The Reign of Terror

I would not want to be Maximilien de Robespierre right now.  Trust me, he or she is out there.  What is worse, the poor delusional fool may not know they are Robespierre.  They will find out too late and no one will be more surprised or be given less sympathy.  But, I digress.

            I am, of course, referring to the Reign of Terror which swept over France from the fall of 1793 to the summer of 1794.  In this span of ten months, the French Revolution changed from a violent overthrow of the monarchy to a wholesale slaughter of anyone the resistance didn’t like.  The rabble decided that it wasn’t enough to do away with the aristocracy.  They were on a mission to rid the country of anyone who didn’t look, sound, act and believe exactly as they did.  Some 1,400 people were put to death. 

            The executions started with the obvious suspects.  The nobles had to go and it was important to kill them.  What demonstrates your power more than the power to kill?  But it is hard to control power once it is in the hands of zealots.  So, after the nobles were gone, who ever are you going to kill?  Well, the next target became the “enemies of the Revolution.”  These people might be nobles, or members of the clergy (the clergy had held power too, so they were certainly part of the problem) and then there were the “hoarders” which turns out were people who owned businesses.  If you were a businessman (or, worst still, a successful businessman) you too held power, ergo were unworthy, ergo, must die. 

            To find all these “unworthies,” a Committee of Public Safety was created, and run with deadly success, by Robespierre.  This committee took testimony from any person who wanted to point the finger at their neighbor.  The accusation was all that was needed.  The accused was denied representation; he/she could only speak if asked a question.  The only choice for the jury was acquittal or death.  Mostly it was death.  If you didn’t find the accused guilty, might you not be the next person accused?  Better to keep the rabble happy.  [If this sounds a bit like the Salem witch trials you are right, except in Salem the accusers were hysterical and sexually repressed girls.  Nobody is sexually repressed in France.]   

        So why would I NOT want to be Robespierre right now?  Well, it is a funny thing about power that comes from emotional overload, blood lust and abject hatred.  You can’t control that particular beast.

       Right about the time Robespierre thought he had a firm grip on the reins, he decided, since part of the goal of the Revolution was to destroy Christianity, to declare his own religion The Cult of the Supreme Being.  But all the rabble heard was “religion” and they decided Robespierre had rolled over.  On July 27, 1794, Robespierre was arrested and the following day he and 21 of his closest friends were executed at the guillotine.

    Oddly, this date is usually given as the official end of the Reign of Terror.  It seems that a sow savaging its own piglets is a sobering sight.  Not that that helped Robespierre.

     So, I would hate to be Robespierre right now.  I do not want to be the darling of the mob.  Zealots are dangerous and irrational people.  If you are a right leaning wingnut, you probably think I am talking about the left.  If you are part of the lathered left, you probably think I am talking about the right.  You are both correct. 

            Try the middle and keep the faith.