Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore Robespierre (6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a leading figure in the National Convention/National Assembly of the French Republic and in effect was the ruler of France from 1791 until his death in 1794. At first an opponent of the death penalty, he later began a string of guillotine executions with the death of King Louis XVI being the first of the "Reign of Terror", during which opponents of the French Revolution would be massacred. Eventually his anger consumed him, and he was executed after the Thermidorian Reaction in 1794.
Biography[]
Robespierre was born in Arras in the Department of Artois in the Kingdom of France. He was born to an aristocratic family and was an educated bourgeoisie, and by 1775 he was a prize-winning medical student. That year, he delivered a speech to King Louis XVI of France, praising him, and although King Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette stayed in the carriage because it was raining, Maximilien Robespierre delivered a fine and genuine serenation.
However, as time went by France collapsed into economic, social, political, and military decline, and in 1789 talk spread about a revolution. Robespierre joined this crowd and betrayed King Louis, becoming a member of the rebel National Assembly. He was one of the leaders of the French Revolution and rose from just a lawyer to become the effective dictator of France. Robespierre made sure that France's laws were re-written: the Julian Calendar was dismantled, and ten-day weeks were established (to make people lose track of when holy Sunday was), he eliminated older laws and outlawed the death penalty, and he also tore the Bastille to bricks. He also oversaw that King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette were confined to Tuileries Palace, and that a constitutional monarchy replaced them. However, Robespierre was the true leader, as the king and queen were virtual prisoners and the government was mainly ruled by the National Assembly.
Maximilien de Robespierre shaking hands with Georges Danton.
In 1792, Robespierre argued against the preemptive declaration of war on Austria and Prussia, feeling that France had no army and was not ready to fight. However, he was overruled and France entered the "French Revolutionary Wars". While Georges Danton and the Girondist Party focused on the war on France's eastern border, Robespierre focused on the internal problems. He had priests, journalists, royalist supporters, and ordinary men and women executed, betraying his anti-death penalty belief and restoring a vestige of archaic law. 41,600 people across France died in the "Reign of Terror" in a continual flow of blood spilled by a new symbol of revolution: the guillotine.
Robespierre in 1794
On 24 January 1793 Robespierre started the terror by killing King Louis and later his wife, and proceeded to kill the supporters and sympathizers. He also made stricter laws in Paris: people would be killed if they complained about the price of bread, showed no enthusiasm for the revolutionaries, spoke poorly of French officials, gave a nice word about any Royalist, or even a person who addressed a person as the formal "Monsieur" or "Madame" instead of the new title: "Citizen". As the months went by, laws were stricter and more heads fell into baskets. The Parisian executioner was always busy, and Robespierre said that "terror without virtue is fatal, but virtue without terror is powerless".
However, his hatred was soon to consume him. He eventually began to kill other politicians whom he saw as enemies of the state, while they were really personal enemies. Robespierre executed Girondists and had Danton and his followers guillotined. He came up with a new list after this, and the people of the Assembly decided that he was going insane. Robespierre had to go.
Fall[]
Robespierre's head displayed to the public.
On 27 July 1794, Robespierre headed to the National Convention to show a new list of opponents. He did not read out the names, instilling fear in the politicians in the room, who feared that they were next for the guillotine. Robespierre was attacked by politicians, and he shot himself in the jaw in a failed suicide attempt. The French National Guard arrested him while he was unconscious, and he was held in a cell with Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. The next day, he was guillotined along with 24 other politicians.