Episode 498: The Terror

On September seventeenth, seventeen ninety three, the National Convention took a decisive step that marked the beginning of this terrible new phase. It adopted the Law of Suspects, which authorized the arrest of anyone who, quote, by their conduct, relationships, remarks, or writings, have shown themselves to be partisans of tyranny or federalism and enemies of liberty end quote. By the stroke of the pen, suspicion suddenly became synonymous with guilt.

At that same day, revolutionary government was re established in the region of Bordeaux, where moderates were arrested and imprisoned, and so the machinery of repression continued to grind in Paris. The revolution now had eyes everywhere. The neighborhood committees became ors of denunciation. Snz Used declared, we must not only punish the traders, must punish the indifferent. He who is passive in the Republic is an accomplice of the monarchy.

Three days later, on September the twenty first, all women were required to wear the cockard Trochylaer, the red, white and blue emblem of the Republic, pinned conspicuously to their camps. Even fashion was policed for patriotism. The convention next move against the chaos that had engulfed the economy. On September twenty ninth, it passed the Law of General Maximum, which

fixed the prices of basic goods and wages. The measure was designed to calm inflation and reassure the Parisian poor, but it also struck merchants and farmers, who saw their livelihoods constrained by revolutionary decree. Robespierre later defended the law as an act of social justice. Quote, the people are not cannibals who wish to devour the rich. They only ask that the rich devour them. No longer Meanwhile, the

guillotine was ready and waiting. On October II, the Convention ordered that Marie Antoinette, the Widow Cape, as she was now officially known, be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. That same day, more moderate deputies were purged. One hundred and thirty six Girondins were excluded from the Assembly. The revolutions had now effectively had its center collapse. There were only now radicals on the stage both sides, and they had

radical policies. Two days later, on October the fifth, the Convention adopted the Republican calendar, which was meant to erase the last vestiges of medieval Christian time. Sundays, Saints and Holy Days were all abolished. Each month would now have three ten day weeks, and year one was declared to have begun on September the twenty second, seventeen ninety two, the day the monarchy was overthrown. A deputy was hard to exclaim, quote, we have broken the last chain that

bound us to tyranny and superstition. As you can imagine out in the countryside, this didn't land particularly well, only fueling the fires of revolt and rebellion from those who took solace in the old ways, and as I mentioned, and the civil war continued to rage throughout the provinces. On October the ninth, the Convention's armies recaptured Lyon, which had risen against the Jacobins months before. This victory only

emboldened the radicals in Paris. On October the tenth, the Convention, at the urging of Saint Just, declared that the new Constitution of seventeen ninety three, which they had gone through so much effort to pass, would be suspended. The decree read the government of France is revolutionary until the peace. The constitution, ratified by the people but never implemented, was now put aside in favor of a revolutionary dictatorship. Then,

on October the twelfth, the Convention passed yet another chilling decree. Lyon, recently captured, was to be destroyed, was to be leveled as a punishment for its rebellion. The city was to be renamed the Age, the Liberated City. Now, of course, if you've been there, you know Lyon still exists. So luckily this didn't come to pass, but it was nonetheless a stark reminder of just how revolutionary things had become

just how vicious things had become. I mean, we on this podcast haven't really seen a total leveling of a city since the Romans did it to Corinth matt was fifteen hundred years earlier. Columns of prisoners, nevertheless, were executed by cannon fire or mass shootings that same day, on October the twelfth, Marie Antoinette was summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal, accused of treason, conspiracy with foreign powers, and even incest with her son, a charge that she still met with

dignified silence. By the way, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this was the case, but she finally responded quote nature refuses to answer such a charge made against a mother. On October sixteenth, seventeen ninety three, the Queen of France, once the symbol of royal splendor, was condemned and led to the guillotine. Her hair was cut short, her hands bound. Witnesses said that she faced death with composure, asking only

that the executioner not let her suffer. She was executed in the Palaesse de Revolution, where her husband had died nine months earlier. The crowd, once so fascinated by her, watched in silence. Quote, she was no longer a queen but a woman condemned. The same day, far to the north, the army of the Convention actually defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Watnees, giving the French a badly needed victory. Unfortunately, this triumph on the borders didn't do ease anything for

