Robespierre: the Devil or the Messiah of the French Revolution - Term Paper Example

? 12 April Robespierre: the Devil or the Messiah of the French Revolution Since the time immemorial a lot of people try to improve their lives, change them for better. Nobody wants to be oppressed, nobody wants to be deprived of civil rights and nobody likes putting up with injustice and contempt. And a lot of pains are taken to fight unfairness ant tyranny. The history of mankind has known plenty of revolutions on its path. Unsatisfied with their lives people executed their kings, elected new leaders, then were disappointed in them and so forth. Any revolution itself never implies anything good. Revolution can not become a total incarnation of renewal and positive changes, it is not just the triumph of justice, and, definitely, it is not the best way of society reconstruction. There are always some people opposing the radical changes and, consequently, opposing the initiators of such changes. It is proven historically that in such cases instigators act in accordance with a simple principle: “You are with us or against us”. No doubts, where revolution takes place, there are rivers of blood, violence, genocide, anarchy and outrage. No armed revolution was successful. Any revolution is supposed to serve people’s interest but very often its punishing sword turns against the ordinary people: men, women and even children. The Great French Revolution ushered in the era of global revolutionary upheavals and historically unprecedented crimes, which were committed in the name of bright ideals. The Revolution, which started with overthrow of monarchic regime fallen into senility was radicalizing fast and logically resulted in the Jacobin Terror of 1793-1794, which was the culmination of the Revolution and real expression of its spirit. The previous century, marked with monstrous crimes of totalitarian tyranny, dulled our sensitivity to bloodshed. Still, it is impossible to read the chronicles of The French Revolution without shuddering; the Revolution, which began as riots of broken loose populace and ended as a well-planned total terror. Stanley Loomis wrote in his book that during the massacre in September 1792 the bloody orgy lasted without any interruption for five days. In the third day morning the raging populace stormed the prison of La Force ... where the excesses of drunken, distraught of the blood crowd reached a climax. (Loomis 256). During the Revolutionary Terror, started with the death of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, more than 30 000 people were executed all over the country. Very few were real representatives of the French aristocracy (Loomis 112). The vast majority of ordinary people were accused of disloyalty or lack of revolutionary zeal and executed; lots of people were victims fallen from the revenge of the envious ill-wishers who took a moment to settle the score with their personal enemies. Maximilien Robespierre, the head of the Committee of Public Safety (the executive body of the Convention), the most influential man of the country, a recognized leader of the revolution, was a theoretician, inspirer and leader of the revolutionary terror. After the Jacobin dictatorship fall, the opponents of Robespierre - Right and Left - agreed on several common formulas that were touted as a real truth. "Tyrant," "dictator," "despot," "murderer", "spider" - all these abusive nicknames applied to Robespierre were equally heard from the lips of the "left" Collot d'Herbois and right Boissy d'Angle. So who and what was this person indeed? Robespierre's life is inseparable from the revolution. Robespierre did not fight on the barricades; he was not among the Parisians storming the Bastille. He spent his short life at his writing-desk, or in a miserable garret of carpenter Dupleix, or in the stands of the National Assembly, the Convention and the Jacobin Club. But his speeches, projects, regulations, his will and his fanatical devotion to the revolutionary ideas influenced all the events of the revolutionary struggle. Robespierre was its ideology, its flag, its leader. A lot of fatal errors and fluctuations marked his career, but he never wavered, never compromised. Being a supporter of Rousseau, Robespierre criticized the liberal majority of the Assembly as the conducted reforms were a total lack of radicalism. The same ideas were delivered from platform of the Jacobin Club. Robespierre's speech caused by the King’s flight once honored him: - “It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis must die that the country may live” (From the speech to the National Convention, November 5, 1792). The “Incorruptible” Robespierre demonstrated his enormous devotion towards the ordinary citizens. Other revolutionary leaders could criticize, blame or condemn their people, Robespierre never did so. The word “people” was synonymous to the word “rightness” for Robespierre. His fanatical desire to create a new French society, where the rights of each man would be cherished, made a tyrant of