Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the most widely known, influential, and controversial figures of the French Revolution.
146 Facts About Maximilien Robespierre
2.
Maximilien Robespierre earned the nickname "the incorruptible" for his adherence to strict moral values.
3.
In 1791, Robespierre was elected as "public accuser" and became an outspoken advocate for male citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and to the commissioned ranks of the army, for the right to petition and the right to bear arms in self defence.
4.
Maximilien Robespierre's goal was to create a one and indivisible France, establish equality before the law, abolish prerogatives, and defend the principles of direct democracy.
5.
Maximilien Robespierre was wounded in his jaw, but it is not known if it was self-inflicted or the outcome of the skirmish.
6.
About 90 people, including Maximilien Robespierre, were executed in the days after, events that initiated a period known as the Thermidorian Reaction, and the left wing in the convention was decimated.
7.
Maximilien Robespierre was born five months later as the eldest of four children.
8.
Already literate at age eight, Maximilien Robespierre started attending the college of Arras.
9.
Maximilien Robespierre was attracted to the ideas of the popular philosophe on political reforms explained in his Contrat Social.
10.
Maximilien Robespierre soon resigned, owing to discomfort in ruling on capital cases arising from his early opposition to the death penalty.
11.
Maximilien Robespierre's defense was printed and he sent Benjamin Franklin a copy.
12.
Maximilien Robespierre attacked inequality before the law: the indignity of illegitimate or natural children, three years later the lettres de cachet and the sidelining of women in academic life.
13.
Some claim Maximilien Robespierre had seen Rousseau shortly before he died, but others maintain that the account was apocryphal.
14.
Maximilien 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 would not represent the people of France.
15.
Maximilien Robespierre shared an apartment on the third floor with Pierre Villiers who was his secretary for several months.
16.
Maximilien Robespierre associated with the new Society of the Friends of the Constitution, commonly known as the Jacobin Club.
17.
Maximilien Robespierre coined the famous motto by adding the word fraternity on the flags of the National Guard.
18.
In 1791 Maximilien Robespierre gave 328 speeches, almost one a day.
19.
Maximilien Robespierre demanded the reconstitution of the National Guard on a democratic basis.
20.
Maximilien Robespierre felt that the National Guard had to become the instrument of defending liberty and no longer be a threat to it.
21.
The next day, Maximilien Robespierre accepted the function of "public accuser" in the criminal tribunal preparing indictments and ensuring the defence.
22.
Maximilien Robespierre, who attended the Jacobin club, did not go back to the Rue Saintonge where he lodged, and asked Laurent Lecointre if he knew a patriot near the Tuileries who could put him up for the night.
23.
Maximilien Robespierre was motivated by a desire to live closer to the Assembly and the Jacobin club.
24.
Maximilien Robespierre had been carefully preparing for this confrontation and it was the climax of his political career up to this point.
25.
Maximilien Robespierre succeeded to get the word inspection out of the constitution: The freedom of every man to speak, to write, print and publish his thoughts, without the written can be subject to censorship or inspection prior to their publication.
26.
Petion and Maximilien Robespierre were brought back in triumph to their homes.
27.
Maximilien Robespierre spent seven weeks in his home province Artois.
28.
Maximilien Robespierre went to a meeting of the Society of Friends of the Constitution, which was held on Sundays.
29.
Maximilien Robespierre noticed the inns in Pas de Calais were filled with emigres, likely Dutch patriots in exile.
30.
Collot d'Herbois gave his chair to Maximilien Robespierre, who presided that evening.
31.
Maximilien Robespierre warned against the threat of dictatorship stemming from war, in the following terms:.
32.
Maximilien Robespierre urged that France should declare war against Austria.
33.
Marat and Maximilien Robespierre opposed him, arguing that victory would create a dictatorship, while defeat would restore the king to his former powers; neither end, he said, would serve the revolution.
34.
Maximilien Robespierre's speech was nevertheless published and sent to all clubs and Jacobin societies of France.
35.
Maximilien Robespierre began by assuring his audience that everything he intended to propose was strictly constitutional.
36.
Maximilien Robespierre then went on to advocate specific measures to strengthen, not so much the national defenses as the forces that could be relied on to defend the revolution.
37.
Maximilien 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 the Legislative Assembly.
38.