the tensions that were broiling within France already. You would think that the victory would make people breathe a sigh of relief, but it didn't. Instead, the Jacobins only continued the ferocious assault against the Moderates. On October seventeenth, Republican forces crushed the Vende Royalists at Chillette, and now the war in the West became less a war and more

of a campaign of extermination and revenge. General Westerman would later declare, quote, the Vende must become a cemetery, and so it did in Paris, Robes and the Committee of Public Safety turned next against the ultra revolutionaries known as the Enrajiz, who demanded still more executions in class war, and so on October twentieth, instead, the Convention ordered their repression, establishing that it was the Committee, not the mob on

the streets that would now define the revolution's limits, though spoiler alert, it wouldn't have a lot of those. Religion continued to be a popular target. On October the twenty eighth, the Convention forbade religious instructions by cleric, deepening the de Christianization movement that swept France. The Girondins met their final fate soon after. On October the thirtieth, the revolutionary Tribunal sentenced twenty one Girondin leaders to death, and on October

the thirty first, all of them were guillotined. Their spokesman, a man by the name of Valets, stabbed himself to death before the blade could fall. Another shouted angrily to the mob before his execution, quote, we die pure and we leave crime behind on earth. Quickly, the terror widened it's net. On November third, Olympia Deguche, the playwright who had written the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen, was executed for her supposed Jirondin sympathies.

She wrote quickly before her death, liberty must be the portion of all or of none. Then came Philippe Egali Tee, formerly the Duke of Orleon, cousin to the late king, who had actually voted for louisse execution and now could not escape his own. He was guillotined on November seventh. Whether he regretted the execution of his cousin or not, history doesn't tell us. I think he probably did. The next day, Madame Roland, wife of the former minister and

a brilliant writer herself, met the same fate. As she mounted the scaffold, she turned to the statue of nearby Liberty and cried out, Oh, Liberty, or crimes are committed in your name. Repression reached even the revolutionary's early heroes. On November the tenth, Notre Dame Cathedral was rededicated as a Temple of Reason, celebrating a new civic faith stripped of Christianity. In place of the Virgin Mary stood a woman representing liberty, and hymns to reason replace the mass one.

Jacobin declared, we shall replace the mysteries of superstition with the truths of philosophy. Soon afterwards, November the twelfth Jean Sylvian ballet the Estra, the first mayor of Paris, who had actually led the tennis court oath back in seventeen eighty nine, was executed because he had ordered troops to fire on protesters in the count de Mars two years before, and so now the revolution turned and devoured its founding fathers. Even the leaders of the revolution were no longer safe.

On November the seventeenth, supporters of George Danton were arrested by Robespierre's allies. Danton, returning to Paris on November the twentieth, urged indulgence in national reconciliation. His friend Camille des Mouion in Le Vu Courier pleaded for clemency, saying, we are making a terrible use of our power. The revolution is frozen and all virtue is on the scaffold, but the

Committee of Public Safety would not heed mercy. No November the twenty third, the Paris Commune ordered all the churches closed, declaring that the people no longer needed temples but those of reason and liberty. Two days later, on November the twenty eighth, the Convention removed the reins of Mirrabou from the pantheon, once this man had been revered as a hero in seventeen eighty nine. Instead, they replaced his remains

with those of murat the slain radical jurist. The ashes of the trader make room for the martyr, A deputy proclaimed December brought both triumph and terror. On December the twelfth, the rebel Vende army was defeated at Lemon, slaughtered as they fled. A week later, on December nineteenth, British forces withdrew from Toulon after a brilliant plan executed by a young artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose name will soon start to dominate our story. The Convention celebrated the news with

a thunderous applause. Four days later, on December the twenty third, General Westerman crushed the last Venden army at seven A. Six thousand prisoners were summarily executed. Quote no more bendet, he wrote to Paris. It is dead beneath our sabers. I have buried it in the swamps and woods of seven A. And finally, on December the twenty fourth, the Convention renamed Toulan Porte la main port of the Mountain in honor of the Jacobin faction the Montagnards. The Republic

was victorious, but blood drenched every triumph. The last weeks of seventeen ninety three had seen the Republic cover itself in victory and gore. France's enemies had been driven from Toulon and Leon and lay in ruins, But within the walls of the Convention, triumph brought no peace. The guillotine, sharpened by paranoia and principle, still demanded more victims. Robespierre in the Committee of Public Safety, were determined that no faction,

