it must be very odd to run into people on tumblr defending Robespierre saying that calling him a mass murderer is “thermidorian propaganda”. So let’s unpack that.
Thermidorian propaganda is, long story short, a series of made up or distorted facts about the politics of year II (1793/94, like, the terror) and specially about Robespierre. We all know propaganda is supposed to push an agenda, it’s usually financed by an entity. With thermidorian propaganda is hard to tell because the people who had anything to gain from painting Robespierre as a monster are long dead, but somehow it still gets parroted to this day by non-specialists and reproduced in fiction and pop culture.
In this post I’m going to focus on the original thermidorian propaganda that came out immediately after Robespierre’s death. I hope, if real life allows me, this to be the first post of a series. I must clarify I’m not a historian so there will be inacuracies, this is just a casual, funny and quick intro to the subject, so if I succeed in picking your interest, I strongly encourage you to do your own research with real academic sources and draw your own conclusions. Also I’d like to thank @frevandrest and @tierseta for their corrections and suggestions! Also I relied a lot on @rbzpr, specially this post that compiles a lot of primary sources about the propaganda.
Year II (1793-1794) speedrun
Robespierre’s real role during the terror
To understand what even was the terror about, you need to know that there was an external war against all the monarchies of Europe and simultaneously, an internal war against counterrevolutionary forces like vendean revels and federalists. To even have a chance for the republic to survive, the national convention declared that the government would be “revolutionary until peace” which means that there would be a state of emergency, which suspended certain freedoms until peacetime. Some of the emergency measures were the suspension of the constitution of 1793, the infamous law of suspects and general maximum, the limitation of freedom of press and the institution of representatives on mission, deputies of the convention that were sent to the provinces to watch over military operations and had the authority to do whatever they wanted.
Robespierre in 1793 was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. The CPS was the convention’s executive branch and pretty much a war cabinet with dictatorial powers (in theory, but in practice everything they did had to be approved by the convention). Its purpose was to take measures to win the war against all of Europe, keep everyone fed and crush counterrevolution. They didn’t have a “director” or anything like that, the twelve had equal authority. Besides, the CPS was full of deeply confrontational, clashing personalities that weren’t exactly fond of Robespierre, so it’s not like he could dominate over them. (Twelve who Ruled by R.R. Palmer gives you a good idea of their dynamic and boy did they hate each other)
Despite this, Robespierre was the most famous member; so he became the de facto face of the CPS and it was assumed outside of France that he had control over the republic, which was portrayed by the monarchies as a barbaric mess, and that impression lives on.
I hope to make this very clear: Robespierre wasn’t as powerful and didn’t have as much control of the situation as bad school texts will make us believe. Nobody did, the situation during the terror really was that chaotic. By the summer of 1794, known today as the Great Terror, Robespierre’s popularity and influence on the goverment was weakened compared to that it was before (I’ll elaborate why soon).
The excesses of year II and who made them
The deputies that became the future thermidorians, for the most part, were ultra radicals from the mountain (the far left party that was most influential in the convention and Robespierre himself was a part of) who had been sent to the provinces as representatives in mission to crush counterrevolution or supervise the army. Some of them committed some atrocious war crimes, brutally executing thousands of people. Robespierre was appalled, had them recalled and spent the rest of his life antagonizing them because he didn’t have the authority to bring them to justice.
For example, Collot d’Herbois, fellow CPS member, who shot people with cannons full of shrapnel as a representative on mission in Lyons alongside Joseph Fouché, used his authority to counteract Robespierre’s attempts to hold him or the other representatives on mission accountable. Still Robespierre had them on his radar to punish them as soon as he had the opportunity and they had him on their radar fearing that he would use his popularity against them at any moment. Some of them tried to bootlick him and get on his good side, but their actions were so repulsive to him he refused any kind of compromise.
