privately.--> Not long after Robespierre decided to make himself clear in a new report.

<!--The long letter from 21 July which he wrote a general [[Pichegru]] in which he explained his politics and plans after the invasion of the Netherlands (with a copy to Barère and Saint-Just), seems to be a Dutch propaganda pamphlet.<ref>[https://www.delpher.nl/nl/boeken/view?coll=boeken&identifier=dpo%3A7203%3Ampeg21%3A0005&pres%5Bimageviewer%5D%5Bw%5D=1000&pres%5Bimageviewer%5D%5Bh%5D=2000&pres%5Bimageviewer%5D%5Bs%5D=1 Lettre de Robespierre, au général Pichegru]</ref>--><!--5 Thermidor (July 23) and -->On Saturday 26 July Robespierre reappeared at the Convention and delivered a two-hour-long vague and disjointed speech on the villainous factions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/268/7/24.html|title=II. His Last Speech by Maximilien Marie Isidore Robespierre. Continental Europe (380-1906). Vol. VII. Bryan, William Jennings, ed. 1906. The World's Famous Orations|website=www.bartleby.com}}</ref> Dressed in the same sky-blue coat and [[nankeen]] trousers which he had worn on the proclamation of the Supreme Being, he defended himself against charges of dictatorship and tyranny, and then proceeded to warn of a conspiracy against the Committee of Public Safety. Calumny, he charged, had forced him to retire for a time from the Committee of Public Safety; he found himself the most unhappy of men. He complained of being blamed for everything.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=293}}  Not only England but also members of the Committee of General Security were involved in intrigue to bring him down. Specifically, he railed against the bloody excesses he had observed during the Terror.{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=296}} Finishing his speech with "Punish the traitors, [[purge]] the bureaux of the Committee of General Security, purge the Committee itself, and subordinate it to the Committee of Public Safety, purge the Committee of Public Safety itself and create a unified government under the supreme authority of the Convention".{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=294}} 

Intoxicated with his virtue, Robespierre proposed to keep the two committees going, announcing a new wave of purification. When called upon to name those whom he was accusing, however, he refused. Cambon flew to the rostrum. "One man paralyzes the will of the National Convention".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=ILYqGSIHoJoC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=Cambon+8+Thermidor+one+man+paralyzes&source=bl&ots=RV0O0pBG6H&sig=ACfU3U0Mkrs04Iw8Z1aFGYW-DQxvXjFslw&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD7OrJwqzkAhVBPFAKHU7ZCrAQ6AEwFHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Cambon+8+Thermidor+one+man+paralyzes&f=false|title=The Encyclopaedia Britannica Or Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature|date=9 September 1842|publisher=A. and C. Black|via=Google Books}}</ref>

The Convention decided not to have the text printed, as Robespierre's speech had first to be submitted to the two committees. It contained matters sufficiently weighty that it needed to first be examined.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 175, 183</ref> Robespierre was surprised that his speech would be sent to the very deputies he had intended to sue. <!--According to Saint-Just he understands nothing of the reasons for his persecution; he knows only his misery. --><!--A bitter debate ensued until Barère forced an end to it.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=295-296}}<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 175–176</ref> by voting for the printing of the discourse only for the deputies? --> In the evening, Robespierre delivered the same speech, which he called his last will and testament, at the Jacobin Club, where it was very well received.{{sfn|Schama|1989|pp=841–42}} He spoke of drinking [[Conium maculatum|hemlock]], and David, the painter, cried out: ‘I will drink it with you.’ According to Couthon, not his speech, but the conspiracy had to be examined. Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne were driven out because of their opposition to the printing and distribution of the text. Billaud managed to escape before he was assaulted, but Collot was knocked down and his clothes torn to shreds. They set off to the Committee of Public Safety, where they found Saint-Just working on his speech. Saint-Just replied he sent the beginning to a friend and refused to show them his notes. <!--Collot d'Herbois, who chaired the Convention, decided not to let him speak and to make sure he could not be heard on the next day.<ref>Cobb, R. & C. Jones (1988) The French Revolution. Voices from a momentous epoch 1789–1795, p. 230</ref> According to Hampton the next day he broke his promise to show them their speech.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=298}} --> Gathering in secret at five in the morning nine members of the two committees decided that it was all or nothing; Robespierre had to be voted off. [[Paul Barras|Barras]] said they would all die if Robespierre did not. <!--The crucial factor that drove them to make up their minds to join the conspiracy seems in most cases to have been emotional rather than ideological—fear of Robespierre's intentions towards them, or enmity, or revenge.<ref name="auto10">[[Marisa Linton]], "Robespierre and the Terror," ''History Today'', August 2006, Vol. 56, Issue 8, pp. 23–29.</ref>{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | pp=229, 262}}--> Each one of them prepared his part in the attack, according to [[Laurent Lecointre]], the instigator of the coup.<ref name="auto2">{{Cite web|url=https://ia801607.us.archive.org/11/items/robespierre00unse/robespierre00unse.pdf|title=Robespierre peint par lui-même}}</ref> <!--He contacted [[Robert Lindet]] on the 6th, and Vadier on the 7th Thermidor.--> His fellow members were: Barère, [[Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron|Fréron]], Barras, Tallien, [[Jacques-Alexis Thuriot de la Rosière|Thuriot]], [[Edme-Bonaventure Courtois|Courtois]], [[Stanislas Joseph François Xavier Rovère|Rovère]], [[Antoine Marie Charles Garnier|Garnier de l’Aube]] and [[Armand-Joseph Guffroy|Guffroy]]; Fouché was no longer involved and had hidden himself.<ref>G. Rudé (1967) Robespierre, p. 110</ref> They decided that [[Hanriot]], his [[aide-de-camp|aides-de-camp]], [[Jean-Baptiste de Lavalette|Lavalette]] and [[:fr:Servain Beaudoin Boulanger|Boulanger]],<ref>Cobb, Richard, The people's armies: the armées révolutionnaires: instrument of the Terror in the departments, April 1793 to Floréal Year II, trans. Elliott, Marianne(New Haven, CT, and London, 1987), pp. 65–6. Google Scholar</ref> the public prosecutor [[René-François Dumas|Dumas]], the family [[Maurice Duplay|Duplay]] and the printer Charles-Léopold Nicolas had to be arrested first, so Robespierre would be without support.<ref name="auto2"/>

