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Robespierres Speech of February 5,1794 On Terror and Virtue: The committee was among the most creative executive bodies ever seen - and rapidly put into effect policies which stabilized the French economy and began the formation of the very successful French army. It also directed it energies against counter-revolutionary uprisings, especially in the south and west of France. In doing so it unleashed the reign of terror. Here Robespierre (1758 1794),in his speech of February 5, 1794 discussed this issue. The figures behind this speech indicate that in the five months from September, 1793, to February 5, 1794, the revolutionary tribunal in Paris convicted and executed 238 men and 31 women and acquitted 190 persons, and that on February 5 there were 5,434 individuals in the prisons in Paris awaiting trial. Robespierre was frustrated with the progress of the revolution. After issuing threats to the National Convention, he himself was arrested in July 1794. He tried to shoot himself but missed, and spent his last few hours with his jaw hanging off. He was guillotined, as a victim of the terror, on July 28, 1794. Excerpts: Now, what is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government-that is, the essential spring which makes it move? It is virtue; I am speaking of the public virtue which effected so many prodigies in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more surprising ones in republican France; of that virtue which is nothing other than the love of country and of its laws. But as the essence of the republic or of democracy is equality, it follows that the love of country necessarily includes the love of equality. The characteristic of popular government is confidence in the people and severity towards itself. The whole development of our theory would end here if you had only to pilot the vessel of the Republic through calm waters; but the tempest roars, and the revolution imposes on you another task. Without,
all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they
will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal
and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this
situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by
reason and the people's enemies by terror.
Subdue
by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the
Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against
tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not
destined to strike the heads of the proud?
This
terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the
enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear
our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the
people's mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers
hired to dishonor the people's cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the
fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral
counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the
tyrants whom they serve? |