The Robespierre Problem

A Conversation between
Colin Jones, Queen Mary, University of London
and
Peter McPhee, University of Melbourne
H-France Salon
Vol. 7, Issue 14, #6
27 October 2015

[@rosspe]

Excellent analysis from both. It turns out I am not the only one who has struggled with the enigma that is Robespierre.

[@adkjani1]

Excellent discussion. Thank you!

[@karinamoreira8636]

Thank you for this video. The debate was very insightful.

[@MsFoland]

An interesting insight into one of the men behind the French Revolution. An excellent discussion!

[@simonakovacova4791]

Yay, great to see Colin! My favourite professor!!

[@ht2a31]

Its very interesting this conversation about Robespierre thank you for it.

[@MontageLegacy]

Interesting talk.

[@richardrickford3028]

Colin Jones talks about Robespierre telling fibs when talking about himself. What I think we all have to face is that we tell fibs about ourselves when talking to people or when writing about ourselves while fibbing to ourselves that we are fibbing. This makes things very hard for historians who, however good they are also have their own personal agendas and biases. I think though Colin Jones is very much one of the better ones. I admire his books very much (and that isn't a fib)

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

nothing is so difficult as not deceiving yourself!. Wittgenstein

[@thomasshirrefs5331]

It always amazes me how historians of the French revolution never go into what it is exactly the First Republic was supposed to be. How do you understand men without addressing what they wanted to do?

[@pierrerogier5081]

Thomas Shirrefs you should read "Robespierre ou la fabrication d'un monstre " from Jean clément Martin. I don't know about the translation but he gives another point of vue about Robespierre life. Sorry for my english btw

[@audreyann1975]

@@pierrerogier5081 Your English is perfect. Thank you for mentioning this book. I am born and raised in NY and I am really interested in the French Revolution. I find it absolutely amazing that such events ever took place. Honestly I feel bad for King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I. Feel bad for lots of people who were murdered under the Robespierre era! Thank you!

[@LideeExquise]

@@pierrerogier5081 So true, Jean-Clément Martin is an essential read! His work on Vendée (another controversial area during the revolution) is groundbreaking.

[@davekoenig9935]

@@LideeExquise Check out my takes on a plausable escape of Mad Max from Paris with the little Prince to follow. Max was the only “savior” who could never turn him in for a king sized reward. So they stayed out of sight.

[@NapoleonPicard]

Because they were men without integrity who revealed themselves as monsters as soon as they achieved power.

[@Leon-cd3fg]

Robespierre is the best, the greatest man in history, I love him and no you can’t change my mind on that

[@darthkahn45]

This way toward the scaffold please citoyan.

[@Leon-cd3fg]

@@darthkahn45 nooooooo I must express my love for Citoyen Robespierre for as long as I live!!

[@mrbarbelbarbello2332]

I suppose when Moses descended from Mount Sinai he had some materials to sate the mob and the mountain in the background. Robespierre was not of the line of prophets, had nothing ultimately but a 'bag' of ideas, and one imagines everyone, at that time, had plenty of those, and a papier mache stage set. I think there is a rationale in trying re-imagine the infinite for social control, but he should have got someone else to do the speech and the walk. If he was 'sane', he was at least vain. A very interesting discussion, thank you.

[@gvbrandolini]

Interessante.

[@Natoboi]

I am doing an analysis of this conversation in my class. What are examples of the two gentlemen's view of Robespierre?

[@Leon-cd3fg]

Robespierre good Thermidorian propaganda bad

[@Natoboi]

@@Leon-cd3fg a lil late but ty :D

[@Leon-cd3fg]

@@Natoboi lol :D hope u did good on ur analysis tho

[@jackcooper3307]

Do the fucking work yourself

[@ezandman6804]

9:22 Huh yes. You mean july 1793 not 1794, right?

[@ezandman6804]

10:05 Ok, the other persons corrects to 1793.