At eleven Saint-Just arrived at the Convention, prepared to blame everything on Billaud, Collot and Carnot.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/mathiez_albert/revolution_francaise/revolution_francaise_extraits.html|title=Albert Mathiez (1874-1932), La Révolution française : La chute de la Royauté; La Gironde et la Montagne; La Terreur|first=Jean-Marie|last=Tremblay|date=2 February 2005|website=texte}}</ref> He began: "I am from no faction; I will contend against them all.<ref name="romantic-circles.org"/> <!--The circumstances are delicate and difficult."-->{{sfn | Moore | 2007 | p=296}} <!--(According to [[Antoine Claire Thibaudeau]] the leaders were terrified of one another and divided amongst themselves. You had to be the first to attack because whoever stayed on the defensive was lost.)-->  After a few minutes, Tallien —having a double reason for desiring Robespierre's end, as, on the evening before, Robespierre refused to release Theresa Cabarrus — interrupted him and began the attack on him. "Yesterday a member of the government was left quite isolated and made a speech in his own name; today another one has done the same thing." <!--Billaud-Varennes followed attacking Hanriot, Dumas and Robespierre. "Yesterday the meeting of the Jacobins was filled with satellites, who openly avowed their intention of massacring the Convention."<ref>G.H. Lewes (1846) The life of Robespierre</ref>--> "Yesterday, the president of the revolutionary tribunal openly proposed to the Jacobins that they should drive all impure men from the Convention." For Billaud-Varennes, they had organized a spy system among the representatives of the people whom they wanted to destroy. According to Barère the committees asked themselves why there still existed a military regime in the midst of Paris; why all these permanent commanders, with staffs, and immense armed forces? The committees have thought it best to restore to the National Guard its democratic organization.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 190–191, 195, 196</ref> For Tallien "Robespierre wanted to attack us by turns, to isolate us, and finally he would be left one day only with the base and abandoned and debauched men who serve him" and demanded the arrest of Hanriot and Dumas. As the accusations began to pile up, Saint-Just remained silent. Robespierre rushed toward the rostrum, appealed to the Plain to defend him against the Montagnards, but his voice was shouted down. Robespierre rushed to the benches of the Left but someone cried: "Get away from here; Condorcet used to sit here". He soon found himself at a loss for words after [[Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier|Vadier]] gave a mocking impression of him referring to the discovery of a letter under the mattress of the illiterate Catherine Théot.{{efn|On 9 Thermidor Vadier used a letter—supposedly found under the mattress of Théot—as an opportunity to attack Robespierre and his beliefs.{{sfn|Andress|2006|p=323}} This letter announced to him that his mission had been prophesied in [[Ezekiel]], that the re-establishment of religion, freed of priests, was owning to him.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 197</ref> <!--Théot was a seventy-eight-year-old, self-declared "prophetess" who had, at one point, been imprisoned in the Bastille.{{sfn|Andress|2006|p=323}}--> By stating that Robespierre was the "herald of the Last Days, prophet of the New Dawn"{{sfn|Andress|2006|p=323}} (because his festival had fallen on the Pentecost, traditionally a day revealing "divine manifestation"), Catherine Théot made it seem that Robespierre had made these claims himself, to her. She also claimed that he was a reincarnation of Saul, the saviour of Israel, and the chosen of God.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ucRCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA358&dq "The Life of Maximilien Robespierre: With Extracts from His Unpublished Correspondence"], G.H. Lewes. Chapman and Hall, 1899. p. 358. Retrieved 26 February 2017</ref>}} When Garnier witnessed Robespierre's inability to respond, he shouted, "The blood of Danton chokes him!"{{sfn|Schama|1989|pp=842–44}} Robespierre then finally regained his voice to reply with his one recorded statement of the morning, a demand to know why he was now being blamed for the other man's death: "Is it Danton you regret? ... Cowards! Why didn't you defend him?"<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=acBOAQAAIAAJ&q=%22+Cowards!+Why+didn%27t+you+defend+him?%22%22&dq=%22+Cowards!+Why+didn%27t+you+defend+him?%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IIrVU9O5OZKEogS10oCQBQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA Korngold, Ralph 1941, p. 365, ''Robespierre and the Fourth Estate''] Retrieved 27 July 2014</ref>

===Arrest===
[[File:La nuit du 9 au 10 thermidor an II.jpg|thumb|Saint-Just and Robespierre at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris on the night of 9 to 10 Thermidor Year II (27 to 28 July 1794). Painting by Jean-Joseph Weerts]]
[[File:Proclamation Commune de Paris 10 Thermidor An II.jpg|thumb|Couthon, who hesitated because of his handicap, was invited by the others after midnight around one.<ref>E. Hamel, p. 333</ref> Proclamation Commune de Paris 10 Thermidor An II.]]<!--[[File:Shot.jpg|thumb|Painting of Charles-André Méda shooting Robespierre]]-->
[[File:Attaque de la maison commune de Paris.jpg|thumb|The troops of Convention Nationale attack the Commune, on 10 thermidor an II. Print by Pierre-Gabriel Berthault and [[Jean Duplessis-Bertaux]] (1804).]]
[[File:Valery Jacobi Ninth Thermidor.jpg|thumb|[[Valery Jacobi]]'s painting showing the wounded Robespierre]]
[[File:Clôture de la salle des Jacobins 1794.jpg|thumb|Closing of the [[Jacobin Club]] <!--after midnight; their president Vivier succeeded to escape-->by [[Louis Legendre]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Lallement|first=Guillaume|title=Choix de rapports, opinions et discours prononcés à la Tribune Nationale depuis 1789 jusqu'à ce jour|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=clb4qxPFNzgC&pg=PA341|year=1821|publisher=A. Eymery|page=341}}</ref> in the early morning of 28 July 1794, or 10 [[Thermidor]], year II of the Republic]]

Around two in the afternoon [[:fr:Louis Louchet]] called for Robespierre's arrest; [[Augustin Robespierre|Robespierre the Younger]] and [[Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas|Le Bas]] demanded to share his fate. The whole Convention agreed including the two other members of the triumvirate, Couthon and Saint-Just. Robespierre shouted that the revolution was lost, when he descended the tribune. The five deputies were taken to the Committee of General Security and questioned. <!--The Convention then voted on the arrest of Dumas, Hanriot and Boulanger, etc.--> Around three in the afternoon Hanriot was ordered to appear in the Convention; Hanriot said he would only show up accompanied by a crowd. <!--The administration of the police issued an order to set free Lavalette and Boulanger, national agent of Paris, officers of the Parisian armed forces and [[Joachim Vilate|Vilate]], the revolutionary [[juror]].<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 193, 212, 312</ref>--> <!--before Hanriot sent 400 men (Gendarmerie) to the townhall. (Dumas was already arrested at noon and at four taken to [[Sainte-Pélagie Prison]], as well as members of the family Duplay.<ref>Ratineau Fabienne. Les livres de Robespierre au 9 thermidor. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°287, 1992. pp. 131–135. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/ahrf.1992.1479 www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1992_num_287_1_1479</ref>); Payan was already arrested around four?--> On horseback, Hanriot warned the sections that there would be an attempt to murder Robespierre and mobilized three thousand National Guards in front of the town hall.<ref name="auto11"/>{{sfn|Furet|1996|p=150}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ia801205.us.archive.org/28/items/projetdeprocesve00duva/projetdeprocesve00duva.pdf|title=Projet de procès-verbal des séances de 9, 10 et 11 thermidor par Charles Duval, p. 34}}</ref> What had happened was not very clear; <!--to the officers of the militias between five and seven--> either the Convention was closed down or the Paris Commune. Nobody explained anything.<ref name=Sanson1876>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/memoirsofsansons02sansuoft|title=Memoirs of the Sansons: From Private Notes and Documents (1688-1847)|last=Sanson|first=Henri|date=1876|publisher=Chatto and Windus|location=London|oclc=317736774}}</ref> <!--, and their commander Hanriot did not show up as he was arrested in front of the [[Committee of General Security]]<ref name=Sanson1876 />--> <!--To avoid communication with Hanriot the five deputies were given a meal and it was decided they had to leave the Tuileries? <ref>{{cite book|last=Thiers|first=Marie Joseph L. Adolphe|title=The history of the French revolution, tr. with notes by F. Shoberl|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XWkEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA465|year=1838|page=465}}]</ref> --> The Paris Commune had closed the gates and summoned an immediate meeting of the sections to consider the dangers threatening the fatherland.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 212</ref>

