Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western Siev Episode four hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety eight. The Terror. The summer of seventeen ninety three
Speaker 1: had already seen France trembling on the edge of collapse.
Speaker 1: For an armies pressed on every frontier. Royalist uprisings and
Speaker 1: revolts scarred the provinces, particularly in the Vinde region. In Paris,
Speaker 1: bread was scarce and anger boiled. And so it was
Speaker 1: in this crucible that the revolution turned inward, devouring its
Speaker 1: own in what would soon be called the of Terror.
Speaker 1: On September seventeenth, seventeen ninety three, the National Convention took
Speaker 1: a decisive step that marked the beginning of this terrible
Speaker 1: new phase. It adopted the Law of Suspects, which authorized
Speaker 1: the arrest of anyone who, quote, by their conduct, relationships, remarks,
Speaker 1: or writings, have shown themselves to be partisans of tyranny
Speaker 1: or federalism and enemies of liberty end quote. By the
Speaker 1: stroke of the pen, suspicion suddenly became synonymous with guilt.
Speaker 1: At that same day, revolutionary government was re established in
Speaker 1: the region of Bordeaux, where moderates were arrested and imprisoned,
Speaker 1: and so the machinery of repression continued to grind in Paris.
Speaker 1: The revolution now had eyes everywhere. The neighborhood committees became
Speaker 1: ors of denunciation. Snz Used declared, we must not only
Speaker 1: punish the traders, must punish the indifferent. He who is
Speaker 1: passive in the Republic is an accomplice of the monarchy.
Speaker 1: Three days later, on September the twenty first, all women
Speaker 1: were required to wear the cockard Trochylaer, the red, white
Speaker 1: and blue emblem of the Republic, pinned conspicuously to their camps.
Speaker 1: Even fashion was policed for patriotism. The convention next move
Speaker 1: against the chaos that had engulfed the economy. On September
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, it passed the Law of General Maximum, which
Speaker 1: fixed the prices of basic goods and wages. The measure
Speaker 1: was designed to calm inflation and reassure the Parisian poor,
Speaker 1: but it also struck merchants and farmers, who saw their
Speaker 1: livelihoods constrained by revolutionary decree. Robespierre later defended the law
Speaker 1: as an act of social justice. Quote, the people are
Speaker 1: not cannibals who wish to devour the rich. They only
Speaker 1: ask that the rich devour them. No longer Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: guillotine was ready and waiting. On October II, the Convention
Speaker 1: ordered that Marie Antoinette, the Widow Cape, as she was
Speaker 1: now officially known, be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. That
Speaker 1: same day, more moderate deputies were purged. One hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six Girondins were excluded from the Assembly. The revolutions
Speaker 1: had now effectively had its center collapse. There were only
Speaker 1: now radicals on the stage both sides, and they had
Speaker 1: radical policies. Two days later, on October the fifth, the
Speaker 1: Convention adopted the Republican calendar, which was meant to erase
Speaker 1: the last vestiges of medieval Christian time. Sundays, Saints and
Speaker 1: Holy Days were all abolished. Each month would now have
Speaker 1: three ten day weeks, and year one was declared to
Speaker 1: have begun on September the twenty second, seventeen ninety two,
Speaker 1: the day the monarchy was overthrown. A deputy was hard
Speaker 1: to exclaim, quote, we have broken the last chain that
Speaker 1: bound us to tyranny and superstition. As you can imagine
Speaker 1: out in the countryside, this didn't land particularly well, only
Speaker 1: fueling the fires of revolt and rebellion from those who
Speaker 1: took solace in the old ways, and as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: and the civil war continued to rage throughout the provinces.
Speaker 1: On October the ninth, the Convention's armies recaptured Lyon, which
Speaker 1: had risen against the Jacobins months before. This victory only
Speaker 1: emboldened the radicals in Paris. On October the tenth, the Convention,
Speaker 1: at the urging of Saint Just, declared that the new
Speaker 1: Constitution of seventeen ninety three, which they had gone through
Speaker 1: so much effort to pass, would be suspended. The decree
Speaker 1: read the government of France is revolutionary until the peace.
