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Robespierre - Blog Posts
Omg why all the community draws so well like omg it's beautiful their drawings of Robespierre or Napoleon is that omg how beautiful why they draw so beautiful I would like to draw like them but how omg too much art for my eyes omg omg I can’t
guys I’m crying in my bed so bad but then I just remember that I have a image of Robespierre pasted on my wall, idk how to feel lol it’s so uncomfortable his fucking green eyes looking at me oh god 🙏 🙏🙏🙏😭
it’s 2025 and I can’t draw Robespierre 💀 I can’t draw his fucking wig like ahhhhhhh can somebody give me a tutorial or something 😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏😭😞😞😞🙏🙏
helpp lol 💀🙏
Guys, do you know where I can see the complete image of this? (Don't ask why) I swear it's just that my curiosity gets the better of me ahahahaha wtf 🧍♂️
i like this picture of robespierre as some sort of smug baby
fem! versions of robespierre and saint-just
02 . 05 .
+ version with her siblings (more abt this on tags lol)
happy (belated) birthday to charlotte !
^ (this is all i could have for this particular figure, supposedly there's gonna be more than just this but i didn't have time, but ik this will do ahahhajsjaj— anyways shes one of my favs aside from what ive shown and she will always be, yeahh idrk what to say anymore lol)
anyways, hello you people from main! i hope you guys are doing well:] this is pretty much my first post this february but i'll post more if i can (probably this week? i am not so certain of my words please forgive me—), but anyways, i hope you guys like this piece, thankyou!
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was listening to Gehenna (by wotaku) like 2 days ago, still do. and made this...
do u like stars?
They're so cute together, I hope nothing bad happens-
...oh.
Edit: 2 versions are up now below ↓
Version w/o dialogue bubbles:]
Version w/ original dialogue:]
I haven't seen any1 do this for frev so I made one. also hi:) am new, and this is my first post, hope y'all like it
original from: https://x.com/lilalienz4ever/status/1828062861702414576
Edit 2: Added a version w the orig dialogue! To add, I just checked again rn and I appreciate the support y'all have given, thankyou all!! (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*
So um… themidorian propaganda 🤡
it must be very odd to run into people on tumblr defending Robespierre saying that calling him a mass murderer is “thermidorian propaganda”. So let’s unpack that.
Thermidorian propaganda is, long story short, a series of made up or distorted facts about the politics of year II (1793/94, like, the terror) and specially about Robespierre. We all know propaganda is supposed to push an agenda, it’s usually financed by an entity. With thermidorian propaganda is hard to tell because the people who had anything to gain from painting Robespierre as a monster are long dead, but somehow it still gets parroted to this day by non-specialists and reproduced in fiction and pop culture.
In this post I’m going to focus on the original thermidorian propaganda that came out immediately after Robespierre’s death. I hope, if real life allows me, this to be the first post of a series. I must clarify I’m not a historian so there will be inacuracies, this is just a casual, funny and quick intro to the subject, so if I succeed in picking your interest, I strongly encourage you to do your own research with real academic sources and draw your own conclusions. Also I’d like to thank @frevandrest and @tierseta for their corrections and suggestions! Also I relied a lot on @rbzpr, specially this post that compiles a lot of primary sources about the propaganda.
Year II (1793-1794) speedrun
Robespierre’s real role during the terror
To understand what even was the terror about, you need to know that there was an external war against all the monarchies of Europe and simultaneously, an internal war against counterrevolutionary forces like vendean revels and federalists. To even have a chance for the republic to survive, the national convention declared that the government would be “revolutionary until peace” which means that there would be a state of emergency, which suspended certain freedoms until peacetime. Some of the emergency measures were the suspension of the constitution of 1793, the infamous law of suspects and general maximum, the limitation of freedom of press and the institution of representatives on mission, deputies of the convention that were sent to the provinces to watch over military operations and had the authority to do whatever they wanted.
Robespierre in 1793 was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. The CPS was the convention’s executive branch and pretty much a war cabinet with dictatorial powers (in theory, but in practice everything they did had to be approved by the convention). Its purpose was to take measures to win the war against all of Europe, keep everyone fed and crush counterrevolution. They didn’t have a “director” or anything like that, the twelve had equal authority. Besides, the CPS was full of deeply confrontational, clashing personalities that weren’t exactly fond of Robespierre, so it’s not like he could dominate over them. (Twelve who Ruled by R.R. Palmer gives you a good idea of their dynamic and boy did they hate each other)
Despite this, Robespierre was the most famous member; so he became the de facto face of the CPS and it was assumed outside of France that he had control over the republic, which was portrayed by the monarchies as a barbaric mess. The common people from the rest of Europe and that impression lives on.
