Historian Colin Jones focuses on twenty four hours in 1794 Paris to describe the sudden, unexpected fall of Maximilian Robespierre during the French Revolution.
It is a significant risk to focus on a single event in a single city in a single day. Particularly as it takes Jones over 450 pages of narrative to do it. The outcome, however, is profoundly satisfying. The players, their actions and impacts are shown rather than told. You meet real people going about their day, who react as they are swept into unexpected and extraordinary events. The result is a complex and deep understanding of not just one dramatic day of many produced by the French Revolution, but also the universals of humans responding as best they can to fear, uncertainty, stress and excitement.
I struggle to do justice to Jones’ book. Perhaps it’s like before the label impressionist was invented, having seen your first impressionist painting. You can not escape the sensation and try to tell a friend that they have to see it. ‘What is it of?’ asks the friend. ‘A pond, with lily pads,’ you reply. Your friend is unimpressed. ‘But you have to see it! The painter didn’t actually paint the pond, or the water, or the lily pads. Yet they are there!’ You babble on about objects not painted, but emerging from light and reflection. Only when your friend sees the painting do they get what you were trying to say. Then it is their turn to struggle to explain.
The French Revolution was a Cambrian explosion of firsts, a crazy mix of inspiring and appalling. It was an accidental human laboratory, without rules or safety protocols. From its uninhibited experimentation about how humans could organize themselves also came disturbing lessons about how human power flowed. Much of what happened is so unexpected that, were it fiction, it would be difficult to believe.
Yet, it is history. It actually did happen. And among the many dramatic events of the French Revolution is the sudden, stunning fall of Maximilian Robespierre.
At noon on 9 Thermidor, year II (July 27, 1794) Robespierre was the most powerful man in France. The next afternoon, he was beheaded by the institution he had built, grown and assiduously kept nurtured with victims.
Though many feared Robespierre and many also wished him dead, no one expected his precipitous fall that day. Yet the fumbling actions of the people of Paris and hundreds of elites stumbled across each other, superimposing to bring down Robespierre.
‘I arrest you, in the name of the people’
Jacques-Claude Bernard, Paris municipal Councillor
‘And I arrest you, in the name of the National Convention.’
response from the unnamed militiaman threatened with arrest
As the day unfolded, the participants became increasingly aware that something significant was happening. As a clear winner and loser emerged and the winners sought to consolidate their victory, participants raced to document their actions, maximizing the spin on their contribution to the winning side and downplaying any contribution to the loser. The result was that Paris on July 27, 1794 became what may be the single best documented day of the eighteenth century.
The sheer volume, richness and diversity of original source material allows Colin Jones to risk approaching Paris that day in tiny patches of space and time. As the splotches of colour in an impressionist painting emerge into scenes, so too does the story of Robespierre’s fall emerge, moment by moment, in all its confusion and ultimate decisiveness. In so emerging, it becomes clear that it could easily have gone the other way. Robespierre triumphant, his power further strengthened, his newly revealed enemies dead the next day at the guillotine. Yet it was Robespierre dead at the guillotine that history records as the inevitable outcome.
The pond with lily pads version of the fall of Robespierre is that on July 27, 1794, Robespierre was the most recognized and influential person on the Committee of Public Safety that ran the government of Revolutionary France. France was in the middle of what would later be called The Reign of Terror as the Revolutionary government, fighting for its life, was desperately eliminating perceived enemies as fast as it could find them. At noon, Robespierre was to give a speech to the National Convention, the body of France’s elected representatives, that would further elaborate his vision for the Revolution’s next stage. Before Robespierre could begin speaking, an already discredited Deputy dramatically and brazenly interrupts. The interruption snowballs, picked up by other Deputies. By early afternoon, the Convention had voted the arrest of Robespierre.
For leaders of the government of Paris, the arrest of Robespierre was proof now visible of a vast underground conspiracy against the gains of the Revolution. They mobilized Paris’ militias and began rallying in Robespierre’s support. Confusion reigned as soldiers began facing off against each other across the city. Conflicting narratives spread across Paris, competing for dominance.
“...large amounts of false news circulate from the centre of Paris...”
Journal des Hommes libres
With some soldiers changing sides multiple times, eventually the militias coalesce in favour of the Convention narrative. Robespierre is arrested, forcibly freed from arrest and finally forcibly re-arrested by soldiers, some of whom had freed him hours before. Robespierre and dozens of Parisian elites who rallied against his arrest went to the guillotine. From the events of 9 Thermidor, Robespierre’s faction the Jacobins effectively lost control of the revolutionary government. In what became known as the Thermidorian Reaction, the new government took a very different approach to continuing the revolution.