Speaker 1: The constitution, ratified by the people but never implemented, was
Speaker 1: now put aside in favor of a revolutionary dictatorship. Then,
Speaker 1: on October the twelfth, the Convention passed yet another chilling decree. Lyon,
Speaker 1: recently captured, was to be destroyed, was to be leveled
Speaker 1: as a punishment for its rebellion. The city was to
Speaker 1: be renamed the Age, the Liberated City. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: if you've been there, you know Lyon still exists. So
Speaker 1: luckily this didn't come to pass, but it was nonetheless
Speaker 1: a stark reminder of just how revolutionary things had become
Speaker 1: just how vicious things had become. I mean, we on
Speaker 1: this podcast haven't really seen a total leveling of a
Speaker 1: city since the Romans did it to Corinth matt was
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred years earlier. Columns of prisoners, nevertheless, were executed
Speaker 1: by cannon fire or mass shootings that same day, on
Speaker 1: October the twelfth, Marie Antoinette was summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal,
Speaker 1: accused of treason, conspiracy with foreign powers, and even incest
Speaker 1: with her son, a charge that she still met with
Speaker 1: dignified silence. By the way, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever
Speaker 1: that this was the case, but she finally responded quote
Speaker 1: nature refuses to answer such a charge made against a mother.
Speaker 1: On October sixteenth, seventeen ninety three, the Queen of France,
Speaker 1: once the symbol of royal splendor, was condemned and led
Speaker 1: to the guillotine. Her hair was cut short, her hands bound.
Speaker 1: Witnesses said that she faced death with composure, asking only
Speaker 1: that the executioner not let her suffer. She was executed
Speaker 1: in the Palaesse de Revolution, where her husband had died
Speaker 1: nine months earlier. The crowd, once so fascinated by her,
Speaker 1: watched in silence. Quote, she was no longer a queen
Speaker 1: but a woman condemned. The same day, far to the north,
Speaker 1: the army of the Convention actually defeated the Austrians at
Speaker 1: the Battle of Watnees, giving the French a badly needed victory. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this triumph on the borders didn't do ease anything for
Speaker 1: the tensions that were broiling within France already. You would
Speaker 1: think that the victory would make people breathe a sigh
Speaker 1: of relief, but it didn't. Instead, the Jacobins only continued
Speaker 1: the ferocious assault against the Moderates. On October seventeenth, Republican
Speaker 1: forces crushed the Vende Royalists at Chillette, and now the
Speaker 1: war in the West became less a war and more
Speaker 1: of a campaign of extermination and revenge. General Westerman would
Speaker 1: later declare, quote, the Vende must become a cemetery, and
Speaker 1: so it did in Paris, Robes and the Committee of
Speaker 1: Public Safety turned next against the ultra revolutionaries known as
Speaker 1: the Enrajiz, who demanded still more executions in class war,
Speaker 1: and so on October twentieth, instead, the Convention ordered their repression,
Speaker 1: establishing that it was the Committee, not the mob on
Speaker 1: the streets that would now define the revolution's limits, though
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, it wouldn't have a lot of those. Religion
Speaker 1: continued to be a popular target. On October the twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: the Convention forbade religious instructions by cleric, deepening the de
Speaker 1: Christianization movement that swept France. The Girondins met their final
Speaker 1: fate soon after. On October the thirtieth, the revolutionary Tribunal
Speaker 1: sentenced twenty one Girondin leaders to death, and on October
Speaker 1: the thirty first, all of them were guillotined. Their spokesman,
Speaker 1: a man by the name of Valets, stabbed himself to
Speaker 1: death before the blade could fall. Another shouted angrily to
Speaker 1: the mob before his execution, quote, we die pure and
Speaker 1: we leave crime behind on earth. Quickly, the terror widened
Speaker 1: it's net. On November third, Olympia Deguche, the playwright who
Speaker 1: had written the Declaration of the Rights of Women and
Speaker 1: the Female Citizen, was executed for her supposed Jirondin sympathies.
Speaker 1: She wrote quickly before her death, liberty must be the
Speaker 1: portion of all or of none. Then came Philippe Egali Tee,
Speaker 1: formerly the Duke of Orleon, cousin to the late king,
Speaker 1: who had actually voted for louisse execution and now could
Speaker 1: not escape his own. He was guillotined on November seventh.
Speaker 1: Whether he regretted the execution of his cousin or not,
Speaker 1: history doesn't tell us. I think he probably did. The
Speaker 1: next day, Madame Roland, wife of the former minister and
Speaker 1: a brilliant writer herself, met the same fate. As she
Speaker 1: mounted the scaffold, she turned to the statue of nearby
Speaker 1: Liberty and cried out, Oh, Liberty, or crimes are committed
Speaker 1: in your name. Repression reached even the revolutionary's early heroes.
