Louis Antoine de Saint-Just: Enfant Terrible

The implementation of the Terror, which followed the execution of King Louis XVI was deliberate policy if one exacerbated by events, and if its leading architect was the incorruptible lawyer from Arras, Maximilien Robespierre then its most enthusiastic advocate was his loyal henchman Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, who unlike that other herald for the unrelenting shedding of blood Jean-Paul Marat was a ‘true believer,’ and one who would wield real executive political power. 

 

By the mid-1780’s, largely the result of its financially ruinous intervention in the American War of Independence, France was bankrupt. Worse still, it was burdened with an uneven system of taxation unable to cope, one that saw an aristocracy exempt, a clergy only required to make an annual donation to government coffers of its own determination, and a small if growing bourgeoisie unable to take up the slack. The cost fell therefore heavily upon the small farmer, the artisan class, and those among the labouring poor least able to pay. In the meantime, a complicated system of internal duties which hampered the free movement of goods domestically only made the need for reform even more urgent, but the intransigence of those tax exempt to pay their share stymied all attempts to do so. 

 

To break the deadlock King Louis XVI was persuaded by his Ministers to call an Estates General, the French Parliament which had last met in 1614, but this only succeeded in changing the debate from one about tax reform and balancing the nation’s finances to one of political change. 

 

The hoped-for resolution of a seemingly intractable problem had now opened a political Pandora’s Box, and one that with the taking of the Tennis Court Oath and the Fall of the Bastille would lead to eventual revolution. All events which ate away at a young man from the provinces desperate to get involved. 

 

Louis Antoine Leon de Saint-Just was born in the town of Decise in the Nivernais region of France on 25 August 1767, the son of a cavalry officer who died when he was still a child. His mother who did not remarry raised him and his two sisters only with great difficulty, but even so refused to have them adopted or farmed out to relatives. She even scraped together enough money to send the young Antoine to college. He repaid her by stealing the family silver and fleeing to Paris to engage in it seems a dissolute lifestyle. 

 

Refusing to return home on 28 September 1786 his mother secured a lettre de cachet or royal warrant for his arrest, and he was to spend the next six months at a Reform School in Auxerre. Conditions were harsh and he was miserable, but the lesson was learned, and it did at least provide the opportunity for him to read, and indeed to write. He wrote a play and composed his epic, and somewhat pornographic poem Organt which he would self-publish two years later to little acclaim but some notoriety when it was deemed scandalous enough to be banned and see its author briefly arrested. 

He would return to Paris to study law following the Storming of the Bastille and during the early days of a revolution which would soon engulf the entire country. He found the atmosphere intoxicating and was excited by what he saw. Becoming ever more fixated with politics his interest in the law waned accordingly, but so too did he become increasingly frustrated by his lack of involvement in events. He abandoned his studies, but what to do next? 

 

At Blerancourt a town some 75 miles north of Paris he enlisted in the local National Guard and within months was in command of his own unit, but being a Guardsman however exalted made him just one among many. It wasn’t good enough for a man of ideas, a man of ambition, so he chose a more direct approach. On 19 August 1790, he wrote a letter to Maximilien Robespierre the rising star of the radical Jacobin Club in Paris on the pretext of securing his support for a local petition. It wasn’t the first letter of introduction he had written to a leading figure in the revolution, but it would be the one that made the difference. Hardly a surprise perhaps, given how unstinting he was in his praise: 

 

 

And so, it continued: 

 

 

His initiative had paid off but despite his now being known to a leading member of the Jacobin Club he remained an obscure regional Guard Commander distant from events and broiling with frustration, so he turned his hand to political writing producing a pamphlet which though stern and uncompromising in its style nonetheless remained somewhat moderate and conventional in its views. Again, few people read it, but it mattered little for it was events in Paris which would provide the opportunity to participate in the revolution that he so hungered for. 

 

The Royal Family’s attempt to flee France in June 1791 into the arms of the nation’s enemies had effectively ended the possibility of the monarchy ever becoming a constitutional one with any sincerity. Hostility towards the royal couple only grew as a result culminating in a violent assault on the Tuileries Palace forcing them to seek sanctuary with the National Assembly. 