On one level, that is the story. But if that is your understanding, do you really understand? It is sobering, on digging, how we know so little of even what we thought we knew. ‘How does a toilet flush?’ ‘Well, you pull the handle and the stuff in the bowl disappears and is replaced by the water from the tank.’ ‘Yes, but how does that work?’ For most of us, that is the point where we realize the limits of what we thought we understood. On deeper inspection, the bulk of what we believe we know are things we don’t actually understand.
Toyota’s famous ‘five whys’ is meant as a systematic method to usefully break the assumption that we understand something. The car does not start. Why? The battery is dead. Why? The alternator is not working. Why? The alternator belt is broken. Why? It was well beyond its useful life. Why? It had not been replaced at the end of its useful life. Lesson: learn the useful life of the alternator belt and, when it reaches that point, proactively replace it.
Five was Toyota’s arbitrary number. It can be whys all the way down. Toyota’s main point was that it pays to dig deeper. Doing so systematically gets you to a more complete, more satisfying and, most importantly, a more useful understanding.
9 Thermidor year II was a near run thing. Decisions made, or not made, that in the moment may have seemed small, or obvious, or not even recognized as decisions at all, resulted in people going to the guillotine or being saved from it. Similarly small changes, well below the level of conventional history, could have resulted in the day being a triumph for Robespierre. Instead, it was Robespierre and his most dedicated allies who were condemned and executed.
Through Colin Jones’ slow motion and freeze frame micro-description of that day as it develops across Paris, the reader gets deep into the layer of whys about how Robespierre fell and, from that, understands how the day’s outcome could have been very different. In so doing, there are profound insights about the French Revolution, how human power flows and moving looks at real people acting in the face of extreme uncertainty when their life, or the life of someone they care about, is on the line. Jones’ deep, meticulous approach shows that anything less puts you at ‘the car wouldn’t start’ level of explaining.
'Don't be alarmed. The majority of the Convention is pure. I have nothing to fear.'
Robespierre to his landlord on the morning of July 27th as he departs for the Convention to give his speech. His landlord has just warned him he's been hearing about plots within the Convention brewing against Robespierre.
One way to start the story is with the spark. The interruption of Robespierre’s speech to the National Convention, done with maximum drama by twenty seven year old Jean Lambert Tallien.
Tallien was a Deputy in the Convention, of no import and already under a cloud. He was, however, madly in love. The love of his life, twenty year old Thérésa Cabarrus, is in prison, due to go before a revolutionary tribunal at any day. In Robespierre’s Paris of summer 1794, prisoners who went before the tribunal were almost always quickly found guilty and sent to the guillotine that afternoon.
‘The Police Administrator has just left. He came to announce that tomorrow I will go before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which means the scaffold. This isn’t at all like the dream I had last night. In it Robespierre no longer existed and the prisons were open. But thanks to your obvious cowardice, there soon will be no one left in France capable of making my dream come true.’
Thérésa Cabarrus’ note to Tallien smuggled from prison July 26th, the day before Robespierre’s fall
The note decides it for Tallien. He has already been publicly denounced by Robespierre. He is being tailed by Robespierre’s agents and his arrest is inevitable. Tallien is default dead and knows it. Unless something significant changes, he will soon be at the guillotine. Worse, the love of his life will die there a few days before him and he faces the prospect of going to his death having done nothing to save her. Though he has almost no chance of succeeding, tomorrow is the day he must try. Of course he will fail, but how can he go to the guillotine knowing he did not try? He will use the time until then to maximize the chances of success. If he does not flinch and prepares well, perhaps he can take his chances from none all the way to slim. At least then, if he fails, he can face the blade with a smile.
One of the effects of Jones’ adept use of source material and the discipline of describing the micro events of that twenty four hours in Paris is the vivid introduction to numerous exceptional characters who leap off the page. Several of the quotes are shown in the book’s illustrations as the original documents, in the participants’ own handwriting.
Extraordinary events are a crucible which produces extraordinary people. The source material, as arrayed by Jones’, lets you feel as if you are meeting them yourself, in real time. In the case of Tallien and Cabarrus, what happened to them? With the book respecting its boundaries of a twenty four hour period, and still clocking in at over 450 pages of narrative, to know more of the story beyond that day you have to stop reading from time to time to hit wikipedia. The urge to do so is sometimes overwhelming.
‘One could not be more sumptuously unclothed’ (Il n’est pas possible de s’exposer plus somptueusement)
Talleyrand, another of the French Revolution’s extraordinary creations, commenting on seeing Cabarrus attending the opera in a thin sleeveless silk dress and no undergarments
For instance, from Cabarrus’ note to Tallien, not only do you glimpse a forceful personality but suspect that her feelings for him aren’t quite as strong as his feelings for her. Plus, how on earth does a twenty year old woman end up headed for the guillotine?
