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"A war gives rise to terrors, to dangers, to plots, to reciprocal struggles, to treason, finally to casualties." — Maximilien Robespierre 12 December 1791
from Choosing Terror, Chapter 4
Well shit look who [still] has a better grasp on reality than anyone in power rn. Robespierre2028
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oh you get me so bad ;;
"The idea of a specifically Robespierrist terror was a myth, invented by the Thermidoreans, the men who overthrew Robespierre, who themselves were very much implicated in the recourse to terror. The pragmatic choice to use terror extended far beyond the Montagnards: to the deputies of the Convention who voted for it, and the many activists beyond the national representation who implemented it."
I'm listening...
I don't know why I've been putting this off for so long, but I've stocked up on doritos & cheesecake and am very ready for a cozy long weekend with Choosing Terror by Marisa Linton. I think I thought it'd be boring because it looks like a textbook and I downloaded it from my university library, but that was unfair. The intro at any rate is quite readable, and I already have more reading material lined up from the notes.
The farcical irony of 9 Thermidor rears its ugly head again:
"[Robespierre] long defended Hébert. He angrily assailed Billaud when he first started to attack Danton."
From The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary France, by Colin Jones, 2021, Chapter: 12.00/Midday, p. 196
No citation, but Choosing Terror by Marisa Linton, 2013, Chapter 10, gives the same account of Billaud's speech:
"[Billaud-Varenne] then accused Robespierre and his friends of having refused to abandon Hébert for as long as possible, and Robespierre in particular of having tried to protect Danton"
And her footnote cites Le Moniteur, 21:332, which I think refers to this in entry in the bibliography: [Moniteur (Le)], Réimpression de lʼancien Moniteur, 31 vols (Paris, Plon Frères, 1847). (So 21:332 = volume 21, page 332?)
...And, yes there it is on p. 332 of this edition on Google Books (it's p. 342 in the pdf), in Billaud's own words:
"And those who abandoned Hébert only when it was no longer possible for them to support him will be considered virtuous men! The first time I denounced Danton to the Committee, Robespierre rose like a madman, saying that he saw through my intentions, that I wanted to destroy the best patriots. All this made me see the abyss that has been dug beneath our feet. One must not hesitate either to fill it with our corpses or to triumph over the traitors."
And yet Robespierre is the blood-drinker, the terrorist, the tyrant who sent anyone who disagreed with him to the guillotine...
Whoever shouted The blood of Danton chokes him! should've better aimed their rage.
Choosing Terror is so good I don't know where to go after this. All other frev books can go home.
I'm ~halfway through & I'm already feeling the sadness of finishing a book & trying to find something else to live up to it. I may just need to pause for a while & re-read some things or read some articles for a while after this.
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Have some more complexity with Robespierre + the death penalty:
"Moreover, when Basire proposed that anyone who harboured Lepeletier's assassin should be liable to the death penalty Robespierre strongly opposed him, and succeeded in having the proposal rejected. Despite his support for the execution of the king, Robespierre was still opposed to the death penalty as a general principle, and particularly emphatic that no exception should be made on the grounds that the victim had been a deputy. There should be no special protection for deputies:
' I attack the basis of the motion itself, it is contrary to all principles. What, at the moment when you are effacing the death penalty from your penal code, you would reinstate it for a particular case! The eternal principles of justice are opposed to it. Moreover, why would you set aside the law to avenge a representative of the people? You would not do it for a simple citizen; and yet the assassination of a citizen is equal, in the eyes of the law, to the assassination of a public official.' "
From Choosing Terror, Chapter 5
I don't know what specifically he's referring to when he says "you are effacing the death penalty from your penal code". (This is literally on 21 January 1793 lol). But again, I love that he is arguing for consistency, for true equality. If you are going to have the death penalty, you must apply it equally regardless of status; if you are going to abolish the death penalty, you must abolish it across the board. I guess we know what direction things ended up going in, but this seems like another opportunity where maybe they could've listened to Max & taken another path. It sounds like this is right before things really ramped up.
"On 30 March Brissot, via Le Patriote Français, strongly implied that the true motive for Robespierre's opposition to the war was that he was acting as a secret agent for the Austrian Committee. In subsequent issues Le Patriote Français stepped up the attack: ' Why is the conduct of M. Robespierre always such as would not have been different had it been fashioned by the Austrian Committee? We know nothing about it; but we attest that if it is just by chance, then this is a very strange chance."
🫢😰
😢😫
Noooooooo, babe, wtf! YOU threw down the gauntlet & made it a fight to the death [with my other babe]?!
Because, like, once you cast those aspersions of treason, how could it be anything else?
What are you doing, Brissot. I don't know if I'm in the right headspace for this information 😭 😭 😭
I am going to say with the evidence of my feelings & the moral proofs of my own conscience that he is full of shit here.
Still on Choosing Terror, Chapter 4
"Delessart might have been motivated by treason or by incapacity, but in a time of national crisis the effect on the country was the same, either way, and should incur the same punishment. Addressing the deputies, Brissot said: 'You must be just, but never forget too that indulgence can compromise the fate of 25 million men. Never forget that we are in critical circumstances, in which perversity or incapacity can cause incalculable evils, and consequently incapacity on its own becomes a veritable crime for a minister…I am told that if he is guilty…then his head may pay the forfeit for his faults. This consideration might give pause to men who are novices in matters of responsibility; but…would the death of this guilty man return to life the thousands of our fellow-citizens on the frontiers whose lives are endangered by his conduct? If the coalition raises its mask, if it breaks out, if it attacks, no, there is no torture sufficient to expiate the crime of ministers who will have brought this scourge on France, when it was so easy to bring it to the enemy's land!' "
Fucking hell, Brissot, kind of a yikes speech to make as the guy who pushed everyone into war...
From Choosing Terror Chapter 4