Speaker 1: On November the tenth, Notre Dame Cathedral was rededicated as
Speaker 1: a Temple of Reason, celebrating a new civic faith stripped
Speaker 1: of Christianity. In place of the Virgin Mary stood a
Speaker 1: woman representing liberty, and hymns to reason replace the mass one.
Speaker 1: Jacobin declared, we shall replace the mysteries of superstition with
Speaker 1: the truths of philosophy. Soon afterwards, November the twelfth Jean
Speaker 1: Sylvian ballet the Estra, the first mayor of Paris, who
Speaker 1: had actually led the tennis court oath back in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, was executed because he had ordered troops to
Speaker 1: fire on protesters in the count de Mars two years before,
Speaker 1: and so now the revolution turned and devoured its founding fathers.
Speaker 1: Even the leaders of the revolution were no longer safe.
Speaker 1: On November the seventeenth, supporters of George Danton were arrested
Speaker 1: by Robespierre's allies. Danton, returning to Paris on November the twentieth,
Speaker 1: urged indulgence in national reconciliation. His friend Camille des Mouion
Speaker 1: in Le Vu Courier pleaded for clemency, saying, we are
Speaker 1: making a terrible use of our power. The revolution is
Speaker 1: frozen and all virtue is on the scaffold, but the
Speaker 1: Committee of Public Safety would not heed mercy. No November
Speaker 1: the twenty third, the Paris Commune ordered all the churches closed,
Speaker 1: declaring that the people no longer needed temples but those
Speaker 1: of reason and liberty. Two days later, on November the
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, the Convention removed the reins of Mirrabou from
Speaker 1: the pantheon, once this man had been revered as a
Speaker 1: hero in seventeen eighty nine. Instead, they replaced his remains
Speaker 1: with those of murat the slain radical jurist. The ashes
Speaker 1: of the trader make room for the martyr, A deputy
Speaker 1: proclaimed December brought both triumph and terror. On December the twelfth,
Speaker 1: the rebel Vende army was defeated at Lemon, slaughtered as
Speaker 1: they fled. A week later, on December nineteenth, British forces
Speaker 1: withdrew from Toulon after a brilliant plan executed by a
Speaker 1: young artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose name will soon start
Speaker 1: to dominate our story. The Convention celebrated the news with
Speaker 1: a thunderous applause. Four days later, on December the twenty third,
Speaker 1: General Westerman crushed the last Venden army at seven A.
Speaker 1: Six thousand prisoners were summarily executed. Quote no more bendet,
Speaker 1: he wrote to Paris. It is dead beneath our sabers.
Speaker 1: I have buried it in the swamps and woods of
Speaker 1: seven A. And finally, on December the twenty fourth, the
Speaker 1: Convention renamed Toulan Porte la main port of the Mountain
Speaker 1: in honor of the Jacobin faction the Montagnards. The Republic
Speaker 1: was victorious, but blood drenched every triumph. The last weeks
Speaker 1: of seventeen ninety three had seen the Republic cover itself
Speaker 1: in victory and gore. France's enemies had been driven from
Speaker 1: Toulon and Leon and lay in ruins, But within the
Speaker 1: walls of the Convention, triumph brought no peace. The guillotine,
Speaker 1: sharpened by paranoia and principle, still demanded more victims. Robespierre
Speaker 1: in the Committee of Public Safety, were determined that no faction,
Speaker 1: however patriotic, would rival the Revolution's authority. The new year
Speaker 1: began with an ominous betrayal. On January the eighth, seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety four, Robespierre rose before the Jacobin Club to denounce
Speaker 1: Fabre and Aente, the witty poet and playwright who had
Speaker 1: co created the Republican calendar and who had once shared
Speaker 1: a table with Danton. Robespierre now shockingly accused him of quote, corruption, intrigue,
Speaker 1: and fraud against the state end quote. Febra had been
Speaker 1: implicated in a financial scandal involving falsified decrees and misappropriated
Speaker 1: funds from the liquidation of the East India Company. Five
Speaker 1: days later he was arrested. Robespierre sneered, quote, the Republic
Speaker 1: has no need of actors who play virtue upon the stage.
Speaker 1: The message was clear. Now your past service didn't matter.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter how witty you were, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: how close you were to Danton or anything else. If
Speaker 1: the Revolution aka Robespierre wanted you dead, the dead you were.