however patriotic, would rival the Revolution's authority. The new year began with an ominous betrayal. On January the eighth, seventeen ninety four, Robespierre rose before the Jacobin Club to denounce Fabre and Aente, the witty poet and playwright who had co created the Republican calendar and who had once shared a table with Danton. Robespierre now shockingly accused him of quote, corruption, intrigue,

and fraud against the state end quote. Febra had been implicated in a financial scandal involving falsified decrees and misappropriated funds from the liquidation of the East India Company. Five days later he was arrested. Robespierre sneered, quote, the Republic has no need of actors who play virtue upon the stage. The message was clear. Now your past service didn't matter. It didn't matter how witty you were, it didn't matter

how close you were to Danton or anything else. If the Revolution aka Robespierre wanted you dead, the dead you were. But in the West, war actually did still rage in the Vendet. It turned out that it hadn't been totally stamped out after all. On January the twenty ninth, the young Royalist commander Alried de re la Quin, barely twenty one years old, was killed fighting at Nonuel. His death marked the symbolic but not real end of the Vendet

dream of restoring the monarchy. February continued to bring both more reform and more doctrine. On February the fourth, the National Convention voted unanimously to abolish slavery in all French colonies, a revolutionary act unmatched in Europe. Dan Ton thundered made the colonies perish rather than a principle. The decree, however, was unevenly enforced, and it wouldn't reach critically Haiti until

months later. Where someone will introduce next time to Saint louve Tour and his African soldiers were already fighting for freedom. The next day, on February the fifth, Robespierre gave one of his most famous speeches before the Convention, a chilling justification the terror itself. The foundations, he declared, of a popular government and revolution are virtue and terror. Terror without

virtue is disastrous. Virtue without terror is powerless. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. The applause was thunderous, but the logic was terrifying. From now on, every execution could be dressed up in the robes of moral necessity. The same week, a name barely noticed outside the army took its first step towards immortality. On February sixth, Napoleon Bonaparte was promoted to general for

his role at Toulon at twenty four. The Corsican officer who had written revolutionary pamphlets in a Marseilles attic, was now in command of artillery. Yet amid the glory, there was horror. On the same day, the Convention recalled Jean Baptiste Carrier from Nance, where he ordered mass drownings of prisoners Republican baptisms. He called them thousands of men, women and children had been sealed in barges and sunk on the La River. Even the Jacobins this time recoiled at

the scale of the slaughter. On February tenth, the radical priest Jacques Roue Wants, the voice of the enraged san Culau, committed suicide in prison. His death symbolized the vanishing of the revolution's early popular spirit beneath the new centralized dictatorship of the Committee's. Tensions within the revolution now hardened into

open hostility. On February the twenty second, the journalist Jacques Ebert, leader of the Cour Club and fiery editor of Les Pierre Duchane, delivered a blistering attack against both d'Antin and Robespierre. He accused them of hypocrisy, Robespierre for his piety, Dantine for his luxury. His words fanned the flames among the Parisian sections, where bread was scarce an anger plentiful. By early March, Abart and his followers, the Albertists, were calling

for insurrection. On March the fourth, Jean Bautiste Carrier, himself recently recalled from Nance, demanded a new explosion of the people's wrath, but the committees had been listening. On March the eleventh, they denounced the courtier's planned uprising as a conspiracy against the Republic. Two days later, on March thirteenth, Saint just now president of the Convention, declared that a conspiracy exists to destroy liberty. That very night, Abert and

his allies were all arrested. Robespierre told the convention bluntly quote, all factions must perish from the same blow. Their trial began on March the twenty first. Justice under the Terror moved quickly to discredit them. The Advertists were tried alongside foreign bankers and royalist agents. They were accused not only of conspiracy, but of plotting to restore the monarchy under the guise of revolution. Just three days later, the verdict

came death. Abert, ron Sin and other courtiers were guillotined That same evening. Their bodies were thrown into unmarked pits. Their followers cowed into silence. The parents Commune, once the heart of the people's very revolution u the spirit of France, was now totally obedient to Robespierre's will. But Robespierre's triumph was fleeting. Having destroyed the radicals, he next turned to

