<h1>wedge</h1>
If you board the time machine and send the revolutionary lawyer Robespierre in 1789 to 5 years later, and see the "Supreme Lord", the "tyrant" Robespierre, laughing wildly at the guillotine, he will surely sigh: This man is crazy!
Crazy, why not Robespierre?
The French Revolution of 1789-1799 was like a magical masquerade ball, which made all those involved dance involuntarily to the rhythm of ups and downs.
Many people trampled on the bodies of others, and many people were trampled to death.
Carnival of masks
At the end of the song, some people fall into the spotlight and become heroes; while others stay in the shadows forever and become demons.
According to the description of the history textbook of the middle school, on July 14, 1789, the people of Paris organized an uprising, captured the Bastille, and opened the prelude to the French Revolution, and by the 1799 Coup d'état, Napoleon opened a dictatorship, and the Revolution came to an end.
The period was full of splendor and twists and turns, if summed up in one sentence, it is: "one declaration, four constitutions", as detailed in the figure below.
French Revolution Clue Framework
Robespierre died in the Thermidorian Coup of 1794, right in the middle of the First Year Of the Republic Constitution and the Three-Year Constitution of the Republic, and only halfway through the course of the Revolution. However, his fate is the truest microcosm of the entire French Revolution.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" >01 Cut off people's heads for human rights? </h1>
Robespierre, once a staunch opponent of the death penalty. In his early years as a lawyer, he "exhausted all his strength" to sign a death sentence and then returned home in pain, unable to eat for two days. Until 1791, after the outbreak of the Revolution, he also addressed Parliament, demanding the abolition of the death penalty.
But if a small number of lives are sacrificed for the accomplishment of a "great" cause, should this be allowed?
On July 13, 1789, the day before the Revolution, the citizens of Paris formed a revolutionary "vigilante group" to defend the capital and maintain order, and they flocked to the town hall to demand weapons from the mayor, Freisel. The mayor wanted to calm the mood of the masses, so he made a false accusation and delayed to the extreme.
The next day, the townspeople felt teased and, in anger, killed the mayor and cut off his head. On the same day, the rebels captured the Bastille, and the leader of the defenders, Delone, was beaten and ill-treated by the rebels with punches, bayonets, sticks, etc., and was shown to the public.
Capture of the Bastille
A few days later, Fu Long, then the minister of finance, was hanged by citizens from street lamps because of a sentence: "Poor people can go to graze when they are hungry", and their mouths were stuffed with grass. This passage is also truly recorded in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities.
Should these people die? Robespierre calmly commented in his letters:
"A small amount of blood was shed... But it's all the heads of criminals. It was through this insurrection that the people were freed. This was the first step in Robespierre's transformation — the death penalty should be abolished, but an exception could be made at the expense of a small number of people for the sake of freedom.
A month later, on August 26, 1789, "freedom" arrived as scheduled, and the Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which declared: Freedom, property, security, and resistance to oppression are innate and inalienable human rights; the people enjoy freedom of speech, belief, writing, and the press; sovereignty lies with the people; and all men are equal before the law...
Declaration of Human Rights
The historical value of this declaration cannot be overstated. It predates the passage of the U.S. Bill of Rights in Congress by one month, and is the first universally significant human rights protection document to be proposed in the name of all mankind. It should be said that this is the landmark achievement of the French Revolution and the civilizational heritage left by the Revolution to all mankind.
According to the original intention of the designers, the Declaration of Human Rights is only the preamble to the constitution under development. It was not until September 1791 that the Constitution was finally approved to enter into force, the first constitution ever made in France, also known as the "Constitution of 1791". It preambles to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which stipulates that France is a constitutional monarchy, with three powers, sovereignty over the people, and the king can only exercise executive power in accordance with the provisions of the law. In the era of European monarchy, this is already a big step forward.
So, is the sacrifice of the head on the ground worth it?
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" >02 From thousands of people to kings</h1>
In the process of the birth of the first constitution, there is a small thing worth mentioning.
On October 6, 1789, the citizens stormed the Royal Palace of Versailles, coercing King Louis XVI to return to the city of Paris and "making a revolution" with the masses, killing two of the king's guards in the clash.
On the same day, the king was forced to return to Luang, and before his chariot could be picked up, the heads of the two guards were raised high by spears and became a guard of honor. At this time, less than two months after the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights, the two guards had been deprived of their right to life and even trampled on without trial or defence. By this point in the development of the Great Revolution, it had already emitted a hint of madness and weirdness.