Speaker 1: But in the West, war actually did still rage in
Speaker 1: the Vendet. It turned out that it hadn't been totally
Speaker 1: stamped out after all. On January the twenty ninth, the
Speaker 1: young Royalist commander Alried de re la Quin, barely twenty
Speaker 1: one years old, was killed fighting at Nonuel. His death
Speaker 1: marked the symbolic but not real end of the Vendet
Speaker 1: dream of restoring the monarchy. February continued to bring both
Speaker 1: more reform and more doctrine. On February the fourth, the
Speaker 1: National Convention voted unanimously to abolish slavery in all French colonies,
Speaker 1: a revolutionary act unmatched in Europe. Dan Ton thundered made
Speaker 1: the colonies perish rather than a principle. The decree, however,
Speaker 1: was unevenly enforced, and it wouldn't reach critically Haiti until
Speaker 1: months later. Where someone will introduce next time to Saint
Speaker 1: louve Tour and his African soldiers were already fighting for freedom.
Speaker 1: The next day, on February the fifth, Robespierre gave one
Speaker 1: of his most famous speeches before the Convention, a chilling
Speaker 1: justification the terror itself. The foundations, he declared, of a
Speaker 1: popular government and revolution are virtue and terror. Terror without
Speaker 1: virtue is disastrous. Virtue without terror is powerless. The government
Speaker 1: of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
Speaker 1: The applause was thunderous, but the logic was terrifying. From
Speaker 1: now on, every execution could be dressed up in the
Speaker 1: robes of moral necessity. The same week, a name barely
Speaker 1: noticed outside the army took its first step towards immortality.
Speaker 1: On February sixth, Napoleon Bonaparte was promoted to general for
Speaker 1: his role at Toulon at twenty four. The Corsican officer
Speaker 1: who had written revolutionary pamphlets in a Marseilles attic, was
Speaker 1: now in command of artillery. Yet amid the glory, there
Speaker 1: was horror. On the same day, the Convention recalled Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste Carrier from Nance, where he ordered mass drownings of
Speaker 1: prisoners Republican baptisms. He called them thousands of men, women
Speaker 1: and children had been sealed in barges and sunk on
Speaker 1: the La River. Even the Jacobins this time recoiled at
Speaker 1: the scale of the slaughter. On February tenth, the radical
Speaker 1: priest Jacques Roue Wants, the voice of the enraged san Culau,
Speaker 1: committed suicide in prison. His death symbolized the vanishing of
Speaker 1: the revolution's early popular spirit beneath the new centralized dictatorship
Speaker 1: of the Committee's. Tensions within the revolution now hardened into
Speaker 1: open hostility. On February the twenty second, the journalist Jacques Ebert,
Speaker 1: leader of the Cour Club and fiery editor of Les
Speaker 1: Pierre Duchane, delivered a blistering attack against both d'Antin and Robespierre.
Speaker 1: He accused them of hypocrisy, Robespierre for his piety, Dantine
Speaker 1: for his luxury. His words fanned the flames among the
Speaker 1: Parisian sections, where bread was scarce an anger plentiful. By
Speaker 1: early March, Abart and his followers, the Albertists, were calling
Speaker 1: for insurrection. On March the fourth, Jean Bautiste Carrier, himself
Speaker 1: recently recalled from Nance, demanded a new explosion of the
Speaker 1: people's wrath, but the committees had been listening. On March
Speaker 1: the eleventh, they denounced the courtier's planned uprising as a
Speaker 1: conspiracy against the Republic. Two days later, on March thirteenth,
Speaker 1: Saint just now president of the Convention, declared that a
Speaker 1: conspiracy exists to destroy liberty. That very night, Abert and
Speaker 1: his allies were all arrested. Robespierre told the convention bluntly quote,
Speaker 1: all factions must perish from the same blow. Their trial
Speaker 1: began on March the twenty first. Justice under the Terror
Speaker 1: moved quickly to discredit them. The Advertists were tried alongside
Speaker 1: foreign bankers and royalist agents. They were accused not only
Speaker 1: of conspiracy, but of plotting to restore the monarchy under
Speaker 1: the guise of revolution. Just three days later, the verdict
Speaker 1: came death. Abert, ron Sin and other courtiers were guillotined
Speaker 1: That same evening. Their bodies were thrown into unmarked pits.