Around seven o'clock the five deputies were taken to different prisons. Robespierre to the [[Palais du Luxembourg]]<!--followed by a few thousand loafers, according to Lenotre-->,  Couthon to [[Port-Royal Abbey, Paris|"La Bourbe"]] and Saint-Just to the [[Scots College (Paris)|"Écossais"]]. Augustin was taken from [[Prison Saint-Lazare]] to [[La Force Prison]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Baczko|first=Bronislaw|title=Ending the Terror: The French Revolution After Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lBX4-PoMuHIC&pg=PR11|year=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-44105-6|page=11}}</ref> like Le Bas who was refused at the [[Conciergerie]].<ref name="openedition_1591 p67">{{Cite journal|url=http://journals.openedition.org/lrf/1591|title=Les journées de Prairial an II : le tournant de la Révolution ?|first=Annie|last=Jourdan|date=2 May 2016|journal=La Révolution française. Cahiers de l'Institut d'histoire de la Révolution française|issue=10|via=journals.openedition.org|doi=10.4000/lrf.1591}}</ref><ref name="Biard2015">{{cite book|last=Biard|first=Michel|title=La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S7hSCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT119|date=2015|publisher=Tallandier|isbn=979-10-210-0844-1|page=119}}</ref><ref name="auto"/> <!--Two envoys went to the Jacobins to request their support.-->The Paris Commune was in league with the Jacobins to bring off an insurrection, asking them to send over reinforcements from the galleries, ‘even the women who are regulars there’.<ref name=Shusterman2014 /> The Jacobins and the Convention had declared themselves to be in continuous session. <!--According to Barrère, p. 225 at nine in the evening.{{cite book|last=Barère|first=Bertrand|title=Mémoires de B. Barère: membre de la Constituante, de la Convention, du Comité de salut public, et de la Chambre des représentants|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7RBFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA225|year=1842|publisher=J. Labitte|page=225}}--> Around eight <!--five o'clock?--> Hanriot <!--and 15,000 National Guards--> appeared at the [[Place du Carrousel]] in front of the Committee but Hanriot was taken prisoner by [[Philippe Rühl]] when he entered the building.{{sfn|Furet|1996|p=150}} According to [[:fr:Eric Hazan]]: "Now came the turning-point of this journée: instead of taking advantage of its superiority, in both guns and men, to invade the nearby hall where the Convention was sitting, the column, lacking orders or leaders, returned to the Maison-Commune."<ref name="auto11"/><!--its members fled to the Convention.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 223</ref>  According to Barras to keep it in private confinement and prevent all debate. Not long after Hanriot was arrested in front of the Committee of General Security. Hanriot was arrested himself by five Gendarmes in front of the building. With 17 adjutants? His troops went back to the town hall? An intervention of Gendarmes prevented the gunmen from attacking the Convention?  --> After nine <!--eight--> the vice-president of the Tribunal [[Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal|Coffinhal]] went to Committee of General Security<!--with 8 or 10,000 men--> 1,200 men from the sections and their artillery<!--30 or 40 guns-->; he succeeded in freeing Hanriot and his adjutants.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 235</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rewolucjafrancuska.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/The-Public-Prosecutor-Of-The-Terror_Fouquier-Tinville.pdf|title=The public prosecutor of the Terror by A.Q. Fouquier-Tinville, p. 117}}</ref>

How the five deputies escaped from prison was disputed. According to [[Edme-Bonaventure Courtois|Courtois]],<ref name="openedition_1591 p67"/> and [[Fouquier-Tinville]] the police administration was responsible.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, p. 117</ref> [[Louis Blanc]] mentioned a secret order by the insurrectionary Commune who sent municipals to the jailors.<ref name="Blanc1869.74">{{cite book|last=Blanc|first=Louis Jean Joseph|title=Histoire de la Révolution française|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9MQ7AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA74|year=1869|publisher=Libr. Internationale|page=74}}</ref> According to [[Louis Madelin]] the mayor Lescot-Fleuriot was responsible. <!--According to Méda the carts were stopped, the "gendarmes d'escorte" beaten up and the prisoners freed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Méda|first=Charles-André|title=Précis historique inédit des événemens de la soirée du 9 Thermidor An II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZ4PAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA374|year=1825|publisher=Baudouin|page=374}}</ref>--> Possibly their jailors, faced with two contradictory orders and uncertain of where the real power in France lay that afternoon, complied with the Commune's orders and released their charges.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rezonville.com/d-fr06|title=France: The Thermidorian Reaction, 27th July 1794|website=rezonville.com}}</ref> Escorted by two municipals Robespierre the younger was the first to arrive.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hamel|first=Ernest|title=Thermidor: d'après les sources originales et les documents authentiques|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k298640|edition=2nd|year=1897|publisher=Flammarion|page=322|oclc=764094902 | language=fr}}</ref><ref name="oup_13188">{{Cite journal|title=The Overthrow of Maximilien Robespierre and the "Indifference" of the People|first=Colin|last=Jones|date=1 June 2014|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=119|issue=3|pages=689–713|doi=10.1093/ahr/119.3.689}}</ref> Around eight Robespierre the older arrived at the [[Paris Police Prefecture|police administration]] on [[Île de la Cité]], and insisted being received in a prison.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 223</ref> He hesitated for legal reasons for possibly two hours.<!-- for 1-2-3 hours?  Like Marat, he wanted to be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal?{{cn}} --> Around ten in the evening, the mayor appointed a delegation to go and convince Robespierre to join the Commune movement.<ref name="auto11"/> Robespierre was taken to the town hall by an "administrateur de police".<ref name="Blanc1869.74" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Buchez|first=Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin|title=Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution Française, ou journal des Assemblées Nationales, depuis 1789 jusqu'en 1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcRBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA47|volume=34|year=1837|publisher=Paulin|page=47}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Campardon|first=Emile|title=Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris: 10 mars 1793 - 31 mai 1795|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SG8PAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA129|year=1862|page=129}}</ref> <!--Did they want him to proclaim himself dictator?<ref>G.H. Lewes (1846) The life of Robespierre</ref> Robespierre refused leading an insurrection instigated by the Commune?--> Around eleven Saint-Just was delivered by a "municipal",<ref>{{cite book|last=Blanc|first=Louis Jean Joseph|title=Histoire de la Révolution française|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9MQ7AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA77|year=1869|publisher=Libr. Internationale|page=77}}</ref> after which Le Bas and [[René-François Dumas|Dumas]] were brought in by two "administrateurs".<ref name="openedition_1591 p67"/> <!--(Couthon by two gendarmes and a "municipal" as the last one after midnight.<ref>E. Hamel, p. 333</ref><ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 219</ref>)--> An Executive Committee was established to save the country. Both Hanriot and Le Bas suggested attacking the Convention.<ref>{{cite book|last=Challamel|first=Jean Baptiste Marie Augustin|title=Histoire-Musée de la République française, depuis l'Assemblée des notables jusqu'à l'Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=519ymqvsq7MC&pg=PA28-IA3|year=1842|page=28}}</ref> The Convention declared the five deputies (plus the supporting members of the "Conseil-Général", like [[:fr:Claude-François de Payan|Payan]], Dumas, Hanriot, Coffinhal and Lescot-Fleuriot) to be [[outlaw]]s. <!--The sections were told not to summon without authorisation by the two committees.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 213, 233</ref> Also Fouquier-Tinville was invited to the Hotel de Ville, but he answered that he recognised the Convention alone. Mayor Fleuriot was ordered to appear at the bar of the Convention, but the Commune, in its turn, pronounced the leading members of the Convention to be outlaws.-->  The Convention then appointed [[Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras|Barras]], and ordered troops (4,000 men) to be called out.<!-- which happened around midnight--><ref name="Bienvenu 1968 p225"/> <!--On hearing this, the insurgents and their commander were seized with fright and fled helter-skelter to the Commune.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 215, 224</ref> When the Paris' militants heard this news, order began to break down, they became divided. Hanriot ordered the armed forces which surrounded the national palace to retire. Or was Hanriot forced by the Commune to withdraw his troops? Did Hanriot receive the order to withdraw to the townhall? Hanriot ordered his armed "sectionnaires" to withdraw to square in front of the [[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Hôtel de Ville]]. All or just many of the gunners decided to defend the Convention instead of the Commune and if ordered would turn their pieces in the direction of the town hall.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 216-217</ref>-->