So, after some trips to wikipedia to supplement what Jones provides, you learn that:
- Cabarrus is the daughter of an aristocrat who says what she thinks and does what she wants. She is no fan of the Revolution, or of Robespierre. Robespierre and his supporters would get rid of all of the aristocrats if they could. They hold that their privilege is unearned and that not only do they contribute nothing to France, extracting their wealth from the people who do produce, they are actively trying to bring down the Revolution. Cabarrus meets Tallien while he is assigned to Bordeaux, nominated by the Jacobins to represent the Convention and ensure all enemies of the Revolution in Bordeaux go to the guillotine. Through Cabarrus’ interventions with Tallien, many are saved. So many, in fact, that after Robespierre’s fall she is given the moniker Notre-Dame des Bonsecours ("Our Lady of Salvation"). Tallien, however, has excused so many from the guillotine that he is recalled from Bordeaux, expelled from the Jacobin club and publicly condemned by Robespierre for moderation. Cabarrus herself is arrested.
‘..humanity and moderation parading as justice is a crime.‘
Robespierre
- Though Tallien gets Cabarrus released from prison later that very day, the historical record is silent on what happened between them that night. However, Tallien and a pregnant Cabarrus are married that December. Unique among Cabarrus’ children, civil records discretely avoid recording the date of their first child’s birth. Cabarrus has four children during their marriage. Tallien is the father of only the first. They divorce. An eighteenth century version of an internet celebrity, post-release Cabarrus runs a famous Paris salon and has dalliances with an impressive list of French elite, including Napoleon.
'I will not visit Madame Cabarrus.'
Excited about a visit to Paris in one of the rare, brief periods of peace between Britain and France in this period, Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, reassures her similarly well-bred friends[1]. Madame Cabarrus must have been quite disappointed.
These extra details are from the internet/wikipedia, yet Colin Jones’ skilful presentation of the original source material lets you see not only the cumulative impact of the past, but also the thinly visible lines of the future. The hints at a rich back story behind Cabarrus’ note from prison being one of many examples.
‘Be prudent as I’ll be brave and above all stay calm.’
Tallien’s quick reply to Cabarrus’ note, smuggled to her in prison
Even though he is under suspicion, for the moment he is still a Deputy. As such, Tallien can be a spark in the midst of the Convention. However, for one spark to catch fire there needs to be a lot of dry kindling. Is there?
After scribbling his reply to Cabarrus’ note, Tallien works the lodgings of potential Convention allies. As is the case of Robespierre’s own lodgings, most are clustered within walking distance of the Convention. Now heedless of being tailed and the risk of informers, Tallien interrupts dinners and meetings and openly says he will dramatically condemn Robespierre at the Convention the next day before Robespierre can even start speaking. He implores other Deputies to follow his lead once he has exposed himself. However, to meaningfully alter the terrible odds against him, Tallien does not have nearly enough time, nor know nearly enough Deputies.
As Colin Jones shows however, there is plenty of dry kindling beyond what Tallien could generate. Such is the fear of arrest and execution that all give ostentatious outward signs of support for Robespierre and his policies. While the fear of arbitrary arrest and execution has silenced all overt criticism, there is much private muttering that the arrests and decapitations have gone too far. Robespierre and his allies suspect that many who claim to support them really do not. Though they do not hesitate to send people to the guillotine when suspicions reach a certain level, it is difficult to determine who is a true supporter and who is just faking it.
For Robespierre and his allies, this is life or death for the Revolution. The Revolution is trying to build a better, fairer world, grounded in individual rights and free from unearned privilege. So much has already been accomplished, yet it is all so fragile and could come undone so quickly. The enemies of the Revolution mass outside its borders, openly planning its overthrow. Internal enemies conspire to reverse the Revolution’s achievements. There is no time for niceties. To proceed at a stately pace is to risk everything.
‘Terror without virtue is destructive; virtue without terror is impotent. Terror is only prompt, severe and inflexible justice; it thus flows from virtue.’
Robespierre
While very few now risked their necks with outward shows of disagreement, the Paris of summer 1794 is full of many creative and less overt signs that there is disagreement. For instance, in the heavily censored press there is typographical resistance. Roberspierre was a frequent typo (an allusion to a failed assassin of Louis XV). Next level typographical errors let you make your criticism twice, once with the typo and again with the apologetic correction the next day. In a particularly clever error, typographers in the Abréviateur universel, covering one of Robespierre’s speeches, ‘carelessly mixed up’ the French verbes faire and taire. ‘It was we who made false denunciations’ was deeply regretted and ostentatiously corrected the next day with ‘It was we who silenced false denunciations.’
