Download Robespierre's Defense of Republicanism at Louis XVI's Trial and more Schemes and Mind Maps French in PDF only on Docsity!
Maximilien Robespierre Speech at the Trial of Louis XVI, 31 December 1792
[ Introductory note : Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) entered French politicswith the French Revolution and eventually would preside over its most radical phase(1793-1794). He made his first mark in 1788, when he published an
Adresse à la nation artésienne , in which argued against voting by order in the upcomingassembly of the Estates General; in 1790 and 1791 he emerged as a leading radicalin the Jacobin club and opponent to war with Austria; then in the autumn of 1792,Robespierre assumed a leading role among those delegates to the NationalConvention who argued that Louis XVI should not be tried but executed as anenemy of the Republic. In this speech, Robespierre makes his case against aproposal to submit the question of Louis’ fate to a national referendum, warningagainst the dangers to the Republic that such a move would present. Robespierre gothis way: the question of Louis’ fate was not referred to the judgment of the people,but decided by the National Convention, acting on its behalf. Louis was sentenced todeath, but only by the narrowest margin—361 to 360, with 72 abstentions.^ Robespierre was elected to the Committee for Public Safety in July 1793 and inthat capacity functioned as the public face and mouthpiece of the “Reign of Terror”.Eventually, Robespierre’s zeal to purge the nation of counter-revolutionariesproduced a backlash: on July 27, his enemies in the National Convention mounted acoup d’état against the Committee for Public Safety. Robespierre was arrested at5:00 and guillotined without trial the following day, July 28, along with Saint-Justand twenty of their followers.^ Image: Anon,^ Maximilien de Robespierre
(ca. 1790). Oil on canvas, 600 x 490 cm. Musée de Carnevalet, Inv. CARP. 729
]. [...] Citizens, let me call you back to the supreme interest of the nation: itssafety. What is it that demands your attention to Louis? It is not thirst for avengeance unworthy of the nation; it is the need to strengthen public libertyand tranquility through the punishment of a tyrant. Any manner ofjudgment, any system of delays which compromises public tranquility is indirect opposition to your aims. And it were better had you simply neglectedto punish him than that his trial lay fuel upon our troubles and kindle civilwar.
Robespierre,^ Speech at the Trial of Louis XVI
, 31 December 1792^ Each instant of delay brings us a new danger; all delays awaken guiltyhopes and further embolden the enemies of liberty! They encourage darkdefiance and cruel suspicions in the midst of this assembly. Citizens, thevoice of the alarmed nation urges you to hasten the decision which is toreassure it. What scruple yet fetters your zeal? I can find a motive neither inthe principles of the friends of humanity, nor in those of philosophers, norin those of statesmen, nor even in those of the most subtle and profoundcasuist. The procedure has reached its final stage. The day before yesterdaythe accused declared to you that he had nothing further to say in his defense.He recognized that all the procedures he had desired had been carried out.He declared that he would ask no others. The moment when his justificationis still fresh in our ears is the most favorable to his cause. There is notribunal on earth which would not adopt such a system with a clearconscience. An unhappy man, taken in flagrante or simply accused of anordinary crime, with proof a thousand times less striking, would have beencondemned within twenty-four hours [...] To delay your judgment, you have heard about the honor of the nation andthe dignity of the Assembly. The honor of nations consists in being free andvirtuous, in striking down tyrants and avenging reviled humanity. The gloryof the National Convention consists in displaying a great character andsacrificing servile prejudices to the sublime principles of reason andphilosophy. It consists in saving the nation and strengthening liberty byoffering a great example before all the world. I can see its dignity reducedas we forget the vigor of republican maxims, as we are lost in a maze ofuseless and ridiculous chicanery, and as the speakers before this Assemblycause the nation to embark once again on the course of monarchy. Posterity will admire or despise you according to the degree of vigor youshow on this occasion; and that vigor will be the measure as well oft theboldness or the pliancy with which the foreign despots treat you, It will bethe wages of our servitude or of our liberty, of our prosperity or of ourmisery. Citizens, victory will decide if you are rebels or benefactors ofhumanity, and the greatness of your character will decide the victory. Citizens, to betray the cause of the people and our own conscience, todeliver the nation to all the disorder which delay in such a trial must