 

With the war which the Girondin dominated National Assembly had declared on Austria (and later Prussia) going poorly, the treason of the King exposed, and the mob now having vented their fury it was clear something had to be done, a final settlement had to be found. 

 

The decision was made to hold early elections to a National Convention on a franchise of universal male suffrage. Many deputies however frightened by the violence displayed at the Tuileries refused to stand again leaving many seats vacant for new candidates to fill. There was little enthusiasm for an election and the turn-out was poor neither of which was of any interest to Saint-Just who in September 1792, with Robespierre’s support was elected as one of those new candidates as a Deputy for the Department of the Aisne. 

 

Aged just 25, he may have been the youngest member of the new National Convention, but he certainly did not behave as such. He was not cursed it seems with the rashness of youth and so wanting to convey the authority that might be denied him otherwise he remained quite circumspect and modest in his actions. He would in time join the Robespierre supporting Montagnard (Mountain) faction in the Convention and the Jacobin Club, but he was in no hurry for now at least, declaring “I do not belong to any faction, I will fight them all.” 

 

On the second day of meeting the newly elected National Convention voted to formally abolish the monarchy, Louis having already been deposed as King. In just a matter of hours France minus a head-of-state and without any formal declaration of such had become a Republic ending a thousand years and more of kingship. But what to do with the ex-King? Should he be exiled? should he stand trial? The evidence that he had colluded with France’s enemy Austria was overwhelming. Saint-Just was adamant, there should be no trial, there was no need for such formalities, the King was guilty – the King must die! 

 

His speech of 13 November was his first since being elected a deputy and it caused a sensation: 

 

“No one can reign innocently”, he said, “every King is a rebel and a usurper.” He continued, “He oppressed a free nation; he declared himself its enemy; he abused the laws: he must die to assure the repose of the people, since it was in his mind to crush the people to assure his own.” 

 

There could be no mercy, and that to consider such was folly, he insisted. 

 

“Perhaps one day, men as far removed from our prejudices as we are from those of the Vandals will be astonished by the barbarity of an age in which the judging of a tyrant was thought to be something sacred and where a guilty man who belonged to the class of oppressors, the lowest class of humanity, became a martyr to their pride.” 

 

The speech which was received with cheering and applause from the Montagnard but was greeted less favourably elsewhere in the chamber quickly became the talk of the political clubs and salons of Paris. Here was a young man to be reckoned with, they said. Nonetheless, the vote when taken went against him - there would be a trial. 

 

But that was for later, for now his fellow deputies and Paris more generally were getting to know this previously unknown young man who clearly held himself in high esteem to speak with such authority. 

 

He took Robespierre as his role model adopting similar standards of austerity in public life preferring political advancement to personal enrichment. He also took great care over his appearance though with greater flamboyance than his erstwhile mentor, more dandified than dignified. He wanted to convey a maturity beyond his years hence the buttoned-up frock coat and high cravat. Yet the buttons on his coat were too shiny and the bow on his cravat invariably too big. Also, an abundance of dark lank hair hanging loosely over his shoulders and an earring prominent glistening in the sunlight and beneath a chandelier also displayed a suitably youthful sang-froid and desire to be noticed. 

 

With his pale face, high cheekbones, blue/grey eyes and prominent nose he was thought arresting of appearance rather than handsome and appeared to attract little interest from the opposite sex. This may have been more down to his manner than his looks, however. He seemed little interested in them now that politics had become his aphrodisiac and he maintained his distance. Women, it appears, chose to reciprocate in kind. 

He had a look of pained earnestness it was said, which fitted well his severe reputation and lack of charm. The radical journalist Camille Desmoulins, no friend of Saint-Just it should be said, described him as haughty and arrogant writing, “one sees in his bearing and his attitude that he considers his head the cornerstone of the republic.” 

