Fall of Robespierre (1794): The Thermidorian Reaction Begins

The fall of Robespierre took place on 9 and 10 Thermidor Year II, or 27 and 28 July 1794, when the National Convention overthrew Maximilien Robespierre and his closest allies. After a dramatic night in which the Paris Commune tried to save them, they were captured at the Hôtel de Ville and guillotined the next evening. The coup, known simply as Thermidor, ended the Reign of Terror and began a period of reaction that reshaped the French Revolution.

Background: the Terror at its height

By the summer of 1794 Robespierre was the best-known member of the Committee of Public Safety, the body that governed France during the war. Since the spring the Committee had eliminated rival factions: the radical Hébertists in March and Danton and his allies in April. The Law of 22 Prairial (10 June 1794) had stripped defendants of most rights, and executions in Paris had reached their highest level.

Yet the reasons given for the Terror were fading. French armies were winning, most notably at Fleurus on 26 June 1794, and the internal revolts had been crushed. Meanwhile, quarrels were growing inside the government. Members of the Committee of Public Safety, such as Lazare Carnot, Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne and Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois, clashed with Robespierre and Saint-Just, while the police committee, the Committee of General Security, resented their interference.

Several deputies had special reasons to fear Robespierre. Former representatives on mission, including Joseph Fouché, Jean-Lambert Tallien, Paul Barras and Louis-Marie Fréron, had been recalled to Paris to answer for corruption or excessive violence in the provinces. Robespierre’s withdrawal from the Committee’s meetings for several weeks in late June and July deepened suspicions on all sides.

8 Thermidor: the fatal speech

On 8 Thermidor (26 July) Robespierre returned to the Convention and delivered a long speech. He defended his record, attacked financial policy and the conduct of the war, and denounced a conspiracy of corrupt deputies and members of the committees, without naming them. Asked to name the guilty men, he refused.

The speech persuaded many deputies that a new purge was coming and that anyone might be on the list. That evening Robespierre repeated it to enthusiastic applause at the Jacobin Club, but during the night his opponents met to coordinate their response.

9 Thermidor: the coup in the Convention

On 9 Thermidor (27 July) Saint-Just began to read a report at the tribune but was interrupted almost at once by Tallien. Billaud-Varenne followed with a fierce attack on Robespierre. When Robespierre tried to reply, he was shouted down with cries of “Down with the tyrant!”, and the president of the session refused him the floor.

In the afternoon the Convention voted for the arrest of Robespierre, Saint-Just and Georges Couthon. Robespierre’s younger brother Augustin and the deputy Philippe Le Bas asked to share their fate and were arrested too. The commander of the Paris National Guard, François Hanriot, a Robespierre supporter, was also ordered arrested.

The night at the Hôtel de Ville

The Paris Commune, the city government, sided with Robespierre. It rang the tocsin, called out the armed sections and ordered prisons not to accept the arrested men. Robespierre was taken to the Luxembourg prison, which refused him, and ended up at the Hôtel de Ville with his allies.

The Convention responded by declaring the rebels outlaws, which meant they could be executed without trial once their identity was confirmed. Paul Barras was put in command of the Convention’s forces. Many sections hesitated, and as the night wore on and rain fell, the crowd in front of the Hôtel de Ville melted away.

At about 2 am on 28 July, troops loyal to the Convention entered the building. Robespierre was wounded by a pistol shot that shattered his lower jaw; historians still debate whether it was a suicide attempt or the work of the gendarme Charles-André Merda. Le Bas shot himself, Augustin Robespierre jumped from a window and was badly injured, and Couthon, who used a wheelchair, was found at the foot of a staircase.

Execution

The wounded Robespierre spent the morning lying on a table in an anteroom of the Committee of Public Safety, then in the Conciergerie prison. As outlaws, the prisoners only had to be identified before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On the evening of 28 July (10 Thermidor) Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Augustin Robespierre, Hanriot and 17 others were guillotined on the Place de la Révolution before a large and largely hostile crowd.

Over the next two days more than 80 members of the Paris Commune were also executed, making the purge of Thermidor one of the largest mass executions in Paris during the Revolution.

Key people

• Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), a lawyer from Arras and deputy for Paris, was the leading figure of the Committee of Public Safety.
• Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794), Robespierre’s closest ally, died at 26.
• Jean-Lambert Tallien (1767–1820) led the attack in the Convention, partly to save his lover Thérésa Cabarrus, who was in prison.
• Paul Barras (1755–1829) commanded the Convention’s forces and later dominated the Directory.
• Joseph Fouché (1759–1820) worked behind the scenes against Robespierre and later became Napoleon’s minister of police.

Consequences: the Thermidorian Reaction

Many of the men who brought down Robespierre had been supporters of the Terror and did not plan to end it. Public relief and pressure from moderates quickly changed the course of events. Thousands of suspects were released, the Law of 22 Prairial was repealed and the Committee of Public Safety lost much of its power.

The Jacobin Club was closed in November 1794. Gangs of young anti-Jacobins, the jeunesse dorée, attacked radicals in the streets. Price controls were abolished in December, and figures linked to the Terror, such as Jean-Baptiste Carrier and the prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville, were tried and executed. A new Constitution of the Year III in 1795 created the Directory, the regime that ruled until Napoleon Bonaparte’s Coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799.

Legacy

“Thermidor” became a byword for the moment when a revolution turns conservative and its radical leaders are swept aside. Later revolutionaries, including Leon Trotsky writing about the Soviet Union, used the term in this sense.

Robespierre’s reputation has remained deeply divided. His enemies after Thermidor blamed him personally for the whole Terror, an image that long dominated popular history. Many historians now stress that the Terror was a collective policy, while still debating how far Robespierre drove it. The events of 9 Thermidor remain a key turning point in histories of the French Revolution.

Timeline

• 1794, 10 June: The Law of 22 Prairial begins the Great Terror.
• 1794, 26 June: French victory at Fleurus.
• 1794, 26 July (8 Thermidor): Robespierre’s speech denounces unnamed traitors.
• 1794, 27 July (9 Thermidor): The Convention orders the arrest of Robespierre and his allies.
• 1794, 28 July, about 2 am: Convention troops seize the Hôtel de Ville.
• 1794, 28 July, evening: Robespierre and 21 others are guillotined.
• 1794, 12 November: The Jacobin Club is closed.
• 1795, 31 May: The Revolutionary Tribunal is abolished.

Why it matters

The fall of Robespierre ended the most violent phase of the French Revolution and showed that its leaders could be devoured by the system they had built. It opened the way to a more moderate but unstable Republic and, eventually, to Napoleon.