Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

The Position of Robespierre.

The rule of the second or Great Committee of Public Safety is generally known as the Reign of Terror. The Committee itself divided the chief functions of government among its members. The special functions of all, except those of Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just, have been already noticed. Robespierre was the only one amongst them who had any reputation outside, or indeed within, the walls of the Convention. His conduct during the session of the Constituent Assembly, his clear-sighted opposition to the war with Austria, his sagacious views on the subject of the treatment of the King, his war against the Girondin federalists, his oratorical talent, and above all his reputation for being absolutely incorruptible and sincerely patriotic, made him the man of mark among the Committee. He was well aware of the importance of his position. His colleagues on the Committee used him as their figure-head to represent them on great occasions, and he made it his business to lay down the general principles which underlay the system of revolutionary government—that is, of the Reign of Terror. But though to the Convention and to France at large Robespierre was the most conspicuous member of the Committee of Public Safety, he really exercised but very slight influence on the actual work of government. He had no department of the State given into his charge; he had not the necessary fluency or facility to take Barère’s place as ordinary reporter; he was not on terms of friendship with the majority of his fellow-workers; he was made use of, but was neither trusted nor liked by the real governors of France. It was to their benefit that the system of the solidarity of the Committee was established, which gave to all their measures the sanction of Robespierre’s great reputation for incorruptibility and patriotism. The majority of the Committee had no positive views on government; they tried to do the work which lay to their hands in the best way they could; Robespierre alone hoped to evolve out of the Reign of Terror a new system of republican government. His only real friends in the Committee were the two men least suited to give him effectual help, for Couthon was a cripple, and unable to attend with the necessary assiduity, and Saint-Just was but five-and-twenty, the youngest of the Committee, and was generally absent from Paris on special missions.

The Reign of Terror.

Committee of General Security.

The system by which the Great Committee of Public Safety regulated the Reign of Terror was based upon two important institutions. The first of these was the Committee of General Security which sat in Paris, and was elected from the members of the Convention, and which exercised general police control over all France. On great occasions its members sat with the Committee of Public Safety as a Committee of Government, but its special functions were to deal with men, while the Committee of Public Safety dealt with measures. Danton, who was the principal creator of the supremacy of the Great Committee of Public Safety—though he himself refused to join it—saw the importance of subordinating in fact, if not in name, the Committee of General Security to the Committee of Public Safety. On 11th September 1793 a Committee of General Security had been elected, containing certain deputies of independent character, and Danton, fearing a rivalry would arise between the two Committees, at once obtained its dissolution, and secured, on September the 14th, the election of a Committee of General Security which would act in harmony with the great Committee. The members elected at this time were with but few exceptions re-elected every month.

Deputies on Mission.

The second instrument by which the Great Committee ruled were the deputies on mission. The practice of sending deputies on special missions originated in August 1792. It had grown in importance, and the deputies proved their value in their vigorous suppression of the Girondin movement in the provinces in the summer of 1793. The power of deputies on mission was more than once specifically declared to be unlimited. On grounds of public safety they were not only permitted, but were ordered, to alter the composition of local authorities, whether municipal or departmental. They had full powers to arrest and to make requisitions. They were consistently supported by the Committee of Public Safety sitting in Paris, and the greatest latitude was given to them in administering the local government. As long as they preserved the peace and sent up plenty of supplies of money, and, when demanded, of recruits to Paris, their methods of government were not minutely inquired into. Besides the deputies on mission employed in the internal administration, another important body of similar representatives were kept at the headquarters of the different armies. These deputies likewise had unlimited authority. They could arrest even generals-in-chief at their absolute will; they could degrade officers of any rank; they could interfere with military operations; and could overrule the orders of a general in the field. The Committee of General Security and the deputies on mission ruled by means of inspiring terror. This terror was based on the existence of the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, and of its imitations termed revolutionary or military commissions in the provinces, and the armies.

Law of the Suspects.

Law of the Maximum.

The Revolutionary Tribunal took cognisance of all political offences, and its sentence was almost invariably death. Nearly every Frenchman or Frenchwoman could be brought within the net of the Revolutionary Tribunal by the Law of the Suspects. By this law, which was most carefully drafted by Merlin of Douai, any one who for any reason could be suspected of disliking the new state of affairs could be arrested. All relatives of émigrés or of noblemen came into this category as well as all former functionaries and officials of whatever sort. But since the Law of the Suspects was not sufficiently wide to impress the ordinary bourgeois, more especially the petty bourgeois, with terror, a new weapon was forged in the Law of the Maximum. This law was put into operation in September 1793. The laws of political economy could not be seriously affected by such a measure as the Law of the Maximum, which fixed maximum prices at which all articles of prime necessity were to be sold. Such a law was certain to be evaded; but its existence, and the fact that evasions of the Law of the Maximum brought the offender under the Revolutionary Tribunal, was enough to establish the Reign of Terror over the petty bourgeois. There were other means for extending the system which need not here be particularised, such as the necessity of every person carrying a card with him giving a full history of his conduct during the Revolution, the encouragement of denunciations by the bestowal of rewards, and similar precautions. The Revolutionary Tribunal was provided with victims under these measures by the Committee of General Security, and by the numerous little Revolutionary Committees sitting in every section of Paris, and in every city, district, and village throughout France. The Revolutionary Committees consisted of tried Jacobins, and were in the provinces appointed by the deputies on mission. They were frequently purified by the expulsion of any member who gave evidence of moderate opinions. The Revolutionary Committees filled the prisons—it was the business of the Revolutionary Tribunal to empty them. This it did with much expedition. The death sentences of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, which only averaged three a week from April to September 1793, averaged thirty-two a week from September 1793 to June 1794, and 196 a week in June and July 1794. This increase was very gradual; it became an established system to send batches of victims to the guillotine every day; and the numbers in these batches increased steadily. The Committee of Public Safety, through its agent, the Committee of General Security, did not much care who were executed as long as a considerable number went to the scaffold every day. Exceptions to this rule are, however, to be noted in the executions of Marie Antoinette on 16th October 1793, of twenty-one Girondins on 31st October, of certain generals, such as Custine, Houchard, and Biron, and of the Duke of Orleans and Bailly, which intimidated courtiers, deputies, generals, and ex-Constituants.