 

On 26 December 1792, the trial began of Citizen Capet the former King Louis XVI of France. The name Capet referenced a former French dynasty from the Middle Ages denoting that it was not just a man on trial but the indictment of the institution of Monarchy itself as a criminal enterprise. The indictment read: 

 

“Louis, the French Nation accuses you of having committed a multitude of crimes to establish your tyranny, (and) in destroying her freedom.” 

 

The most serious of the charges were that he plotted against the revolution, conspired with France’s enemies, and wilfully shed French blood. Undeniably guilty of the first two charges (though he did deny them) he vehemently defended himself against the third. 

 

The 721 deputies present remembered well Saint-Just’s words at the National Convention in November and waited with anticipation his intervention this time. They were not to be disappointed: 

 

“Some will say that the Revolution is over, that we have nothing more to fear from the tyrant, and that the law now calls for the death of a usurper. But citizens tyranny is like a reed which bends with the wind, and which rises again. What do you call a Revolution? The fall of a throne, a few blows levied at a few abuses. Moral order is like physical order: abuses disappear for an instant, just as the morning dew dries, and just as it falls again with the night, so the abuses reappear. The Revolution begins when the tyrant ends.” 

 

His views had not modified in the slightest. The Monarchy, he said, by its very existence was a crime against the people and therefore the accused Louis Capet was guilty regardless of any charges made against him re-emphasising the point that one cannot reign innocently. As for his fate? He had to die, if only because he could not then serve as a rallying point for counterrevolutionaries. 

 

The Convention voted unanimously to find the King guilty on all charges if you ignore the 23 abstentions and the 5 mysteriously taken ill on the day. The vote taken on whether his sentence should be death was much tighter however, 361 for (without conditions such as clemency, possible exile, or a confirmatory referendum) to 360 against. 

 

King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 23 January 1793, in the then Place de la Revolution now Place de la Concorde. Without any formal declaration of being so France had become a Republic, but who now ruled? 

 

Saint-Just played a pivotal role in drawing up the new constitution required now that the King was no more. He remained firm in his conviction that elections be held according to one-man-one-vote without exclusions (other than women of course). It became law on 24 June 1793 but never came into effect. 

 

His reward was at the end of May to be made a member of the Committee of Public Safety, the most powerful body in revolutionary France. Soon after he was joined there by Robespierre himself and another notable Jacobin the crippled and wheelchair bound Georges Couthon. Together they would form the triumvirate of power which would formulate policy and initiate a Terror in defence of the Revolution against its internal enemies both real and imagined. 

 

Saint-Just was in no doubt that aged just 26 and with less than a year’s experience of politics he deserved his place on the Committee of Public Safety. He was after all an intellectual and a philosopher and like many a young zealot he believed himself not only right but that his ideas would stand the test of time. In truth, barely was the ink dry before words had been made redundant by events. Never mind, he could adapt. 

 

He would be Robespierre’s most loyal henchman, Robespierre the incorruptible, modest in his appetites who ate sparingly and drank little if at all. Who was measured in all he did, how he spoke and what he said. Immaculate in his dress, bewigged and powdered. Inviolate it seemed to some, bloodless to others, always striving for perfection. But he was plagued by doubts. Saint-Just had none. More eloquent at times while retaining the vulgarity of youth. It was a match made in Heaven, if a Godless one. 

 

Earlier the Declaration of Pillnitz issued by Leopold II of Austria and Frederick William II of Prussia in August 1791 had appeared to threaten war should any harm come to King Louis or Leopold’s sister Marie Antoinette. It was a threat repeated often thereafter which ate away at French pride until at last on 20 April 1792 in an act of bravado the National Assembly now dominated by the pro-war Girondins under Jacques Brissot declared such. 

 

But the conflict did not go as hoped, revolutionary fervour alone had not swept all before it as expected. Why? It could only be because the army remained a royalist one commanded by royalist officers who had sworn their allegiance to a disloyal king. Every defeat, every setback was followed by accusations of cowardice and treason. Generals were arrested as agents of the counterrevolution. But what did one expect when so many of these officers were sons of a nobility now in exile at Coblenz actively plotting the overthrow of the revolutionary government in Paris. 