After a warm day spent<!--it finally began pouring rain.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, p. 118; E. Hamel, p. 334; L. Madelin, p. ?; according to Dulac the square was full with people</ref> Throughout these long hours, however, the National Guard and gunners were left on the place de Grève.--> waiting in vain for action by the Commune, losing time in bootless deliberation, without supplies or instructions, the men began to disperse. <!--The fourteen sections that obeyed the Commune in the first instance did nothing, while eighteen were hostile, and of these, six were in the immediate neighbourhood of the Hôtel de Ville. according to Peter Kropotkin.--> According to [[Colin Jones (historian)|Colin Jones]] apathy prevailed with most of them drifting back to their homes.<ref name="oup_13188"/> Around 400 men from three sections seem to have stayed on the [[Place de Grève]] according to Courtois, whose report has a poor reputation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Courtois|first=Edme Bonaventure|title=Convention nationale. Rapport fait au nom des Comités de salut public et de sûreté générale, sur les événemens du 9 thermidor, an II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bU8Fqe1EGRkC|volume=1|year=1796}}</ref><ref name="Sydenham2006">{{cite book|last=Sydenham|first=Michael J.|title=Léonard Bourdon: The Career of a Revolutionary, 1754-1807|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vkk9DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA241|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press|isbn=978-0-88920-588-8|page=241}}</ref><!-- (The men of the "Section des Gravilliers" changed sides.<ref>{{cite book|last=Méda|first=Charles-André|title=Précis historique inédit des événemens de la soirée du 9 Thermidor An II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZ4PAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA380|year=1825|publisher=Baudouin|page=380}}</ref>)--> At one a.m. a crowd moved in the direction of the town hall, but the street was blocked by a gunner.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 221</ref> At around two in the morning, Barras, his troops and six members of the Convention (Fréron, Rovère, [[Louis Legendre|Legendre]], [[Jean Bertrand Féraud|Féraud]], the two brothers [[Marc Antoine Bourdon de Vatry|Marc]] and [[Léonard Bourdon]]), <!--boosted by the battalion of his own Gravilliers section Delmas, Boletti, with grenadiers, the elite of the National Guard, and 25 [[sappers]]  with axes?), men of the "Section des Gravilliers", "Lombard" and "Arcis", --> arrived in two columns. Barras deliberately advanced slowly, in the hope of avoiding conflict by a display of force.<ref name="Sydenham2006" /><ref name="Bienvenu 1968 p225">Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 225</ref> [[Grenadiers]] burst into the ''Hotel de Ville'';<!--, followed by Léonard Bourdon and the Gendarmes.<ref>L. Madelin (1932) De Fransche Revolutie, pp. 493, 495</ref>-->  51 insurgents were gathering in the main hall on the first floor.<!--<ref>{{cite book|last=Michelet|first=Jules|title=Geschichte Der Französischen Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TgHkMHpFvFEC|year=2012|publisher=BoD – Books on Demand|isbn=978-3-86382-476-1|page=178}}</ref>--> It seems Robespierre and his allies had withdrawn in the smaller "secrétariat".<ref name="Méda1825.394">{{cite book|last=Méda|first=Charles-André|title=Précis historique inédit des événemens de la soirée du 9 Thermidor An II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZ4PAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA394|year=1825|publisher=Baudouin|page=394}}</ref>

While some (Barère) argued that Robespierre tried to commit suicide with a pistol,<ref>{{cite book|last=Powell|first=Burt Eardley|title=Die Memoiren Von Barras Über Den 9. Thermidor|url=https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/DieMemoirenvonBarrasUberden9Thermidor_10334013|year=2019|publisher=Fb&c Limited|isbn=978-0-484-93446-6|pages=48–50|language=de}}</ref><ref>L. Blanc (1861) Histoire de la Révolution Française, Vol. 11, p. 270</ref><ref name="Biard2015" /> according to Bourdon he was shot by [[Charles-André Merda|Méda]], who wounded him in the left jaw,<ref>{{cite book|last=Aulard|first=Alphonse|title=Études et leçons sur la Révolution Française|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zMhsG1Ul4JEC&pg=PA292|date=3 November 2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-03497-5|page=292}}</ref> and also succeeded hitting Couthon's helper in his leg.<ref>[[Louis Blanc|L. Blanc]] (1861) Histoire de la Révolution Française, Vol. 11, book 12, ch. 7, p. 256</ref>{{sfn|Brink|1899|p=399}}<ref name="Méda1825.394" /><ref name=Sanson1876 /><ref>E. Hamel, pp. 337–38</ref><!--If it was an assassination or a suicide is still an issue. The medical report is not very reliable according to Aulard.-->{{efn|The story told by Méda contains a chronology given in [[decimal time]], but mixed it with standard time. In 1802 Méda was allowed to distribute his book, but only among friends and relatives.<ref name="Méda1825.394" />}} Couthon was found lying at the bottom of a staircase in a corner, having fallen from the back of his helper. In order to avoid capture, Augustin Robespierre took off his shoes and jumped from a broad cornice.<ref>Arrest of Robespierre by G. Lenotre ([[Théodore Gosselin]])</ref> He landed on some bayonets resulting in a [[pelvic fracture]] and several serious head contusions, in an alarming state of "weakness and anxiety".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/robespierresrise00lenouoft|title=Robespierre's rise and fall;|first1=G.|last1=Lenotre|first2=Rodolph|last2=Stawell|date=11 August 2019|publisher=London, Hutchinson|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Le Bas committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The unperturbed Saint-Just gave himself up without a word.<!--{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=283}} According to Thiers, p. 471 he did. According to Montjoie, p. 220 he was crying like a child.--> Dumas and 15-20 conspirators were locked up in a room inside the town hall.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 219</ref> <!--According to Méda Hanriot escaped by a concealed staircase.<ref>C.A. Méda, p. 385</ref>--> Most sources say that Hanriot was thrown out of a window by Coffinhal after being accused of the disaster. (According to [[Ernest Hamel]] it is one of the many legends spread by Barère.<ref>E. Hamel, p. 342</ref>) Hanriot seems to have landed in a small courtyard on a heap of glass or manure.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> He had strength enough to crawl into a drain where he was found in the early afternoon.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> One of his eyes came out of its [[Orbit (anatomy)|socket]] when he was arrested. <!-- according to Barras, who was not present, he was found naked hidden in a water closet.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 219, 226</ref><ref>[https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/DieMemoirenvonBarrasUberden9Thermidor_10334013 Die Memoiren von Barras über den 9. Thermidor]</ref>-->[[Coffinhal]], the only one who succeeded escaping, was arrested seven days later, totally exhausted.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=cnkLBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA505&lpg=PA505&dq=coffinhal+17+Thermidor&source=bl&ots=pOaUvrf_E4&sig=ACfU3U0jdsZxLn4ArKRYHk6isVqb-iJZow&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH4bWdxKzkAhVDDewKHfM-BnwQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=coffinhal+17+Thermidor&f=false|title=Paris en 1794 et en 1795: histoire de la rue, du club, de la famine : composée d'après des documents inédits, particulièrement les rapports de police et les registres du Comité de salut public : avec une introduction|first=Charles-Aimé|last=Dauban|date=9 September 2012|publisher=Editorial MAXTOR|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.nl/books?id=cRY7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=coffinhal+10+Thermidor&source=bl&ots=2weJfXai2o&sig=ACfU3U1hK9d7kohhKWO3E7z8LkM-jzpljA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7r7Piw6zkAhUNLewKHQGmBtMQ6AEwBHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=coffinhal+10+Thermidor&f=false|title=France Under the Directory|first1=Martyn|last1=Lyons|first2=Malcolm|last2=Lyons|date=25 September 1975|publisher=CUP Archive|via=Google Books}}</ref>