Other important details
The idea that Robespierre was aspiring for a dictatorship comes from way earlier. In November 1792, a girodin named Louvet accused him of such and wanting to form a triumvirate with Danton and Marat. Robespierre defended himself well and the idea was discredited, only to be recycled during thermidor when the surviving girondins came back to the convention (the girondins another long story lmao)
The idea that Robespierre was some kind of blood drinking monster also started even before the man even did anything wrong. His radical ideals about giving voting rights to minorities like jews and protestants, to men that didn’t own property, to free black people, him speaking out against slavery, against the inviolability of the king, the royal veto, etc… it genuinely pissed off a lot of people
This is a huge tangent but it’s relevant because it’s the origin of Robespierre’s supposed God-complex. So, if you have heard about the decristianization hysteria that was going on during the terror, Robespierre was hostile to it actually, and thought the state needed some kind of religion to hold it together, which is funny since a lot of people nowadays believe he was an atheist. To put a stop to it and reinforce the freedom of cults, he proposed that the French Republic must recognize the cult of “Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul” as a compromise between religion and secular patriotic worship. To clarify, this isn’t some religion Robespierre made up out of nowhere, it was influenced by Rousseau’s deist ideas and civic festivals (More on that in Mathiez essay about The Supreme Being in The Fall of Robespierre). The project was a success at the time, but his militant atheist coworkers couldn’t forgive him for it and went out of their way to use it against him later. Thus the Committee of General Security put together a report (with fabricated evidence and all!) in which they tried to link him to a wacky but harmless and obscure cult that prophesied the coming of a messiah, implying that it was Robespierre, with the purpose to ridicule him.
The infamous Prairial law (here’s a post explaining it better than I ever could). This law, which streamlined processes and executions and centralized them in Paris, removed the deputies immunity which would enable Robespierre to go after the aforementioned war criminals’ heads. However, Robespierre cut ties with the CPS after a fight with the other members and disappeared from the government, leaving the law in the hands of people who abused it, like the Committee of General Security and public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville (who also had beef with Robespierre). In fact you don’t see many arrests signed by Robespierre during this time, that later became considered to be the Great Terror, while his coworkers, like Carnot or Barère, were very trigger happy using this law to say the least.
Robespierre’s fall
So, Robespierre goes rogue against the CPS and disappears from the government for more than a month. There was an attempt at reconciliation that Robespierre completely rejected when the 8th thermidor he returns and causes a commotion with an emotional and disjointed speech in which he expresses his despair about the gory state of the revolution and vagues the violent deputies, but refuses to give their names. The speech is definitely not his best and you can tell he’s not ok, but it has some raw, revealing lines like:
“Anyway, voilà within less than six weeks that my dictatorship is expired, and that I didn’t have any kind of influence on the government. Has patriotism been more protected? the factions more timid, the patrie happier? I would wish so”
Or my personal favorite:
“They call me tyrant… If I would be one, they would crawl at my feet, I would stuff them with gold, I would ensure them the right to commit all the crimes, and they would be grateful.”
Fouché and others took advantage of his vagueness to convince half of the convention that he was targeting them and aspiring for a power grab.
Jean Lambert Tallien, a young deputy who had participated in bloody repressions in Bordeaux, conspired with his then girlfriend Thérese Cabarrus who was in prison, starts the reaction the next day by interrupting SJ’s speech trying to mitigate the mess Robespierre caused the previous day. Later Tallien becomes instrumental in building the narrative to justify Robespierre’s murder and create the concept of the Reign of Terror.
The first batch of Thermidorian propaganda
The accusations against Robespierre were vague and contradictory… and calling them accusations is kind of generous because they were mostly people yelling vague grievances against him, nothing official or legal. The ultra radicals accused Robespierre of not being enough of a terrorist. The moderates of being too much of a terrorist. The funniest example of this dichotomy was when Billaud-Varenne (CPS member) accused him of, I shit you not, protesting against arresting Danton and another guy shouting “the blood of Danton chokes you” during the session. Anyway, Robespierre was declared an outlaw and executed with no trial and at least a hundred of his followers were dragged with him to the scaffold. Ironically, the day after Robespierre’s death saw the highest number of people guillotined in a single day in all of the terror. I need to empathize that he was guillotined without a trial, because while the revolutionary tribunal could be a kangaroo court sometimes, at least they kept registries of what someone was being accused of, Robespierre didn’t even go through it so his imputed crimes remained very vague and open to add shit later. So the next day Barére showed up with a report and fabricated evidence about how Robespierre was conspiring with his close supporters to crown himself king.
Some time later Tallien came up to the convention with a speech about how what had happened the past year had been a Reign Of Terror, that Robespierre bullied a congress of 700 something men into doing whatever he wanted, that every single bad thing that happened, all the unnecessary bloodshed was exclusively Robespierre’s fault. Boohoo, Robespierre poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague upon the republic and he did all himself.
