Such had been the life of the future republican leader up to 1788, when he took part in the discussion as to the λvay in which the states-general should be elected, showing clearly and forcibly in his Adresse à la Nation Artésienne that, if the former mode of election by the members of the provincial estates was again adopted, the new states-general would not represent the people of France. Necker also perceived this, and therefore determined to make the old royal bailliages and séné-chaussées the units of election. Under this plan the city of Arras was to return twenty-four members to the assembly of the bailliage of Artois, which was to elect the deputies. The corporation claimed the right to a preponderating influence in these city elections, and Robespierre headed the opposition, making himself very conspicuous and drawing up the cahier or table of complaints and grievances, for the guild of the cobblers. Although the leading members of the corporation were elected, their chief opponent succeeded in getting elected with them. In the assembly of the bailliage rivalry ran still higher, but Robespierre had already made his mark in politics; by the A vis aux Habitants de Campagne (Arras, 1789), which is almost certainly by him, he secured the support of the country electors, and, though but thirty years of age, poor, and without influence, he was elected fifth deputy of the tiers état of Artois to the states-general.

When the states-general met at Versailles on 5th May 1789, the young deputy of Artois already possessed the one faculty which was to lead him to supremacy: he was a fanatic. As Mirabeau said, “That young man believes what he says; he will go far.” Without the courage and wide tolerance w τ hich make a statesman, without the greatest qualities of an orator, without the belief in himself which marks a great man, nervous, timid, and suspicious, Robespierre yet believed in the doctrines of Rousseau with all his heart, and would have gone to death for them; and in the belief that they would eventually succeed and regenerate France and mankind he was ready to work with unwearied patience. While the constituent assembly occupied itself in drawing up an unworkable constitution as the grand panacea, Robespierre turned from the assembly of provincial avocats and wealthy bourgeois to the people of Paris. However, he spoke frequently in the constituent assembly, and often with great success, and was eventually recognized as second only to Pétion de Villeneuve—if second to him—as a leader of the small body of the extreme left,—the thirty voices, as Mirabeau contemptuously called them. It is hardly necessary to examine minutely Robespierre’s speeches and behaviour before 1791, when the death of Mirabeau left the way clear for the influence of his party; but what is noteworthy, as proving the religious cast of his mind and his belief in the necessity of à religion, is that he spoke several times in favour of the lower clergy and laboured to get their pensions increased. When he instinctively felt that his doctrines would have no success in the assembly, he turned to the Jacobin Club, which had consisted originally of the Breton deputies only, but which, after the assembly moved to Paris, began to admit among its members various leaders of the Parisian bourgeoisie. As time went on, many of the more intelligent artisans and petits commerçants became members of the club, and among such men Robespierre found the hearers he sought. They did more than listen to him: they idolized him; the fanatical leader had found fanatics to follow him, and their ultimate supremacy became merely a question of time. As the wealthier bourgeois of Paris and deputies of a more moderate type seceded to the club of ’89 the influence of the old leaders of the Jacobins (Barnave, Duport, Charles de Lameth)diminished; and, when they themselves, alarmed at the progress of the Revolution, founded the club of the Feuillants in 1791, the followers of Robespierre dominated the Jacobin Club. The death of Mirabeau strengthened Robespierre’s influence in the assembly; but in May 1791 he proved his lack of statesmanlike insight and his jealous suspicion of his colleagues by proposing and carrying the motion that no deputies who sat in the constituent could sit in the succeeding assembly. The flight of the king on 2lst June and his arrest at Varennes excited Robespierre’s suspicions, and made him declare himself at the Jacobin Club to be “ni monarchiste ni républicain.” But the vigorous conduct of Lafayette and the National Guard on the Champ de Mars on l7th July 1791 terrified him, for he believed that he was a predestined victim, until he was succoured by Duplay, a cabinetmaker in the Rue St Honoré, and an ardent admirer of his, in whose house he lived (with but two short intervals) till his death. At last came his day of triumph, when on 30th September, on the dissolution of the constituent assembly, the people of Paris crowned Pétion and himself as the two incorruptible patriots.