 

The war continued to ebb rather than flow for France with a victory of sorts at Valmy early in the conflict to a disastrous defeat at Neerwinden that saw the French army abandon the Low Countries. 

 

By the autumn of 1793 the war had taken a decided turn for the worse and Representants-en-Mission were despatched to the various provinces and fronts to impose discipline in the army and restore order. One of these was Saint-Just who was sent to Alsace to help reinvigorate the Army of the Rhine and who in his first proclamation to the troops made his intentions clear: 

 

“Soldiers, we have come to avenge you, and to give you leaders who will marshal you to victory. We have resolved to seek out, to reward, and to promote the deserving, and to track down all the guilty whoever they may be. All commanders, officers, and such agents of the government are hereby ordered to satisfy within three days the just grievances of the soldiers. After that interval we will ourselves hear any complaints, and we will offer such examples of justice and severity as the Army has not yet witnessed.” 

 

He was to prove as good as his word. 

 

His revolutionary zeal undimmed he set about his task with relish, and he was as uncompromising as ever, direct in his speech, thorough in his methods and harsh in his punishments, though not as harsh as some. He disavowed for example, the widespread massacre of those locally who had openly criticised the government or expressed dissatisfaction with the revolution. His focus was the army and here he succeeded in stiffening their resolve by ensuring they were properly equipped, well supplied, and well fed. He was also thought to be fair shooting both common soldier and General alike without favour. So impressed was the Committee with Saint-Just that no sooner was his task complete that he was reassigned to the Low Countries to work his magic there, but he did not remain long – Robespierre required him in Paris. 

 

The Girondin and the Jacobin were in competition for the soul of the Revolution. For now, the former had the upper hand in the Convention, but their grip was a tenuous one. The party of the provinces rather than Paris they were already tainted with the stigma of Royalism, their leader Jacques Pierre Brissot had opposed the trial of the King, and now they were blamed for starting a war France was losing. They still had the numbers in the chamber but not the support on the streets. It would be a fight to the death, and it was the Girondin who struck first. 

 

In April they ordered the arrest of the firebrand deputy and journalist Jean-Paul Marat who routinely denounced the Girondin in his paper L’Ami du Peuple calling for their purging from the Convention and much worse besides, but he was to be surprisingly cleared of all charges by the Revolutionary Tribunal and chaired from the court was greeted by a large crowd of cheering but vengeful sans-culottes. 

 

The Marat debacle was a setback for the Girondin but undeterred in early May they established a Commission of the Twelve to investigate the radical element within the Convention with a view to bringing its more prominent members to trial. It served only to create a backlash that on 30 May saw the Convention surrounded by troops of the National Guard and angry sans-culottes. They demanded the Abolition of the Commission and the purging of those responsible for establishing it. The Convention refused but it was clear, the Girondin had made their move, and it had failed, now, always lacking the ruthlessness of their opponents they were paralysed by indecision. 

 

On 2 June Francois Hanriot the Commander of the National Guard reinforced the troops already surrounding the Tuileries with cannon. The deputies inside, by now thoroughly intimidated, yielded to demands and ordered the immediate arrest of the 29 leading Girondins. Some hid and others fled before they could be taken into custody, but they were just dead men walking. 

 

The fall of the Girondins provided the opportunity for the decree to be issued on 17 September known as the Law of Suspects. Crafted by Robespierre and advocated for by Saint-Just as was becoming the norm, it declared that it was no longer required for an individual to have committed a crime to be subject to arrest, the mere suspicion that they might do so in the future was enough. 

 

Also, what might be considered a crime varied widely and was open to interpretation. It could be an accusation intelligible to most of hoarding or war profiteering. Then again, it might just be that the accused had previously been ennobled, had refused to wear the tricolour cockade, had expressed royalist sympathies, or merely displayed an insufficient enthusiasm for the revolution. As Saint-Just put it: “Those who have done nothing against freedom, also have done nothing for it.” 