Versailles
By 1792, because King Louis XVI's desire to restore the monarchy to despotism was immortal, the foreign countries were opened, and the Austrian and Prussian interventionists were summoned. In August of that year, the people organized another uprising, imprisoned Louis XVI, and established the Paris Commune to act as the executive, known as the Commune of 1792.
The situation is difficult at home and abroad, and people's spirits are also highly tense and sensitive. In September of that year, it was rumored that counter-revolutionaries in Paris prisons would organize riots in response to foreign invasions. In order to defend themselves and to retaliate, a large number of armed men went into various prisons, did not ask for evidence, did not give trial, and executed more than 1,000 detainees, most of them ordinary criminals, known in history as the "September Massacre".
In this regard, both the Paris Commune led by Robespierre and Marat, and the National Convention (parliament at that time) led by the Girondins, all held a repulsive and conniving attitude. An old saying from the Republic of China period loomed in the ears - "It is better to kill three thousand by mistake than to let go of one."
In September 1792, the month of the Massacre, France abolished its constitutional monarchy and officially entered the republic, known as the "First French Republic".
Less than half a year after the thousand men were beheaded, in January 1793, King Louis XVI was also beheaded. This king killing, which took place in a newly established "republic", is full of contradictions and paradoxes:
According to the Constitution of 1791, the king's status is revered and he can be exempted from trial; Louis is first disqualified as king, and then he is tried as a citizen, in a society under the rule of law, this must be arbitrated and pronounced, but there is no corresponding institution and jurisprudence; according to constitutional principles, the status of the legislature National Convention is higher than that of the king, then it can judge the king; but according to the principle of separation of powers, the National Convention has no judicial power...
Louis XVI was beheaded
At this time, Robespierre, who was already in power, cried out:
He has been convicted, otherwise the republic would have no raison d'être. Louis deserves to die, because the Republic must be born!
Yes, since the sacrifice has begun, whether a thousand people are killed or one person is killed, whether he is innocent or deserved, after all, it is only a number.
This was the second step in Robespierre's transformation, the sacrifice and the killing, which had become part of the Revolution and, therefore, had considerable legitimacy.
In June 1793, the National Convention adopted a new version of the constitution, officially establishing France as a republican state, known in history as the "Constitution of the First Year of the Republic".
<h1>03 The darkest hour of climax</h1>
The death of Louis XVI led to even crazier external intervention, with Britain leading the organization of Europe's "First Coalition of Anti-French". The word, for more than twenty years, was like a gopher in a game, hammered by the French again and again, but again and again from the ground, and it was very annoying. Domestically, due to years of uprisings and riots, the economy is close to collapse, material shortages, and prices are soaring.
The extremely harsh situation had to be dealt with by an extremely harsh dictatorship. In June 1793, the people of Paris revolted again, overthrowing the Girondins in power, and Robespierre and his Jacobins finally reached the "top of the Joan House".
Statue of Robespierre
Like a maverick child, always isolated and attacked by those around him, he will only become more paranoid and more tyrannical. The harshness of the Jacobin dictatorship was unique in the course of the French Revolution and even the bourgeois revolution in Europe.
The Jacobins imposed strict economic controls, imposed price limits on major commodities, forcibly requisitioned military food, and levied all kinds of military supplies free of charge; in religious policy, they set off a huge anti-church movement, confiscating religious property, executing clergy, and even creating a "republican calendar" to replace the Common Era in order to de-Christianize.
The republican calendar begins with September 22, 1792, and as a result, the new Constitution of June 1793 remains the "Constitution of the First Year of the Republic". In the republican calendar, the months and days are named after meteorological features or plants and minerals, such as the Portuguese moon, the hot moon, the fog moon, the daffodil day, spinach day, asphalt day, sulfur day, etc., which is quite "revolutionary spirit".
The harshest and most horrific aspect of the Jacobin dictatorship was the mass political slaughter. At this point, Robespierre's transformation has reached the third and final step— for the sake of "public freedom," any individual can be sacrificed, and whoever interferes with this sacrifice is the enemy and should be destroyed! In the words of Robespierre's last parliamentary speech:
There is now a conspiracy to undermine public liberty, and its power comes from a criminal alliance of disturbances in the National Convention.
So, what is "public freedom"? Who are the citizens and who are the enemies? In a tense situation, there is no way to identify. Those who do not want to prove themselves to be citizens are the enemy; those who oppose the Jacobin dictatorship are, of course, enemies; those who do not want to poison the enemy are naturally enemies...
By June 1794, Robespierre urged the National Convention to pass the daunting "Pastoral Decree", which simplified the screening procedure to the minimum, abolished the pre-trial and defense, and punished political prisoners only with the death penalty, without saying a word, and the trial could be judged without empirical evidence, and could be convicted based solely on "consciousness" and inner concepts.
