Crimes for liberty
FATAL PURITY: ROBESPIERRE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION<br>by Ruth Scurr<br>Vintage Books, pp388, ISBN: 978-0-099-45898-2
It is one of the eternal conundrums of history: Was terror necessary for the Revolution? Its proponents at the time certainly argued it was, and as far as Robespierre, Saint-Just and Marat were concerned, the terror was indeed the Revolution. The rhetoric in the National Assembly and the crowning of Louis XVI as a constitutional monarch were compromises with liberty, and Robespierre considered all compromise as unethical and reprehensible.
Yet even at the time, other proponents of terror were starting to have doubts. Danton had himself promoted the legislative structures to propagate the mass execution of counter-revolutionaries, the same structures that would off with his head the moment he harboured doubts whether the institutionalised mass murder was still justified when it was clear that innocents were being dragged along to the scaffold.
Any written history of the French Revolution will add the appendage "the Incorruptible" to Robespierre's name. It is not exactly an insulting nickname. There are worse in history: Ivan "the Terrible", Carlos "the Jackal", Ethelred "the Unready", Pippin "the Short" to name just a few. So how does one sanitise, or spin, Maximilien Robespierre's reputation?
Robespierre was a man who several times passed on the opportunity to be a successful lawyer in his province and in the capital where he would have earned far more than he would ever do in politics. He was disgusted by the idea of sexual intrigue and held conjugal fidelity and filial loyalty as primary community values. At a time when everyone had a price, his enemies decorated him with his famous nickname. When atheism and anti-clericalism were mainstream views in his political home ground, he shouted over cynical crowds his belief in the all-encompassing love of the Supreme Being.
"The Incorruptible" campaigned for the constitutional entrenchment of the right to free education for all; for universal suffrage and redistributive justice even at a time when the slogan "tax the rich to subsidise the poor" was considered bizarrely lunatic. He was practically alone when he pushed for the abolition of the death penalty. These ideas are part of the fabric of Western Liberal Democracy today but it would take many decades after Robespierre's death before they would feature again on the agenda of European politics.
That is the sanitised version. There can be little doubt that Robespierre was genuine in his commitment to this political programme and that he saw no contradiction in his other idea that to put this unimpeachable programme across any means was not merely justified, but required. For Robespierre, anyone willing to dilute the full severity of this effort deserved nothing but death.
How could Robespierre live with the paradox that anyone resisting the programme to abolish the death penalty deserved to die? What arguments did he use to explain this paradox?
More than a biography, Ruth Scurr's is an intellectual challenge as we face the politics of our time and our expectations from it. The paradox here too is that we are never too sure what to admire and what to despise. What terror teaches us is that if the answer to that doubt is that the difference between right and wrong is absolutely certain, then one other thing we could be absolutely certain of is that we cannot be squeamish and look away from the grisly terror and instead think of paradoxical argument to justify the murder of tens of thousands of people. We need to start thinking of latter day terrorism in different terms.
Incorruptibility is held among the highest values we expect from our politicians today. A close second is the unwillingness to bend principles for the sake of political convenience. Here now is the case of how that idea can be taken to fanatical and bloody extremes.
This is a mirror held up to Niccolò Machiavelli's chilling ideas on political expediency and raison d'état to whom Robespierre, using Rousseau's words, replies with virtue, rights and the interest of the people not the tyrants who oppress them.
As history students we stand between the two, stained by the blood spilled by both the left and the right. We are reminded of Lord Acton's words that power corrupts and that absolute power would corrupt absolutely. Can this even apply to the "incorruptible" Robespierre?
Madame Roland, a few seconds before her head was chopped off would have replied in the affirmative but her famous last words were not addressed to Robespierre - her crush on whom was well and truly over by now - but to a statue of liberty in the Place de la Révolution: "O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!" (Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!)
• Mr Delia is an amateur history enthusiast.
Yet even at the time, other proponents of terror were starting to have doubts. Danton had himself promoted the legislative structures to propagate the mass execution of counter-revolutionaries, the same structures that would off with his head the moment he harboured doubts whether the institutionalised mass murder was still justified when it was clear that innocents were being dragged along to the scaffold.
Any written history of the French Revolution will add the appendage "the Incorruptible" to Robespierre's name. It is not exactly an insulting nickname. There are worse in history: Ivan "the Terrible", Carlos "the Jackal", Ethelred "the Unready", Pippin "the Short" to name just a few. So how does one sanitise, or spin, Maximilien Robespierre's reputation?
Robespierre was a man who several times passed on the opportunity to be a successful lawyer in his province and in the capital where he would have earned far more than he would ever do in politics. He was disgusted by the idea of sexual intrigue and held conjugal fidelity and filial loyalty as primary community values. At a time when everyone had a price, his enemies decorated him with his famous nickname. When atheism and anti-clericalism were mainstream views in his political home ground, he shouted over cynical crowds his belief in the all-encompassing love of the Supreme Being.
"The Incorruptible" campaigned for the constitutional entrenchment of the right to free education for all; for universal suffrage and redistributive justice even at a time when the slogan "tax the rich to subsidise the poor" was considered bizarrely lunatic. He was practically alone when he pushed for the abolition of the death penalty. These ideas are part of the fabric of Western Liberal Democracy today but it would take many decades after Robespierre's death before they would feature again on the agenda of European politics.
That is the sanitised version. There can be little doubt that Robespierre was genuine in his commitment to this political programme and that he saw no contradiction in his other idea that to put this unimpeachable programme across any means was not merely justified, but required. For Robespierre, anyone willing to dilute the full severity of this effort deserved nothing but death.
How could Robespierre live with the paradox that anyone resisting the programme to abolish the death penalty deserved to die? What arguments did he use to explain this paradox?
More than a biography, Ruth Scurr's is an intellectual challenge as we face the politics of our time and our expectations from it. The paradox here too is that we are never too sure what to admire and what to despise. What terror teaches us is that if the answer to that doubt is that the difference between right and wrong is absolutely certain, then one other thing we could be absolutely certain of is that we cannot be squeamish and look away from the grisly terror and instead think of paradoxical argument to justify the murder of tens of thousands of people. We need to start thinking of latter day terrorism in different terms.
Incorruptibility is held among the highest values we expect from our politicians today. A close second is the unwillingness to bend principles for the sake of political convenience. Here now is the case of how that idea can be taken to fanatical and bloody extremes.
This is a mirror held up to Niccolò Machiavelli's chilling ideas on political expediency and raison d'état to whom Robespierre, using Rousseau's words, replies with virtue, rights and the interest of the people not the tyrants who oppress them.
As history students we stand between the two, stained by the blood spilled by both the left and the right. We are reminded of Lord Acton's words that power corrupts and that absolute power would corrupt absolutely. Can this even apply to the "incorruptible" Robespierre?
Madame Roland, a few seconds before her head was chopped off would have replied in the affirmative but her famous last words were not addressed to Robespierre - her crush on whom was well and truly over by now - but to a statue of liberty in the Place de la Révolution: "O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!" (Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!)
• Mr Delia is an amateur history enthusiast.