Maximilien Robespierre

“ In the heat of an impassioned speech, Robespierre on one occasion defined the enthusiasm of the French Revolution in the following terms: "Indeed, gentlemen, it does state this absolute irresistible feeling, this profound aversion to tyranny, this enthusiasm for the oppressed, this great and profound love for mankind, without which no revolution can be anything else than a frightful crime annihilating a previous crime. Yes, indeed, we have the ambition to found the first republic in the world; we have the ambition to produce that which no man has ever produced before." ”

“ I do not believe that the Republic is a word that can be trifled with, I do not believe that the Republic exists to be made sport of. The thing that is now being done is the best method of restoring the monarchy.
The Constitution is invoked in defense of Louis. I shall not take up all the arguments; let me simply say: to be sure, the Constitution forbids everything you have done so far. Be sure of that, in fact, you have no right to hold the King a prisoner; on the other hand, he has the right to demand his immediate liberation, not to mention compensation. The Constitution condemns you! ”

“ In affording an audience to the lawyer of Louis XVI you are opening the struggle of despotism against liberty, you are organizing the right of calumny and blasphemy against the Republic. For, the right to defend the overthrown despot involves also the right to say anything in his favor that may be desired. You are giving a new lease of life to all the defeated factions; you encourage them, you inspire the defeated monarchism with new energy, you recognize the right to take sides for or against the King without let or hindrance. ”

“ It is this love for the Incorruptible that caused Coblenz, London and Vienna—in their desire to assail him and wound him—to speak of the armies of the Republic in no other terms than as the armies of Robespierre, to stamp him the bugbear of the entire continent; and yet, without propaganda, without a press, without friendly parties, to the furthest corner of the colonies—down-trodden humans recognized that the Incorruptible was the man in whose hands their principle was being defended. ”

“ It is self-evident that the domination of the Jacobins, as well as the domination of Robespierre, embraced within it the entire illusion of the petty bourgeoisie. But it also bears within it the elements of a new society. The Revolution shot beyond its goal, and that which lay beyond its goal is not mere insanity; this advance is rather the beginning of the new revolutionary principle, namely, it is that which the proletariat has inherited from the French Revolution. ”

“ But if Louis may be declared guiltless, if Louis may go free of punishment, what will then become of the Revolution? If Louis is guiltless, all the defenders of freedom are liars, all those faithful to the King, all the counter-revolutionaries, are friends of truth and the defenders of oppressed innocence, all the manifestoes, pamphlets and intrigues of foreign courts, all these are merely legitimate and proper articles of complaint. ”

“ The National Assembly, however, prefers its government to the cabinets of London and all the other courts of Europe. Either we shall rule, or the tyrants will rule us. What are the resources of our enemies in this war of treachery and corruption waged by them against the Republic? All the vices fight for them; the Republic has all the virtues on its side. The virtues are simple, poor, often ignorant, sometimes brutal. They are the heritage of the unhappy, the possession of the people. ”

“ The entire world is united, all wear the same countenance, and yet it is evident that when a king with an income of forty millions annually, still in possession of all the resources of the country, bearing the fairest crown of all the world—that when such a king leaves everything in the lurch in this manner, it must be because he feels certain that he will be able to return soon. And this feeling of sympathy cannot be based on the Emperor alone, or on the King of Sweden, or on the Army of the Rhine, the army of our enemy, or on all the brigands of Europe, who are united against us. ”

“ We want morality in the place of egotism, principles in the place of mere habit, the rule of reason in the place of the slavery of tradition, contempt for vice in the place of contempt for misfortune, the love of glory in the place of avarice. Honest men instead of "good society," truth instead of empty show, manly greatness instead of the depravity of the great, a sublime, powerful, victorious and happy people! ”

“ They die under the swords of the foe, with the shout, "Long live the Republic!" on their lips; their last words are pæans to liberty, their last gasps are exclamations of homage to their country. If the leaders of the army were as valiant as our soldiers, Europe would have been defeated long ago. ”

“ It is also time for our allies to feel confidence in our caution and in our fate, and it is time that all our enemies may no longer have any doubts as to our might or our courage.
The French Revolution has shaken the world; the soaring flight to liberty of a great people was naturally displeasing to the kings who live about us. But to proceed from such displeasure to a declaration of war, to an establishment of the monstrous alliance of powers hostile to us, this was indeed a long journey. ”

“ If we spare them, they will conspire publicly; if we threaten them, they will conspire secretly or under the mask of patriotism. Yesterday they murdered the defenders of liberty; to-day they mingle in the procession of mourners and weep for their own victims. Blood has flowed all over the country on their account, but we need this blood in the struggle against the tyrants of Europe. The foreigners have set themselves up as the arbitrators of public peace; they have sought to do their work with money ”

“ The splendor of the goal pursued by our Revolution is simultaneously the source of our strength and our weakness. It is the source of our weakness, because it unites all the perfidious and vicious individuals, all the advocates of tyranny who think of plunder, who think to find in the Revolution a trade and in the Republic a booty. ”

“ Either we or our enemies must succumb. "Show consideration for the Royalists!" shout some persons; "have compassion with the criminal!" "No, I tell you; have compassion with innocence, compassion with the weak, and compassion with humanity! ..."
The whole task of protecting the Republic is for the advantage of the loyal citizen. In the Republic, only republicans may be citizens. The Royalists and conspirators are foreigners to us, enemies. Is not the terrible war in which we now are involved a single indissoluble struggle? ”

“ Even the aristocracy is now attempting to make itself popular. It conceals its counter-revolutionary pride, it hides its dagger under its rags and filth. Royalism is trying to overcome the victories of the Republic. The nobility, having learned from past experience, is ready to clasp liberty in a sweet embrace, in order to stifle it in the act. ”