On the dissolution of the assembly he returned for a short visit to Arras, where he met with a triumphant reception. In November he returned to Paris, and on 18th December made a speech which marks a new epoch in his life. Brissot, the dme politique of the Girondin party which had been formed in the legislative assembly, urged vehemently that war should be declared against Austria, and the queen was equally urgent in the hope that a victorious army might restore the old absolutism of the Bourbons. Two men opposed the projects of the queen and the Girondins,—Marat and Robespierre: Marat opposed them for statesmanlike reasons (see Marat), and Robespierre on humanitary grounds and because as a follower of Rousseau he disliked war. This opposition from those whom they had expected to aid them irritated the Girondins greatly, and from that moment began the struggle which ended in the coups Pétat of 3lst May and 2d June 1793. Guadet accused Robespierre of superstition in believing in a providence, and declared that, as the people’s idol, he ought to ostracize himself for the good of his country. Robespierre persisted in his opposition to the war, and the Girondins, especially Brissot, attacked him so violently that in April 1792 he resigned the post of public prosecutor at the tribunal of Paris, which he had Held since February, and started a journal, Le Défenseur de la Constitution, in his own defence. It is noteworthy that during the summer months of 1792, in which the fate ,f the Bourbon dynasty was being sealed, neither the Girondins in the legislative assembly nor Robespierre took any active part in overthrowing it. Stronger men with practical instincts of statesmanship, like Danton and Billaud-Varenne, who were not afraid of blood, and who dared to look facts in the face and take the responsibility of doing while others were talking, were the men who made the 10th of August and took the Tuileries. The Girondins, however, were quite ready to take advantage of the accomplished fact; and Robespierre, likewise, though shocked at the shedding of blood, was willing to take his seat on the commune of Paris, which had overthrown Louis XVI., and might check the Girondins. The strong men of the commune were glad to have Robespierre’s assistance, not because they cared for him or believed in him, but because of the help got from his popularity, his reputation for virtue, and his influence over the Jacobin Club and its branches, which spread all over France. He it was who presented the petition of the commune of Paris on lβth August to the legislative assembly, demanding the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal and the summons of a convention. The massacres of September in the prisons, which Robespierre in vain attempted to stop, showed that the commune had more confidence in Billaud than in him. Yet, as a proof of his personal popularity, he was a few days later elected first deputy for Paris to the national convention.

On the meeting of the convention the Girondins immediately attacked Robespierre; they were jealous of his popularity and knew that his single-hearted fanaticism would never forgive their intrigues with the king at the end of July, and would always be opposed to their plans for raising the duke of Orleans to the throne. As early as 26th September the Girondin Lasource accused him of aiming at the dictatorship; afterwards he was informed that Marat, Danton, and himself were plotting to become triumvirs; and eventually on 29th October Louvet attacked him in a studied and declamatory harangue, abounding in ridiculous falsehoods and obviously concocted in Madame Roland’s boudoir. But Robespierre had no difficulty in rebutting this attack (5th November). All personal disputes, however, gave way by the month of December 1792 before the great question of the king’s trial, and here Robespierre took up a position which is at least easily understood. These are his words spoken on 3d December: “This is no trial; Louis is not a prisoner at the bar; you are not judges; you are—you cannot but be statesmen, and the representatives of the nation. You have not to pass sentence for or against a single man, but you have to take a resolution on a question of the public safety, and to decide a question of national foresight. It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth; Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die, that the country may live.” This great question settled by the king’s execution, the struggle between Robespierre and the Girondins entered upon a more acute stage, and the want of statesmanship among the latter threw upon the side of the fanatical Robespierre Danton and all those strong practical men who cared little for personal questions, and whose only desire was the victory of France in her great struggle with Europe. Had it been at all possible to act with that group of men of genius whom history calls the Girondins, Danton, Carnot, Robert Lindet, and even Billaud-Varenne would have sooner thrown in their lot with them than with Robespierre, whom they thoroughly understood; but the Girondins, spurred on by Madame Roland, refused to have anything to do with Danton. Government became impossible; the federalist idea, which would have broken France to pieces in the very face of the enemy, grew and flourished, and the men of action had to take a decided part. In the month of May 1793 Camille Desmoulins, acting under the inspiration of Robespierre and Danton, published his Histoire des Bmssotins and Bmssot devoile;

Isnard declared· that Paris must be destroyed; Robespierre preached insurrection at the Jacobin Club; and on 3lst May and 2d June the commune of Paris destroyed the Girondin party. For a moment it seemed as if France would avenge them; but patriotism was stronger than federalism. The defence of Lyons only exasperated the men who were working for France, and the armies who were fighting for her, and on 27th July 1793, when the struggle was practically decided, the convention elected Robespierre to the committee of public safety.