‘by the emphatic applause they bestow on particular passages of the pieces represented at the theatre, they convey to the monarch the sentiments of the nation respecting the measures of his government’
John Moore, Scottish visitor to Paris in 1779, explaining the Paris theatre
Playing at the Théâtre de la république July 27th is a play, approved by censors, on the tyrant Roman emperor Nero and his overthrow by valiant defenders of liberty. Paris actors were masters of the artful pause after a certain line, turning to the audience with an exaggerated arch of a heavily made up eyebrow. Thus, for those in the audience, the delicious epiphany that the bloody tyrant to be overthrown for liberty wasn’t Nero. Theatres could push the limits too far, as was the case for Chénier’s Timoléon which had its approval withdrawn when the censor, at one of the rehearsals, noticed that the actor playing one of the villains bore a striking resemblance to Robespierre. [2]
The cumulative impact of the arrests and executions leaves no clear pattern. While a healthy share of aristocrats, merchants, nuns and priests are going to the guillotine, so too have a disturbing number of people with seemingly stellar revolutionary credentials. Many even shout ‘Vive la Revolution!’ as the blade descends.
For instance Camille Desmoulins, a Convention deputy with a strong revolutionary pedigree. Robespierre and Desmoulins were schoolmates. Robespierre was godfather to Desmoulins’ son and best man at his wedding, yet Robespierre sent him to the guillotine. When Desmoulins’ wife protested, Robespierre had her guillotined as well. You could festoon yourself with tricolour sashes and enthusiastically shout ‘Vive la Revolution!’ 24/7/365 and still not get to a level of protection that Camille Desmoulins ought to have had. Admittedly, in hindsight Desmoulins was probably more outspoken than he should have been about the pace and process of arrests and executions, but if he wasn’t safe, who was?
The immediate contributor to the dry kindling is an alarming speech given by Robespierre to the Convention the day before, the day of Cabarrus’ note to Tallien. In it, Robespierre describes a vast conspiracy and indicates he will shortly expose a group of traitors to the revolution within the Convention itself. Stunned murmuring spreads across the Convention as deputies wonder whether their name might be on that list. Robespierre viciously attacks a few Deputies directly and continues his attacks that night in a fiery and much cheered speech at his political base, the Jacobin club. Tallien, at least, has some Deputies to start with.
Robespierre promises more information in a follow-up speech to the Convention the next day, July 27th. Working Convention deputies right up to the last minute, it is just as Robespierre’s speech is being introduced that Tallien brazenly and ostentatiously interrupts.
‘This is the moment’
Jean Lambert Tallien, outside the Convention hall, on hearing the proceedings start inside, interrupts his discussion with Montagnard Deputy Goupilleau de Montaigu, turns and resolutely strides into the Convention.
There is universal surprise in the Hall at Tallien’s entry, planned for maximum drama. His spark catches fire as other members pick up the discussion. However, there is no coordination, no plan. Other than Tallien and the few who know of his planned intervention, everyone is taken by surprise. Everyone is improvising.
Another benefit of the tight focus on twenty four hours is how, at extreme close-up, 1794 Paris comes alive. It is a city that never sleeps, teeming with activity at all hours, a never ending Jane Jacobs street ballet. Apartments are dark, cramped and stuffy. Shops and workshops open onto the street. Being on the street allows one to participate in social life, observe happenings and share gossip. The streets bustle with pedestrians, carts and horses, intermingling at walking speed. Those stationary and those moving actively observe each other, speaking freely, asking questions, replying, shouting information, making comments.
News travels orally along the streets, a kind of an eighteenth century oral twitter, memes spreading and evolving throughout the city before being formally confirmed by the newspapers and broadsheets in print the next day.
Word is beginning to spread. Robespierre is under grievous attack in the Convention!
Despite his many attempts over hours, Robespierre is simply not allowed to speak to defend himself. His own tactic of refusing his targets in the Convention the opportunity to speak is now being used against him as Convention deputies improvise working in relays to continue the anti-Robespierre invective. They manage to out relay even Robespierre’s allies in the Convention. It is not just Tallien who now believes their life depends on bringing Robespierre down.
‘I do not wish to share the disgrace of this decree. I also wish to be arrested.’
Philippe Le Bas, Convention Deputy and close ally of Robespierre
In an attempt to reverse the discussion’s momentum, Robespierre’s brother Augustine, also a Convention deputy, says that if the true friend of the people Robespierre is an enemy of the Revolution, then he must be an enemy as well. Too many have now followed Tallien’s lead and can not afford to let the momentum slacken. The relay of interventions blocking Robespierre continues and the Convention duly adds Augustine’s name. Philippe Le Bas, a Deputy and close ally of Robespierre, despite being restrained by a friend behind him, in another futile attempt to reverse the momentum, breaks free of his friend’s grip and demands his name also be added to the list. This sets a pattern, and the Convention adds the names of more Robespierre allies to the list of those to be arrested.
In the early hours the following morning, as the Paris militias coalescing around the Convention narrative becomes unstoppable, rather than be apprehended for the guillotine, Le Bas commits suicide. That at least permits him to be buried in a cemetery instead of being thrown into a pit as a headless corpse. For three days his dog whimpers at his grave.