 

Orders were issued to the many Surveillance Committees around the country to draw up lists of suspects. Innocence, it seemed was no longer a defence and those brought before the Revolutionary Tribunals faced summary justice, an acquittal of the charges did not mean release, guilt meant death – The Terror had begun. 

 

The following month on 31 October, Brissot and 20 of his colleagues went to the guillotine. Another victim of the Jacobin purge of the Girondin, though an unintended one, was Jean-Paul Marat stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday for his role in the downfall of her friends from the Gironde. 

 

The Jacobins were now in control of the National Convention and on 19 February 1794, Saint-Just was appointed its President. He would only be so for a little over two weeks, but it was long enough to introduce and pass the Laws of Ventose. Ventose being the second month of the Year II according to the new Revolutionary Calendar. 

 

Proposed earlier by Saint-Just the Laws of Ventose were either a cynical attempt to placate an increasingly volatile working class made angry by the slow pace of change and to secure the continuing support of the Paris sans-culottes or a genuine attempt at wealth redistribution as a tool of social justice. 

 

Presented in two parts on 28 February and 3 March the main tenets were: 

 

1/ The property and estates of suspected counterrevolutionaries and known emigres were to be confiscated by the State. 

 

2/ The various items and land held thereof would then be redistributed to the poor as indigent patriots. 

 

All departments would be required to compile lists of the worthy and needy patriots who would be the beneficiaries of the State’s munificence. To do so was a moral imperative declared Saint-Just, but it wasn’t a grandfather clock or a gilded mirror that people required at a time of shortages and famine but food. Saint-Just was however delighted; this was the fruit of his revolutionary zeal: 

 

“Eliminate the poverty that dishonours a free State; the property of patriots is sacred, but the goods of conspirators are there for the wretched. The wretched are the powerful of the earth; they have the right to speak as master’s to the governments who neglect them.” 

 

The fall of the Girondins was merely a sign of things to come as the Jacobins now sought to eliminate those who remained a threat to their authority. One faction further to the left even of the Jacobins were the Hebertists. Prominent in the Paris Commune and local government their call for ever harsher measures against the enemies of the revolution, greater price controls and total dechristianisation with the closing of all churches struck a chord with the sans-culottes and dispossessed of the city. 

 

Their leader Jacques Rene Hebert a dominant figure in the Cordeliers Club used his satirical journal Le Pere Duchesne to regularly attack Robespierre and the other Jacobin leaders as moderates little better than counterrevolutionaries. The relationship between the two men had long been toxic and now Robespierre wanted rid of him. 

 

The Hebertists were too extreme for most deputies in the Convention and even those not inclined to support the Jacobin found themselves in their camp. Again, it was Saint-Just who led the attack and on 13 March 1794 Hebert and his closest colleagues were arrested. Brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal they were condemned not as enemies of the state but for being common criminals who had stolen from and defrauded the people. Found guilty they were sentenced to death and guillotined on 24 March. 

 

Hebert did not die well fainting and needing to be revived several times on his way to the guillotine and screaming as his head was placed beneath its blade. Those watching clearly enjoyed the spectacle for the executioner Sanson indulged them by seeming to release the blade before stopping it. Eventually it was released for real though it was said Hebert’s screams continued to echo around Paris for days after. 

 

It appeared everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the demise of the Hebertists. It felt like the end of something. Even Saint-Just felt inclined to remark, “The revolution is frozen.” It wasn’t. 

 

With the threat of Hebert and his followers no more the Committee now turned its attention to the ‘Indulgents’ and one man in particular, Georges Danton. Having previously been both a member of the Committee of Public Safety and Justice Minister he was the only man in the Convention who could challenge the authority and dominance of Robespierre by reputation alone. 

 

They had in the past been close colleagues if not perhaps friends, for they were very different men. Danton was a large imposing figure with larger appetites still, whose voluminous presence and soaring rhetoric it was difficult to ignore. He could not have been more different to the slight, abstemious, fussy, and more analytical Robespierre who would often berate him for his excesses. Danton responded by telling anyone who would listen, “Robespierre can’t fuck and is scared of money.” 

