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MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE AND THE
FRENCH NATIONAL CONVENTION
The Virtue of Terror
Go here for more about
Maximilien de Robespierre.
Go here for more about
Robespierre's speech on the Virtue of
Terror.
Go here for more about
King Louis XVI.
Top picture: The background
depicts the National Convention assembling on a different
occasion (that of Louis XVI before the National Convention
in 1792). But it will help to imagine the atmosphere in
which Robespierre's speech was delivered.
It follows an English
translation excerpt of the text transcript of
Maximilien Robespierre's Virtue of Terror speech, delivered before the National Convention in Paris,
France - February 5, 1794.
Go here for the
full French
transcript.
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It is time to mark
clearly the aim of the Revolution and the end
toward which we wish to move. |
It is time to take
stock of ourselves, of the obstacles which we
still face, and of the means which we ought to
adopt to attain our objectives.
...
What is the goal
for which we strive? A peaceful enjoyment of
liberty and equality, the rule of that eternal
justice whose laws are engraved, not upon marble
or stone, but in the hearts of all men.
We wish an order
of things where all low and cruel passions are
enchained by the laws, all beneficent and
generous feelings aroused; where ambition is the
desire to merit glory and to serve one’s
fatherland; where distinctions are born only of
equality itself; where the citizen is subject to
the magistrate, the magistrate to the people,
the people to justice; where the nation
safeguards the welfare of each individual, and
each individual proudly enjoys the prosperity
and glory of his fatherland; where all spirits
are enlarged by the constant exchange of
republican sentiments and by the need of earning
the respect of a great people; where the arts
are the adornment of liberty, which ennobles
them; and where commerce is the source of public
wealth, not simply of monstrous opulence for a
few families.
In our country we
wish to substitute morality for egotism, probity
for honor, principles for conventions, duties
for etiquette, the empire of reason for the
tyranny of customs, contempt for vice for
contempt for misfortune, pride for insolence,
the love of honor for the love of money . . .
that is to say, all the virtues and miracles of
the Republic for all the vices and snobbishness
of the monarchy.
We wish in a word
to fulfill the requirements of nature, to
accomplish the destiny of mankind, to make good
the promises of philosophy . . . that France,
hitherto illustrious among slave states, may
eclipse the glory of all free peoples that have
existed, become the model of all nations.
...
That is our
ambition; that is our aim. What kind of
government can realize these marvels? Only a
democratic government.
...
But to found and
to consolidate among us this democracy, to
realize the peaceable rule of constitutional
laws, it is necessary to conclude the war of
liberty against tyranny and to pass successfully
through the storms of revolution. Such is the
aim of the revolutionary system which you have
set up.
...
Now what is the
fundamental principle of democratic, or popular
government, that is to say, the essential
mainspring upon which it depends and which makes
it function? It is virtue. I mean public virtue.
…
That virtue is
nothing else but love of fatherland and its
laws.
...
The splendor of
the goal of the French Revolution is
simultaneously the source of our strength and of
our weakness: our strength, because it gives us
an ascendancy of truth over falsehood, and of
public rights over private interests; our
weakness, because it rallies against us all
vicious men, all those who in their hearts seek
to despoil the people.
...
It is necessary to
stifle the domestic and foreign enemies of the
Republic or perish with them. Now in these
circumstances, the first maxim of our politics
ought to be to lead the people by means of
reason and the enemies of the people by terror.
If the basis of
popular government in time of peace is virtue,
the basis of popular government in time of
revolution is both virtue and terror. Virtue
without which terror is murderous, terror
without which virtue is powerless.
Terror is nothing
else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it
flows, then, from virtue.
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