Robespierre

About this book

Robespierre remains an enigma, and an enigma that raises passions. He has his unconditional admirers and savage critics. To the fervor for the "Incorruptible" of some responds the repulsion for the "tyrant" bloodthirsty of others. This division reflects the antagonism of the memories of the French Revolution. 1789 and 1793 continue to symbolize the two contrasting faces of our founding event: the glorious advent of freedom on one side and the terrorist drift on the other. However, Robespierre's originality is to link these two faces. The champion of the rights of the people to the Constituent is also the provider of the guillotine of the Montagnard Convention. How do we pass from one to the other? Break or continuity? This is the classic question that this book uses. He tries to answer them by carefully scrutinizing the itinerary of thought that the abundant speech robespierriste allows to reconstruct. A journey that illuminates the meaning of the revolutionary event itself. Robespierre appears in this light as the man who has most intimately espoused the principle of the "revolution of human rights" that was the French Revolution. He is also the one who erected the Terror as an instrument of the reign of Virtue, in the turmoil of 1793-1794, ultimately failing to provide a lasting foundation for the political regime that human rights called as their translation. In what way does this course exemplify the problem that the Revolution bequeathed to France and that, more than two centuries later, it still has not finished solving.--Gallimard.