 

Harsh perhaps, but as strained as their relationship may have been it never plunged the depths of mutual contempt Danton and Saint-Just felt for each other. The former accusing the latter of being obsessed with violence and power, the latter wanting the former dead. 

 

If the Hebertists had been the fanatics, then the Indulgents were the moderates. They sought an end to The Terror and the journalist Camille Desmoulins who was a close friend of Robespierre’s had called for the immediate release of thousands of prisoners. This was something neither Robespierre nor Saint-Just in their relentless pursuit of the Republic of virtue could countenance – they would have to be eliminated. 

 

As the clock passed the witching hour on March 29th becoming March 30th the order was issued by the Committee of Public Safety to arrest the Indulgents. There had been no debate in the Convention regarding this. It was the arbitrary decision of the Committee alone. They had prevaricated over it for many hours, Robespierre had even at one point demurred, but Saint-Just in a rare flash of temper that could be described as a tantrum stood firm and steadied his nerve. 

 

On 31 March, Saint-Just appeared before the Convention to present a report from the Committee of Public Safety announcing the arrest of Danton and the Indulgents on charges of corruption and seeking to restore the monarchy. He then proceeded to single out Danton denouncing him as a false friend, a bad citizen, and a wicked man. 

 

The reaction to Saint-Just’s address was far from positive and opposition to the arrests could clearly be heard in the chamber. Robespierre would have to intervene to calm the situation and prevent dissent from spreading. He would declare. “Whoever trembles at this moment is guilty.” It was clearly a threat, and it worked. 

 

Danton and his colleagues did not accept their fate quietly and defended themselves vigorously at the Revolutionary Tribunal so much so that proceedings soon descended into farce. The violence of the language exceeded all boundaries of decorum; threats were made and received. Saint-Just accused Danton of fomenting insurrection Danton told the court he and Robespierre would be next. 

 

The Indulgents went to the guillotine on 5 April; from his prison cell Camille Desmoulins wrote to his wife: “I have dreamed of a Republic, but never could I have believed that men were so ferocious and unjust.” 

 

On the way to his execution Danton seeing Robespierre in the distance cried out, “You will follow soon. Your house will be beaten down and salt sown in the place where it stood.” Defiant until the end he told the executioner. “Show the people my head. It is well worth seeing.” 

 

The increasingly reclusive Robespierre was by now rarely seen at the Convention and even less so at the Jacobin Club. He may have been the architect of The Terror, but Saint-Just was becoming more-and-more its spokesman and public face. Always more measured in his speech the ‘Incorruptible’ left it to his young acolyte to declare: 

 

“The vessel of the Revolution can arrive in port only on a sea reddened with torrents of blood.” 

 

“A nation generates itself only upon a heap of corpses.” 

 

“You have not only to punish the traitors, but even those who are indifferent; you have to punish whoever is passive in the Republic, and who does nothing for it.” 

 

The opposition within the Convention seemingly suppressed for now the time was ripe for the festival to inaugurate the Cult of the Supreme Being which had been established in law the previous month. Entirely the idea of Robespierre, who though not a religious man by any means did believe in the existence of a Supreme power (though not one that intervened in human affairs) and the immortality of the soul. He believed the revolution, and the people required, a guiding spirit to imbue it, and them, with the Republican values of virtue and reason. Designed by the artist and great propagandist of the revolution Jacques-Louis David it would be a grand affair. 

 

The 8 June 1794 was a bright and sunny day with few of the menacing clouds overhead common for the time of year. The crowd which had gathered in the Tuileries Garden beforehand marched in procession accompanied by Robespierre taking the applause to the Champ de Mars where after hymns were sung in a symbolic gesture Robespierre presented with a torch lit a papier-mache statue of ‘hideous atheism’ which burned to reveal inside it another statue uncorrupted by the flames and representing wisdom. 