For Maximilien Robespierre it was an ungrateful position as "public accuser"; it meant he was not allowed to the bar before the jury had spoken their verdict.
39.
Not long after Maximilien Robespierre was accused by Brissot and Guadet of trying to become the idol of the people.
40.
Maximilien Robespierre himself wrote a prospectus in which he explained to the subscribers his goals.
41.
Maximilien Robespierre responded by working to reduce the political influence of the officer class and the king.
42.
Camille Desmoulins thought that everything was over and that they could finally rest, but Maximilien Robespierre overruled this by pointing out it could only be the beginning.
43.
Maximilien Robespierre published the twelfth and last issue of "Le Defenseur de la Constitution", both an account and political testament.
44.
The next day Maximilien Robespierre was appointed as one of eight judges.
45.
When Maximilien Robespierre refused to preside over it he was criticized.
46.
Maximilien Robespierre himself preferred to represent the commune, and Fouquier-Tinville was appointed as president.
47.
Marat and Maximilien 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.
48.
Maximilien Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot, who promoted the Duke of Brunswick, and Roland, who proposed that the members of the government should leave Paris, taking the treasury and the king with it.
49.
Maximilien Robespierre noted that Robespierre was in the chair that day, assisted by Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne as secretaries.
50.
Maximilien Robespierre made sure Brissot could not be elected in Paris.
51.
Maximilien Robespierre, who seems to have been sick was given a week to respond.
52.
Louvet de Couvrai accused Maximilien Robespierre of governing the Paris departement, paying the "septembriseurs" in order to gain more votes in the election.
53.
Condorcet considered the French Revolution as a religion and Maximilien Robespierre had all the characteristics of a leader of a sect, or a cult.
54.
Maximilien Robespierre had been taken ill and had done little other than support Saint-Just, a former colonel in the National Guard, who gave his first major speech to address and argue against the king's inviolability.
55.
Maximilien 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:.
56.
Maximilien Robespierre is condemned, or the republic cannot be absolved.
57.
Unlike some Girondins, Maximilien Robespierre specifically opposed judgment by primary assemblies or a referendum, believing that this could cause a civil war.
58.
Maximilien Robespierre attacked not only Pache, the former minister of war, but Marat and Robespierre.
59.
Maximilien Robespierre was disenchanted with the radicalization of the revolution and its politics and put an end to the annexation efforts.
60.
Maximilien Robespierre urged the Duke of Chartres, still a teenager, to join his plan to negotiate peace, dissolve the convention, to restore the French Constitution of 1791, the restoration of a constitutional monarchy and to free Marie-Antoinette and her children.
61.
Maximilien Robespierre demanded that relatives of the king should leave France, but Marie-Antoinette should be judged.
62.
Maximilien Robespierre spoke of vigorous measures to save the convention but left the committee within a few days.
63.
Maximilien Robespierre who was not elected 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 Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonne.
64.
Maximilien Robespierre was in effect questioning the individual right of ownership, and advocated a progressive tax and fraternity between the people of all the nations.
65.
Maximilien Robespierre said that public squares should be used to produce arms and pikes.
66.
Maximilien Robespierre openly called at the Jacobin Club "to place themselves in insurrection against corrupt deputies".
67.
Maximilien Robespierre left the convention after applause from the left side and went to the town hall.
68.
Maximilien Robespierre admitted he almost gave up his career because of his anxieties since he became a deputy.
69.
Maximilien Robespierre simply called for an inquiry into the circumstances of his death.
70.
Maximilien Robespierre did not pronounce his surname as they were never friends.
71.
Maximilien Robespierre was criticized for being the most prominently known member of the Committee, but officially the Committee was non-hierarchical.
72.
Maximilien Robespierre was particularly concerned that public officials should be virtuous.
73.
Maximilien Robespierre defended 73 Girondins "as useful", but more than 20 were sent on trial.
74.
Maximilien Robespierre attacked Danton, who had refused to take a seat in the Comite, and believed a stable government was needed which could resist the orders of the Comite de Salut Public.
75.
Maximilien Robespierre called for the dissolution of the convention; he believed they would be admired by posterity.
76.
Danton who was dangerously ill for a few weeks, possibly knowing that he could not get along with Maximilien Robespierre, quit politics and set off to Arcis-sur-Aube with his 16-year-old wife, who pitied the Queen since her trial began.