===Execution===
[[File:Matin du 10 thermidor an II-Melingue-IMG 2405.JPG|thumb|Lying on a table, wounded, in a room of the Convention, Robespierre is the object of the curiosity and quips of [[Thermidorians]], painting by Lucien-Étienne Mélingue (Salon de 1877)([[Musée de la Révolution française]])]]

[[File:Execution de Robespierre full.jpg|thumb|The execution of Couthon; the body of Adrien Nicolas Gobeau, ex-substitute of the public prosecutor Fouquier and member of the Commune, the first who suffered, is shown lying on the ground;<ref name=Sanson1876 /> Robespierre {#10} is shown holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Hanriot {#9} is covering his eye.]]

For the remainder of the night, Robespierre was laid in an [[antechamber]] of the [[Committee of General Security]]<!--the Convention refused to shelter him-->.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.amis-robespierre.org/La-fin-tragique-de-Robespierre-et|title=La fin tragique de Robespierre et de ses amis le 9 thermidor. - L'ARBR- Les Amis de Robespierre|website=www.amis-robespierre.org}}</ref> He lay on the table with his head on a deal-box bleeding profusely. <!--None of its members can even have seen him.--> At five in the morning, his brother and Couthon seem to have been taken to the [[Hôtel-Dieu de Paris]] to see a doctor.<!--<ref>C.A. Méda, p. 386</ref><ref>[http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/FrnchRev/id/614/rec/8 Histoire de conjugament de Maximilien Robespierre, p. 209]</ref><ref>E. Hamel, pp. 340, 345</ref>--> Barras denied that Robespierre himself went; the circumstances did not permit it.<ref>Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 227</ref> At six a doctor was invited to check Robespierre and removed some of his teeth. Robespierre was then placed in the cell in the [[Conciergerie]] and deposited on the bed in which Danton had slept one night while detained.<ref name=Sanson1876 />

In the afternoon of 10 Thermidor (a [[décadi]], a day of rest and festivity) the Revolutionary Tribunal condemned Robespierre and 21 "Robespierrists" (c.q. 13 members of the insurrectionary Commune) by the rules of the [[law of 22 Prairial]], only checking their identity. Halfway through the proceedings, [[Fouquier-Tinville]], who did not want to try his friend the mayor [[Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot|Fleuriot-Lescot]], took off his official robe.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, pp. 120–22</ref> In the late afternoon, the convicts, whose average age was 34 years old, were taken to the [[Place de la Concorde|Place de la Révolution]] along with the last president of the Jacobins, Nicolas Francois Vivier, and the cobbler [[Antoine Simon]], the jailor of the [[Louis XVII of France|Dauphin]]. A vast mob screaming curses followed them right up to the scaffold. His face still swollen, Robespierre kept his eyes closed throughout the procession. He was the tenth called to the platform, and he ascended the steps of the scaffold without any assistance.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> When clearing Robespierre's neck, executioner [[Charles-Henri Sanson]] tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing him to produce an agonising scream until the fall of the blade silenced him.{{sfn|Schama|1989|pp=845–46}} Sanson's grandson wrote that his grandfather did this carefully but Robespierre nevertheless roared like a tiger.<ref name=Sanson1876 /> After his execution, applause and joyous cries arose from the crowd, which reportedly persisted for 15 minutes.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=580}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://levieuxcordelier.fr/arrestation-de-robespierre/3/|title=Arrestation de Robespierre &#124; &#124; Page 3|website=levieuxcordelier.fr}}</ref> Later, Robespierre and his guillotined associates were buried in a common grave at the newly opened [[Errancis Cemetery]] (near what is now the Place Prosper-Goubaux).{{efn|{{in lang|fr}} [http://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article243 Landrucimetieres.fr]. A plaque indicating the former site of this cemetery is located at 97 rue de Monceau, Paris. Between 1844 and 1859 (probably in 1848), the remains of all those buried there were moved to the [[Catacombs of Paris]].}}

==Legacy and memory==
[[File:Place Robespierre Marseille.png|upright=1|thumb|La Place Robespierre in Marseille with the inscription: "Lawyer, born in Arras in 1758, guillotined without trial on 27 July 1794. Nicknamed ''L'Incorruptible''. Defender of the people. Author of our republican motto: [[Liberté, égalité, fraternité|''Liberté Égalité Fraternité'']]".]]

Though nominally all members of the committee were equal, during the [[Thermidorian Reaction]] Robespierre was presented as the most responsible by the surviving protagonists of the Terror, especially by [[Bertrand Barère]], a prominent member of the Plain. The day after his death, Barère described him as the "tyrant" and "the Terror itself".  On that day half of the delegates of the Paris commune (conseil-général), around 70 people, were sent to the guillotine. The following day, on Thuriot's proposal, the Revolutionary Tribunal, ‘peopled by Robespierre’s creatures’, was suspended and replaced by a temporary commission.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://erenow.net/modern/a-peoples-history-of-the-french-revolution/16.php|title=The meaning of 9 Thermidor - A People's History of the French Revolution|website=erenow.net}}</ref> On 30 July [[Edme-Bonaventure Courtois|Courtois]] took in custody Robespierre's books by Corneille, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mably, Locke, Bacon, Pope, articles by Addison and Steele in [[the Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]], an English and Italian dictionary, an English grammar and a bible.<ref>Ratineau Fabienne. Les livres de Robespierre au 9 thermidor. In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°287, 1992. pp. 131–35. {{DOI|10.3406/ahrf.1992.1479}}</ref> On 1 August the [[Law of 22 Prairial]] was abolished. Mid August Courtois was appointed by the Convention to collect evidence against Robespierre, Le Bas and Saint-Just.<ref>A Letter from Danton to Marie Antoinette by Carl Becker. In: The American Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Oct. 1921), p. 29 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association {{JSTOR|1836918}}</ref> At the end of the month Tallien stated that all that the country had just been through was the "Terror" and that the "monster" Robespierre, the "king" of the Revolution, was the orchestrator. <!--For Carnot: "this monster was above all a hypocrite; it is because he knew how to seduce the people."<ref>A. Forrest (1990) Soldiers of the French Revolution, p. 115</ref>--> In fact, a whole new political mythology was being created.{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=586}} <!--On 23 Thermidor--> <!--[[Coleridge]] started to write the first act of [[The Fall of Robespierre]]. Vilate, who exaggerated the numbers, raged against keeping 300,000 people in prison and trying to trial two or three hundred people every day.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vilate|first=Joachim|title=Causes secrètes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k41180s |year=1794 |pages=49, 60 |oclc=764013318 | language=fr}}</ref>--> 