[@pingukutepro]

I love Robespierre

[@pingukutepro]

@Siege Movement ??? wtf

[@pingukutepro]

@Siege Movement Robespierre killed because he can't control his politic if you look at every political stimulator, killing spree and dictatorship is a sign of last resort. Unlike Pol Pot he just... kill, and different from Stalin because Stalin is in a much much different situation

[@pingukutepro]

@Siege Movement I guess I smarter than you in both of sociology and politic and philosophy. If you take murder as a standard to defy a bad guy then give me a country isn't being a murderer

[@GluteSerenity]

Me, too.

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

you would not if he put you to death

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

moving futher to the left by degrees he became one of the well love , then feared then one of the most hated figures of the revolution! drunk of power destroyed him

[@sanjosemike3137]

The Robespierre "problem" is actually fairly simple: Revolutionaries often collapse into their own desire for "perfection of the revolution." This demand for perfection usually results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. George Orwell understood perfectly. Alexander Solzhenitsyn also understood. Eventually the Revolution will consume the authors of it. It remains utterly ironic that Max experienced a very similar end to his life as the King he executed, in that Max's L jaw was shot away, and the King was so obese that the blade cut through his jaw at an angle. They were "brothers" of the Guillotine. Sanjosemike (no longer in CA) Retired surgeon

[@ZeeHilal]

I mean i dont blame Robespierre. Look at his constituents from back then

[@ZeeHilal]

We want to compare him to other literary accounts of ideals from back at that time? Their constituents could barely read and were violent drunks! Robespierre was a pragmatist. Lafayette the hero!

[@elangelyt7738]

Lafayette a hero? The same man who order to fire the French people in the massacre of Champs the Mars? And the same that left the austrian front and started to march into paris with an army? Is that the hero?

[@martinsavage1623]

France was more educated prior to the revolution with 50,000 students in college/university than after, when there ended up only 12,000 students by the turn of the nineteenth century. This was because the Catholic Church, as the First Estate, were responsible for education, but the Revolution removed this responsibility of the Church, took the Church's property and money and said they would be responsible for education.

[@jamesanonymous2343]

can stand having to deal with this foreign language,,,

[@audreyann1975]

Robespierre became everything he claimed to despise.

[@tecumsehtekawana1533]

Robespierre never really changed , neither before nor during the Revolution. Many people in the years before the Revolution were scared by the vindictive tone of Robespierre, back in Arras, including his sister Charlotte, and his younger brother Bonbon, who both were much more well-balanced personalities. And then Mirabeau , Fouché and other actors of the Revolution, in the years before the Terreur, witnessed this also. What Robespierre did to Camille Desmoulins and his wife (both parents of a little Horace , 2 years old at the time), is morally absolutely monstruous. Robespierre is not enigmatic, he was a jealous, frustrated, fanatic personality. He actually was the perfect tool for those in the background who contributed to implement the Terror in France. Robespierre himself had a hint of this, that's why with Saint-Just they established a Bureau de Police to counter the Comité de Sûreté Générale , whose members were a set of very shady and sketchy characters, perfectly posted about the presence and very discreet influence of foreign-powers' agents in the corridors of the Revolution. It does not excuse Robespierre whose friend Joseph LeBon whom he sent in mission in Arras and Cambrai acted like a monster upon the population . Archives, documents and Memoires are to be read , for they are very clear.

[@guillaumelery]

Robespierre did change during the revolution, to adapt to a context that challenged his values. "The Terror", as it was called afterwards, was implemented to defend a weak because isolated revolutionary system. France was being attacked from the inside as well as from the outside, the slightest restraint would have been fatal to the Revolution, and has been. This idea might have pushed the Convention and the Comités to condemn people who were just suspects. I believe that your invocation of an absolute morality is here misplaced, as well as your psychological analysis, a bit cheap, if I may say. I'm afraid your explanation is far too simple and eludes the complexity of the time and the number of people and interests involved. It is way too close to the black legend that was started by the venal members of the Convention who abusively used the guillotine in the name of Robespierre to cause his fall. Some of them were those who "acted like monsters" in provincial France, because Robespierre had called them back for them to be judged for what they did. Robespierre, the policy of terror and its historical context must be seriously studied before being judged morally.