77.
Under intense emotional pressure from Lyonnaise women, Maximilien Robespierre suggested that a secret commission be set up to examine the cases of the Lyon rebels, to see if injustices had been committed.
78.
Maximilien Robespierre defended Danton and warned not to exaggerate the revolution.
79.
Maximilien Robespierre replied to the plea for an end to the Terror, justifying the collective dictatorship of the National Convention, administrative centralization, and the purging of local authorities.
80.
Maximilien Robespierre said he had to avoid two cliffs: indulgence and severity.
81.
Maximilien Robespierre protested against the various factions [Hebertists and Dantonists] that threatened the government.
82.
Maximilien Robespierre strongly believed that the Terror was still necessary; "the Government has to defend itself" [against conspirators] and "to the enemies of the people it owes only death".
83.
Maximilien Robespierre managed to acquire a small army of secret agents, which reported to him.
84.
Maximilien Robespierre was accused of organizing a revolt against the patriots and the tribunal to free her husband and Danton.
85.
When Barras and Freron paid a visit to Maximilien Robespierre, they were received in an extremely unfriendly manner.
86.
Payan, even advised to Maximilien Robespierre to get rid of the Committee of General Security, which, he said, broke the unity of action of the government.
87.
Maximilien Robespierre recalled that slavery was in contradiction with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
88.
Maximilien Robespierre argued passionately in the Assembly against the Colonial Committee, dominated by plantation and slaveholders in the Caribbean.
89.
Maximilien Robespierre did not argue for slavery's immediate abolition, but slavery advocates in France regarded Maximilien Robespierre as a "bloodthirsty innovator" and a traitor plotting to give French colonies to England.
90.
Maximilien Robespierre defended the rights of free of color at the expense of the slaves.
91.
Maximilien Robespierre criticized the former governor of Saint-Domingue Sonthonax and Etienne Polverel, who had freed slaves on Haiti, but then proposed to arm them.
92.
Maximilien Robespierre denounced the French minister to the newly formed United States, Edmond-Charles Genet, who had sided with Sonthonax, and informed the Committee not to count on the whites to manage the colony.
93.
Maximilien Robespierre 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.
94.
Maximilien Robespierre opposed the Catholic Church and the pope, particularly their policy of clerical celibacy.
95.
Maximilien Robespierre dedicated festivals to the Supreme Being, to Truth, Justice, Modesty, Friendship, Frugality, Fidelity, Immortality, Misfortune, etc.
96.
Witnesses state that throughout the "Festival of the Supreme Being", Maximilien Robespierre beamed with joy.
97.
Maximilien Robespierre was able to speak of the things about which he was passionate, including virtue, nature, deist beliefs and his disagreements with atheism.
98.
Maximilien Robespierre wore feathers on his hat and held fruit and flowers in his hands, and walked first in the festival procession.
99.
Maximilien Robespierre delivered two speeches in which he emphasized his concept of a Supreme Being: there would be no Christ, no Mohammed.
100.
Maximilien Robespierre felt ridiculed and demanded on the 26th that the investigation of Theot be stopped and Fouquier-Tinville replaced.
101.
Maximilien Robespierre said the fresh linen was for her execution.
102.
Maximilien Robespierre refused to reunite husbands, wives and children dispersed in different prisons in a common detention facility.
103.
Maximilien Robespierre used this assassination attempt against him as a pretext for scapegoating the British.
104.
Maximilien Robespierre was there, suspicious; he underestimated the strength of his opponents, according to Leuwers.
105.
Maximilien Robespierre agreed to more cooperation between the two committees.
106.
Maximilien Robespierre wanted to take away the authority of the Committee of General Security, as the committees were acting as two governments.
107.
The next day Maximilien Robespierre was compared to Catiline; he himself preferred the virtues of Cato the Younger.
108.
Maximilien Robespierre was obliged to commence the attack in the convention itself.
109.
Maximilien Robespierre decided to make himself clear in a new report.
110.
Maximilien Robespierre gave the impression that no one was his friend, that no one could be trusted.
111.
Maximilien Robespierre complained of being blamed for everything; and that not only England but members of the Committee of General Security were involved in intrigue to bring him down.
112.