A large man-made mountain had been created which all the deputies of the Convention now walked up together to gather around and pay homage to a liberty tree planted at its top. The crowd massed beneath now listened intently as Robespierre gave not one but two speeches referencing the triumph of reason and the existence of the Creator God, not Christ, not Mohammad, but the Supreme Being. He then absorbed the cheers and the hurrahs of those present as he descended from the mountain resplendent in sky blue jacket, yellow trousers and his perfectly coiffured and powdered wig. His delight was clear even Saint-Just was seen to smile. The many murmurings of discontent evident to some but not all went ignored, the barbed comments went unheard as in the best tradition of dictatorships around the world and down the ages the tyrant was presented with bouquets of flowers and sprigs of joy by pretty young maidens in pink dresses as bright in the sun as their cheeks were flush with the heat. 

 

It had been a grand affair, a personal triumph for the Incorruptible, but it was a step too far for some. Who was this Supreme Being? Was it Robespierre himself? Letters written that night by deputies of the Convention to relatives and friends throughout France revealed their feelings. They were uneasy in some cases scared. The tone was very much – it is them or us. 

 

Following the festival being so well received, Saint-Just was sent to take administrative control of the Army of the North where ruthless as ever he ordered any soldier who turned his back on the enemy or fled the field of battle to be summarily shot. But he also displayed a cunning and subtleness of approach which belied both his age and his experience when in negotiations he persuaded the besieged enemy garrison at Charleroi to surrender just hours before the army sent to relieve them arrived. 

 

In the ensuing Battle of Fleurus on 26 June the French inflicted a tactical and strategic defeat on the enemy which saw them abandon their plans to invade France via the Low Countries before sweeping east to seize Paris. Instead, they withdrew to protect their lines of supply and communication. Paris had been saved and Saint-Just returned to the city in triumph. 

 

Meanwhile, and just two days after the Festival of the Cult of the Supreme Being the Law of 22 Prairial was placed before the Convention by Georges Couthon. The eradication of the ‘enemies of the people’ was to be the priority, he announced. Trials were to be speeded up; defence lawyers were no longer permitted nor were witnesses required. The severity of the accusation, the likelihood of guilt, and the testimony of the accused alone were sufficient to reach a verdict of which there could be only two acquittal or death. The definition of an ‘enemy of the people’ was a broad one and anyone could point the finger. Indeed, they were encouraged to do so. More significantly perhaps, no member of the National Convention any longer had immunity from summary arrest. For as Saint-Just had previously remarked: 

 

“The Republic exists in the extermination of everything that opposes it” 

 

“Whomsoever vilifies or attacks the dignity of the revolutionary government shall be put to death.” 

 

True there was a serious revolt underway in the Vendee, other places in the country were also in a state of insurrection, and the war with Austria and Prussia had not yet been won but these were far from Paris, and the tide of these conflicts had very much already turned in the republics favour. It seemed to many that the need to maintain The Terror had diminished not increased yet more than 1,400 enemies of the people were guillotined in Paris alone during the month of June and first week of July. 

 

People were scared and none more so than those deputies in the National Convention who had previously been critical of the Jacobins. Fear gripped the chamber, discontent was growing, and all could sense the unease. All except Saint-Just it seemed, who remained impervious to criticism. Accused of seeking to create a dictatorship for himself and Robespierre he merely scoffed. Asked to make concessions, he refused. His arrogance only served to heighten tensions further and prominent figures began to emerge and voice their concerns. Men such as Paul Barras and Jean-Lambert Tallien. Men who others could support and rally behind. 

 

On 8 Thermidor (26 July) Robespierre appeared before the Convention. He was happy, was even seen to smile, still flush with the success it seemed of the festival he had so recently presided over. He appeared a man in control, but it was not the hand of friendship he now proffered to those present instead he spoke in vague but menacing tones in what was by his own exacting standards a rambling and somewhat incoherent speech. Holding a book thereby implying that he had the names of suspects written down he refused to read from it or name anyone. Even so, its implication appeared clear – it was the prelude to another purge. Still, he was pleased with the reception his speech had received even if the bitter recrimination that marked its immediate aftermath surprised him. 

 

That night Robespierre repeated the same speech at the Jacobin Club where it was greeted with a standing ovation. Meanwhile, Saint-Just was still working on the speech he was due to deliver to the Convention the next day where it was expected he would name names. 