Speaker 1: Their followers cowed into silence. The parents Commune, once the
Speaker 1: heart of the people's very revolution u the spirit of France,
Speaker 1: was now totally obedient to Robespierre's will. But Robespierre's triumph
Speaker 1: was fleeting. Having destroyed the radicals, he next turned to
Speaker 1: the moderates the indulgence, whose mercy now seemed subversive. On
Speaker 1: March the twenty seventh, the mathematician and philosopher Concordett, once
Speaker 1: a champion of reason and rits, was arrested. Two days later,
Speaker 1: he was found dead in his cell, likely by suicide,
Speaker 1: and the Enlightenment, quite frankly, seemed to die with him.
Speaker 1: On March the thirtieth, the Committee struck again. This time Danton,
Speaker 1: Camille des Moyen, and their friends were all arrested. Danton thundered,
Speaker 1: they will show by head to the people. It will
Speaker 1: be worth showing. His trial began on April the second.
Speaker 1: He mocked the proceedings, turning the courtroom into a stage.
Speaker 1: The judgeons were quick, actually to silence him, and on
Speaker 1: April the fourth, the Convention decreed that any defendant who
Speaker 1: insulted the tribunal would be barred from speaking in their
Speaker 1: own defense, and so D'Anton, once the darling of the extremists,
Speaker 1: found himself gagged literally by law. Two days later, on
Speaker 1: April the fifth, seventeen ninety four, Danton, Desmoyennes and their
Speaker 1: companions all went to the guillotine. My only regret, said Desmouyennes,
Speaker 1: as he embraced his friend is dying before my mother.
Speaker 1: D'anton's last words to the executioner were defiant. Show my
Speaker 1: head to the people. He said, it is worth it.
Speaker 1: The Revolution had now condemned its loudest voices, reason and pity.
Speaker 1: As one Parisian observer wrote, liberty was left standing, but
Speaker 1: she was splashed with blood. Robespierre now stood unchallenged. On
Speaker 1: April the eighth, he denounced Joseph Fouquet at the Jacobins
Speaker 1: as a man of intrigue and ambition. On April the tenth,
Speaker 1: the Conspiracy of Luxembourg, a group of supposed followers of
Speaker 1: both Danton and Herbert were all put on trial. Nineteen
Speaker 1: were speedily condemned and executed on April the tenth. Among
Speaker 1: them was Lucy des Mullen's, Camille's young widow, and the
Speaker 1: widow of Herbert, then several others who were just too
Speaker 1: close to the men who died before them. Lucy Desmullen's,
Speaker 1: by the way, went calmly to her death, merely whispering,
Speaker 1: I am happy to die like my husband. The same week,
Speaker 1: on April the fourteenth, Robespierre requested that Jean Jacques Rousseau's
Speaker 1: ashes be transferred to the pantheon. The philosopher of virtue
Speaker 1: is to become now the revolution's spiritual ancestor. On April
Speaker 1: the fifteenth, Saint Jus urged greater centralization of police power
Speaker 1: under the Committee of Public Safety, and the machinery of
Speaker 1: surveillance now quickly reached into every neighborhood. But not amazingly,
Speaker 1: not everyone was cowed. On April the nineteenth, the Treaty
Speaker 1: of the Hague bound Britain and Prussia together in a
Speaker 1: renewed war against France. On April the twentieth, Deputy Billard
Speaker 1: Varen issued a veiled warning quote, all people jealous of
Speaker 1: their liberty should be on guard, even against the virtues
Speaker 1: of those who occupy eminent positions end quote. He did
Speaker 1: not name Robespierre, but everybody under stood his meaning. Two
Speaker 1: days later, on April the twenty second, several other figures
Speaker 1: of the early Revolution were all guillotined, relics of a
Speaker 1: more moderate age, swept away by the very terror that
Speaker 1: they had helped to unleash. On April the twenty third,
Speaker 1: Robespierre established a new Bureau of Police under his own
Speaker 1: private control, rivaling the existing police of the Committee of
Speaker 1: General Security. This new network of spies, informers, and agents
Speaker 1: reported directly to him, and he could pick and choose
Speaker 1: what information he wanted to pass on. By spring, Robespierre
Speaker 1: decided to cleanse the Revolution of both atheism and corruption.
