Maximilien De Robespierre Biography

Maximilien De Robespierre’s full name is Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre.  Robespierre was a great French lawyer and statesman, and also one of the finest and the most influential public figures during the French Revolution. 

He played a great role in the abolition of slavery during the revolution. Being a member of both the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned in various philanthropic activities for the abolition both of eradication for the clergy, and slavery. 

Fro his philanthropic works, he became an outspoken advocate for male citizens without the aid of a political voice because during that period men had unlimited admissions to the National Guard, to public offices, and also the right to carry arms in self-defense.

Maximilien played an impactful role in the agitation that led to the descending of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the reverting of a National Convention.

He desired to create a one and indivisible France that has equality before the law, also to abolish prerogatives, and defend the principles of direct democracy or autocracy.

This page discusses the Maximilien De Robespierre biography that also covers the amazing Maximilien De Robespierre facts.

Maximilien De Robespierre Biography - Early Life

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Maximilien de Robespierre was born on May 6,1958 in Arras, the old French state of Artois. 

Maximilien De Robespierre’s biography illustrates that Robespierre’s family was retrograded to the 15th century in Vaudricourt, Pas-de-Calais, where one of his ancestors named Robert de Robespierre worked as a notary in Carvin around the mid-17th century. 

His paternal grandfather was also named Maximilien de Robespierre, who was a self-made and well-established lawyer in Arras. Furthermore, his mother was Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault and his father named François Maximilien Barthélémy de Robespierre was a lawyer at the Conseil d'Artois and 

In October 1769, Maximilien earned a scholarship at the Collège Louis-le-Grand under the advocacy of the bishop fr named Louis-Hilaire de Conzié,

In school, he learned to commend the idealized Roman Republic and the expression of Cicero, Cato, and Lucius Junius Brutus. In 1776 he was earned the first prize for rhetoric. 

He also learned the works of the Genevan philosopher named Jean-Jacques Rousseau and was fascinated with many ideas, written in his "Contrat Social". 

Besides these, Robespierre also got attracted by the aim of a "virtuous self", which talks about a man who stands alone surrounded only by his conscience. His study of the classics intrigued him to aspire to Roman values and quotes, but he sought to imitate Rousseau's citizen-soldier in specific. 

Robespierre's conception of revolutionary virtue and his objective for constructing political sovereignty out of pure democracy was initiated by Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Mably. With Rousseau, Robespierre regarded the "volonté générale" or the general ability of the people as the basis of political legitimacy.

Maximilien De Robespierre - Struggles in Political Journey 

Robespierre was one of the leading members of the rebellious Paris Commune. In early September 1792, he was appointed as a deputy to the French Convention. However, not so far he faced criticism for trying to establish either a triumvirate (a Latin word triumvirātus, meaning a political institution ruled or dominated by three powerful individuals) a.k.a dictatorship. 

Following this, in April 1793, Robespierre persuaded the creation of a sans-culotte army to impose revolutionary laws and further remove any counter-revolutionary conspirator, leading to the armed revolt of 31 May – 2 June 1793. Because of his health repercussions, Robespierre announced his resignation. Again, in July, he joined as a member of the powerful Committee of Public Safety and redeveloped the Revolutionary Tribunal. 

However, in October, Robespierre suggested in vain to shut the convention, the Committee announced itself a revolutionary government. Those who were not actively opposing France became his rival. He exerted his impact to dominate the Hébertists to the left, the Dantonists in the middle, and the republican Girondins to the right.

Maximilien De Robespierre - Work At The National Convention

The Girondins to the right controlled the government and the civil service; they favoured political but not social democracy. They opposed Robespierre for developing a new national convention.

At the king’s trial that started in December 1792, Robespierre spoke 11 times for death. His speech on December 3 reunited the hesitant. His new journal called Les Lettres à ses commettants (meaning “Letters to His Constituents”), kept the states informed.

However, the king’s execution did not resolve the ongoing struggle between the Girondins and the Montagnards, and the deputies of the extreme left. Simultaneously, the deficiency of food and the rising prices generated a revolutionary situation. The treason of General Charles Dumouriez went to the Austrians, resulted in the crisis. A kind of “renowned front” was formed among the Parisian sansculottes, the poor, ultraleft republicans, and the Montagnards.

Following this, on May 26, 1793, Robespierre called on the people “to hike a rebel.” Five days later, he assisted a decree of the National Convention pointing to the Girondin leaders and Dumouriez’s associates. As a result, the decree was passed against 29 of them on June 2.

Maximilien De Robespierre - A Well-Known Personality In The French Revolution

Robespierre was a grand man, who as a prime participant of the Committee of Public Safety, personally signed 542 arrests during the spring and summer of 1794.

 The question of how superintended Robespierre was for bringing the law of 22 Prairial still remains controversial even at the present. 

Coming into the fact of how he reached the height of the Reign of Terror, the law eradicated the few procedural guarantees that were provided to the accused, also expanded the power of the tribunal that resulted in the number of executions in France increasing dramatically. 

Robespierre always surrounded himself with like-minded allies, the politically inspired bloodshed that he ignited disappointed many. Moreover, the deist Cult of the Supreme (a  kind of deism established in France by him in the French Revolution).

Being an eagle’s eye, he had founded and enthusiastically promoted created suspicion in the eyes of both anticlericals and other political parties who felt he was developing grandiose jealousy about his place in French society.

Maximilien De Robespierre - A Journey To The National Convention

Maximilien Robespierre studied law via a scholarship and in 1789, he was appointed as a representative of the Arras commoners in the Estates-General. 

After the Third Estate represented commoners and the lower clergy (formal leaders within established religions), announced itself the National Assembly, Robespierre became a pre-eminent member of the Revolutionary body. He took a root-and-branch, democratic stance and was known as “the Incorruptible (honest)” for his dedication to civic morality. In April 1790, he led the Jacobins, a powerful political club that supported the ideas of the French Revolution.

He demanded King Louis XVI to keep him on trial for treason and won many rivals, but the people of Paris continuously defended him. He left the new Legislative Assembly in 1791 but remained a politically active member of the Jacobin Club. In 1792, where he suppressed the war proposal between the Girondins–moderate leaders in the Legislative Assembly–and lost some fame. However, in August 1792, following this, a few people of Paris started opposing the king, therefore, Robespierre was selected as the revolting Commune of Paris. Eventually, he was elected to head the Paris delegation to the new and a fresh National Convention.

Maximilien De Robespierre Death - Reason Of His Demise

Robespierre along with many of his allies was arrested for supporting his ideologies, and therefore, taken to prison. 

Though he successfully flew from the jail with the aid of a sympathetic jailer and hid in the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. However, when he received information that the National Convention had announced him an outlaw, he tried to commit suicide but succeeded only in wounding his jaw. The moment troops from the National Convention stormed the building and captured and arrested him and his followers. 

Follwing the day, he and 21 of his supporters were executed at the guillotine (an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading).

Maximilien De Robespierre Facts

• Robespierre was very outspoken against slavery, which earned him rivals among many slave owners. 

• He had a great role in the abolition of slavery in France in 1794, even after his hard work, slavery was reinstituted in 1802 by Napoleon. Robespierre had many of his political opponents hanged during the Reign of Terror.