I hope to make this very clear: Robespierre wasn’t as powerful and didn’t have as much control of the situation as bad school texts will make us believe. Nobody did, the situation during the terror really was that chaotic. By the summer of 1794, known today as the Great Terror, Robespierre’s popularity and influence on the goverment was weakened compared to that it was before (I’ll elaborate why soon).
The excesses of year II and who made them
The deputies that became the future thermidorians, for the most part, were ultra radicals from the mountain (the far left party that was most influential in the convention and Robespierre himself was a part of) who had been sent to the provinces as representatives in mission to crush counterrevolution or supervise the army. Some of them committed some atrocious war crimes, brutally executing thousands of people. Robespierre was appalled, had them recalled and spent the rest of his life antagonizing them because he didn’t have the authority to bring them to justice.
For example, Collot d’Herbois, fellow CPS member, who shot people with cannons full of shrapnel as a representative on mission in Lyons alongside Joseph Fouché, used his authority to counteract Robespierre’s attempts to hold him or the other representatives on mission accountable. Still Robespierre had them on his radar to punish them as soon as he had the opportunity and they had him on their radar fearing that he would use his popularity against them at any moment. Some of them tried to bootlick him and get on his good side, but their actions were so repulsive to him he refused any kind of compromise.
Other important details
The idea that Robespierre was aspiring for a dictatorship comes from way earlier. In November 1792, a girodin named Louvet accused him of such and wanting to form a triumvirate with Danton and Marat. Robespierre defended himself well and the idea was discredited, only to be recycled during thermidor when the surviving girondins came back to the convention (the girondins another long story lmao)
The idea that Robespierre was some kind of blood drinking monster also started even before the man even did anything wrong. His radical ideals about giving voting rights to minorities like jews and protestants, to men that didn’t own property, to free black people, him speaking out against slavery, against the inviolability of the king, the royal veto, etc… it genuinely pissed off a lot of people
This is a huge tangent but it’s relevant because it’s the origin of Robespierre’s supposed God-complex. So, if you have heard about the decristianization hysteria that was going on during the terror, Robespierre was hostile to it actually, and thought the state needed some kind of religion to hold it together, which is funny since a lot of people nowadays believe he was an atheist. To put a stop to it and reinforce the freedom of cults, he proposed that the French Republic must recognize the cult of “Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul” as a compromise between religion and secular patriotic worship. To clarify, this isn’t some religion Robespierre made up out of nowhere, it was influenced by Rousseau’s deist ideas and civic festivals (More on that in Mathiez essay about The Supreme Being in The Fall of Robespierre). The project was a success at the time, but his militant atheist coworkers couldn’t forgive him for it and went out of their way to use it against him later. Thus the Committee of General Security put together a report (with fabricated evidence and all!) in which they tried to link him to a wacky but harmless and obscure cult that prophesied the coming of a messiah, implying that it was Robespierre, with the purpose to ridicule him.
The infamous Prairial law (here’s a post explaining it better than I ever could). This law, which streamlined processes and executions and centralized them in Paris, removed the deputies immunity which would enable Robespierre to go after the aforementioned war criminals’ heads. However, Robespierre cut ties with the CPS after a fight with the other members and disappeared from the government, leaving the law in the hands of people who abused it, like the Committee of General Security and public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville (who also had beef with Robespierre). In fact you don’t see many arrests signed by Robespierre during this time, that later became considered to be the Great Terror, while his coworkers, like Carnot or Barère, were very trigger happy using this law to say the least.
Robespierre’s fall
So, Robespierre goes rogue against the CPS and disappears from the government for more than a month. There was an attempt at reconciliation that Robespierre completely rejected when the 8th thermidor he returns and causes a commotion with an emotional and disjointed speech in which he expresses his despair about the gory state of the revolution and vagues the violent deputies, but refuses to give their names. The speech is definitely not his best and you can tell he’s not ok, but it has some raw, revealing lines like:
“Anyway, voilà within less than six weeks that my dictatorship is expired, and that I didn’t have any kind of influence on the government. Has patriotism been more protected? the factions more timid, the patrie happier? I would wish so”
Or my personal favorite:
“They call me tyrant… If I would be one, they would crawl at my feet, I would stuff them with gold, I would ensure them the right to commit all the crimes, and they would be grateful.”
Fouché and others took advantage of his vagueness to convince half of the convention that he was targeting them and aspiring for a power grab.