The thermidorian convention, with the press of the time, made sure to run the robespierrists’ names through the mud and scapegoat them of their own excesses. A massive amount of libelous pamphlets against Robespierre were circulating circa 1795-1799, portraying him as some kind of gangster-sultan-pimp tyrant monster with a secret castle and lots of money and chicks, which is hilarious in hindsight since all his stuff sold for like… 300 francs, but at the time people ate it up.
Here’s some of my personal favorites because original thermidorian propaganda was seriously wacky (and let’s make it fun by rating it)
✨highlights✨
Apparently, Robespierre wished to marry Louis’ eldest child to crown himself king. I’d rate it higher for the creativity but she was a literal teenager ewww. 3/10
Courtois report: Courtois was in charge of going through the robespierrists papers and of course he suppressed and twisted a lot of evidence. He collected his “findings” in a report for the convention. Thanks to this guy most of Robespierre’s correspondence is lost. -4563456435/10
La vie de Robespierre: I haven’t read this one so what I know comes from secondary sources, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s one of the first biographies of Robespierre ever written, by his own school teacher, the abbot Proyart, who became a royalist émigré during the revolution. It’s such a mess, he makes normal things children do sound malignant when little Maximilien did them. He’s also the source of the legend that Robespierre read a poem for Louis XVI as a kid, which Hervé Leuwers debunked in his Robespierre bio. 5/10 because apparently his beef with Robespierre (besides the whole revolution thing) was that he wouldn’t say hi to him during vacations. Petty as hell.
Le chat-tigre: the description that Robespierre resembled a cat comes from a pamphlet published by Merlin de Thionville. This one is key because it deviates from the common view of the time of Robespierre as a morally corrupt orgy-frequenter, and portrays him as a dull, emotionless incel, which is closer to the way thermidorian propaganda reads like today. It also has this hysterical line: “History will say little about this monster”. Anyway Merlin called Robespierre a catboy unironically so I rate it meow/10
La queue de Robespierre (Robespierre’s tail). This pamphlet by Méhée de la Touché is interesting because it goes after certain thermidorians like Barère, Collot and Billaud, foreshadowing how the whole thing would soon backfire on them. Also the title is a dick joke, so, 10/10.
These two engravings. 760936/10
This whole-ass painting of Robespierre straight up ruling over hell
My absolute favorite: this one is from later when the whole mountain was purged from the convention (so there’s lots of thermidorians here too). There’s so much happening here. The snakes, the bats, the be gay do crimes skeletons, and the whole gang is there, looking like smurfs. It’s beautiful. 1793/10
But why spread so many lies about a dead man? They had to do it, you see, they had to gaslight the entire nation as much as possible, the ultras to avoid accountability and the moderates to discredit the democratic ideals that he represented so they could pass shit like the constitution of year III. This has effects on historiography to this day (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).
Thermidor backfires
With some exceptions, who ended up becoming Napoleon’s ministers, they did not avoid accountability…
Some of the original thermidorians were radicals who believed in the jacobin ideals of year II and just thought, sincerely or not, that Robespierre was aspiring for dictatorship, and the ones who had done war crimes as representatives on mission seemed to genuinely believe they were justified to do so and had to defend themselves when they were used against them.
Some of them weren’t expecting that after purging and persecuting Robespierre’s supporters, the mountain would be weakened and that the national convention would take a turn to the right when they brought back a bunch of girondins. What was left of the mountain wanted to keep the progress towards a more egalitarian society made in year II. Some of the right wingers like Boissy d’Anglas took credit for Robespierre’s fall and influenced the convention to become more reactionary. Some of the montagnards got guillotined for their crimes against humanity, like Carrier (the infamous dude who drowned thousands of people in the Loire - also a massive thermidorian, because of course he was), while most were exiled to Guyana.
Decades later during the Bourbon restoration, former Montagnards and members of the CPS like Billaud and Barère, came to regret bitterly what they did to Robespierre, his memory and the Republic, and admitted to having lied about him.