Portrait of Madame Roland
For a time, everyone was in danger, and at most, in Paris alone, more than 50 people would be executed in a day. Madame Roland, the icon of the Girondins, left a famous saying before her execution: "Freedom, how many sins are committed in the name of false russ!" Even dissidents within the Jacobins were purged, and before Danton was killed, he meaningfully said to Robespierre, "The next one is you!" ”
In fact, Robespierre only lived 4 months longer than Danton. In July 1794, the various factions under terror united to launch the "Thermidorian Coup", which overthrew the Jacobin dictatorship. Robespierre and 22 others completed the trial in less than 30 minutes, all sentenced to death, and beheaded on the same day.
So, the coup d'étatists were Robespierre's successors, and they killed Robespierre the way Robespierre did.
<h1>04 The back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave</h1>
In fact, the so-called "Robespierre transformation" is by no means just Robespierre's personal mental journey, but the tone of the entire French Revolution. From the Declaration of Human Rights to the Thermidorian coup, emotions have become more and more intense and radical.
The following figure shows the composition of the Legislative Assembly in 1791, the Fiyanists who supported the constitutional monarchy were conservative on the right, and the members of the Jacobin Club who supported the republican system, including the moderate Girondins and the fierce mountainists, together constituted the left.
Parliament was formed in 1791
By 1792, the Legislative Assembly was reorganized into the National Convention, as shown below. By this time, the "old right" Fiyan faction had been overthrown and purged, and the moderate faction of the original left, the Girondins, who intended to protect the king's life, became the "New Right". Led by Danton and Robespierre, the Mountain Sect, which strongly demanded the execution of the king, the Jacobins, monopolized the Left.
Parliament was formed in 1792
After the Jacobin dictatorship in June 1793, the Council for the Salvation of the Nation was reorganized to become a provisional government. The Girondists, who were first leftists and then rightists, and who had a relatively moderate attitude, were also overthrown and purged at this time. As the chart below shows, in this committee, Danton, a former radical and Jacobin, actually "degenerated" into a conservative right.
The government was formed in 1793
Just a year ago, Dandong shouted such a slogan: "Bold, bold, bold again!" Always bold, France is saved! However, in the face of the horrific massacre, Dandong only poured cold water: "Cherish the blood of mankind" and tried to implement a policy of "tolerance", he was already a conservative rightist, and by 1794, he was regarded as an "enemy of the people" and sent to the guillotine.
There is a famous Chinese oil poem:
The back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave,
The front wave died on the beach.
After the wave scenery can be for a few hours,
In the blink of an eye, it's still the same.
It is said that this was written by the great literary hero Li Ao. If you change "back wave" and "front wave" to "left wave" and "right wave", it is simply appropriate in this period of history.
Robespierre wasn't fighting alone, he was just working with the crowd to unleash a monster and ride it in a frenzy. And he himself was the last person to be thrown off his back by the monster and devoured, so his name is in history.
<h1>05 Back to the end of the starting point</h1>
After Robespierre's death, the regime fell into the hands of the "Thermidorians", whose policies were swaying left and right, relatively relaxed.
In August 1795, France adopted the Three-Year Constitution of the Republic, which was much more conservative than the Jacobin Constitution three years earlier, and established a bicameral parliament to exercise legislative power, electing five members to form a governorate and hold executive power.
However, the Governor's government did not jump out of the jacobin circle of violent solutions to violence, and in order to consolidate its rule, in 1797, it launched the "Guoyue Coup", which purged the royalists of the right wing of the parliament; in 1798, the "Flower Moon Coup" was launched, which purged the radicals of the left wing of the parliament.
A coup could preserve power, but it would also destroy the legal framework on which democratically elected governments depended.
Through its participation in the coup d'état, military power has increasingly become a key force in shaping the political situation. In November 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had made great military achievements in the civil and foreign wars and was expected by all, launched the "Wuyue Coup" and seized power. A month later, the Eight-Year Constitution of the Republic, drawn up according to Napoleon's will, was promulgated, establishing the dictatorship of Napoleon, the "first ruler", in the form of law.
Napoleon like
Together with the Constitution was promulgated a "Letter to french Citizens", the conclusion of which officially announced the end of the French Revolution:
Citizens, the revolution has stabilized on a number of principles put forward at the beginning of the revolution, and the revolution is over.
<h1>This article is original by Qi Wendao, welcome to pay attention and take you along with long knowledge! </h1>