Jean Lambert Tallien, a young deputy who had participated in bloody repressions in Bordeaux, conspired with his then girlfriend Thérese Cabarrus who was in prison, starts the reaction the next day by interrupting SJ’s speech trying to mitigate the mess Robespierre caused the previous day. Later Tallien becomes instrumental in building the narrative to justify Robespierre’s murder and create the concept of the Reign of Terror.
The first batch of Thermidorian propaganda
The accusations against Robespierre were vague and contradictory… and calling them accusations is kind of generous because they were mostly people yelling vague grievances against him, nothing official or legal. The ultra radicals accused Robespierre of not being enough of a terrorist. The moderates of being too much of a terrorist. The funniest example of this dichotomy was when Billaud-Varenne (CPS member) accused him of, I shit you not, protesting against arresting Danton and another guy shouting “the blood of Danton chokes you” during the session. Anyway, Robespierre was declared an outlaw and executed with no trial and at least a hundred of his followers were dragged with him to the scaffold. Ironically, the day after Robespierre’s death saw the highest number of people guillotined in a single day in all of the terror. I need to empathize that he was guillotined without a trial, because while the revolutionary tribunal could be a kangaroo court sometimes, at least they kept registries of what someone was being accused of, Robespierre didn’t even go through it so his imputed crimes remained very vague and open to add shit later. So the next day Barére showed up with a report and fabricated evidence about how Robespierre was conspiring with his close supporters to crown himself king.
Some time later Tallien came up to the convention with a speech about how what had happened the past year had been a Reign Of Terror, that Robespierre bullied a congress of 700 something men into doing whatever he wanted, that every single bad thing that happened, all the unnecessary bloodshed was exclusively Robespierre’s fault. Boohoo, Robespierre poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague upon the republic and he did all himself.
The thermidorian convention, with the press of the time, made sure to run the robespierrists’ names through the mud and scapegoat them of their own excesses. A massive amount of libelous pamphlets against Robespierre were circulating circa 1795-1799, portraying him as some kind of gangster-sultan-pimp tyrant monster with a secret castle and lots of money and chicks, which is hilarious in hindsight since all his stuff sold for like… 300 francs, but at the time people ate it up.
Here’s some of my personal favorites because original thermidorian propaganda was seriously wacky (and let’s make it fun by rating it)
✨highlights✨
Apparently, Robespierre wished to marry Louis’ eldest child to crown himself king. I’d rate it higher for the creativity but she was a literal teenager ewww. 3/10
Courtois report: Courtois was in charge of going through the robespierrists papers and of course he suppressed and twisted a lot of evidence. He collected his “findings” in a report for the convention. Thanks to this guy most of Robespierre’s correspondence is lost. 🤡 -4563456435/10
La vie de Robespierre: I haven’t read this one so what I know comes from secondary sources, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s one of the first biographies of Robespierre ever written, by his own school teacher, the abbot Proyart, who became a royalist émigré during the revolution. It’s such a mess, he makes normal things children do sound malignant when little Maximilien did them. He’s also the source of the legend that Robespierre read a poem for Louis XVI as a kid, which Hervé Leuwers debunked in his Robespierre bio. 5/10 because apparently his beef with Robespierre (besides the whole revolution thing) was that he wouldn’t say hi to him during vacations. Petty as hell.
Le chat-tigre: the description that Robespierre resembled a cat comes from a pamphlet published by Merlin de Thionville. This one is key because it deviates from the common view of the time of Robespierre as a morally corrupt orgy-frequenter, and portrays him as a dull, emotionless incel, which is closer to the way thermidorian propaganda reads like today. It also has this hysterical line: “History will say little about this monster”. Anyway Merlin called Robespierre a catboy unironically so I rate it meow/10
La queue de Robespierre (Robespierre’s tail). This pamphlet by Méhée de la Touché is interesting because it goes after certain thermidorians like Barère, Collot and Billaud, foreshadowing how the whole thing would soon backfire on them. Also the title is a dick joke, so, 10/10.
These two engravings. 760936/10
This whole-ass painting of Robespierre straight up ruling over hell
My absolute favorite: this one is from later when the whole mountain was purged from the convention (so there’s lots of thermidorians here too). There’s so much happening here. The snakes, the bats, the be gay do crimes skeletons, and the whole gang is there, looking like smurfs. It’s beautiful. 1793/10
But why spread so many lies about a dead man? They had to do it, you see, they had to gaslight the entire nation as much as possible, the ultras to avoid accountability and the moderates to discredit the democratic ideals that he represented so they could pass shit like the constitution of year III. This has effects on historiography to this day (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).