Conclusion
It’s not a secret to anyone that the French Revolution was extremely brutal and nobody is denying it (and that’s without counting what happened after Robespierre’s death). Donald Greer in The incidence of the terror during the french revolution estimates a death toll of 35.000-40.000, which includes not just people sentenced to death (which he estimates between 16.000-17.000), but people massacred without a trial by these representatives on mission I spoke about, people who died of disease in prisons, etc.
The executions by guillotine, that Robespierre came to represent, were just one aspect of it, an aspect that has become iconic in pop culture and exaggerated to death. The Jacobins weren’t executing people just for being nobles, in fact, there were some former nobles in the government and more commoners were executed than nobles. All those 17k death sentences weren’t signed or approved by Robespierre personally, and while Robespierre was powerful in theory as a member of the committee of public safety, he had very little control of the situation. And it’s not like he was an innocent little angel, he had blood on his hands but so did everyone back then, and his reputation is very disproportionate to what he actually did.
And yet, we’re taught in schools and in media that he was single-handely the supreme authority who did whatever he wanted and we never hear about the people that got him killed, what they were up to during the terror and how they straight up scapegoated this man to escape accountability for their crimes against humanity. But why though? Shouldn’t that be common knowledge by now, more than two centuries later?
Next part, if I can do it, I hope I can cover how thermidorian propaganda evolved to what it is today. Still this is a subject I only have general notions about and haven’t read about extensively so I’ll take a while to write the post, but it should be fun to research as it was fun (and infuriating) to research this.
Salut & fraternité and… happy birthday Robespierre!!! :-) My present is posting about how you got murdered and slandered I guess lmao.
Super super rough storyboard thingy of what will eventually be my next big drawing project. Eventually, I’ll do each of these panels individually and very big, just sketched out in pencil, then I’ll scan each and color digitally (fingers crossed). One of my favorite quotes ever, adapted visually for this.
A tutelary Genius leaves the Senate, armed with a blazing sword, it exterminates the oppressors of France. The atrocious Revolutionary Tribunal, knocked down into the dust, lets [everyone] glimpse its visage under the mask of Justice, its satellites flee, with daggers in hand, and rush to carry off the fruits of their pillages. The terrible but blind force, which shattered the most beautiful productions of Genius stops and ceases to destroy. Tyranny, savage and always concerned, torments literature and the fine arts, it assassinates Chemistry and Physics, which it tears away from their useful works, it drags [the art of] Painting into the dungeon, it throws old age and childhood there, who moan while awaiting death.
To be celebrated on 9 and 10 Thermidor of Year IV, in accordance with article I of title IV of the Law of 3 Brumaire.
First day.
On 9 Thermidor, at 5 o'clock in the morning, the solemnity will be announced by a salvo of artillery.
At 6 o'clock, a second salvo will be fired, and a third one at 7 o'clock.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, the twelve Municipalities will go to the site of the Bastille, accompanied by the Civil Authorities of their jurisdiction.
The Central Administration of the Seine Department the Tribunals and the Central Bureau of the Canton of Paris, preceded by a Military Band and accompanied by a Honour Guard, will also go to the site of the Bastille at the same time.
The president of the Central Administration of the Department, after having delivered a speech analogous to the ceremony, will plant a tricolour flag on the remains of this monument of royal despotism, bearing this inscription:
It will never rise again.
During this ceremony, the Military Band will play the patriotic tunes of 1789.
The Procession will then set off, escorted by large detachments of the National Guard and of the Army of the Interior.
The Procession will go to the Place du Carrousel, in front of the National Palace of the Tuileries, following the boulevard until the Porte Denis, the Rues de Cléry and Neuve-Eustache, the Place des Victoires, the Rues Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, de la Loi and Nicaise.
On the Place du Carrousel a pyre will be erected, upon which the attributes of Royalty and Feudality will be placed.
When the Central Administration of the Seine department will arrive in front of the pyre, the Procession will stop and the President will ignite this pyre.
He will then plant a tricolour flag, bearing this inscription:
10 AUGUST 1792 ; the Monarchy is abolished in France, it will never rise again.
During this ceremony, the Military Band will play the Marseillaise and Le Chant du Départ.
The Procession will again set off for the Champ de la Réunion, by the following way:
Place du Carrousel, Guichet du Carrousel, Le Quai, the Pont National, the Rue de Grenelle, the Place des Invalides and the Avenue of the Military Academy.
