The Rest Is History - 711. The Terror: Killing God (Part 5)

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

Why did Robespierre hold a vast, eccentric festival in 1794 when The Reign of Terror was at its most frenzied? What does it reveal about his psychology and belief in the divine? And, did he really believe that the French Revolution could succeed in supplanting the Christian God?  Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the extraordinary spectacle of the Festival of the Supreme Being, its sinister reception, and the transformation of France.  Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at the⁠⁠restishistory.com⁠⁠. To read our new newsletter, sign up at: ⁠⁠therestishistory.com/newsletters⁠⁠ _______ This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Try Claude for free today at http://Claude.ai/restishistory. _______ Advertise with us: ⁠[e-mail]⁠ _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek, Harry Swan + Adam Thornton  Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude  Senior Producer: Callum Hill   Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked. Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realizes, or rather everybody else realizes, that there is a vast continent out there. And it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution

really goes well for ordinary people? So they asked over 100,000 people and what came back wasn't just fear. There was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions. Ask yours at clodd.aI slash rest is history. And keep thinking. Let us be grave and discreet in all our deliberations as men who determine the interests of the world. Let us be ardent and tenacious in anger towards the leagues of tyranny, imperturbable in danger, patient in labour, terrible in adversity, modest and vigilant in success. Let us be generous towards the good, compassionate towards the unforestationate towards the unforeseen,

fortunate, inexorable toward the wicked, just towards all. Let us not count on an unalloyed prosperity, nor on triumph without obstacles, nor on anything that depends on the fortune or perversity of others. We should rely solely on our own constancy and our own virtue alone. But infallible guarantors of our independence, let us crush the honourable. Holy League of Kings, even more by our greatness of character than by the force of our arms. So that was a speech given by Maximilian Robespierre on the 8th of June 1794 in the gardens of the Twilery in the centre of Paris. Now some people might find that stirring. Others might think

is the kind of thing that the headmaster of a minor public school might say at the first assembly of term, or that a particularly weedy Church of England Bishop would say to his dwindling congregation. But actually in this case, the occasion was the strangest and most colourful public spectacle

of the entire French revolution. That is saying something. So Tom, when and where and why are we? This is a festival in honour of the supreme being. So Rosspier had announced this deeply accent

public spectacle, a month earlier on the 7th of May. And it was a great festival to which literally everyone was invited. Robs-Pierre wanted it to be an occasion so civic that basically every citizen could turn up and enjoy the fun, enjoy the stirring oratory. And the whole occasion was very, very much his baby. He had gone to inordinate efforts to make it a success. And he had invested a lot of his political capital. in putting it on

because there's a fair degree of scepticism around it has to be said so not only had he had himself elected president of the national convention so basically the official government of France four days before this festival is staged so that he can play the kind of the constitutionally appointed central role

in the whole proceedings but he has also very thoughtfully had the guillotine moved from the Place de la Evolution, which is kind of just across the road, so that the sound of the blade slicing and the spurting of blood and the cheers of the crowd won't detract from the solemnity of this great event that he's planned. So very thoughtful. That's nice. And Robs Pierre has one of the great impresarios in all history at his side. And this is the painter Jacques Louis David, who we did a bonus about with Laura Cumming.

Death of Mara. Yeah, exactly. prepared all kinds of extravagances for it. So he has a massive choir and when they're all put together, all these various choirs constitute 2,400 voices. So that's quite a volume. Incredible stage sets, brilliant special effects and some dazzling pyrotechnics. And he's also designed the costumes. He's hired florists with baskets to hand out flowers, fresh cut flowers. And he's got girls in white dresses

to hand them out from these baskets. So very, very kind of attractive. He's learned his lesson from Mara's funeral, which was the last great spectacle that he staged. So he doesn't have any rotting bodies or severed arms falling off or anything like that. No, but even so, even though

he doesn't have any postule-ridden bodies, kind of threatening foul smells, he is nervous when the Great Day dawned. Much like a rest his history host who is staging a festival at Hampton Court Palace. But such a person be nervous, I don't believe they would. Maybe one of us was a little bit.

