Contenu du sommaire : Robespierre

At the end of April 2012, the Société des études robespierristes learned about the auction at Sotheby's in Paris of unpublished manuscripts of Robespierre and Le Bas. The sentiment of emotion, shared by the l'Institut d'histoire de la Révolution française together with numerous associations of friends, was soon followed by a reaction. At the beginning of May, the Société des études robespierristes launched a national subscription aiming to collect enough money to keep in public collections the precious writings of the Incorruptible or at least to incite public institutions devoted to the conservation of documents to act. The subscription was a success, supported by the National Assembly and the Senate, and widely broadcast by the media. Soon the State took the lead, and purchased the two bundles on sale. During several weeks, letters accompanied by contributions flowed in, coming from many places; at once moved and indignant, more than a thousand contributors participated in this subscription, and thus directly participated in this civic operation to protect a national heritage. Two years later, it is time to reconsider this unprecedented movement, to grasp its dynamic, and to draw a portrait of the group of donors, to measure and to understand their gesture. Without their action, it goes without saying, these manuscripts would most probably not have been conserved ; with their aid, these documents could enter the collections in the National Archives.

The 126 pages of Robespierre's manuscripts recebtly bought by the National Archives allow us to reexamine the edition of his writings by the Société des études robespierristes. A codicologic description should be done with a genetic history of the manuscripts : drafts, corrections, changes before an eventual publication, successive editions. This could lead to a new appreciation of Robespierre as an author and could shed light on some still unresolved questions.

Very few documents enable the historian to understand Robespierre as a lawyer in his work. His professional correspondence, his legal queries, his consultations, his legal defense and other acts of his profession have virtually all disappeared, except for his factums of which nearly all have survived. This last exceptional corpus of twelve printed documents enables us to investigate a facet of his activity as a lawyer, that of the author of factums, which constitute in themselves a veritable legal genre. By studying these documents, it is possible to analyze the techniques Robespierre used to promote a particular case or cause, and to persuade the two chief recipients of his writings : the judges and the public. What language did he use ? How did he convince them ? How did he garantee his client a favorable judgement as well as public estime ? The answer depends not only on the development of arguments legal and factual, but also on the way in which these arguments are developed. The narrative strategies, the use of pathos, the possible choice of a rupture defense that challenged the legitimacy of « inferior » judges and the relevancy of a given law, reinforced by a lawyer's ethos of the «unfortunate» gives to the writings of Robespierre their particular force.

Benjamin Constant established the liberal tradition by constructing it in opposition to Robespierre whose fiercely egalitarian politics constituted a violation of the rights of individual property. The discourse of Robespierre on liberty, therefore, is misleading: it constitutes a specious reasoning, confusing the liberty of the Ancients where the individual and his property are subordinate to the collectivity, with that of the Moderns where the individual property owner can flourish. Simultaneous interprétations, particularly in the Marxist tradition, underscore the essentially opportunistic dimension of the socialism of Robespierre. He should first be considered as a partisan of liberal economics, a defender of property and the bourgeois révolution. In addition to these dominant interpretations opposing liberty and equality, other readings emphasize the liberal egalitarianism of Robespierre.

Well before April 20, 1792, the period of the Constituent Assembly served to link Robespierre to agonizing contemporary concerns, at a time when the question of war generated violent debates. From 1789 onwards, the threat of an armed confrontation raised a question about the future of the Revolution. To evoke the war, whether desired or feared by the deputies, became an occasion for Robespierre to make his voice heard in the political arena that he wished, for the cause of the Revolution. An impending war was not inevitable ; rather it was an opportunity for Robespierre to change an old absolute and warring monarchy into a new democratic and pacific regime, always vigilant and in a state of defense.

Several times during the Revolution Maximilien Robespierre made reference to his physical frailty, of exhaustion and ill-health. Is it possible to identify more precisely the nature of his illnesses, and just when they occurred ? An analysis of his periods of illness and of absences from public life, in particular precisely when they occurred, is revealing. From his first great clash with a prominent Artésien noble in 1790, Robespierre was increasingly susceptible to periods of physical weakness, always correlated with political crisis.

Revolutionary leaders regularly claimed that they were motivated by virtue (dedication to the public good, rather than to self-interest and ambition). Yet there was a gap between this ideology and their actions which were – naturally - often self-interested. This presented an insoluble dilemma for Robespierre, as for all the revolutionaries: in order to have political credibility they needed to demonstrate that they were motivated by authentic virtue, yet inner motivation was not something that could be subject to conclusive proof. Robespierre's political power owed much to his relative success in convincing his audience that his devotion to virtue was genuine; yet his claims were challenged by opponents who said his assumption of virtue was a mask to hide his ambition. The question of Robespierre's authentic self became part of a battlefield over the legitimacy of the Revolution, and even the use of terror. The article explores this problem by focusing on specific instances when Robespierre's authenticity was contested during his political career and continuing after his death.