Speaker 1: He wanted to replace the cult of reason with a
Speaker 1: faith in civic morality. On May seventh, he proposed that
Speaker 1: quote the French people recognize the existence of a supreme
Speaker 1: being and the immortality of the soul. Religion would no
Speaker 1: longer belong to the Catholic priests. It would belong to
Speaker 1: the patriots. The convention unsurprisingly proved unanimously. The next day,
Speaker 1: on May the eighth, twenty seven former tax farmers, including
Speaker 1: the scientist Antoine Lavesier, were all guillotined. The judge is
Speaker 1: said to have sneered, the republic has no need of savants,
Speaker 1: and looked on as the man who founded modern chemistry
Speaker 1: went to his death. The same day, the Revolutionary Tribunal
Speaker 1: of Paris was expanded to absorb jurisdiction from the provincial courts,
Speaker 1: now bringing almost every case in France under the control
Speaker 1: of the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre. The terror
Speaker 1: now touched every part of the nation. Two days later,
Speaker 1: on May tenth, Madame Elizabeth, the devout sister of Louis
Speaker 1: the sixteenth, was executed. Witnesses said that she prayed calmly
Speaker 1: on the scaffold before the blade fell. That same day,
Speaker 1: the former mayor was arrested and replaced by a close
Speaker 1: ally of Robespierre, and the government of France now bore
Speaker 1: in every department and every way the unmistakable stamp of
Speaker 1: his power. War and famine continued to batter France, but
Speaker 1: by June seventeen ninety four, the Republic had survived the
Speaker 1: storms of invasion and insurrection. On June the second, a
Speaker 1: French grain convoy from the United States safely reached Breast,
Speaker 1: despite losing devan ships to the British, another proof that providence,
Speaker 1: or maybe the Supreme Being I guess, favored the Republic.
Speaker 1: Two days later, on June fourth, Maximilian Robespierre was unanimously
Speaker 1: elected president of the National Convention. He was now in
Speaker 1: all but name, the ruler of France. Harris prepared for
Speaker 1: the Great Festival of the Supreme Being to be held
Speaker 1: that month. Liberty and virtue were to be enthroned reason
Speaker 1: and rebellion buried. Yet behind the painted smiles and rehearsed hymns,
Speaker 1: many whispered what Destonte had once foreseen, that the revolution
Speaker 1: was now truly devouring itself. By the summer of seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety four, the revolution seemed both triumphant and exhausted. France's
Speaker 1: armies were victorious on nearly every front, its internal revolts
Speaker 1: crushed and its enemies divided. But inside Paris, suspicion reigned.
Speaker 1: The revolution had conquered its foes, but it couldn't conquer
Speaker 1: the ever present fear. On June the eighth, seventeen ninety four,
Speaker 1: which according to the new calendar, was year two, Harris
Speaker 1: awoke to a spectacle unlike any it had seen. A
Speaker 1: vast amphitheater rose on the Camp de Mars, crowned with
Speaker 1: garlands and flowers. Crowds filled the terraces, dressed in white
Speaker 1: and blue, while musicians played hymns composed for the occasion.
Speaker 1: At the center of it all, dressed in a sky
Speaker 1: blue coat and bearing a bouquet of lilies and wheat,
Speaker 1: stood Maximilian Robespierre. It was the Festival of the Supreme
Speaker 1: being a civic celebration of virtue and moral renewal. He
Speaker 1: announced triumphantly, the day forever marks the triumph of humanity
Speaker 1: over atheism. He led the convention in a slow procession
Speaker 1: up an artificial mountain, crowned by the statue of Wisdom,
Speaker 1: triumphing over weis. Deputies followed, but many muttered under their breath,
Speaker 1: and look, one whispered, the Tyrant of France is celebrating
Speaker 1: his coronation. Though the crowd cheered, the deputy's faces remained
Speaker 1: ashen and cold. Robespierre's exalted tone apparently alarmed them. One
Speaker 1: man later sneered, he thinks himself a new messiah. The festival,
Speaker 1: meant to unite France in a new moral purpose, instead
Speaker 1: simply isolated Robespierre from his colleagues. Two days later, on
Speaker 1: the tenth of June, the mask of virtue fell away
Speaker 1: to reveal terror in its purest form. The Convention, at
Speaker 1: Robespierre's urging, passed the law of twenty two pararial drafted
Speaker 1: by his ally. Trials would now be almost instantaneous. Witnesses
Speaker 1: were no longer required. Verdicts were essentially in either or
Speaker 1: acquittal or death. According to San juist the people have
Speaker 1: no need of lawyers. From June the eleventh to July
Speaker 1: the twenty seventh, the revolutionary Tribunal condemned one thousand, three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six people to death, more than had
Speaker 1: perished in the previous fourteen months combined. Not a single person,
Speaker 1: not one, was acquitted. The prisons overflowed. The guillotine stood
Speaker 1: permanently on the police des Revolution, it's blade rising and
Speaker 1: falling with a mechanical rhythm. The law also stripped the
Speaker 1: Convention of its own immunity. Deputies could now be arrested
Speaker 1: only by the vote of the entire body. The gesture
Speaker 1: meant to protect them did nothing to calm their dread.