Robespierre's reputation has gone through several cycles of re-appraisal<!--, starting with [[Louis Blanc]] and [[Jean Jaurès]]-->.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kippur|first=Stephen A.|title=Jules Michelet: A Study of Mind and Sensibility|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FDHWKxX38KcC&pg=PA143|date=1 January 1981|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-87395-430-3|page=143}}</ref> [[François Crouzet]] collected many interesting detail from French historians dealing with Robespierre.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=VM5hh2Ssde0C&pg=PA255&dq=Crouzet+%E2%80%9CFrench+Historians+and+Robespierre&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH88aRnOjkAhVCKVAKHXpKClkQ6AEIQDAD#v=snippet&q=crouzet&f=false François Crouzet (1999) Historians and the French Revolution: the case of Maximilien Robespierre, p. 256-261]</ref> <!--For [[Jules Michelet]], he was the "priest Robespierre" and for [[Alphonse Aulard]] Maximilien was a "[[bigotry|bigot]] monomaniac" and "mystic assassin".<ref>Annie Duprat, " Cécile Obligi, Robespierre. The probity revolting ", an historical Record of the French Revolution [online], 370 | October–December 2012, available online 28 January 2013, accessed 7 February 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/12537</ref>--> It peaked in the 1920s after the influential French Marxist [[Albert Mathiez]] argued that he was an eloquent spokesman for the poor and oppressed, an enemy of royalist intrigues, a vigilant adversary of dishonest and corrupt politicians, a guardian of the French Republic, an intrepid leader of the French Revolutionary government, and a prophet of a socially responsible state.{{sfn|Mathiez|1977}} In more recent times, his reputation has suffered as historians have associated him with an attempt at a radical purification of politics through the killing of enemies.<ref>Joseph I. Shulim "Robespierre and the French Revolution," ''American Historical Review'' (1977), 82#1, pp. 20–38 {{JSTOR|1857136}}.</ref>{{sfn|Scurr|2006}} In 1989, [[Francois Furet]] argued that this reappraisal of Robespierre has been technically inaccurate:

<blockquote>There are two ways of totally misunderstanding Robespierre as a historical figure: one is to detest the man, the other is to make too much of him. It is absurd, of course, to see the lawyer from Arras as a monstrous usurper, the recluse as a demagogue, the moderate as a bloodthirsty tyrant, the democrat as a dictator. On the other hand, what is explained about his destiny once it is proved that he really was the Incorruptible? The misconception common to both schools arises from the fact that they attribute to the psychological traits of the man the historical role into which he was thrust by events and the language he borrowed from them. Robespierre is an immortal figure not because he reigned supreme over the Revolution for a few months, but because he was the mouthpiece of its purest and most tragic discourse.{{sfn|Furet|1989a|pp=60–61}}</blockquote>

By making himself the embodiment of virtue and of total commitment, Robespierre took control of the Revolution in its most radical and bloody phase: the Jacobin republic. His goal in the Terror was to use the guillotine to create what he called a "republic of virtue", wherein terror and virtue would be imposed at the same time.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} <!--[[Ruth Scurr]] wrote that, as for Robespierre's vision for France, he wanted a "democracy for the people, who are intrinsically good and pure of heart; a democracy in which poverty is honourable, power innocuous, and the vulnerable safe from oppression; a democracy that worships nature—not nature as it really is, cruel and disgusting, but nature sanitized, majestic, and, above all, good."{{sfn|Scurr|2006|p=358}}-->

In terms of historiography, he has several defenders. Marxist [[Albert Soboul]] viewed most of the measures of the Committee for Public Safety as necessary for the defence of the Revolution and mainly regretted the destruction of the Hébertists and other ''[[enragés]]'':

<blockquote>Robespierre's main ideal was to ensure the virtue and sovereignty of the people. He disapproved of any acts which could be seen as exposing the nation to counter-revolutionaries and traitors, and became increasingly fearful of the defeat of the Revolution. He instigated the Terror and the deaths of his peers as a measure of ensuring a Republic of Virtue; but his ideals went beyond the needs and wants of the people of France. He became a threat to what he had wanted to ensure and the result was his downfall.{{sfn|Scurr|2006}}</blockquote>

Soboul argues that he and Saint-Just "were too preoccupied in defeating the interest of the bourgeoisie to give their total support to the sans-culottes, and yet too attentive to the needs of the sans-culottes to get support from the middle class."{{sfn|Ishay|1995|p=65}} <!--For [[Peter McPhee (academic)|Peter McPhee]], Robespierre's petit-bourgeois class interests were fatal to his mission.{{sfn|McPhee|2012|p=268}} Other scholars who defend Robespierre are [[Marisa Linton]], [[Timothy Tackett]] and Hervé Leuwers. Other members of the Committee, together with members of the Committee of General Security, were as much responsible for the running of the Terror as Robespierre."{{sfn | Linton | 2013 | p=229}} They may have exaggerated his role to downplay their own contribution and used him as a scapegoat after his death.{{sfn|Serna|2005|p=369}}<ref>Annie Jourdan, « Robespierre, An Indecisive Revolutionary », Books and Ideas, 18 May 2017. {{ISSN|2105-3030}}. URL : http://www.booksandideas.net/Robespierre-the-Indecisive.html</ref>-->

[[Jonathan Israel]] is sharply critical of Robespierre for repudiating the true values of the radical Enlightenment. He argues, "Jacobin ideology and culture under Robespierre was an obsessive Rousseauiste moral Puritanism steeped in authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, and xenophobia, and it repudiated free expression, basic human rights, and democracy."{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=521}}

[[William Doyle (historian)|William Doyle]] writes, "It is not violent fulminations that characterize Robespierre's speeches on the Terror. It is the language of unmasking, unveiling, revealing, discovering, exposing the enemy within, the enemy hidden behind patriotic posturings, the language of suspicion."{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|p=27}} Doyle argues that Robespierre was never a dictator nor meant to become one, but that his own paranoia, in the face of plots and assassination attempts, drove him into mortal conflict with his political opponents in the Revolution.{{sfn|Haydon|Doyle|2006|p=27}}