the moderates the indulgence, whose mercy now seemed subversive. On March the twenty seventh, the mathematician and philosopher Concordett, once a champion of reason and rits, was arrested. Two days later, he was found dead in his cell, likely by suicide, and the Enlightenment, quite frankly, seemed to die with him. On March the thirtieth, the Committee struck again. This time Danton, Camille des Moyen, and their friends were all arrested. Danton thundered,

they will show by head to the people. It will be worth showing. His trial began on April the second. He mocked the proceedings, turning the courtroom into a stage. The judgeons were quick, actually to silence him, and on April the fourth, the Convention decreed that any defendant who insulted the tribunal would be barred from speaking in their own defense, and so D'Anton, once the darling of the extremists,

found himself gagged literally by law. Two days later, on April the fifth, seventeen ninety four, Danton, Desmoyennes and their companions all went to the guillotine. My only regret, said Desmouyennes, as he embraced his friend is dying before my mother. D'anton's last words to the executioner were defiant. Show my head to the people. He said, it is worth it. The Revolution had now condemned its loudest voices, reason and pity. As one Parisian observer wrote, liberty was left standing, but

she was splashed with blood. Robespierre now stood unchallenged. On April the eighth, he denounced Joseph Fouquet at the Jacobins as a man of intrigue and ambition. On April the tenth, the Conspiracy of Luxembourg, a group of supposed followers of both Danton and Herbert were all put on trial. Nineteen were speedily condemned and executed on April the tenth. Among them was Lucy des Mullen's, Camille's young widow, and the widow of Herbert, then several others who were just too

close to the men who died before them. Lucy Desmullen's, by the way, went calmly to her death, merely whispering, I am happy to die like my husband. The same week, on April the fourteenth, Robespierre requested that Jean Jacques Rousseau's ashes be transferred to the pantheon. The philosopher of virtue is to become now the revolution's spiritual ancestor. On April the fifteenth, Saint Jus urged greater centralization of police power under the Committee of Public Safety, and the machinery of

surveillance now quickly reached into every neighborhood. But not amazingly, not everyone was cowed. On April the nineteenth, the Treaty of the Hague bound Britain and Prussia together in a renewed war against France. On April the twentieth, Deputy Billard Varen issued a veiled warning quote, all people jealous of their liberty should be on guard, even against the virtues of those who occupy eminent positions end quote. He did

not name Robespierre, but everybody under stood his meaning. Two days later, on April the twenty second, several other figures of the early Revolution were all guillotined, relics of a more moderate age, swept away by the very terror that they had helped to unleash. On April the twenty third, Robespierre established a new Bureau of Police under his own private control, rivaling the existing police of the Committee of

General Security. This new network of spies, informers, and agents reported directly to him, and he could pick and choose what information he wanted to pass on. By spring, Robespierre decided to cleanse the Revolution of both atheism and corruption. He wanted to replace the cult of reason with a faith in civic morality. On May seventh, he proposed that quote the French people recognize the existence of a supreme being and the immortality of the soul. Religion would no

longer belong to the Catholic priests. It would belong to the patriots. The convention unsurprisingly proved unanimously. The next day, on May the eighth, twenty seven former tax farmers, including the scientist Antoine Lavesier, were all guillotined. The judge is said to have sneered, the republic has no need of savants, and looked on as the man who founded modern chemistry

went to his death. The same day, the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was expanded to absorb jurisdiction from the provincial courts, now bringing almost every case in France under the control of the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre. The terror now touched every part of the nation. Two days later, on May tenth, Madame Elizabeth, the devout sister of Louis the sixteenth, was executed. Witnesses said that she prayed calmly

on the scaffold before the blade fell. That same day, the former mayor was arrested and replaced by a close ally of Robespierre, and the government of France now bore in every department and every way the unmistakable stamp of his power. War and famine continued to batter France, but by June seventeen ninety four, the Republic had survived the

storms of invasion and insurrection. On June the second, a French grain convoy from the United States safely reached Breast, despite losing devan ships to the British, another proof that providence, or maybe the Supreme Being I guess, favored the Republic. Two days later, on June fourth, Maximilian Robespierre was unanimously elected president of the National Convention. He was now in all but name, the ruler of France. Harris prepared for the Great Festival of the Supreme Being to be held

that month. Liberty and virtue were to be enthroned reason and rebellion buried. Yet behind the painted smiles and rehearsed hymns, many whispered what Destonte had once foreseen, that the revolution was now truly devouring itself. By the summer of seventeen ninety four, the revolution seemed both triumphant and exhausted. France's armies were victorious on nearly every front, its internal revolts crushed and its enemies divided. But inside Paris, suspicion reigned.