But Robespierre, he's trying to get himself in the mood. He's trying to kind of pep himself up by looking at his absolute best. And of course, we've been talking throughout this series about how fastidious he is, how concerned about his appearance he is. And so he has put on his very best Republican finery. So he has an exquisite blue coat, which will. be featuring later in this series. He's wearing a trickleur sash. He's got a plumed hat. But unfortunately, he's so nervous that when he left the house of Maurice DuPlay, his landlord, he left behind a large

bouquet of flowers that had been made for him by one of the DuPlai daughters. So that's very sad. And the other indication of how nervous he is, his stomach is clearly so knotted up that he doesn't have breakfast and he has to be persuaded to go up and kind of pick him. it. So he is very anxious. He wants this day to be a massive success. But in the event, you know, he needn't have worried because everything goes brilliantly. Everybody absolutely loves it. Doesn't rain. Everyone has an absolutely lovely time. And the great thing, thousands upon thousands of patriotic citizens do flock to the tuileries to partake of the fun. Well, they love a public show. Yeah, there's a slightly Trump quality to the estimation of how

many people turned up. So Robespier-a-Miris say that half a million are there. It's probably in exaggeration, but it's certainly, it's very, very enthusiastically attended. And the girls all look lovely in their beautiful white dresses. The flowers all smell gorgeous. It's great. Everyone has a fantastic time. Oh, sounds wonderful. And David's stuff goes off, passes off much better than at the funeral of Mara, presumably.

Yeah, brilliantly. So the morning's highlight, people gather around this enormous spectacle, and it's a large statue of a hideous figure with the ears of asses made entirely half. of cardboard, which I don't think sounds very impressive, but everyone is incredibly impressed by it. Maybe it's very thick cardboard. Robs-Pierre is there. He's looking very natty in his sash and his blue coat. And he appears in front of the crowds. He gives a speech, which again, we're told, goes down very well. But I suspect nobody can hear it. I mean, obviously there's no kind of amplification. I think this is the case with all open-air speeches before about 1950, isn't it?

I mean, the crowd loved it, but actually no one could tell what was being said. Maybe reports of it are being kind of funneled backwards through the crowd. I don't know. Anyway, then the excitement, he is presented with a torch, a flaming torch, and he sets fire to the cardboard figure. So it goes up in flames. And then from the flames, another cardboard statue emerges, and to quote Ruth Gere in her biography of Rosbier, this second cardboard statue was fair, majestic.

and only slightly singed. And this matters because this is an allegorical pyrotechnic stunt. And obviously, if you're doing an allegorical pyrotechnic stunt, you don't want both of your statues going up in flames because it turns out that the statue with the ass's ear represents atheism. And the slightly singed figure that emerges from within it once it's been burnt is wisdom.

So if wisdom had gone up in flames as well as atheism, the whole point would have been lost. As it is, the watching crowds cheer and toss their liberty caps in the air and shout hurrah for Robespierre. Robs Pierre gives another speech, which again, I presume no one can hear. And then everyone joins in with a patriotic hymn, which has been composed especially for the occasion. So, I mean, the fun is limitless. And then that afternoon, there's another spectacle. And this takes place in the middle of the Champ de Mars, just down from where the Eiffel Tower

now stands and all the deputies in the crowds have processed there from the tuileries. And there, in the previous episode, Dominic, there was a Papiomache mountain that had been built in the nave of Notre Dame. This is on a vastly greater scale. It's been built by David, so presumably is excellent. David has tremendous taste. I mean, a skeptic might say the French Revolution is spending an awful lot of time making things that normally are made by four-year-olds in preschool glasses. Yeah, you might say that, but four-year-olds don't tend to put statues of Apollo on top of their papio-mache mountains, which is what David has done. Right. And also there's a tree on the summit, which I think is impressive.

I mean, I've never seen a papio-masho mountain with a tree on the summit. Town nursery in Chippee Norton does some pretty good stuff, to be fair. The fate. Yeah, flower show. Nice. Anyway, so this is the huge papi-a-mashy mountain, and it's the measure of the scale of it is that all the deputy climb up the side of it. And Robespierre purchased himself right on the summit.

So the deputies then kind of congregate around him. And meanwhile, the mass choir that David's been rehearsing. So that's all 2,400 of them. They perched themselves decorously on the lower slopes of the mountain. So, I mean, that is a massive amount of Papua Mache. I mean, I think that's quite impressive. I would enjoy seeing that. And I might also enjoy the spectacle that then ensues,

because it's an assemblage of patriotic songs. Okay. Do you like a patriotic song? Depends where it's from. I mean, a patriotic song from our own beloved country or from, I don't know, Costa Rica or Bosnia, I'd be all in favour of that. A patroatic song from just across the channel, maybe not.