 

Dark clouds hung heavy over Paris on the morning of 9 Thermidor, and a storm was clearly brewing not that this deterred the people from taking to the streets to demonstrate against the limits placed upon their wage demands. It took time then to navigate the crowds and for the deputies to gather so it wasn’t until noon that Saint-Just rose in the Convention to speak. He hadn’t got far into his speech however, when he was interrupted by Tallien who accused him of speaking not for France but only for himself and Robespierre. Taking their cue from Tallien others now also chimed in with accusations of their own. The atmosphere was turning increasingly toxic when Saint-Just who was struggling to make himself heard suddenly sat down. 

 

Robespierre now intervened in defence of his friend but instead of calming the situation he was subjected to the same, if not worse vitriol as shouts of ‘down with the tyrant’ echoed through the chamber. He was stunned and just stood in silence unable to respond. He looked ridiculous and jeers turned to laughter as someone shouted, “The blood of Danton chokes him.” 

 

The Convention now voted overwhelmingly to arrest the Jacobin leaders and chaos ensued as Robespierre and his supporters were forcibly dragged from the chamber with the former finding his voice once more shouting “cowards” and the “the revolution is over.” 

 

Taken before the General Tribunal the five leading Jacobins were then removed to separate prisons. 

 

The radical Paris Commune (the city government) however, ordered their release and National Guardsmen under the command of Francois Hanriot saw them safely returned to the Hotel de Ville. But what to do? They had to rally support but in whose name? Should they call upon the army or the people? They seemed paralysed by indecision. Robespierre worked frantically on a document. Whatever they did must be legal, he insisted. Saint-Just urged him to act and to do so with some haste, they had little time; the legal niceties could wait. Still Robespierre dithered, would the army obey the order? Why had the people not already rallied, was it the storm which had broken keeping them off the streets, or didn’t they care? 

Around 2.30 in the morning troops and gendarmes sent by the Convention broke into the Hotel de Ville and forced the door behind which the Committee had taken refuge. Shots were exchanged one of which smashed Robespierre’s jaw. His brother Augustin jumped from the window and severely injured himself, the crippled Couthon was found collapsed at the bottom of a flight of stairs, Le Bas, another leading Jacobin shot and killed himself. Saint-Just did nothing however, he neither resisted nor attempted to flee. 

 

Having been declared outlaws by the Convention there was no requirement for a trial and so taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal once more they were sentenced to death with immediate effect. Loaded onto three carts the 21 men, among them Hanriot who only a few hours earlier had freed them from the clutches of those who would do them harm, were taken to the Place de la Revolution where the guillotine in situ had become such a feature of the Paris skyline and a large threatening mob had gathered. 

 

Couthon was the first of the Committee of Public Safety’s governing triumvirate to go beneath the blade and his sustained howls of discomfort as his contorted and twisted body was positioned on the ramp delighted the jeering mob. Robespierre was the tenth man to be guillotined but before the blade was allowed to fall the executioner Sansom removed the bandage from his jaw causing it to drop and the Incorruptible to scream in pain. It was the only sound he had made since being shot and it was to continue without pause until his head came off. 

 

Saint-Just who followed him appeared to accept his fate, there was no attempt to speak, no theatrics as he displayed the same haughty disdain for his colleagues and opponents alike in death that he had in life. Other than Robespierre of course, to whom he remained loyal until the end. His fate then was not his own, and though his intervention in politics may have been brief, it was telling and brutal and his reputation as the ‘Angel of Death’ was well deserved. Might it have been otherwise had he lived? We can never know, but as a certain Oliver Cromwell remarked over a century earlier, “No one soars so high, and so quickly, than he who knows not where he is going.” 

 

The execution of the Jacobins saw the ‘Red’ Terror end only for the ‘White’ Terror to begin as the Paris Commune, the Convention, the National Guard and every nook and cranny of the Parisian political landscape were purged of radicals – the National Razor had never been so busy. 

 

The Revolution had indeed come to an end.