The Procession will cross the field, following the embankments on the right up to the hillock ; goint back alongside the embankments on the left, it will return to the hillock in a straight line.
The Music Conservatory will play a symphony, after which the Central Administration of the Department will descend to the foot of the hillock, where, on a pyre, the symbols and attributes of anarchy will be placed.
The President will ignite the pyre ; and during his ceremony, the Conservatory will perform analogous songs and symphonies.
Then the Central Administration of the Department and a part of the Procession will go to the Military Academy, in order to go in front of the Directory.
At one o'clock, the Directory will descend onto the Champ de la Réunion, directly go to the hillock and will take its place there.
The President will deliver a speech, after which he will ignite the sacred fire of Liberty on the Altar of the Patrie. Then the Music Conservatory will sing the Hymn to Liberty, lyrics by Rouget de Lille [sic], music by Pleyel.
The Directory will then take the oath to defend the Constitution of the Year III.
This oath will be repeated by the Constitutional Authorities and by the entire Procession.
A general salvo of artillery and a salvo of grapeshot and of bombs, mingling with the sound of drums and trumpets, will announce the performance of the oath and the end of the ceremony.
The Procession will return to the Military Academy.
In the afternoon of this day, orchestras placed on the Champ de la Réunion will play dance music until the night.
Second day.
This day will consist,
Of races on foot and on horseback, which will take place at 5 o'clock in the evening on the Champ de la Réunion. Prices will be awarded to the winners ;
Of a concert performed on the Champs-Élysées, at seven o'clock ;
Of a firework and of dances and illumination on the great square of the Champs-Élysées.
The present Program will be printed and sent to all Constitutional Authorities, in order to serve as notification letters. […]
Medical report on Georges Couthon’s injuries (10 Thermidor, Year II)
Couthon has been brought, at 5 o’clock in the morning, to the hospice d'humanité; he had, above the swelling on the left side of his forehead, a contused and oblique wound with the breadth of an inch, penetrating until the skull and without denudation; his pulse was weak, he has been put to bed in the salle des Opérations n° 15 and was bandaged; at the time of his arrival, he appeared to be unconscious, but he regained consciousness afterwards and said that his wound was the result of a fall.
10 Thermidor. [Illegible signature.]
Source:Sur la blessure de Couthon dans la nuit du 9 thermidor (Soboul), in: AHRF, n° 120, p. 367. / Archives nationales F7 4656.
In the immediate aftermath of the events of Thermidor, both the actors and spectators of these events sought to give meaning to what had just happened ; à chaud, a new imaginary was taking shape, centred around the person of Robespierre: his légende noire, which would impose itself over the next decades, slowly began to emerge in numerous speeches, proclamations, pamphlets etc. This “black legend”, which drew on the tropes and motifs that had characterised earlier attacks on Robespierre, would later acquire some degree of coherence, but at the time of its birth, it was still widely heterogeneous and, at times, even contradictory.
In the course of this research project, I have compiled some of the most influential speeches, writings and images that were published during or immediately after the events of 9 / 10 Thermidor, and which, in some cases, came to shape Robespierre’s légende noire as we know it today.
What do you think, citizens? Feel free to add things!
During my research for this project, I greatly relied on Robespierre: la fabrication d'un mythe (Belissa / Bosc) and on Jolène Audrey Bureau’s Robespierre meurt longtemps, as well as on Hippolyte Buffenoir’s extensive study Les portraits de Robespierre. I also want to thank @montagnarde1793and@valeria-lagrimas for their generous help and advice!
This Engraving represents France in the form of an Ostrich, which has had the misfortune in its first egg-laying of producing only monsters such as Marrat [sic], Carrier, Roberspierre [sic], J. Le Bon &c. &c. &c… that the return of Justice of the ninth Thermidor made disappear in a way ; everything makes us hope that it will continue to deliver us from this kind of plague. The Ostrich, more fortunate in its second egg-laying, only presents friends of peace, of universal happiness and of the tranquillity of nations. An Englishman, whose stoutness is a sign of well-nourished existence, occupied with eating, is struck by this favourable change and shows his surprise about this.
JUSTICEsaysMonsters, you are annihilated forever!
THE OSTRICH – May I rectify my faults today.
THE FRENCHMAN – Europe! these are our only wishes.