“ If tyranny prevails for but a single day, all the patriots will have been wiped out by the next morning. And yet some persons dare declare that despotism is justice and that the justice of the people is despotism and rebellion. ”

“ Yet it is perfectly apparent that no men were ever obliged to govern a country in a more difficult situation, a more terrible plight, and that no leaders ever brought any nation, under such a catastrophe of the most elementary forces, to such real successes in so short a period of time, as did the dictators of the Committee of Public Safety, first under the leadership of Danton, and then under that of Robespierre. ”

“ No doubt the thousands of propagandists and the clubs which then called for war were not speculating or calculating on the fact that the war was a subject of barter. Far from it; the men who were then demanding war were great and honest revolutionaries who knew that their weapons held the destiny of a world. Louvet, in the National Assembly, called for war, pronouncing on that occasion the magnificent words: "Yes, war, long live war! France shall take to arms at once! You say that the coalition of all the tyrants against us is a fact! So much the better for the world. ”

“ Their agents still infect our armies, as even our victory at Toulon will show. All the bravery of our soldiers, all the devotion of our generals, and all the heroism of the members of this Assembly had to be put forth to defeat treason. These gentlemen still speak in our administrative bodies, in the various sections; they secure admission to the clubs; they sometimes may be found sitting among us; they lead the counter-revolution; they lurk about us, they eavesdrop on our secrets; they flatter our passions and seek even to influence our opinions and to turn our own decisions against us. ”

“ If the people are eager to celebrate victory at the Capitol, they will intone hymns of gloom and remind us of our adversities in the past. They sow disaffection among us. And when we proceed to clothe the people's sovereignty in the concrete form of a powerful and respected government, they discover that the principles of this government are a violation of the sovereignty of the people. They wish to disorganize us, they wish to paralyze the acts of the republican government. ”

“ Ask any one of these traders in human flesh what is property; he will show you the long coffin called a ship, in which men are packed together and chained, men who seem yet alive, and he will tell you: "Look at my property; I have bought it head for head." Question this nobleman who has goods and subjects, and who believes that the world will come to an end now that he no longer possesses them, and he will expound similar ideas on property to you. ”

“ Are you afraid of injuring the feelings of the people? Know then, that the people fear nothing else than the cowardice and ambition of their representatives! The people are not a horde of slaves who are stupidly chained to the tyrant whom they themselves have overthrown. ”

“ We wish a social order that shall hold in check all base and cruel passions, which shall awaken to life all benevolent and noble impulses, that shall make the noblest ambition that of being useful to our country, that shall draw its honorable distinctions only from equality, in which the generality shall safeguard the welfare of the individual, and in which all hearts may be moved by any evidence of republican spirit. ”

“ What is the purpose, what is the goal for which we strive? We wish a peaceful enjoyment of freedom and equality, the rule of that eternal justice whose laws are graven not in marble or in stone, but in the hearts of all men. ”

“ Property has no moral principle in the eyes of all these persons. Why does your Declaration of the Rights of Man suffer from the same defect? In your defense of liberty ... you have stated—and rightly so—that it is limited by the rights of one's neighbor; why have you not applied the same principle to property, which after all is a social institution? ”

“ The Committee of Public Safety, this engine of the Revolution, this all-fructifying center of energy, without which there is no doubt that counter-revolution would have come out victorious, is also not the result of a ready-made plan, but, on the contrary, each cog of this machine was fashioned by the events of the day and only later became a portion of a unified organism. ”

“ To be worthy of the compassion of these gentlemen one must be able to show that one has murdered at least ten thousand Frenchmen. They preserve their indifference when faced with the reports of the terrible blood-baths to which our heroes are subjected, or of the crimes perpetrated against their mothers and children, and yet, the punishment of a new traitor is called a savage massacre. The wretchedness of our citizens in the cities, their painful wounds, is borne with equanimity, but the wives of the conspirators move them to eloquence. These persons may defeat the ends of justice and law ”

“ During the Revolution, the sources of this power are virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror will be a disaster; and terror, without which virtue is powerless. But terror is nothing more nor less than swift, severe and indomitable justice. ”

“ Do you believe that the Mountain has not enough forces to defeat the adherents of Dumouriez, Orléans and Coburg combined? Parisians, the fate of all France, of all Europe, and all humanity is in your hands. The Mountain needs the People. ”

“ We shall continue to make war, war against England, against the Austrians, against all their allies. Our only possible answer to their pamphlets and lies is to destroy them. And we shall know how to hate the enemies of our country. ”

“ Revolution for the bourgeoisie, by reason of its class situation, has very definite limits, but the lower classes, the masses of workers and peasants, can only favor and demand a single indivisible republic, and complete freedom. ”

“ The establishment of the French Revolution was no child's play; it cannot be the work of caprice and carelessness, nor can it be the accidental product of the coalition of all the individual demands and of the revolutionary elements. ”

“ Louis is not the accused. You are not the judges! You are—you cannot be other than statesmen, the representatives of the nation. You have not to give a judgment for or against an individual; on the contrary, you must adopt a measure of public welfare, achieve an act of national wisdom. In a republic, a dethroned king is a source of danger ”

“ Question the members of the Capetian dynasty, and they will tell you that the most sacred property is the right of inheritance, that they have the ancient right of oppressing the twenty-five million persons now populating the territory of France, of destroying them, of treating them—legally and monarchically—according to their own royal whim. ”

“ Kings, aristocrats and tyrants, whatever be the nation to which they belong, are slaves in rebellion against the sovereign of the earth, the human race, and against the Legislator of the Universe of Nature. ”