I think the odds that they're singing patriotic English songs on a Papiomache mountain in the middle of the French Revolution are low. I mean, these are French ones. And then there's this specially composed. him and we'll be coming later to who this hymn is being sung to or what. Those are the kind of the festivities on the Papiamesh mountain and then finally in a way that is deliberately designed to ape the athletic contests of ancient Greece. There is a display of sports. The crowds drift away and

it's generally agreed that a good time has been had by all. Wonderful. People enjoyed it. Although there are people who find this sinister. Are there not? Ludicrous and sinister, I would say. Okay. Because some of the deputies who followed Ros Pierre in a train, you know, like a kind of a crocodile, a school procession, they followed him from the tuileries down to this Papiomache Mountain, and then they followed him up the side of the Papiomache Mountain, and they've had to congregate all around him.

And they are scoffing and sneering and bitching away like nobody's business, loads of them. They really think it's ludicrous. And I think that the general feeling is that the whole occasion is mad that this is a bizarre way to spend your time

the people who particularly feel this are the atheists because the atheists have just seen this like this cardboard guy with the asses ears portraying their atheism torched and the whole occasion despite the tricklers

despite the patriotic songs the object of the celebrations hasn't really overtly been the revolution it's been a god and this god isn't even a god with which most people are familiar, because it's a very chill, distant, anemic god. And this is a god termed by Rovspierre, L'Etre Suprem, the Supreme Being.

And this is what it's all about. This is a festival in honour of the supreme being. Now, who is the supreme being? So back in November, people may remember, Ross Pierre goes to the Jacoban Club and he publicly confronts the atheist trend that's been catching fire among the Montigny. And he opposed this by saying that even if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him, kind of echoing the famous aphorism of Voltaire. But Robs-Pier definitely thinks that there is a God.

And this is the God that he calls the supreme deity. And he denies that he has invented this God. He thinks this God exists. and he says that this is the god of the people and that to think otherwise, to doubt the existence of this God is counter-revolutionary. So in this speech that he gave in the Jacques-Abaugh,

he declared that atheism is aristocratic, which might sound ludicrous to us, but if you think about the tradition of aristocratic atheism in France, Marquis de Sard is the most notorious exemplar, but the kind of sense that the characters that you would find in dangerous liaisons that they don't believe in God at all

is very, very strong. Surely, I mean, yeah, the common people that Robespierre claims to represent. They all love God. They're not atheists. No, they're all believers. And so this is why it has some force. And Robsfier then goes on to say,

the idea of a great being who watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is one that entirely belongs to the people. So in essence, he's saying that if people don't believe that there is justice in the afterlife, then how can they possibly believe that there is justice? justice in this life. That, I think, is essentially the core of his argument.

And that if they come to feel that there is no justice in this life, then they will relapse into cynicism and despair. And that is not what a revolution needs at all. Well, is it not right that basically for Rob Spier and so many of the other revolutionary radicals, their belief in the revolution is tied up with their belief in a kind of, in moral absolutes, in an absolute morality? And if you take that away, then you have nothing. And they, you know, Rob Spierre lives in a world, as we've talked about so many times in this series of virtue and terror.

And his belief in virtue, you know, it can't come from, it's not, you know, he's not a moral relativist. It doesn't come from nowhere. He believes that it is linked to a kind of metaphysical reality. Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. And more than that, he could point out that this idea, this notion of a supreme being who keeps watch over the revolution and is guiding it to its conclusion, that this has actually been catalyptuant. terminus with the revolution itself, because right from the beginning, the revolutionaries had been very keen to demonstrate and make exactly the point you were making that their ideals are not culturally relative, they're not contingent, they're not ideals that have been thrown up

by circumstance, that they are absolute, they are eternal, they are universal, that is why the revolution can proclaim itself to be not just for the French, but for everyone, across the face of the planet. And in this, of course, the revolutionaries are very self-consciously following the example of the founding fathers in America. And it's telling that Thomas Jefferson, who was serving in Paris as the American ambassador in the summer of 1789, had actually been on hand to give them advice. No wonder it went to the dogs and they all ended up being terrible people. I mean, they were taking advice from one of the worst men in history. The role that Jefferson plays that's very significant, and we talked about this,