Speaker 1: Murmured one, we are all on the list. On June
Speaker 1: the twelfth, Robespierre rose in the Convention and, without naming names,
Speaker 1: announced that he would soon be demanding the heads of
Speaker 1: quote traders who conspire within these walls. No one was safe.
Speaker 1: Fearing the worst, Carnaut, an army organizer, quietly set much
Speaker 1: of the Parisian artillery to the front on June the
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, depriving the capital of its guns. Two days later,
Speaker 1: French forces under General Jardan won a decisive victory at
Speaker 1: the Battle of Flus on June the twenty six He
Speaker 1: drove the Austrians from the field, and so the first
Speaker 1: time in years, France's borders were secure. Peace, however, was
Speaker 1: the last thing that the terror needed. Inside the committees,
Speaker 1: the War of Suspicion opened up into complete and total hostility.
Speaker 1: On June the twenty ninth, Billiard Cernaud Colbert he Bows
Speaker 1: accused Robespierre of acting like a dictator. He stormed out
Speaker 1: of the Committee in Public Safety and would not return
Speaker 1: for almost a month. From his refuge at the Jacobin Club,
Speaker 1: Robespierre struck back on July the first. He accused both
Speaker 1: the committees of harboring conspirators and traders, warning, quote, I
Speaker 1: am surrounded by perjury and hypocrisy. They want to murder
Speaker 1: me end quote. His audience applauded, but honestly, even among
Speaker 1: the Jacobins, there was a lot of unease. Victories abroad
Speaker 1: only deep in the divide. On July the eighth, the
Speaker 1: French captured Brussels, extending French arms deep into Belgium. Yet
Speaker 1: in Paris, Robespierre continued to speak as though none of
Speaker 1: this had happened, lamenting only plots and enemies, though he
Speaker 1: refused to name them. At the Jacobin Club on the
Speaker 1: ninth of July, he denied having made a rest lists,
Speaker 1: but again hinted darkly that traitors must soon be punished.
Speaker 1: On the fourteenth of July, the very anniversary of the bastial,
Speaker 1: he ordered that Joseph Fouquet, one of his closest allies,
Speaker 1: be expelled from the Jacobin Club. He yelled, you are
Speaker 1: the image of corruption. Usche left the meeting hall and muttering,
Speaker 1: only I will live to see him. Robespierre fall. Now,
Speaker 1: for a moment, it seemed like reconciliation might be possible,
Speaker 1: that everybody might go through this okay. On the twenty
Speaker 1: third of July, Robespierre attended a meeting of the Committees
Speaker 1: of Public Safety and General Security. Smiles were forced, but
Speaker 1: hands were shaken. The same day, many others were executed,
Speaker 1: including Alexandre de Beauharnes. His widow, whose name was Josephine,
Speaker 1: would soon catch the eye of a young Napoleon Bonaparte.
Speaker 1: A day later, the young poet Andrea Canier, who had
Speaker 1: dared to criticize the terror, was guillotined he wrote his
Speaker 1: last poem in prison quote as for me, I am calm.
Speaker 1: I await without fear the sleep that will close my
Speaker 1: eyes forever. The blood letging was actually approaching its end,
Speaker 1: though no one knew that yet. On July the twenty sixth,
Speaker 1: the eight of the month of Thermidor, rose Pierre returned
Speaker 1: to the Convention to deliver a furious two hour speech.
Speaker 1: He denounced quote traitors in the Committees of Public Safety
Speaker 1: and General Security end quote, but again he refused to
Speaker 1: name them, saying only I have seen tyranny, and I
Speaker 1: will strike it down wherever it hides. At first, the
Speaker 1: Convention voted to publish the speech, but then two members
Speaker 1: rose and challenged Robespierre directly on the floor for the
Speaker 1: first time. They demanded to know name them, shouting who
Speaker 1: are the traders? Robespierre stood silent, and the assembly quickly
Speaker 1: turned against him. His speech wasn't published after all. It
Speaker 1: was instead referred to the committee's for further examination. A
Speaker 1: polite burial. The next morning, July twenty seventh, or the
Speaker 1: ninth of the month of Thermidor, Robespierre entered the Convention
Speaker 1: with his allies Sanuist Cohan Augustine, Robespierre and Lebas. Saint
Speaker 1: Just began to speak, but he was interrupted. Holding up
Speaker 1: a dagger, he shouted to the man, I will stab
Speaker 1: him if the Convention does not order his arrest. Uproar followed.