Thermidor backfires
With some exceptions, who ended up becoming Napoleon’s ministers, they did not avoid accountability…
Some of the original thermidorians were radicals who believed in the jacobin ideals of year II and just thought, sincerely or not, that Robespierre was aspiring for dictatorship, and the ones who had done war crimes as representatives on mission seemed to genuinely believe they were justified to do so and had to defend themselves when they were used against them.
Some of them weren’t expecting that after purging and persecuting Robespierre’s supporters, the mountain would be weakened and that the national convention would take a turn to the right when they brought back a bunch of girondins. What was left of the mountain wanted to keep the progress towards a more egalitarian society made in year II. Some of the right wingers like Boissy d’Anglas took credit for Robespierre’s fall and influenced the convention to become more reactionary. Some of the montagnards got guillotined for their crimes against humanity, like Carrier (the infamous dude who drowned thousands of people in the Loire - also a massive thermidorian, because of course he was), while most were exiled to Guyana.
Decades later during the Bourbon restoration, former Montagnards and members of the CPS like Billaud and Barère, came to regret bitterly what they did to Robespierre, his memory and the Republic, and admitted to having lied about him.
Conclusion
It’s not a secret to anyone that the French Revolution was extremely brutal and nobody is denying it (and that’s without counting what happened after Robespierre’s death). Donald Greer in The incidence of the terror during the french revolution estimates a death toll of 35.000-40.000, which includes not just people sentenced to death (which he estimates between 16.000-17.000), but people massacred without a trial by these representatives on mission I spoke about, people who died of disease in prisons, etc.
The executions by guillotine, that Robespierre came to represent, were just one aspect of it, an aspect that has become iconic in pop culture and exaggerated to death. The Jacobins weren’t executing people just for being nobles, in fact, there were some former nobles in the government and more commoners were executed than nobles. All those 17k death sentences weren’t signed or approved by Robespierre personally, and while Robespierre was powerful in theory as a member of the committee of public safety, he had very little control of the situation. And it’s not like he was an innocent little angel, he had blood on his hands but so did everyone back then, and his reputation is very disproportionate to what he actually did.
And yet, we’re taught in schools and in media that he was single-handely the supreme authority who did whatever he wanted and we never hear about the people that got him killed, what they were up to during the terror and how they straight up scapegoated this man to escape accountability for their crimes against humanity. But why though? Shouldn’t that be common knowledge by now, more than two centuries later?
Next part, if I can do it, I hope I can cover how thermidorian propaganda evolved to what it is today. Still this is a subject I only have general notions about and haven’t read about extensively so I’ll take a while to write the post, but it should be fun to research as it was fun (and infuriating) to research this.
Salut & fraternité and… happy birthday Robespierre!!! :-) My present is posting about how you got murdered and slandered I guess lmao.
me before every situation just like a parisian sansculotte in 1795: This wouldn’t happen if Robespierre were alive.
Robespierre is truly looking everywhere for these foreign plots...
me? forgetting robespierre's birthday?? hahahahaha I would never...h..hahaha... (ignore that this is like 4 days late 🥀) lazy doodle of robobobspierre with miku because I felt like it
vampire robobobobobobobobspierre...... (inspred by smileyfaceorg's desingssnndns !! ^_^)
At the Duplays’, Robespierre’s life and surroundings were comfortable, respectable, eminently bourgeois; and he was pampered by his adoring hosts. He did not, when fleeing rumoured reprisals, seek shelter in the faubourg Saint-Antoine; he did not seek out a hovel in the bowels of Paris, where lay much of his popular support. The Duplay home was suitable to one of his position, with its respectable neighbourhood, vine-covered walls, quiet courtyard, and proper owners. He stayed on until his death.
David P. Jordan, The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre [x]
For a new world would come / Every once in a while
Robert Caumont's illustrations (1922 - 1924) from "Ninety-Three" by Victor Hugo.
L.P. Durasov's illustrations from A.P. Levandovsky's book "The triumvirs of the Revolution" (1980).
