Robespierre and the French Revolution

Men and Their Times

by J.M. Thompson

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: History, Biography, Politics, France

Unknown Binding

First published December 1, 1952

About the author

James Matthew Thompson was a historian and theologian.

Reviews

[Yuri Sharon]

This was a text I read in high school in 1966. It is a short work covering the broad sweep of the five years (1789-94) of Robespierre’s political career and demise. Reading it now is very different to doing so 56 years ago. Now, I can stop and google other players as their names appear, making this a much more discursive reading. I can also call up and watch films that add to the discussion – such as Wajda’s Danton (1983), with the title role very capably played by Gerard Depardieu.
I think this work has held its own over the several generations since it first appeared. Perhaps it is because it is such a basic text that it remains an excellent starting point, an impetus to study the French Revolution. Above all, it gives us a clear notion of why Robespierre was important and has held historians’ attention and the public imagination for so long.

[James Ayre]

"If the existence of God and the immortality of the soul were mere dreams, they would still be the finest creations of the spirit of man."

concise explanation of robespierre as a man beyond his time, a puritan who essentially believed the 'right' things regarding human equality but wrapped them in religious notions that others in the revolutionary circles found too disagreeable. Yes, he arguably went mad. Yes, killing people is wrong. What was Robespierre trying to achieve in all of that? A Republic of Virtue, where justice and the people's justice was built upon the fundamental rights of man. Robespierre believed that science had half-progressed the world, but man had not mastered the new passions of the world. Immorality formed despotism, immorality born from man's disconnection from his Truth [liberte, egalite, fraternite].

interesting to critique the lens on which we understand [in the anglosphere] the french revolution, as robespierre wasn't any more of an architect of the reign of terror than anyone else in the committee of public safety, but became to dickens and other observers the embodiment of the failure of the revolution by his pseudo-dictatorial power over the convention

one thing i was thinking throughout reading it was that it's interesting comparing an actual history book like this of the revolution to contemporary pop history, like Oversimplified (on Youtube)'s history of the french revolution 2-parter. content like Oversimplified really embodies the sort of schoolbook milktone neutral Anglosphere interpretation of history, which depicts Robespierre as a bloodthirsty proto-communist madman lunatic who wanted to make himself a god. While being also false, interpretations like this lose information that we can learn from on figures like Robespierre. Violence became to Robespierre a means to an end, the climate of fear and siege mentality (both the threat of royalists, Commune radicals in the working class, and the Girondins goading half of Europe into war) feeding into a necessity. Obviously the talk of virtue and sanctity of the Supreme People as moral agents is very prevalent, but what lies behind that (in Thompson's observation) is the fact that Robespierre and the others in the Jacobin cabinet legitimately felt like the revolution's good was going to be undone.

tl;dr the reign of terror really wasn't that bad, down with the thermidorians, long live robespierre

[leila]

a pretty good and snappy overview of the french revolution and robespierre’s role within it. i think it does a fair job of neither romanticizing him nor condemning him completely. i wish there was a list of sources here! it’s not a very in depth book, but it’s also not a very long book, and it covers a lot of ground for what it is. a good read for beginners like myself i think :)

[Emily]

As promised, a short-form hybrid of biography with pocket history.