awaken, that is the only danger we have to fear. It is time to leap over thefatal obstacle which has so long barred our course. Then doubtless we willmarch together toward our common aim of public felicity; then the hatefulpassions which mutter too often in the sanctuary of liberty will yield to loveof public welfare and to the holy emulation of the friends of the land; andall the plots of enemies of public order will be confounded. But how far westill are from this goal if that strange opinion which at first we could hardlyhave dared imagine, which then we suspected, was, finally, in fact proposedopenly. As for me, from that moment, I saw the confirmation of all mysuspicions and all my fears. At first we seemed to be troubled by the consequences which delays in theprogress of this affair might bring. Now we risk rendering it interminable.We feared the unrest which each moment of delay might bring, and here weare guaranteed the overthrow of the Republic. Why, of what matter is it thata fatal plot be hidden beneath a veil of prudence or even beneath the pretextof respect for the sovereignty of the people? Such was the art of all tyrantsunder the mask of patriotism, who have until now assassinated liberty andbeen the cause of all our ills. These are not sophistical declamations, butresults which you must weigh. Yes, I say openly that I no longer see the trial of the tyrant as anything but ameans to bring us back to despotism by way of anarchy. Citizens, I call youto witness. The first time there was any discussion of the trial of Louis theLast in the National Convention called expressly to judge him, when youleft your departments en flamed with the love of liberty, filled with thatgenerous enthusiasm which the recent proofs of the confidence of amagnanimous people inspired in you, which no foreign influence hadchanged, nay, at first when the question of opening this affair arose,suppose someone had said to you: You think that you will have done withthe trial of the tyrant in a week, in two weeks, in three months; you aremistaken. It will not be you who will pronounce his sentence, who willjudge him in the end. I hereby propose that you send this affair to thetwenty or thirty thousand sections into which France is divided, so that theymay all pronounce on this point; and you will adopt this proposal.’ Youwould have laughed at the assurance of a man making .m a motion. Youwould have rejected such a motion as incendiary, designed to kindle civil
Robespierre,^ Speech at the Trial of Louis XVI
, 31 December 1792^ seem to have, but to strengthen all the sinister fears which slander implantedto poison weak spirits by perfidious insinuations, to fan the fires of hate anddiscord? Is it not evident that this is less the trial of Louis XVI than that of thestaunchest defenders of liberty. Is it against the tyranny of Louis XVI thatwe revolt? No, it is against the tyranny of a small number of oppressedpatriots. Are the plots of the nobility feared? No, it is the ambition of Iknow not which deputies of the people who stand ready to take the place ofthe aristocrats. The tyrant is to be preserved to furnish opposition to a fewimpotent patriots. Perfidious men control all public power and the statetreasury, and they accuse us of despotism. There is no hamlet in theRepublic where we have not been slandered with an unheard of impudence.The treasury is emptied to corrupt the public with a storm of pamphlets.They dare, in spite of public faith and the most holy laws, to violate theprivacy of the mails to stop all patriotic dispatches, to stifle the voice ofliberty, of truth, of outraged innocence. And they complain of slander! Theydespoil us of all, even to our suffrage, and they denounce us as tyrants!They represent as acts of revolt, the mournful cries of oppressed patriotismoverwhelmed by perfidy, and they fill this sanctuary with cries ofvengeance and fury! Yes, doubtless there is a plot to degrade the Convention and perhaps tocause its dissolution as a result of this interminable question. This plot is notfound among those who seek energetically the principles of liberty, notamong the people who have sacrificed everything to it, not in the majorityof the National Convention which seeks the good and the true, not evenamong those who are the dupes of intrigue and the blind instruments offoreign passions. This plot thrives among a score of rascals who hold thereins, among those who are silent about the greatest concerns of the nation,who abstain above all from announcing an opinion on the question of thelast king, but whose silent and pernicious activity causes all the ills whichtrouble us and prepares all those who await us. How can we escape this abyss if not by returning to our principles and tothe source of our ills? What peace can exist between oppressed andoppressor? What concord can reign where even the freedom of the vote is