Meanwhile, for Robespierre and his allies, the long suspected plot is now in the open. This is exactly what they have been warning about! Secret enemies of the Revolution, mouthing words of support, have thrown off their cloaks and revealed themselves.
News of what is going on in the Convention has by now percolated along the streets to Paris City Hall. Paris’ Mayor, hearing that something is going on, steps out of a municipal council meeting to learn more.
The city of Paris is proud of the role it has played in the Revolution. Its people and militias, multiple times, have gone to the streets to defend the Revolution and to help it advance. The leaders of Paris’ government know what they must do. The enemies of the Revolution have struck and the City is already hours behind. The Revolution is under threat! When the Mayor steps back into the council meeting, the agenda of new uniforms for firemen, cemetery reform and drainage issues is immediately suspended. The new agenda is the mobilization to purge the enemies of the Revolution from the Convention.
The headquarters of Paris’ militia, the Paris National Guard, is adjacent to Paris City Hall. Mobilization is ordered and orders start going out to the sectional HQs, from where they will eventually flow to individual guardsmen, Paris’ militia. Whether it is baking bread, fixing shoes or another of the scores of occupations across Paris, guardsmen are currently in their regular civilian roles, unaware of the storm rising. Supplementing the orders mobilizing the militia, the bell above City Hall begins ringing, sounding the alarm.
On receipt of orders, individual guardsmen will drop what they are doing, return to their homes to put on their uniforms, pick up their weapons and then assemble at their local mustering point for further instruction. They will do this as active participants, immersed in Paris’ street ballet, hearing, considering and contributing to the news that has already begun flowing orally along the streets. It may be the city government that is mobilizing them, but it won’t necessarily be in response to the orders of the city government that they point their weapons.
'The raising of shields can only be the prelude to evil intent.'
Île de la Cité district Revolutionary Committee is suspicious of the call to mobilize.
'We don't care a fuck about your proclamation!'
response of the crowd as Convention officers, outside the Jacobin Club, attempt to post a proclamation with the Convention's ‘properly vetted and fact checked’ view of events
The City government has every reason to believe they will be able to purge the Convention. It worked on May 31st the previous year when Robespierre and the Jacobins used the National Guard to purge the Convention of the Girondins. The only armed force in Paris is the National Guard, which the City is currently mobilizing. The leader of the Paris militia, firmly committed to the City, has already sent forces to the Convention hall. More will soon be available.
There are now two competing narratives spreading out across Paris. In each, the Revolution is threatened by its enemies. Armed force is assembling and will have to choose which narrative to back. But which narrative will triumph?
‘The General is a hopeless idiot. You’d do well to go off to the National Treasury Building.’ [that is, François Hanriot, the head of the Paris National Guard who is leading the pro-Robespierre forces, is an idiot, so you definitely don’t want to pick that side. If that’s not enough to convince you, you could cleverly hedge by taking your soldiers off to a place that the winning side, whichever it turns out to be, will thank you for protecting.]
Pierre-François Vincent, an officer in National Guard HQ, advising a confused militia officer colleague about which side to take. When Vincent learned that his Commanding Officer, François Hanriot, was leading the pro-Robespierre armed forces, he immediately decided for the Convention.
Leadership lesson: When you know your boss doesn’t have what it takes, you do not trust them with your life. François Hanriot, ostensible and inconsistent leader of the pro-Robespierre forces mobilizing, provides a steady stream of examples throughout the day about how not to be a leader as well as how soldiers respond when they neither trust nor respect their commanding officer.
With Jones’ treatment you see the competing narratives flow across the city, evolving and wrestling for dominance. Puzzled individuals try to make sense of what is going on and make the right decisions, fully aware of the consequences of choosing badly. As the conflicting stories collide, mobilizing militia choose sides. Soldiers, later, sometimes revisit their earlier choices. Some soldiers change sides multiple times.
At this point my review is only about half way through the book, yet I am acutely aware of having ignored most of the story and bypassed so much rich complexity. Even when I have chosen an example, I have skipped important connecting details and do not go as deep down into the layers of whys as Colin Jones does so well. Consider it my attempt to give a feeling for a pond with lily pads, impressionist style.
Unexpected lessons and insights abound from Jones’ approach. It is deeply satisfying to watch people’s individual actions, each small and logical, combining into much larger results that no one would have predicted and otherwise would have made no sense. At the same time, you feel as if you are meeting these people and living in that time in a way that would otherwise not be possible.
While Jones is suitably cautious with the source material, there were a few minor areas in the book where I trusted the sources less than he did. At some points I just couldn’t shake the feeling that the sources were serving their interests at the expense of strict accuracy.