This election marks an important epoch, not only in the life of Robespierre, but in the history of the Revolution. Danton and the men of action had throughout the last two years of the crisis, as Mirabeau had in the first two years, seen that the one great need of France, if she was to see the end of her troubles without the interference of foreign armies, was the existence of a strong executive government. The means for establishing the much-needed strong executive were found in the committee of public safety. The success of this committee in suppressing the Norman insurrection had confirmed the majority of the convention in the expediency of strengthening its powers, and the committee of general security which sat beside it was also strengthened and given the entire management of the internal police of the country. When Danton, who had been a member of the committee from April to lθth July 1793, left it Robespierre was elected; and it was not until then that he became one of the actual rulers of France. Indeed the committee was not finally constituted until the l3th of September, when the last two of the “great” twelve who held office until July 1794 were elected. Of these twelve at least seven, Carnot, Billaud-Varenne, Collot d’Herbois, Prieur (of the Marne), Prieur (of the Côte d’Or), Jean Bon Saint-André, and Robert Lindet, were essentially men of action, all of whom despised rather than feared Robespierre owing to his supposed timidity, and were entirely free from his influence. Of the other four Hérault de Séchelles was a professed adherent of Danton; Barère was an eloquent Provençal, who was ready to be the spokesman to the convention of any view which the majority of the committee might adopt; and only Couthon and Saint-Just shared Robespierre’s political enthusiasm for the regeneration of France by the gospel of Rousseau. It is necessary to dwell upon the fact that Robespierre was always in a minority in the great committee in order to absolve him from the blame of being the inventor of the enormities of the Terror, as well as to deprive him of the glory of the gallant stand made against Europe in arms.

After this examination of Robespierre’s position it is not necessary to investigate closely every act of the great committee during the year which was pre-eminently the year of the Terror; the biographer is rather called upon to examine his personal position with regard to the establishment of the Terror and the fall of the Hébertists and Dantonists, and then to dwell upon the last three months in which he stood almost alone trying to work up an effective counterbalance to the power of the majority of the great committee. The Terror was the embodiment of the idea of Danton, that it was necessary to have resort to extreme measures to keep France united and strong at home in order to meet successfully her enemies upon the frontier. This idea was systematized by the committee of public safety, or rather by two members of it acting for the majority, Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois, without much consideration as to who were to be the victims. With the actual organization of the Terror Robespierre had little or nothing to do; its two great engines, the revolutionary tribunal and the absolute power in the provinces of the representatives on mission, were in existence before he joined the committee of public safety, and the laws of the maximum and of the suspects were by no means of his creation. The reason why he is almost universally regarded as its creator and the dominant spirit in the committee of public safety is not hard to discover. Men like Carnot and Billaud-Varenne were not conspicuous speakers in the convention, nor were they the idols of any section of the populace; but Robespierre had a fanatical following among the Jacobins and was admittedly the most popular orator in the convention. His panegyrics on the system of revolutionary government and his praise of virtue led his hearers to believe that the system of the Terror, instead of being monstrous, was absolutely laudable; his pure life and admitted incorruptibility threw a lustre on the committee of which he was a member; and his colleagues offered no opposition to his posing as their representative and reflecting some of his personal popularity upon them so long as he did not interfere with their work. Moreover, he alone never left Paris, whilst all the others, except Barere, were constantly engaged on missions to the armies, the navy, and the provinces. It has been asserted that Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just took upon themselves the direction of “la haute politique,” while the other members acted only in subordinate capacities; undoubtedly it would have suited Robespierre to have had this believed, but as a matter of fact he was in no way especially trusted in matters of supreme importance.

After this explanation it may be said at once that Robespierre was not the author of the overthrow of the Dantonists and the Hébertists, though he thoroughly agreed with the majority and had no desire to save them, the principles of both parties being obnoxious to him. The Hébertists were communists in the true meaning of the word. They held that each commune should be self-governing, and, while admitting the right of a central authority to levy men and money for the purposes of the state, they believed that in purely internal matters, as well as in determining the mode in which men and money were to be raised, the local government ought to be supreme. This position of the Hébertists was of course obnoxious to the great committee, who believed that success could only be won by their retention of absolute power; and in the winter of 1791-95 it became obvious that the Hébertist party must perish, or its opposition to the committee would grow too formidable owing to its paramount influence in the commune of Paris. Robespierre shared his colleagues’ fear of the Hébertist opinions, and he had a personal reason for disliking that party of atheists and sansculottes, since he believed in the necessity of religious faith, and was too much of a gentleman not to detest their imitation of the grossness that belongs to the lowest class of the populace. In 1792 he had indignantly thrown from...