In the Soviet era, he was used as an example of a Revolutionary figure.{{sfn|Bean|Horak|Kapse|2014}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bookre.org/reader?file=830812|title=BookReader - Deep Republicanism: Prelude to Professionalism (Donald C. Hodges)|website=bookre.org}}</ref> During the [[October Revolution]] and [[Red Terror]], Robespierre found ample praise in the Soviet Union, resulting in the construction of two statues of him: one in Saint Petersburg, and another in Moscow (the [[Robespierre Monument (Moscow)|Robespierre Monument]]). The monument was commissioned by Vladimir Lenin, who referred to Robespierre as a "Bolshevik ''[[wikt:avant la lettre|avant la lettre]]''" or a "Bolshevik before his time".{{sfn|Jordan|2013}} Due to the poor construction of the monument (it was made of tubes and common concrete), it crumbled within three days of its unveiling and was never replaced.{{sfn|Bean|Horak|Kapse|2014}}

Robespierre remains controversial to this day. Apart from one [[Robespierre (Paris Métro)|Metro station]] in Montreuil (a Paris suburb) and several streets named after him in about 20 towns, there are no memorials or monuments to him in France.<ref>[https://books.google.nl/books?id=VM5hh2Ssde0C&pg=PA255&dq=Crouzet+%E2%80%9CFrench+Historians+and+Robespierre&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH88aRnOjkAhVCKVAKHXpKClkQ6AEIQDAD#v=snippet&q=crouzet&f=false François Crouzet (1999) Historians and the French Revolution: the case of Maximilien Robespierre, p. 282]</ref> In Arras itself, Robespierre's memory no longer arouses the discord it did in 1933 when a bust of Robespierre presented to the town had to be locked in a basement. Today there is a Lycée Robespierre (from 1969) and a small museum in his honour.<ref>Gillion Anne. La Mémoire de Robespierre à Arras. In: Revue du Nord, tome 71, n° 282–83, Juillet-décembre 1989. La Révolution française au pays de Carnot, Le Bon, Merlin de Douai, Robespierre... pp. 1037–50. {{DOI|10.3406/rnord.1989.4497}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |last1=Andress |first1=David |title=The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France |date=2006 |publisher=Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |isbn=978-0374273415 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zDfxQDcQzJ0C |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Bean |first1=Jennifer M. |last2=Horak |first2=Laura |last3=Kapse |first3=Anupama |title=Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space |date=2014 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0253015075 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7poiAwAAQBAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Bell |first=David |title=The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It |year=2007 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pw5jup_LyHAC |isbn=978-0618349654 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Brink |first1=Jan ten |title=Robespierre and the Red Terror |date=1899 |publisher=Hutchinson & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ts_cdcKhifMC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Carr |first1=John Laurence |title=Robespierre; the force of circumstance |date=1972|publisher=St. Martin's Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TqVAAAAAIAAJ|language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Courtois |first1=Edme-Bonaventure |last2=Robespierre |first2=Maximilien |title=Papiers inédits trouvés chez Robespierre, Saint-Just, Payan, etc: supprimés ou omis par Courtois; précédés du rapport de ce député à la Convention nationale; avec un grand nombre de fac-similé et les signatures des principaux personnages de la révolution |publisher=Baudouin frères |date=1828 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u5AFAAAAQAAJ |language=fr |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Doyle |first1=William |title=The Oxford History of the French Revolution |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0191608292 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2DerOCz4HRIC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Dunn |first1=Susan |title=Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light |date=2000 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0571199891 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hKtSkVBpW98C |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Furet |first1=François |title=Interpreting the French Revolution |year=1989 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=978-0521280495 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rLFxhlSHNDYC |accessdate=26 January 2014 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Furet |first1=François |last2=Ozouf |first2=Mona |title=A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution |date=1989 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0674177284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bGxiE6jvzOcC |language=en |ref=harv}}
<!--* {{cite book| ref = harv |last1=Gauthier|first1=Florence|title=Triomphe et mort du droit naturel en Révolution : 1789, 1795, 1802|date=1992|publisher=Presses Univ. de France|location=Paris|isbn=978-2130446934|edition= 1st}}-->
* {{cite book |last1=Hampson |first1=Norman |title=The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre |date=1974 |publisher=Duckworth |isbn=978-0715607411 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=edpnAAAAMAAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Haydon |first1=Colin |last2=Doyle |first2=William |title=Robespierre |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521026055 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VM5hh2Ssde0C |language=en |ref=harv}} A collection of essays covering not only Robespierre's thoughts and deeds, but also the way he has been portrayed by historians and fictional writers alike.
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609194601/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/mant01_.html |date=9 June 2007 |title=Reviewed}} by [[Hilary Mantel]] in the ''[[London Review of Books]]'', Vol. 22, No. 7, p.&nbsp;30 March 2000.
* {{cite book |last1=Hunt |first1=Lynn Avery |title=Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution |date=2004 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0520241565 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=urHgHYHT2aQC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Ishay |first=Micheline |title=Internationalism and Its Betrayal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Al7lJU5ChTUC |year=1995 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0816624706 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last1=Israel |first1=Jonathan |title=Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre |date=2014 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-1400849994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpIpAgAAQBAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Jenkins |first1=Cecil |title=A Brief History of France |date=2011 |publisher=Running Press |isbn=978-0762441204 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pr-yAepr5LsC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Jordan |first1=David P. |title=Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre |date=2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=978-1476725710 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9SArAQAAQBAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=Michael L. |title=The Jacobin clubs in the French Revolution: the Middle Years |date=1988 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0691055268 |ref=harv}}
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* {{cite book |title=Oeuvres Completes de Robespierre |last=Laurent |first=Gustave |language=French |year=1939 |publisher=Imprimerie de G. Thomas <!-- Dist. by Librarie Felix Alcan, Paris--> |location=Nancy |oclc=459859442 |ref=harv}}
* [https://archive.org/stream/lifemaximilienr00lewegoog/lifemaximilienr00lewegoog_djvu.txt Lewes, G.H. (1849) The life of Robespierre]