this way back in our first series. He had helped the revolutionaries to draw up a kind of an equivalent of the Declaration of Independence with its insistence on human rights, the significance of human rights. And on the 26th of August 1789, the revolutionaries had not just formally asserted that human rights do exist, that they have a kind of absolute existence, but in very Jeffersonian terms had declared them to be natural, inalienable and sacred. Which, they called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, and it is still being honored in 74 as the foundational text of the entire revolution, and Robespierre absolutely reveres it. So back in 1793, he had said flatly, the Declaration of Rights is the Constitution of

all peoples, so not just the French, all peoples, it has a universal application, all other laws being variable by nature and subordinated to this one. And what enables him to feel confident in making this seemingly ludicrous assertion is another claim that had been made in the Declaration of Rights. It was there in black and white that the Declaration of Rights had been promulgated, and I quote, under the auspices of the supreme being. And it's this supreme being, Robs-Pier believes, who has engraved the laws of eternal justice, and again to quote the Declaration of Rights, not upon marble or stone, but in the hearts of all men. And this is, is a massive deal for Robespierre that this should be so, because for him, so much is at stake.

Because should the French doubt that the promptings of what they can read on their hearts is genuinely expressive of the purposes of a divine being, then he fears the worst. And what he fears is the return of the tyranny that the revolution has been launched to overthrow, so basically the tyranny of kings. Because citizens to behave well, Rochpier believes, need to feel that they are being watched at all times, because only then will they be steel to follow the course of virtue. If they don't feel they're being watched, then they might get up to all kinds of shenanigans. And only if they follow the course of virtue, will the revolution be fully secured. And there's a brilliant book on this by a guy called Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Right,

This is why at the festival, the supreme being is symbolized, to quote Edelstein, primarily as a disembodied eye. So an eye that can see into the heart of every citizen, and Edelstein describes it as an internalized surveillance mechanism. Is that not a very common 18th century device, the idea of the supreme being is an eye and one that owes something to freemasonry, and you see it in the American iconography as well, the dollar bill? So it is current among kind of free-thinking intellectuals, this idea of a saron-type, lidless eye, gazing and penetrating and watching.

And this is why Rosfeyer stages the festival of the Supreme Being, and it's why its success matters so much to him, because he essentially believes that in its success lies the best prospects for the future of the entire revolution. He believes as passionately there are all kinds of people who obviously think this is mad. But the reason that Robespierre is so insistent on staging this festival is that he believes that if the people come to doubt the existence of a benignant but all seeing God, then their prospects of arriving at true virtue are completely shot. You know, that they will start behaving like aristocrats like libertines. They will get up to all kinds of terrible things. Rob Spier psychologically, and this is, I think, reflected in the way he dresses and the way he carries himself, he's a man who believes in rules. and order. Is he not? He's a man to whom controlled is incredibly important. And so the idea that you could have a kind of moral free-for-all, where people, you know, pursue their own individual

morality, the idea that you would take off the shackles, as it were, which is presumably what people like Ebert and the atheists wanted to do. Let's have a kind of anarchic world order. That, you can get the sense with him, I think, that that fills him with a kind of deep psychological horror. He lives in a world where, you know, you're still wearing your wig, you're still wearing his stockings, you're sticking to rigid formulae, and he wants to find a formula to sort of anchor the revolution to something, don't you think? Yeah. Well, remember when he was a little boy, the comment that his sister made about him, that he didn't often play games, but when he did, it was always to insist on the rules. Yes, exactly. And I think that is Rosbya's light

motif throughout his entire career. And there's a sense in which he hasn't given up on the rule. So even though the terror is gouts of blood spurting from the guillotine every day, it's not his ambition to preside over terror. That's not why he's come into politics to do. He doesn't want to rule as a dictator. What he's really about is his constitution, which he hopes when it has been brought in will enable France to live, you know, and be a happy, emancipated, terror-free country. We've talked about it several times this constitution that Rospierre and Saint-Jouz and Couton between them had drawn up very, very quickly in the early summer of 1793. And they had invested all their hopes in it. And it had been by leaps and bounds the most democratic

constitution that the modern world had ever seen. And then it had been ratified by this popular referendum, by an overwhelming majority. And to Robespier, this had served to make it into something holy. It was something that the people whom he identifies as being the voice of virtue, they had said, yes, we want this. So this constitution is incredibly precious to him. I would go so far as to say holy to him. And this is why, I mean, it's such an extraordinary detail. Once it's been ratified, it gets ceremonially placed in a model of the Ark of the Covenant that David has kind of rustled up especially for it. And so the iconography of this is very obvious, I think, and deliberate, that what the God of the Bible had been to the Israelites, so God gives the tablets of stone