The revolution had conquered its foes, but it couldn't conquer the ever present fear. On June the eighth, seventeen ninety four, which according to the new calendar, was year two, Harris awoke to a spectacle unlike any it had seen. A vast amphitheater rose on the Camp de Mars, crowned with garlands and flowers. Crowds filled the terraces, dressed in white and blue, while musicians played hymns composed for the occasion.

At the center of it all, dressed in a sky blue coat and bearing a bouquet of lilies and wheat, stood Maximilian Robespierre. It was the Festival of the Supreme being a civic celebration of virtue and moral renewal. He announced triumphantly, the day forever marks the triumph of humanity over atheism. He led the convention in a slow procession up an artificial mountain, crowned by the statue of Wisdom,

triumphing over weis. Deputies followed, but many muttered under their breath, and look, one whispered, the Tyrant of France is celebrating his coronation. Though the crowd cheered, the deputy's faces remained ashen and cold. Robespierre's exalted tone apparently alarmed them. One man later sneered, he thinks himself a new messiah. The festival, meant to unite France in a new moral purpose, instead

simply isolated Robespierre from his colleagues. Two days later, on the tenth of June, the mask of virtue fell away to reveal terror in its purest form. The Convention, at Robespierre's urging, passed the law of twenty two pararial drafted by his ally. Trials would now be almost instantaneous. Witnesses were no longer required. Verdicts were essentially in either or acquittal or death. According to San juist the people have

no need of lawyers. From June the eleventh to July the twenty seventh, the revolutionary Tribunal condemned one thousand, three hundred and seventy six people to death, more than had perished in the previous fourteen months combined. Not a single person, not one, was acquitted. The prisons overflowed. The guillotine stood permanently on the police des Revolution, it's blade rising and falling with a mechanical rhythm. The law also stripped the

Convention of its own immunity. Deputies could now be arrested only by the vote of the entire body. The gesture meant to protect them did nothing to calm their dread. Murmured one, we are all on the list. On June the twelfth, Robespierre rose in the Convention and, without naming names, announced that he would soon be demanding the heads of quote traders who conspire within these walls. No one was safe.

Fearing the worst, Carnaut, an army organizer, quietly set much of the Parisian artillery to the front on June the twenty fourth, depriving the capital of its guns. Two days later, French forces under General Jardan won a decisive victory at the Battle of Flus on June the twenty six He drove the Austrians from the field, and so the first time in years, France's borders were secure. Peace, however, was

the last thing that the terror needed. Inside the committees, the War of Suspicion opened up into complete and total hostility. On June the twenty ninth, Billiard Cernaud Colbert he Bows accused Robespierre of acting like a dictator. He stormed out of the Committee in Public Safety and would not return for almost a month. From his refuge at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre struck back on July the first. He accused both the committees of harboring conspirators and traders, warning, quote, I

am surrounded by perjury and hypocrisy. They want to murder me end quote. His audience applauded, but honestly, even among the Jacobins, there was a lot of unease. Victories abroad only deep in the divide. On July the eighth, the French captured Brussels, extending French arms deep into Belgium. Yet in Paris, Robespierre continued to speak as though none of this had happened, lamenting only plots and enemies, though he

refused to name them. At the Jacobin Club on the ninth of July, he denied having made a rest lists, but again hinted darkly that traitors must soon be punished. On the fourteenth of July, the very anniversary of the bastial, he ordered that Joseph Fouquet, one of his closest allies, be expelled from the Jacobin Club. He yelled, you are the image of corruption. Usche left the meeting hall and muttering,

only I will live to see him. Robespierre fall. Now, for a moment, it seemed like reconciliation might be possible, that everybody might go through this okay. On the twenty third of July, Robespierre attended a meeting of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security. Smiles were forced, but hands were shaken. The same day, many others were executed, including Alexandre de Beauharnes. His widow, whose name was Josephine, would soon catch the eye of a young Napoleon Bonaparte.