Augustin Robespierre being his brother’s number 1 fan compilation
…I tremble, my friend, when I think of the dangers that surround you. I implore you, give us your news, report to the public your motion and the scandalous scene you suffered at the hands of an enemy of the people; your virtues, your patriotism must triumph. But you have to convince the ignorant for success to be certain. Farewell, I embrace you with tears in my eyes. Augustin to Maximilien in an undated letter, 1790
…Our simple villagers are horribly gullible; in vain do they know what you have done for them. They forget everything to feast on the misfortune of being crushed by taxes because of you. Augustin to Maximilien in an undated letter, middle of June 1790
I am angry, dear brother, that you are so weak when it comes to your interests. Why hesitate to publish the response to Beaumez? Why consult again, when Charles Lameth has signed and approved this answer? This is an insult you are doing to your greatest friend. So I alert you that I will publish this answer tomorrow. Augustin to Maximilien, June 6 1790
…Your motion for the marriage of priests makes you get regarded as impious by all our great Artesian philosophers. It is well within my principles, but few people are at the same level! You would lose the esteem of the peasants if you renewed this motion. This weapon is used to harm you; people only talk about your irreligion, etc. Perhaps it would be a good idea to stop supporting it. I don't even believe that the National Assembly is mature enough to adopt it. Tell me if I will please you by going to Paris. Augustin to Maximilien, undated 1790
…I cannot hide my fears from you, dear brother, you will seal the cause of the people with your blood, perhaps these people will even be unfortunate enough to strike you, but I swear to avenge your death and to deserve it like you. You will be surprised to learn how far the villainy of your enemies extends. They went to the houses of the people I saw, telling them that they were dishonoring themselves by welcoming me into their homes. I confess to you that this monstrous behavior made my blood boil, that it was prudent for these villains not to appear before me. […] I would like to go to Paris for July 14; I have not yet had a single patriotic enjoyment in Arras. I have to compensate myself. Give me, I beg you, the means to go there, it will be enough to please you. Augustin to Maximilien, undated June 1790
Patriot Dupleix [sic], I learned indirectly that my brother is indisposed; I am worried; let me know about his situation as soon as possible. Send me also the cartridge that I asked my brother's friend to look for in his papers. Tell my brother that my sister is convalescing, and that I will send back Mme Witty's book in a few days. Don't waste a moment, send answers right away. My worry is at its peak. Nothing prevents me from flying to Paris. Also send me some copies of the speech on the war that your friend gave and the observations of Pethion [sic] and Robespierre. I embrace you and your family. Augustin to Maurice Duplay, March 19 1792
It’s surely not curiosity that draws in such a big number of members today, it’s the intimate sentiment of dangers against liberty that assemble them here. I am somewhat ashamed to be speaking before you, because the brother of Robespierre should be calumniated, and he is not. […] Citizens, I had a big fear, it seemed to me like assassins were coming to stab my brother. I heard men say that he would perish by their hands. Another one, whom I asked if he wanted to be the executioner of my brother, responded: ”He has been the executioner of a lot of others.” After this, it is possible to believe innocence will never be victorious! […] I don’t want to leave this rostrum before making an observation on Marat: Marat can’t be guilty, because he is persecuted by the same enemies that persecute Robespierre. Augustin at the jacobins, October 29 1792
…I have just been appointed commissary to the army of Italy, the mission is difficult; I accepted it for the good of my country, I am convinced that I will serve it usefully if only by destroying the slanders with which my name has been blackened. Augustin to Antoine Buissart, July 20 1793
From this moment (around June 10 1794) Robespierre and his friends acted with hostility against us, and especially against me (Barère). One day they even sent Robespierre the younger to me, whom they had recalled from the Basses Alpes. This lunatic entered the committee under pretext of giving an account of his mission to Nice; but instead of fulfilling this duty, he addressed me in a furious tone ”You have maltreated my brother. We missed you on the 31st of May 1793, we shall not miss you on the 31st of May 1794.” He left still threatening us. Memoirs of Barère (1896) volume 2, page 169.
[Robespierre the younger] complains that the lowest flatteries are used to create division between patriots: they went so far as to tell him that he was better than his brother: “But in vain,” he cries, ”would anyone want to separate me from him: as long as he is the proclaimer of morality and the terror of scoundrels, I aspire to no other glory than to share the same tomb as him!” Augustin at the jacobins on July 11 1794, recorded in number 32 (July 18) of Mercure français.
Robespierre the younger: I am as guilty as my brother: I share his virtues; I want to share his fate. I demand an act of accusation against me also. Augustin at the Convention on July 26 1794, as reported in number 311 (July 29) of Le Moniteur Universel
…Proceeding to learning of the causes of the accident, the patient told us his name was [Augustin] Robespierre; that he voluntarily threw himself from one of the windows of Hôtel de Ville, to escape from the hands of the conspirators, because, having been put under a decree of accusation, he believed his death inevitable; that he never stopped doing his duty well at the Convention, like his brother; that no one can reproach him for anything; that he regards Panis as a conspirator, because he once came over to him and declared that Collot d’Herbois does not desire the good of his country in order to deceive him; Carnot appears to him to be one of the conspirators, who wants to surrender his country... Medical report on Augustin, written on July 28 1794, two o’clock in the morning, at the civil committee of the city hall section
castlevania wiki listing robespierre as alive is the funniest thing i've seen all day. i know chatgpt is going to obliterate some student's history grade with that one