Immediately after the day, the winners commissioned two major inquiries into what happened. Before Robespierre fell, no one opposed him. The day after he fell, everyone had been against him all along. The new government, Tallien included, had been heavily implicated in excesses that could now be conveniently dumped on the dead Robespierre and his closest allies. The heavily compromised winners were at haste to execute Robespierre and his allies as quickly as possible, giving them no opportunity to speak. It was equally imperative that they control what was recorded as history.
'Come into the hall and witness the triumph of the friends of liberty. By this evening, Robespierre will be no more!'
Montagnard Deputy Goupilleau de Montaigu's ‘recollection’ of Tallien's remarks to him before striding into the Convention to interrupt Robespierre. To be clear, I find this recollection highly suspect, though particularly useful for Montaigu and the post-Robespierre government writing up the story of the events. It also does not at all sound like that day’s Tallien we otherwise see so much of in the story.
For instance, Montagnard Deputy Goupilleau de Montaigu. Let me pause by saying that, before this book, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Montagnard Deputy, let alone melodramatic story teller extraordinaire Goupilleau de Montaigu. Deputy Montaigu has some great lines in the book. I loved them! At the same time, some of his lines seemed off. They felt less like what happened and more like what Montaigu told the gang at the bar three days later, and then every week after for the rest of his life.
Deputy Montaigu’s stories were flattering to the living and condemned those villains now dead. As a Montagnard Deputy, the Directory needed his support in building a governing coalition post-Robespierre. Given how on point his stirring and dramatic recounting was to the narrative the post-Robespierre government was trying to solidify, there was every reason to make liberal use of his colourful and flattering recollection of events in the various reports being carefully constructed to safely document the day.
It was only after Robespierre and his closest allies were safely dead that everyone left was falling all over themselves to show how they’d been against him all along. The celebrations in Paris after Robespierre’s death was confirmed were real, as was the crowd cruelly heckling his cart as it was pulled to the guillotine. Before Robespierre’s removal, whether disingenuous or sincere, everyone was publicly pro-Robespierre. Those publicly opposed were dead, awaiting the guillotine or soon to be sent there. Only three months before Camille Desmoulins went to the guillotine. Desmoulins had far more sway than Tallien. In the same cart as Desmoulins, Robespierre sent to the guillotine Georges Danton, one of the early titans of the Revolution. With Robespierre’s ruthless removal of comparative moderates like Danton and Desmoulins, the pace of guillotining went into overdrive. The first to speak out publicly and not die for it was Tallien early that afternoon.
The executed Danton had many friends, but like everyone else they only publicly broke their cowed silence after seeing the frenzy emerge in the Convention that July 27th afternoon.
‘The blood of Danton is choking you!’
Deputy Garnier de l’Aube, friend of the executed Danton, taking a turn at intervening in the Convention to deny Robespierre the opportunity to speak
‘Ah! So it is Danton you are avenging. Cowards! Why then did you not defend him?’
Robespierre’s reply
Robespierre’s sudden fall was a surprise to everyone. Smart, aware people at the time assessed Robespierre as very strong. Robespierre himself agreed. The speed and power of the armed effort to save him, and how close it came to succeeding, shows they were not wrong.
In Jones’ careful account, despite Tallien’s last minute pitch to Montaigu, there is no record of Montaigu intervening against Robespierre in the Convention. Though he knew their support was wavering, Robespierre had long had the support of the Montagnards. After his well timed encounter with Tallien, Montaigu next enters the drama well into the evening, after Robespierre’s arrest, when he returns to the Convention hall from dinner and warns Deputies that the mood among the growing number of soldiers outside was very much against the Convention.
[checks wikipedia. Ha! I knew it!] Montaigu dies in 1823 at the age of 74. Dying old is quite the accomplishment for someone working so close to the edge of the voracious murder machine that was the early French Revolution. Montaigu was a survivor. He’d not actually commit himself to the winner until it was clear. During his dinner break, when he somehow managed to be speaking to the armed Guardsmen outside the Convention who were aggressively sharing their pro-Robespierre views, Montaigu was carefully hedging his bets.
Had the Convention fallen, Montaigu would have been there the next day with a flatteringly embellished story of him witnessing the true patriots of the city militia bravely assembling before heroically storming the Convention to remove it of traitors and, once again, saving the Revolution.
However, the pro-Robespierre forces lost. Once absolutely certain they had lost, our affable bloviator with a talent for telling people the kind of stories about themselves they’d want to hear offered a different contribution to history.
While Montaigu survived in stirring style, he wasn’t the only one whose approach to the day was simply to maximize their chances of surviving it. Most people took the simplest, most direct route available to them. In the midst of one of his ill-judged fits of ‘something must be done, this is something!’, pro-Robespierre armed force commander Hanriot on horseback stopped by a group of workers repairing a road, dramatically appealed to them to defend their fatherland and galloped off. The workers stopped, listened, shouted ‘Vive la République!’ and as Hanriot disappeared at speed, resumed repairing the road. Most people just wanted to survive the day.