A day later, the young poet Andrea Canier, who had dared to criticize the terror, was guillotined he wrote his last poem in prison quote as for me, I am calm. I await without fear the sleep that will close my eyes forever. The blood letging was actually approaching its end, though no one knew that yet. On July the twenty sixth, the eight of the month of Thermidor, rose Pierre returned to the Convention to deliver a furious two hour speech.

He denounced quote traitors in the Committees of Public Safety and General Security end quote, but again he refused to name them, saying only I have seen tyranny, and I will strike it down wherever it hides. At first, the Convention voted to publish the speech, but then two members rose and challenged Robespierre directly on the floor for the first time. They demanded to know name them, shouting who are the traders? Robespierre stood silent, and the assembly quickly

turned against him. His speech wasn't published after all. It was instead referred to the committee's for further examination. A polite burial. The next morning, July twenty seventh, or the ninth of the month of Thermidor, Robespierre entered the Convention with his allies Sanuist Cohan Augustine, Robespierre and Lebas. Saint Just began to speak, but he was interrupted. Holding up a dagger, he shouted to the man, I will stab him if the Convention does not order his arrest. Uproar followed.

One by one. Deputies rose to condemn Saint Just as a tyrant, and the Convention instead voted to arrest Robespierre and his allies. In the streets, confusion reigned. The commander of the National Guard called for insurrection and stationed twenty four hundred guards at the Hotel de Ville, but the people hesitated. The Jacobins remained silent. The five arrested men were shuttled from prison to prison, each refusing to take them. Near nightfall, they were finally just escorted to a police

administration site. Now round ten pm, a delegation from the Commune arrived, urging rose Pierre to join the uprising. The Convention, now desperate, declared everyone outlaws, meaning that they could be executed without trial. At the Hotel de Ville, the rebels debated while the city slept. No crowds gathered to support them. Though no bells rang, it seemed like the revolution had gotten tired of blood. At two In the morning of July, the twenty eighth troops loyal to the Convention stormed into

the Hotel de Ville without resistance. In the confusion, Robespierre was shot through the jaw, some say by soldiers, some by his own hand. His brother Augustine was also badly injured jumping from a window. At dawn, they were all dragged to the Revolutionary Tribunal for formal identification. No trial was held because they were already quote outside the law

end quote. That evening, Robespierre, Saint just Cohan, Augustine Robespierre, Lebas, and twenty two others were all taken to the guillotine. The executioner ripped the bandage from Robespierre's shattered jaw, and he screamed until the blade fell. The crowd erupted in cheers, one woman crying, the tyrant is dead. On the twenty ninth of July, seventy more of his allies from the Paris Commune followed him to the scaffold. In all, one hundred and six allies of Robespierre were executed in just

two days. The guillotine that had one symbolized virtue, finally fell silent the next day. The Convention repealed the Law of twenty two. Prairial prisoners were released, the revolutionary Tribunal was curtailed, and the terror was over. One deputy remarked, we were all afraid, and now we breathe again. France remained at war, of course, but the revolution itself had now turned a corner. The Jacobin Club would soon be closed,

the sansculos dispersed, the guillotine stored away. Robespierre's dream of virtue enforced by terror had ended where it began, beneath the blade of the revolution. He had once said, liberty and virtue must be the order of the day. But now,

in technically year two, they lay buried together. The terror, I think is one of the most entry parts of the French Revolution, not the least of which because of the lessons that we could learn from it, that fear is an incredibly potent way to force people to do what you want, and to go them along. Everyone who took part in the terror, may be, apart from Robespierre and his closest allies, never really understood the full purpose

of their actions. They went along because, like someone sort of blindly playing a game of chess, they didn't understand the implications of their next move, but once it had been done, there simply was no stopping the momentum. It's a reminder to all of us today that you cannot allow violence to creep into the political system, because once

you do, it's very difficult to shut it back out. Now, speaking of violence, we're going to turn from France next time and go back to the island of Sandman also known as Haiti, to catch up and see how that very violent revolution is getting on and watch the rise of Duissaint l' viture