Unit 5: "Virtue and Terror"

Unit 5- “Virtue and Terror”

Author Bio: Author- Maximilien Robespierre (ca. 1758-1794) - French lawyer and later politician who was born in Arras, France; he had an important and influential role in The French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. During the French Revolution he advocated for universal male suffrage in France, the abolishment of slavery in the French colonies and played a major role in executing King Louis XVI, helping to pave the way for the establishment of the first French republic. He is arguably best known for his notorious role in the Region of Terror in which Robespierre used the Committee of Public Safety to help cement a totalitarian police state in France where thousands upon thousands of people were executed as supposed traitors to the Revolution.

Speaker: Maximilien Robespierre

Date/Context:  February 5th, 1794, Maximilien Robespierre delivered a speech to the National Convention in order to convince them of the reasons for the need to execute massive amounts of suspected traitors to the Revolution and to establish a totalitarian regime that would squash out any future opposers to the Revolution and the high set of moral principles and values that is at the very heart of the revolution.

Summary: Maximilien Robespierre believes that the only way to truly achieve the virtues of the French Revolution (the virtues being of course Liberté, égalité, fraternité) is through the necessary evil of terror. Virtue and terror go hand in hand in defense against the tyranny of the monarch and to fulfill justice for the people of France. In order to eliminate any remaining traces of the monarchy, you need to use terror to fully eradicate the notion of absolute power over the people of France. In peacetime, the strength of government is in virtue, however the strength of a government in a time of revolution is determined by both virtue and terror. In conclusion, Robespierre is declaring that terror and virtue are interconnected with each other, terror is needed to demolish any remaining influence of the monarchy, and most importantly terror and virtue play a pivotal role in maintaining liberty, equality, and justice in the time of revolution.

Key Quotations:   

“. . . we want to fulfill the wishes of nature, accomplish the destiny of humanity, keep the promises of philosophy, absolve Providence from the long reign of crime and tyranny.”

“If the strength of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the strength of popular government in revolution is both virtue and terror; terror without virtue as disastrous, virtue without terror is powerless.”     

“The government of revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”