* {{cite book |last=Linton |first=Marisa |title=Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2vu4mIOh4C |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957630-2 |oclc=854998068 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Jean-Clément |title=Violence et Révolution: essai sur la naissance d'un mythe national |date=2006 |publisher=Éd. du Seuil |location=Paris |isbn=978-2020438421 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LMPEfYtjpZEC |language=fr |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Mathiez |first1=Albert |title=The French Revolution |date=1927 |publisher=Williams and Norgate |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rxSDvgAACAAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite journal |last=Mathiez |first=Albert |date=1977 |title=Robespierre: l'histoire et la légende |jstor=41915887 |journal=Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française |volume=49 |issue=227 |pages=5–31 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Mathiez |first1=Albert |title=Etudes sur Robespierre: 1758–1794 |date=1988 |publisher=Messidor |location=Paris |isbn=978-2209060498 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Matrat |first1=Jean |title=Robespierre: or, The tyranny of the majority |date=1975 |publisher=Scribner |location=New York |isbn=978-0684140551 |url=https://archive.org/details/robespierreortyr0000matr |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=McPhee |first1=Peter |title=Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life |date=2012 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0300118117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kYLu7-cPJTYC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Moore |first=Lucy |title=Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grSN56mDZYIC |date=2007-05-08 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-082526-3 |oclc=76836264 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Pfeiffer |first1=Laura Belle |title=The Uprising of June 20, 1792 |date=1913 |publisher=University of Nebraska |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9p8-AQAAMAAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Robespierre |first1=Charlotte |title=Mémoires |date=2006 |publisher=Nouveau monde éd. |location=Paris |isbn=978-2847361766 |edition= Nouv. éd. |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Robespierre |first=Maximilien de |editor1-last=Bouloiseau |editor1-first=Marc |editor2-last=Lefebvre |editor2-first=Georges |editor3-last=Soboul |editor3-first=Albert |editor4-last=Dautry |editor4-first=Jean |title=Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre |date=1958 |publisher=PUF |language=French |oclc=370022395 |url=https://archive.org/details/oeuvrescomplte09robeuoft |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Rudé |first1=George F.E. |title=Robespierre: portrait of a Revolutionary Democrat |date=1975 |publisher=Collins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xDAJAQAAIAAJ |language=en |ref=harv}} A political portrait of Robespierre, examining his changing image among historians and the different aspects of Robespierre as an 'ideologue', as a political democrat, as a social democrat, as a practitioner of revolution, as a politician and as a popular leader/leader of revolution. It also touches on his legacy to future revolutionary leaders [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Mao Zedong]].
* {{cite book |authorlink=Simon Schama |last=Schama |first=Simon |title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-394-55948-3 |title-link=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Otto J. |title=Robespierre: The Voice of Virtue |date=1974 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1412849166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tf4ld7YL8YwC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Scurr |first1=Ruth |title=Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution |date=2006 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |isbn=978-0805082616 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=CojtKDmS_ocC&dq=Fatal+Purity+2006 |language=en |ref=harv}}
** {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609051033/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/print/mant01_.html |date=9 June 2007 |title=Reviewed}} by Hilary Mantel in the ''London Review of Books'', Vol. 28 No. 8, 20 April 2006.
** [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/reviews/history/article759667.ece Reviewed] by Sudhir Hazareesingh in ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'', 7 June 2006.
* {{cite book |last1=Serna |first1=Pierre |title=La République des girouettes : (1789–1815 ... et au-delà) : une anomalie politique : la France de l'extrême centre |date=2005 |publisher=Champ Vallon |location=Seyssel |isbn=978-2876734135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjTNDJYCHgwC |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Soboul |first1=Albert |title=Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française |date=2005 |publisher=Quadrige / PUF |location=Paris |isbn=978-2130536055 |edition=1. éd. |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Soboul |first1=Albert |title=The French Revolution, 1787–1799: from the storming of the Bastille to Napoleon |date=1974 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0394712208 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2gt4AAAAIAAJ |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=J.M. |title=Robespierre |date=1988 |publisher=B. Blackwell |location=New York |isbn=978-0631155041 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Popkin |first1=Jeremy D. |title=You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521517225 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8IHym0hoQwC |language=en |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last1=Vovelle |first1=Michel |title=La Révolution française (1789–1799) |date=2011 |publisher=Armand Colin |isbn=978-2200271183 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=htJiFmaOZeoC&dq=inauthor:%22Michel+Vovelle%22 |language=fr |ref=harv}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
According to David P. Jordan: "Any comprehensive bibliography would be virtually impossible. In 1936 Gérard Walter drew up a list of over 10,000 works on Robespierre, and much has been done since."<!--<ref>[Jordan, David P. "Robespierre." The Journal of Modern History, vol. 49, no. 2, 1977, pp. 282–291. {{JSTOR|1876343}}</ref>-->
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Bienvenu, Richard, ed. ''The Ninth of Thermidor: the fall of Robespierre'' (Oxford University Press, 1968)
* Brinton, Crane. ''The Jacobins: An Essay in the New History''. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011.
* Cobban, Alfred. "The Fundamental Ideas of Robespierre", ''English Historical Review'' Vol. 63, No. 246 (January 1948), pp.&nbsp;29–51 {{JSTOR|555187}}
* [[Richard Cobb]], ''Les armées révolutionnaires. Instrument de la Terreur dans les départements. Avril 1793-Floréal An II'', Paris-La Haye, Mouton and C°, 1961–1963, 2 volumes in-8°, VIII–1017, [http://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1965_num_123_1_449698_t1_0273_0000_3 présentation en ligne], [http://www.persee.fr/doc/ahess_0395-2649_1966_num_21_1_421363_t1_0213_0000_2 présentation en ligne].
* Cobban, Alfred. "The Political Ideas of Maximilien Robespierre during the Period of the Convention", ''English Historical Review'' Vol. 61, No. 239 (January 1946), pp.&nbsp;45–80 {{JSTOR|554837}}
* {{cite book |author=Eagan, James Michael |title=Maximilien Robespierre: Nationalist Dictator |location=New York |publisher=Octagon Books |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-374-92440-9}} Presents Robespierre as the origin of Fascist dictators.
* [[William Everdell|Everdell, William R.]] ''The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
* Goldstein Sepinwall, Alyssa. "Robespierre, Old Regime Feminist? Gender, the Late Eighteenth Century, and the French Revolution Revisited," ''Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 82, No. 1 (March 2010), pp.&nbsp;1–29 {{JSTOR|10.1086/650505}} argues he was an early feminist, but by 1793 he joined the other Jacobins who excluded women from political and intellectual life.
* [[Donald Clark Hodges|Hodges, Donald Clark]] (2003) ''Deep Republicanism: Prelude to Professionalism''. Lexington Books.
* Linton, Marisa. "Robespierre and the Terror", ''History Today'', August 2006, Volume 56, Issue 8, pp.&nbsp;23–29 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070313181009/http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=31771&aid=&tgid=&amid=30232604&g31771=x&g31763=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x |date=13 March 2007 |title=online}}
* Linton, Marisa, 'Robespierre et l'authenticité révolutionnaire', ''Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française'', 371 (janvier-mars 2013): 153–73.
* {{cite book |author=Palmer, R.R. |title=Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1941 |isbn=978-0-691-05119-2 |author-link=R.R. Palmer}} A sympathetic study of the [[Committee of Public Safety]].
* {{cite book |last1=Robespierre |first1=Maximilien |last2=Žižek |first2=Slavoj |editor1-last=Ducange |editor1-first=Jean |translator-last1=Howe |translator-first1=John |date=2017 |title=Virtue and Terror |url= |location= |publisher=Verso |series=Revolutions |page= |isbn=978-1786633378 |author-link2=Slavoj Žižek}}
* Shulim, Joseph I. "Robespierre and the French Revolution", ''American Historical Review'' (1977) 82#1 pp.&nbsp;20–38 {{JSTOR|1857136}}
* [[Albert Soboul|Soboul, Albert]]. "Robespierre and the Popular Movement of 1793–4", ''Past and Present'', No. 5. (May 1954), pp.&nbsp;54–70. {{JSTOR|649823}}
* {{cite book |author=Tishkoff, Doris |title=Empire of Beauty |location=New Haven |publisher=Press |year=2011}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Maximilien de Robespierre}}
{{Wikisource|Author:Maximilien Robespierre}}
{{Wikiquote|Maximilien Robespierre}}
* [[La Révolution française (film)]] by [[Richard T. Heffron]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6ruyZFfZs The French Revolution — Part 2 — English subtitles]
* [http://www.amis-robespierre.org/Biographie-elements-essentiels-de Biography: essential elements of his life]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fBP7m2mNDM&t=1969s Conspiracy and Terror in the French Revolution – Marisa Linton (Kingston University) Public Lecture]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Maximilien Robespierre}}

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