J. M. Thompson - Robespierre

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Text originally published in 1935 under the same title.

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Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

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ROBESPIERRE

By

J. M. THOMPSON

Contents

1. Accounts of debates and reports of speeches in the Constituent Assembly, Legislative Assembly, and National Convention, are taken, unless otherwise stated, from the Moniteur ( rimpression , 1863) and will be found under the dates given.

2. Accounts of proceedings at the Jacobin Club are taken, unless otherwise stated, from Aulard, La Socit des Jacobins (188997), and will be found under the dates given.

3. The following abbreviations are used for books or periodicals frequently referred to:

A.H. = Annales Historiques.

A.R. = Annales Rvolutionnaires.

Arch. Parl. = Archives Parlementaires.

Aulard = A. Aulard, Histoire Politique de la Rvolution franaise ( e dition , 1921).

B. and R. = Buchez et Roux, Histoire parlementaire de la Rvolution franaise (18348).

Blanc = Louis Blanc, Histoire de la Rvolution franaise (1847).

Carlyle = Thomas Carlyle, The French Rvolution (1837).

Carnet = Le Carnet de Robespierre , in Mathiez, Robespierre Terroriste (1921), pp. 5678.

Charlotte = H. Fleischmann, Charlotte Robespierre et ses Mmoires (1909).

Corresp. = Correspondence de Maximilien et Augustin Robespierre, recueillie et publie par Georges Michon (1926).

Courtois = Rapport fait au nom de la commission charg de lexamen des papiers trouves chez Robespierre et ses complices, par E-B. Courtois (1795).

Croker = Essays on the early period of the French Revolution, by the late Right Hon. John Wilson Croker (1857).

C.P.S. = Aulard, Recueil des Actes du Comit de Salut Public (188999).

Deslandres = Maurice Deslandres, Histoire Constitutionnelle de la France de 1789 1870 (1932).

Esquiros = A. Esquiros, Histoire des Montagnards (1847).

Fleischmann = H. Fleischmann, Robespierre et les femmes (1909).

Gower = The Despatches of Earl Gower , ed. Oscar Browning (1885).

Hamel = Histoire de Robespierre et du Coup dtat du 9 thermidor par Ernest Hamel (ed. Cinqualbre, 3 vols. in 2, n.d.).

Jac. = A. Aulard, La Socit des Jacobins (188997).

Jaurs = Jean Jaurs, Histoire socialiste de la Rvolution franaise (ed. Mathiez, 19224).

Lamartine = A. de Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins (ed. 1902).

Lav. = Histoire nationale de la France contemporaine (ed. Lavisse), tom. 12 (1920).

Le Blond = La vie et les crimes de Robespierre ...par M. le Blond de Neuvglise (1795).

Lentre = G. Lentre, Robespierre et la Mre de Dieu (ed. 1926).

Lewes = George Henry Lewes, The Life of Maximilien Robespierre (ed. 1899).

Mathiez = Albert Mathiez, The French Revolution (E.T. of La Rvolution franaise , 1922), 1924.

Michelet = J. Michelet, Histoire de la Rvolution franaise (184753).

Michon = Corresp. above.

N. and Q. = Notes and Queries.

Ording = Arne Ording, Le Bureau de police du Comit de Salut Public (1930).

Pap. ind. = Papiers indites trouvs chez Robespierre, Saint-Just , etc. (1828).

Paris = J. Paris, La jeunesse de Robespierre (1870).

Proyart = J. M. Proyart, La vie de Maximilien Robespierre (1850).

R.F. = Rvolution Franaise.

R.H. = Revue Historique.

R.H.R.F. = Revue Historique de la Rvolution Franaise.

R.Q.H. = Revue des Questions Historiques.

Stfane-Pol. = Stfane-Pol, Autour de Robespierre : le Conventionnel Le Bas (1900).

Tourneux = M. Tourneux , Les sources bibliographiques de lhistoire de la Rvolution franaise (1898).

Tuetey = Tuetey, Rpertoire des sources bibliographiques de lhistoire de Paris pendant la Rvolution (1889).

Vellay = C. Vellay, Discours et rapports de Robespierre (1908).

Villiers = Pierre Villiers, Souvenirs dun dport (1802).

Walter = G. Walter, Robespierre (1936).

Ward = Reginald Somerset Ward, Maximilien Robespierre: a study in deterioration (1934).

I

MAXIMILIEN MARIE ISIDORE DE ROBESPIERRE was born at Arras on May 6, 1758. His father was Maximilien Barthlemy Franois de Robespierre, and his mother Jacqueline Marguerite Carraut.

If there was any Irish strain in the Robespierre family; if their name had been corrupted from some original Robert Spiers, Roberts Peter, Rosper, Roper, Rooper, or Roth Fitz Piers; or if there was something Hibernian in Maximiliens character or countenance which might have come from across the Channel; at any rate, the family had been French ever since the fifteenth century. From Gilles de Romespierres, Ronmespierre, or Roumespierre, mentioned in 1429-31, and his grandson Guillaume, whose seal, bearing a coat of arms, appears on a document of 1462, the family name and home can be traced through a continuous line of Robespierres for over 300 years. The early bearers of the name followed many professions. Jean de Rouvespieres (mid-fifteenth century) kept an inn at Paris; Robert was a Prior; Jean served in the Kings mounted guard; and whilst Baudouin held ecclesiastical benefices at Cambrai and Hesdin, by appointment of Pope Eugene IV (14319), Pierre of Ruitz was a common laboureur , who borrowed money from the Municipality, and carried on a small business in the sale of timber and stone. But before long, though now and again a younger son would turn priest or publican, the family settled down in the suburbs of the law, and in that district of north-east France whose corners are formed by the towns of Douai, Cambrai, and Arras. Jean, in the early sixteenth century, was huissier au conseil dArtois , and Auditeur royal at Bthune; his son Robert combined a clerkship with a small grocery business; his great-grandson, another Robert, was clerk, attorney, and notary-public at Harnes, Henin, and Carvin, near Lens; and Carvin remained the chief home of the family, till finally Maximiliens grandfather and father donned the barristers gown, and enjoyed a respectable, if not very remunerative practice at Arras, the judicial and ecclesiastical capital of Artois.

The grandfather, the first Maximilien, tried to re-establish the family fortunes by marrying an inn-keepers daughter, who brought him some house property at Arras; and he almost achieved fame when, in 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, appointed him one of the first office-holders of the Masonic Lodge with which he rewarded the town for six months hospitality.

From this respectable but undistinguished family Robespierres father inherited a legal connexion, a scrap of property, a coat of arms, a town house, and the right to put de before his name. The two houses in the Place de Chaudronniers and the rue des Bouchers might bring in some 1215,000 livres a year: but property and practice together meant meagre wealth to one of a family of fourteen, with eight children. It was soon necessary to repudiate the payment for an annual obit and weekly mass incurred under the will of an ancestress; when Marie Marguerite married, she had no dowry but her furniture; and all that the grand-children ultimately inherited was the inadequate sum of 8,000 livres . Robespierres maternal grandfather was, indeed, a brewer; but the Carraut property disappeared in the payment of debts and bequests. Two daughters and another son followed rapidlyMarie Marguerite Charlotte (born on February 8, 1760), Henriette Eulalie Franchise (December 28, 1761), and Augustin Bon Joseph (January 21,1763); till, with the birth of a fifth child which did not survive, on July 4,1764, the mothers strength gave out, and she died on July 16, aged 29, leaving four young children, and a memory which, his sister says, Maximilien could never recall without tears.