‘Me! Me! Fucking Commander of Potatoes more like!’
attributed to Adjutant Christophe-Philippe Giot after the fact by a friend as Giot’s response to being named commander of the pro-Robespierre armed forces (as in Giot didn’t want the job, but somehow it was given to him anyway). As part of the official accounts of the day, Giot’s friends and longtime colleagues in the Paris militia flood the official record with similar exculpatory, though wildly inconsistent, stories. Giot escapes the guillotine.
Another minor part of Jones’ account about which I’m skeptical are the actions of First Legion Adjutant Christophe-Philippe Giot from his evening arrival at City Hall to its being over-run by pro-Convention forces shortly after midnight.
Jones constructs a plausible account of Giot as a good soldier, just trying to do his job and get through the day, swept up against his will in events larger than himself. This is an entirely defensible resolution of source material about Giot that, as Jones himself points out, becomes a hopeless mess of contradictions from Giot’s ambiguous arrival at City Hall, aka Rebel HQ.
Giot is one of the account’s many compelling characters. He is just working through a normal day as unexpected events rise in a crescendo around him. There was a lottery to select guardsmen to provide security and anachronistic gravitas for one of those strange revolutionary ceremonies the next day, drilling of National Guard youth contingents on the grounds of the Temple of Supreme Being (formerly Notre-Dame Cathedral) and a tour of guard duty at Temple prison. Then somehow, Giot ends up at City Hall, pro-Robespierre HQ, and with the temporary disappearance of Hanriot, is even named commander of the armed forces loyal to the pro-Robespierre faction.
While we will never know definitively what happened with Adjutant Giot at City Hall, two facts leapt out.
First, despite the mess of contradictions in the historical reports, they are eerily consistent in the one dimension that mattered. Giot was not a supporter of the pro-Robespierre forces. I couldn’t escape the uncanny feeling that this was a 1794 version of the report after a police shooting where all the officers, including the ones who weren’t there, swear on oath that they saw the suspect pull a gun.
Giot was a decorated veteran with thirty five years of service. It is clear from Jones’ account that he was a soldier’s soldier. Eighteenth century soldiers stood in the line, beside their colleagues, facing death. ‘Stand by me’ had literal meaning. Their entire training and value system was that you stood fast by your colleague, no matter what. Giot’s colleagues stood by him, exactly as he had undoubtedly stood by them numerous times and could be utterly depended on to do so again. Heedless of their stories falling all over themselves with contradictions, or whether or not they had even been there, the armed men of France’s thin blue line were going to put into the record whatever they needed to put that meant Giot would not go to the guillotine.
Second striking fact. In the three days it took to decapitate the losers in the urgent rush of executions that started the next day, only one of the executed was a soldier. One! Yet, the entire day was ultimately decided by the soldiers choosing a side. In getting to their decisions via the 1794 Paris street ballet oral discussion forums, it is clear from Jones’ account that many soldiers were keen supporters of the pro-Robespierre faction. The pro-Robespierre forces were so strong that with more competent military leadership, they probably would have won. Many soldiers were far more implicated in the pro-Robespierre side than many of the civilians executed, yet only one soldier went to the guillotine.
The executed soldier, François Hanriot, was impossible to save. He received multiple direct orders from the Convention, which he openly defied. With characteristic poor judgement, leaving his men outside he rushed into the Convention in an expletive filled tirade looking to rescue Robespierre and was promptly arrested. Further, he was a pompous blowhard, a bully, probably an alcoholic, who got promoted above his colleagues by closely associating with Robespierre. Somehow, in that era of frequent wars, he also managed to have no combat experience. It is painfully clear from Jones’ account that Hanriot did not have the respect of his soldiers. The army was fine letting Hanriot face the guillotine and serve as their scapegoat, but one soldier was all they were prepared to offer - or one soldier was all the civilians felt they could safely take.
With all that, here’s my take on Giot at City Hall, which I fully admit is no better supported than the entirely different interpretation provided by Jones.
Giot was a member of the Jacobin Club and a strong supporter of Robespierre. Earlier in the Revolution he’d been decorated for his role in storming the Bastille, an activity which was not officially condoned until after the fact. When Giot heard the news of the rising to defend Robespierre, he dropped what he was doing, took his men to City Hall and put himself and his men at the disposal of the political leaders of the pro-Robespierre rising. This despite being aware that his own commanding officer was locked-up in the National Guard HQ cells below [3]. Giot was enough of a comrade that as more and more of his men expressed misgivings about what side they were on, he allowed them to discreetly switch sides. Giot, however, stayed to the bitter end.