Speaker 1: One by one. Deputies rose to condemn Saint Just as
Speaker 1: a tyrant, and the Convention instead voted to arrest Robespierre
Speaker 1: and his allies. In the streets, confusion reigned. The commander
Speaker 1: of the National Guard called for insurrection and stationed twenty
Speaker 1: four hundred guards at the Hotel de Ville, but the
Speaker 1: people hesitated. The Jacobins remained silent. The five arrested men
Speaker 1: were shuttled from prison to prison, each refusing to take them.
Speaker 1: Near nightfall, they were finally just escorted to a police
Speaker 1: administration site. Now round ten pm, a delegation from the
Speaker 1: Commune arrived, urging rose Pierre to join the uprising. The Convention,
Speaker 1: now desperate, declared everyone outlaws, meaning that they could be
Speaker 1: executed without trial. At the Hotel de Ville, the rebels
Speaker 1: debated while the city slept. No crowds gathered to support them.
Speaker 1: Though no bells rang, it seemed like the revolution had
Speaker 1: gotten tired of blood. At two In the morning of July,
Speaker 1: the twenty eighth troops loyal to the Convention stormed into
Speaker 1: the Hotel de Ville without resistance. In the confusion, Robespierre
Speaker 1: was shot through the jaw, some say by soldiers, some
Speaker 1: by his own hand. His brother Augustine was also badly
Speaker 1: injured jumping from a window. At dawn, they were all
Speaker 1: dragged to the Revolutionary Tribunal for formal identification. No trial
Speaker 1: was held because they were already quote outside the law
Speaker 1: end quote. That evening, Robespierre, Saint just Cohan, Augustine Robespierre, Lebas,
Speaker 1: and twenty two others were all taken to the guillotine.
Speaker 1: The executioner ripped the bandage from Robespierre's shattered jaw, and
Speaker 1: he screamed until the blade fell. The crowd erupted in cheers,
Speaker 1: one woman crying, the tyrant is dead. On the twenty
Speaker 1: ninth of July, seventy more of his allies from the
Speaker 1: Paris Commune followed him to the scaffold. In all, one
Speaker 1: hundred and six allies of Robespierre were executed in just
Speaker 1: two days. The guillotine that had one symbolized virtue, finally
Speaker 1: fell silent the next day. The Convention repealed the Law
Speaker 1: of twenty two. Prairial prisoners were released, the revolutionary Tribunal
Speaker 1: was curtailed, and the terror was over. One deputy remarked,
Speaker 1: we were all afraid, and now we breathe again. France
Speaker 1: remained at war, of course, but the revolution itself had
Speaker 1: now turned a corner. The Jacobin Club would soon be closed,
Speaker 1: the sansculos dispersed, the guillotine stored away. Robespierre's dream of
Speaker 1: virtue enforced by terror had ended where it began, beneath
Speaker 1: the blade of the revolution. He had once said, liberty
Speaker 1: and virtue must be the order of the day. But now,
Speaker 1: in technically year two, they lay buried together. The terror,
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most entry parts of
Speaker 1: the French Revolution, not the least of which because of
Speaker 1: the lessons that we could learn from it, that fear
Speaker 1: is an incredibly potent way to force people to do
Speaker 1: what you want, and to go them along. Everyone who
Speaker 1: took part in the terror, may be, apart from Robespierre
Speaker 1: and his closest allies, never really understood the full purpose
Speaker 1: of their actions. They went along because, like someone sort
Speaker 1: of blindly playing a game of chess, they didn't understand
Speaker 1: the implications of their next move, but once it had
Speaker 1: been done, there simply was no stopping the momentum. It's
Speaker 1: a reminder to all of us today that you cannot
Speaker 1: allow violence to creep into the political system, because once
Speaker 1: you do, it's very difficult to shut it back out. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of violence, we're going to turn from France next
Speaker 1: time and go back to the island of Sandman also
Speaker 1: known as Haiti, to catch up and see how that
Speaker 1: very violent revolution is getting on and watch the rise
Speaker 1: of Duissaint l' viture