Maximilien Robespierre addressed the moderate party, by reminding them that they were indebted to him for the lives of the 73 Girondins.
113.
Maximilien Robespierre wanted to "Punish the traitors, purge the bureau 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".
114.
Collot questioned Maximilien Robespierre's motives, accusing him of seeking to become a dictator.
115.
The Convention decided not to have the text printed, as Maximilien Robespierre's speech had first to be submitted to the two committees.
116.
Maximilien Robespierre was surprised that his speech would be sent to the very deputies he had intended to sue.
117.
Barras said they would all die if Maximilien Robespierre did not die.
118.
Maximilien Robespierre rushed toward the rostrum, appealed to the Plain to defend him against the Montagnards, but his voice was shouted down.
119.
Maximilien Robespierre rushed to the benches of the Left but someone cried: "Get away from here; Condorcet used to sit here".
120.
Maximilien Robespierre soon found himself at a loss for words after Vadier gave a mocking impression of him referring to the discovery of a letter under the mattress of the illiterate Catherine Theot.
121.
Maximilien Robespierre shouted that the revolution was lost when he descended the tribune.
122.
Around 8 pm Maximilien Robespierre was taken to the police administration on Ile de la Cite but refused to go to the town hall and insisted on being received in a prison.
123.
Maximilien Robespierre hesitated for legal reasons for possibly two hours.
124.
Maximilien Robespierre landed on some bayonets and a citizen, resulting in a pelvic fracture, several serious head contusions, and in an alarming state of "weakness and anxiety".
125.
Maximilien Robespierre had strength enough to crawl into a drain where he was found twelve hours later and taken to the Conciergerie.
126.
The wounded Maximilien Robespierre spent the remainder of the night at the antechamber of the Committee of General Security.
127.
Maximilien Robespierre laid on the table, his head on a pine box, his shirt covered in blood.
128.
Barras did not allow Maximilien Robespierre to be sent there too.
129.
Maximilien Robespierre was then placed in a cell in the Conciergerie.
130.
Maximilien Robespierre was the tenth called to the platform and ascended the steps of the scaffold unassisted.
131.
Maximilien Robespierre is best known for his role as a member of the Committee of Public Safety as he signed 542 arrests, especially in the spring and summer of 1794.
132.
Maximilien Robespierre exerted his influence to suppress the republican Girondins to the right, the radical Hebertists to the left and then the indulgent Dantonists in the centre.
133.
Maximilien Robespierre described him as the great conspirator against the liberty of France; she mentioned the forced enthusiasm required from the participants of the Festival of the Supreme Being.
134.
For Samuel Coleridge, one of the authors of The Fall of Maximilien Robespierre he was worse than Oliver Cromwell.
135.
Two contrasting legends around Maximilien Robespierre developed: a critical one that held Maximilien Robespierre as an irresponsible, self-serving figure whose ambitions generated widespread calamity, and a supportive one that held him as an early friend of the proletariat, about to embark on economic revolution when he fell.
136.
Maximilien Robespierre did not thunder like Danton or scream like Marat.
137.
Maximilien Robespierre's reputation peaked in the 1920s, during the Third French Republic when the influential French historian Albert Mathiez rejected the common view of Robespierre as demagogic, dictatorial, and fanatical.
138.
Maximilien Robespierre 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.
139.
Maximilien Robespierre instigated the Terror and the deaths of his peers as a measure of ensuring the Republic of Virtue but his ideals went beyond the needs and want of the people of France.
140.
Maximilien Robespierre became a threat to what he had wanted to ensure and the result was his downfall.
141.
Palmer: the easiest way to justify Maximilien Robespierre is to represent the other Revolutionists in an unfavourable or disgraceful light.
142.
For Peter McPhee, Maximilien Robespierre's achievements were monumental, but so was the tragedy of his final weeks of indecision.
143.
Maximilien Robespierre then began promoting civilian armament and the creation of a revolutionary army of 23,000 men in his periodical.
144.
Maximilien Robespierre defended the right of revolution and promoted a revolutionary armed force.
145.
McPhee stated on several previous occasions Maximilien Robespierre had admitted that he was worn out; his personal and tactical judgment, once so acute, seems to have deserted him.
146.
Maximilien Robespierre is one of the few revolutionaries not to have a street named for him in the center of Paris.