him. Robespierre claimed for the rights to be observed: “Any law which violates the inseparable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all” (From his last speech to the National Convention, July 26, 1794). But nonetheless, the “Incorruptible” was the first who violated this principle by his mass executions caused by the dictatorship. Why did this contradiction appear? Robespierre and many other French revolutionists stuck to the principle that people are good and virtuous by nature. Tyranny and despotism distort people’s natural shape. It is necessary to eliminate, remove all these layers by force, and man’s essence treads in all its glory. But it would be wrong to assume that Robespierre prepared his terror plan initially. When in 1792 Jacobin Marat presented his projects of the mass executions and folk killings, Robespierre was terrified, got pale and remained silent for long. (John Hardman, 199). He regarded the terror as a mean of achieving his ideal – universal virtue. Robespierre justified executions because, to his mind, some perverse people simply do not let other people live in accordance with the laws of virtue. Hence, the virtuous people must use terror against them, so it will be a manifestation of virtue. Robespierre presented the terrible law (22 Prairial), under which every citizen was to bring the conspirator and arrest him: - “We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror” (From a speech to the National Convention, February 5, 1794). Legal proceedings was extremely simplified, the punishment was a death sentence. They were seven horrible weeks: the executions were doubled (from 20 June to 27 July 1366 people were executed in Paris) (McGowen 275) Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that all those outrageous deeds were the work of one person. It is obvious that Danton’s death became the beginning of Robespierre’s personal dictatorship. The Committee majority supported Robespierre for a long time. But when mass executions started it occurred to the deputies that their own lives are at stake. They found no other way but intensifying the terror. The Committee was afraid of Robespierre and thus wanted to stir up people’s hatred against him but still did not dare to come to grips with him. Already on the second day after the 9th of Thermidor Billo Varennes, Barer, Vade accused Robespierre in moderantizme, in tolerance to the enemies, in patronage of the priests, so they criticized him from the “left”. Thibodaux, Tyurio and other dantonists, in contrast, demanded cleaning and elimination of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Facts are outspoken – the country was worthy of its leaders. Maximilien Robespierre was a child of his epoch. He lived at the time of turmoil. This provincial lawyer could have leaded his practice successfully, had nice family and children. But he decided to devote himself to the ideals of revolution. There is no definite answer to the question what kind of person Robespierre was. Perhaps, his own ambitions let him down, or he was too shallow-minded to foresee the consequences of those extreme measures he took. Still Robespierre’s way paved with good intentions was a way to hell. Robespierre possessed the secret of the unique rhetoric, in which the lyrical impulses joined with a kind of abstract speech, when a case involved his principles, virtues and folk. There was the amazing power of persuasion in his words, but there were also traps placed by his speeches. In the end the "Incorruptible” became the last victim of his bloody bacchanalia. “The Great French Revolution” was the prototype for all subsequent revolutionary upheavals. All those revolutions went through the same phases and followed the same laws. And just as the French Revolution, which began under the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity, quickly led to the Jacobin Terror, and then any revolt against the decrepit regimes invariably degenerated into bloody dictatorship headed by the revolutionary leaders. One of the most important lessons of the French Revolution is in Danton’s phrase that sooner or later revolution starts devouring its children. The mass executions stopped with the death of Maximilien Robespierre. The epitaph on his tomb reads: - “WHO'ER thou art who passest, pray Don't grieve that I am dead; For had I been alive this day, Thoud'st been here in my stead!” Works cited Hardman, John. Robespierre. New York: Longman, 1999. Print. Haydon, Colin, and William Doyle, eds. Robespierre. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print. Jordan, David P. The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre. New York: Free Press, 1985. Web. 11April 2011. Loomis, Stanley. Paris in the Terror June 1792 - July 1794. Lippincott, 2000. Print. McGowen, Tom. Robespierre and the French Revolution in World History. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2000. Print. Maximilien Robespierre. Speeches of Maximilien Robespierre. New York: International Publishers, 1927. Web. 12 April 2011. Read More