not respected? Any violation of such freedom is an attempt on the nation; arepresentative of the people does not permit himself to be stripped of theright to defend the interests of the people; no power can take this right fromhim without taking his life as well. Already those who sought to assure continued discord, to control thedeliberations, conceived the idea of dividing the assembly into majority andminority, a new means to insult and silence those who were designated asthe latter. I do not recognize majority and minority here. The majority iscomposed of the good citizens. It is permanent since it belongs to no party;at each free deliberation it is renewed, since it belongs to the public causeand to eternal reason. And when the Assembly recognizes an error, the fruitof surprise, of haste, or of intrigue (which sometimes happens), then theminority becomes the majority. The general will is not formed in secretconventicles or around the tables of ministers. The minority retains aninalienable right to make heard the voice of truth, or what it regards as such.Virtue is always in the minority on this earth. Without this, would not the earth be peopled by tyrants and slaves?Hampden and Sidney were of the minority, for they died on the scaffold.Critias, Anitus, Caesar, Clodius, were all of the majority; but Socratesbelonged to the minority, for he swallowed the hemlock. Cato was of theminority, for he tore out his bowels. I know many men here who will, ifneed be, serve liberty in the manner of Sidney; and were there only fifty ...This thought alone must send a shiver through the base intriguers who wishto corrupt or to mislead the majority. Until that time, I ask at least thatpriority be given to the tyrant. Let us unite to save the nation and let thedeliberation assume at last a character more worthy of us and of the cause,which we defend. Let us at least banish the deplorable incidents which dous dishonor. Let us not spend more time in self persecution than would beneeded to judge Louis, and let us know how to gauge the subject whichdisquiets us. Everything seems to conspire against the public welfare. Thenature of our debates agitates and embitters public opinion, and unhappily,that opinion reacts against us. The mistrust of the representatives seems togrow with the citizens’ alarms. A proposal which we ought to hear calmly,irritates us; malevolence daily exaggerates, imagines, or creates tales whoseaim is to strengthen prejudice; and the smallest causes can lead us to the
Robespierre,^ Speech at the Trial of Louis XVI
, 31 December 1792^ most terrible effects. The mere expression, sometimes too animated, of thefeeling of the public, which should be easy to control, becomes the pretextfor the most dangerous measures and for propositions which most threatenour principles. People, spare us at least this disgrace; keep your applause for the day whenwe have passed one law that is of use to humanity. Do you not see that yougive them pretexts to slander the sacred cause which we defend? Ratherthan violate these firm rules, turn your backs on the spectacle of ourdebates. Remember the ribbon which your hand but lately held as aninsurmountable barrier around the fatal dwelling of our tyrant, then still onthe throne. Remember that order has been maintained thus far withoutbayonets, by the virtue of the people alone. Far from your eyes we will notstruggle the less for liberty. We alone must now defend your cause. Whenthe last of your defenders has perished, then avenge them if you wish, andtake on the charge of making liberty triumph.
Citizens, whoever you are, set up a watch around the Temple; arrest, if it isnecessary, perfidious malevolence, even deceived patriotism, and confoundthe plots of our enemies. Fateful place! Was it not enough that thedespotism of the tyrant weighed so long on this immortal city? Must hisvery safekeeping be a new calamity for it? Is the trial to be eternal, so as toperpetuate the means of slandering the people who took him from thethrone? I have proven that the proposal to submit the question of Louis to theprimary assemblies would lead to civil war. If I cannot contribute to thesalvation of my country, I wish at least to be recorded, at this moment, forthe attempts I have made to warn you of the calamities which threaten it. Iask that the National Convention declare Louis guilty and worthy of death.
