Maximilien Robespierre and the Reign of Terror (Part 3)

The year is 1793, Louis XVI has just been executed. France is devastated by its civil war and is now threatened by the 1st Coalition. Paranoia and terror, oh, terror grips the country by its throat as the people ask for more and more purges. As a result, almost 17,000 are executed in just over a year. France now lives under the tyranny of the Committee of Public Safety, with at its head, Maximilien Robespierre.

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In March 1793, Danton proposed the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the first cog in the instrument of the Terror.

On April 5th, General Dumouriez defected to the Austrians. This as well as growing revolts within the country, especially in the Vendée region, the provisional government felt increasingly vulnerable. One solution, the creation of a committee that could use all the power of the revolutionary tribunal to destroy the enemies of France, the Committee of Public Safety, better known as the Danton Committee as it was tied to his leadership.

It governed the war and appointed generals, it appointed the judge and juries of the revolutionary tribunal, provisioned the armies and the public, maintained public order and oversaw the entire bureaucracy of the state – with such a broad mandate, it wouldn’t be long before the Committee of Public Safety started to become the de facto government of France and thus, its leader, Danton, the leader of France. Yet, despite his fulgurant rise in power, he left his position in the Committee of Public Safety on July 10th following the downfall of the Girondins.

His reasons are unsure, perhaps he was tired of dealing with France’s growing struggles or maybe it was a calculated shot to later strengthen his power. Nevertheless, his absence meant that Robespierre was asked to join the committee, which he agreed to, reluctantly, two weeks later. Along with him, he brought his closest supporters, especially Saint-Just and Couthon.

In the summer following his election France was further split apart by the delivery of Toulon to the English and the numerous federalist revolts that followed the elimination of the Girondins. On August 23rd, the national convention decreed a “Levée en Masse” which conscripted all unmarried and able-bodied young men. This resulted in Vendée rebels becoming openly at war against the revolutionary government. A war that would come to kill 170,000 locals as both royalists and republicans alike massacred the local populace.

On September 4th, the sans-culottes stormed once more the National Convention, demanding further measures against rising prices as well as a strengthening of the Terror to target anybody suspected of conspiring against the republic, no matter how little. Terror was now the official policy of the convention.

The revolutionary government should and would use any means necessary to ensure that citizens complied to its laws, enforced through the creation of a “Revolutionary Army” made of sans-culottes. An army that would be increasingly used as harsher and harsher laws were implemented by the Committee of Public Safety.

One of these laws was the Law of Suspects, which allowed the committee to arrest anyone suspect of treason and removed any presumption of innocence. Another was the Law of the General Maximum which imposed price and wage controls. It is thanks to these laws that the revolutionary police, named the Committee of General Safety, whose members were appointed by the Committee of Public Safety, were able to imprison more than 300,000 individuals during the Reign of Terror.

These laws strengthened Robespierre’s grasp on the country and his ability to spread the Terror and on October 10th, the convention abolished the constitution and recognized the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme “revolutionary government.” Government officials now no longer reported to the national convention but to the committee itself, thus making its members the dictatorial leaders of the country with at its head, Maximilien Robespierre.

But his rise didn’t occur without creating some friction. On one Danton and his supporters, called the “Indulgents”, protested further and further against the Reign of Terror. On the other side, there was the Hébertists, radical sans-culottes led by the bloodthirsty calls for violence and persecution of Père Duschene, a character that Jacques Hébert had created for his popular and crude journal of the same name.