[@tecumsehtekawana1533]

Robespierre has that power still today : he leaves no one indifferent. Imagine you'd be in the same room as Maximilien Robespierre, i think you'd be both impressed, fascinated and slightly afraid (or even darn scared) . Remember how implacably he sent to the guillotine not only Camille Desmoulins, but also his young wife Lucile , leaving his own filleul an orphan. Then, yes, i understand you'd be fascinated by Robespierre: brilliant orator, staunch and relentless defendor of the poor and the oppressed, yes, he has good arguments, for sure. Then, he was aware of this "conspiration de l'étranger", but had no time to seriously see to it. The British spies from Pitt's cabinet had managed to set havock , in an undergound way ,on France. So, i perfectly see your point of view, but my little finger tells me people are still taken in by the Incorruptible, paradoxically so too, as one can just feel he had no intent to lie to anyone. Please remember these words of Robespierre in the beginning of autumn 1793, about Lyon: " il faut que le rasoir national se promène sur la tête de tous les conspirateurs". What he said, he did. Read the memories of Charlotte Robespierre, of Barras, and Durand-Maillane, ...all three agree to the fright and fear Robespierre inspired to people. Even at school when a little boy he had that aura. Documents, archives, memories : read them. They are very clear on the man. Did Tallien or Fouché act like monsters? Tallien and his mistress Teresa Cabarrus saved people from the guillotine, to the peril of their lives. Fouché? a monster ? i'd say a fox, a brilliant opponent to the Incorruptible. The brain of Thermidor. Okay Lol i'll stop there because ther's so many things to say about this most fascinating period.

[@tecumsehtekawana1533]

PS: just this little phrase from the House of Lords in 1795, by the duke of Bedford: "our government has made many efforts to implement the regime of Terreur in France". The Terreur , _let's stop being naive please!_, was not implemented because of so-called ennemies of the interior, ...CUI PRODEST ? money and revenge from Albion caused the Terreur in France. Who financed it? The bankers Boyd, Ker, Perregaux (he's at the Panthéon Lol !) , Beaune and Winter. When the battles of France against the rest of Europe were won step by step, was it necessary to continue the bloodshed? I think not. Why did Robespierre insist it continues (22 prairial an II) : because Robespierre and Saint-Just wanted to implement the "new man" , the "new and pure, virtuous society", ...these Utopians perfectly served, without even realizing, the Saint-James's cabinet plan of revenge over France.

[@guillaumelery]

tecumseh tekawana Whereas you refer to sources I have not read yet, some of your assertions, despite being supported by quotations, are completely incompatible with the works I have read from very serious french historians specialized in the French Revolution, such as Albert Mathiez or Albert Soboul. Allow me to be wary of your sources. For example, I wouldn't trust thé British Parliament for understanding what was going on in France at that time, and having in such a conspiracy theory is misunderstanding the dynamics in opposition (I refer to the previously mentioned historians, because it is far too long to explain it here). Furthermore, everything that I have read mentions the fact that Robespierre was a convinced pacifist, and his want to stop the war as soon as possible, even when the majority of the members of the Convention didn't.

[@staalforsfh]

@@guillaumelery Being wary of sources presented is indeed important. Such is the case here as well, when you mention only two fairly old marxist historians that both would support your own narrative for obvious ideological reasons. I do not mean to accuse you of reading selectively to suit a certain bias, but I would warn people that the problem is a lot more complex than what only the maxists say.

[@GeneralCalculus]

Robespierre did nothing wrong.

[@Leon-cd3fg]

That’s a real fact right there

[@MontageLegacy]

Ehm....

[@philv2529]

What about all the beheadings?

[@thedogfromtheshakedownroad1985]

@@philv2529 womp womp

[@jackcooper3307]

I mean the Law of 22nd Prairial might’ve been the most tyrannical piece of legislation in European history and he was definitely responsible for that

[@skandababy]

It's simple: he was NO saint.