As pro-Convention forces overran City Hall, they gleefully arrested any civilians, taking the time to rough up the most recognizable, released their imprisoned colleagues and discretely motioned soldier colleagues like Giot through the line. Many had themselves chosen the pro-Robespierre side before switching and most would have wrestled with their decision about which side to back. They weren’t going to let a colleague pay for a decision under pressure and with limited information that could have just as easily been their own.
That the Convention acquiesced in the implausible whitewash of Giot’s participation and, with one exception left the army alone, is an early sign of the growing power of the army as the French revolution progressed.
‘There is a fact I cannot withhold from you. A company of gunners, misled by Hanriot, has sought to aim its cannons against the Convention.’
Deputy Billaud-Varennes informs the Convention of cannons and armed militia, seemingly loyal to the pro-Robespierre City government, now arrayed unopposed outside.[4]
In its unexpected, improvised frenzy to get rid of Robespierre, the Convention seriously underestimated the risk of the City of Paris and the Paris militia. To take control of the militia, or at least neutralize it that day, the Convention tried to remove and replace the original militia commander. The first two replacements named ended up in the prison cells of the pro-Robespierre forces. One new commander lost is an accident, but two starts to be alarming.
As militias mobilized, a significant armed force nominally loyal to the pro-Robespierre forces arrayed itself, unopposed, outside the Convention. Recognizing too late what was happening, afraid and improvising, having lost its previous two commanders, the Convention then named Paul Barras, a fellow Deputy, as head of all armed forces in Paris. Barras had vaguely plausible military experience, including having represented the Convention in the Revolution’s campaign against Toulon the previous year.
Ironically, Paul Barras’ appointment came after the crisis had already tilted decisively in favour of the Convention. Individual militia soldiers, and their officers, puzzling through what was happening, increasingly chose to side with the Convention and against the City government. By the time Paul Barras assumed command, the Convention had such overwhelming armed force that they were able to easily over-run Paris City Hall and arrest everyone there, Robespierre and his allies included. The Convention need not have appointed Barras.
‘I am sensitive to the honour that the Convention has bestowed on me. I will not betray this confidence.’
Paul Barras, on being named the chief of Parisian armed forces.
small world department: One of the children Cabarras has during her marriage to Tallien is fathered by Barras.
Never giving a military command to a politician had been a point on which Robespierre had long been particularly unyielding. Robespierre’s view was that unifying political and military powers would inevitably yield a dictator and be the end of the Revolution.
In the government that evolved after the events of 9 Thermidor, Barras’ new military power allowed him to become one of the five members of the Directorate, which ran the government. As a Director, Barras brought to Paris a promising young officer who he had noticed during the 1793 siege of Toulon. Napoleon Bonaparte.
Five years later, not even bothering with the need for an excuse, Napoleon Bonaparte parked his soldiers outside of the Convention. Napoleon then did what the soldiers of 1794 had not thought to do. He marched his soldiers into the hall and had the assembled Deputies vote him First Consul. Napoleon Bonaparte had learned the lesson the French Revolution taught about how power flowed.
So did tiniest of the events of 9 Thermidor, year II, foreshadow the future of the French Revolution. Colin Jones’ deeply satisfying portrayal vividly transports you to a day in 1794 Paris, lets you share in the experiences of the people there and shows the seeds of the future at the very moment they are being so unwittingly sown.
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[1] Virtue signalling notwithstanding, during Ponsonby’s marriage to an abusive husband she managed ‘numerous lovers’ [wikipedia] and two children not fathered by her husband.
[2] Chénier was guillotined on July 25th, three days before the end of the reign of terror. He was 31 years old.
[3] It is also telling that there is nothing defending Giot in the file from his commanding officer, First Legion Commander Fauconnier. The clearest and easiest defence for Giot would have been from Fauconnier saying that he’d ordered Giot to accompany him to City Hall. Instead, while Giot is leading pro-Robespierre forces, his commanding officer is elsewhere on the premises in a prison cell. In what was not the smartest move, Fauconnier had presented himself to National Guard HQ and been so naively transparent about his pro-Convention sympathies that he was promptly arrested. Jone’s book contains an astonishing story about Fauconnier’s wife that day which explains much about Fauconnier, his wife, their partnership and the life of a military spouse in 18th century France. It’d take too long to explain in a review that, rather than dashing off in an evening, has instead already gone badly off the rails in focus and length. You’ll have to read the book to meet the formidable Citizeness Fauconnier. However, trust me. It’s worth it. Plus, there are many more compelling people besides her in the story which this review has had to leave out.
[4] While something like this must have been said at the time, the quote itself only enters the record in the post-event write up. The ‘misled by Hanriot’ feels out of place, but is consistent with an approach to make the already safely executed Hanriot own 100% of the responsibility for pro-Robespierre actions by the military.