Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/628

Rh 604 ROBESPIERRE joined the committee of public safety, and the laws of the maximum and of the suspects were by no means of his creation. The reason why he is almost universally regarded as its creator and the dominant spirit in the committee of public safety is not hard to discover. Men like Carnot and Billaud-Varenne were not conspicuous speakers in the convention, nor were they the idols of any section of the populace; but Robespierre had a fanatical following among the Jacobins and was admittedly the most popular orator in the convention. His panegyrics on the system of revolutionary government and his praise of virtue led his hearers to believe that the system of the Terror, instead of being monstrous, was absolutely laudable ; his pure life and admitted incorruptibility threw a lustre on the com- mittee of which he was a member; and his colleagues offered no opposition to his posing as their representative and reflecting some of his personal popularity upon them so long as he did not interfere with their work. Moreover, he alone never left Paris, whilst all the others, except Barere, were constantly engaged on missions to the armies, the navy, and the provinces. It has been asserted that Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just took upon them- selves the direction of "la haute politique," while the other members acted only in subordinate capacities ; un- doubtedly it would have suited Robespierre to have had this believed, but as a matter of fact he was in no way especially trusted in matters of supreme importance. After this explanation it may be said at once that Robespierre was not the author of the overthrow of the Dantonists and the Hebertists, though he thoroughly agreed with the majority and had no desire to save them, the principles of both parties being obnoxious to him. The Hebertists were communists in the true meaning of the word. They held that each commune should be self- governing, and, while admitting the right of a central authority to levy men and money for the purposes of the state, they believed that in purely internal matters, as well as in determining the mode in which men and money were to be raised, the local government ought to be supreme. This position of the Hebertists was of course obnoxious to the great committee, who believed that suc- cess could only be won by their retention of absolute power; and in the winter of 1794-95 it became obvious that the Hebertist party must perish, or its opposition to the committee would grow too formidable owing to its paramount influence in the commune of Paris. Robes- pierre shared his colleagues' fear of the Hebertist opinions, and he had a personal reason for disliking that party of atheists and sansculottes, since he believed in the necessity of religious faith, and was too much of a gentleman not to detest their imitation of the grossness that belongs to the lowest class of the populace. In 1792 he had indig- nantly thrown from him the cap of liberty which an ardent admirer had placed upon his head ; he had never pandered to the depraved tastes of the mob by using their language; and to the last day of his life he wore knee-breeches and silk stockings and wore his hair powdered. His position towards the Dantonist party was of a different character. After having seen established the strong executive he had laboured for, and having moved the resolutions which finally consolidated the power of the committee of public safety in September 1793, Dan ton retired to his country house to enjoy the pleasures of domestic life. But to his retreat came the news of the means the committee used to maintain their supremacy. Danton was not a man who scrupled to shed blood when necessary, but he did not see that this continuous series of sacrifices on the guillotine was necessary ; hence he inspired Camille Desmoulins to protest against the Terror in the Vieux Cordelier, the noblest expression of revolutionary thought. Where is this system of terror to end ? what is the good of a tyranny comparable only to that of the Roman emperors as described by Tacitus? Such were the questions which Camille Desmoulins asked under Dantou's inspiration. This " moderantism," as it was called, was as objectionable to the members of the great committee as the doctrines of the Hebertists. Both' parties must be crushed. Before the blows at the leaders of those two parties were struck, Robespierre retired for a month (from 13th February to 13th March 1794) from active business in the convention and the committee, apparently to consider his position ; but he came to the conclusion that the cessation of the Reign of Terror would mean the loss of that supremacy by which he hoped to establish the ideal of Rousseau, for Danton, he knew, was essentially a practical statesman and laughed at his ideas. He must have considered too that the result of his siding with Danton would probably have been fatal to himself. The result of his deliberations was that he abandoned Danton and co-operated in the attacks of the committee on the two parties. On the 15th of March he reappeared in the convention; on the 19th Hebert and his friends were arrested ; and on the 24th they were guillotined. On the 30th of March Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and their friends were arrested, and on the 5th of April they too were guillotined. It was not until after the execution of Danton that Robespierre began to develop a policy distinct from that of his colleagues in the great committee, an opposition which ended in his downfall. He began by using his influ- ence over the Jacobin Club to dominate the commune of Paris through his devoted adherents, two of whom, Fleuriot- Lescot and Payan, were elected respectively mayor and pro- cureur of the commune. He also attempted to usurp the influence of the other members of the great committee over the armies by getting his young adherent, Saint-Just, sent on a mission to the frontier. In Paris Robespierre de- termined to increase the pressure of the Terror : no one should accuse him of moderantism ; through the increased efficiency of the revolutionary tribunal Paris should tremble before him as the chief member of the great committee ; and the convention should pass whatever measures he might dictate. To secure his aims, Couthon, his other ally in the committee, proposed and carried on the 10th of June the outrageous law of 22d Prairial, by which even the appear- ance of justice was taken from the tribunal, which, as no witnesses were allowed, became a simple court of condemna- tion. The result of this law was that between the 12th of June and the 28th of July, the day of Robespierre's death, no less than 1285 victims perished on the guillotine at Paris. But before this there had taken place in Robes- pierre's life an episode of supreme importance as illustrat- ing his character and his political aims : on the 7th of May he secured a decree from the convention recognizing the existence of the Supreme Being. In His honour a great fete was held on the 8th of June ; Robespierre, as presi- dent of the convention, walked first and delivered his harangue, and as he looked around him he may well have believed that his position was secured and that he was at last within reach of a supreme power which should enable him to impose his belief on all France, and so ensure its happiness. The majority of the great committee found his popularity or rather his ascendency, for as that in- creased his personal popularity diminished useful to them, since by increasing the stringency of the Terror he strengthened the position of the committee, whilst attract- ing to himself, as occupying the most prominent position in it, any latent feeling of dissatisfaction at such stringency. Of the issue of a struggle between themselves and Robes- pierre they had little fear : they controlled the committee of general security through their alliance with its leaders.