the law to Moses, and these tablets are then placed in the Ark of the Covenant. The supreme being is to the Jacobin, is to the Montigny, is to the revolution as a whole. The constitution is something that is descended from the supreme being and therefore is literally dare one say sacral. And yet the irony, this is a constitution that because the nation is facing a national emergency of war, you know, rebellion in the Vande, the Federalist revolts in the cities and so on, this constitution has never been introduced. And at this point in time, which is, what is it, June 1794, there are no signs that it ever

will be introduced because of the state of emergency. So this state of emergency is now, what are we, seven, eight months old and absolutely no sign that they even have a timetable for when they will scrap the state of emergency and move towards a democratic system. Absolutely. So there is no question. The constitution is in a state of animated suspension. In fact, it's in a state of literal suspension because on the suggestion of David, the constitution still in the arc of the covenant had been hung above the Speaker's Bar in the National Convention. So whenever anyone goes up to talk, there is the Ark of the Covenant with this Constitution kind of hanging above

them. I think that you may disagree with this, but I think that Robespierre is intensely frustrated by this. He wants to see this constitution brought in. So Arar Palmer, who we've been quoting quite a lot, is brilliant. on the Committee of Public Safety. I mean, he says that Robespierre regarded dictatorship as an interim phase necessary rather than desirable is beyond a possibility of question. I mean, I don't know. Do you agree with that?

I think it's complicated. I mean, we could spend hours talking about this. I think absolutely if you asked Robespierre or if you asked himself, he would say that, yes, of course, the dictatorship is an unfortunate short-term necessity and that eventually we will embrace this constitution and I will step back or whatever. However, I think practically there is no moment. I don't think that moment would ever have arrived for Robespierre. I don't think there was ever a point where he would have said,

now we can stop the terror. Corruption has been eradicated. The threats are gone. I think he has got himself into a mental psychological state where France will never be ready for that constitution. And you can argue that's a kind of tragedy for him, arguably an even greater tragedy for the people who are rattling a lot of, Yeah, the streets and the tumbrils to the guillotine.

I mean, I think he definitely wants to see his constitution introduced. I also agree with you that he is finding it increasingly hard to imagine a situation in which that would be possible. And the reason for that is he is finding it very difficult to identify who the truly virtuous are. Because he's coming round to a perspective that those who see most virtuous may be most counter-revolutionary. And I think the consciousness of this is causing him immense mental anguish.

Yeah, I agree. I think he's in a mental state now where he thinks there are people who are obviously counter-revolutionary, corrupt and so on, are traitors. But he's now got to the point, I think, where he's got himself into such a lather that he thinks, actually, do you know what, the more that people appear to be on my side, virtuous, upstanding, devoted to the revolution, they're really, likely to be traitors as well, and that basically you can't win with him. Yeah. And so this is why, although he remains personally opposed to the death penalty, he feels himself obliged to kill so many people, because all along he thought the future of the revolution depends on this. And even though he's personally squeamish, he's ideologically opposed to guillotining, he feels that it is his moral responsibility as the man charged with

the guidance of the revolution. to do it. And in his, he delivers this famous speech on how terror is virtuous. He spelt this out very clearly. If the basis of popular government in time of peace is virtue, that's what the constitution represents. The basis of popular government in time of revolution is both virtue and terror because virtue without terror is murderous and terror without virtue is powerless. And this is the bind that he's in. It's the corner he's backed himself into. It's a tragedy for him. Obviously, it's a tragedy for everyone who is having their heads chopped off. He is a very psychologically familiar case of a deeply controlled, anxious, you know, rule-bound person who cannot understand why other people don't play by the same rules.

Why do people keep behaving badly? Why do they keep taking bribes? Why aren't they pure? why do they let themselves down and all these ways? He's getting more and more frustrated and psychologically he will just never get it. He doesn't, he would not meet the humid race halfway, basically.

No. And so I think in turn that cements him in his opinion that he really is the protector of the revolution because there isn't anyone else, perhaps Sanjouz. But the future of the revolution depends on him because he's basically the only one who's following the rules. And so everyone has to be brought to follow the rules. and if they don't then off with their heads.

Now, this is why the festival of the Supreme Being matters so much to him because it seems to offer him a way out because suppose in place of the Committee of Public Safety are sentinel over the French people. You have a restless and all-seeing eye, the eye of the supreme being. This from Rob Spears' point of view

would be a brilliant solution. because if he can leave the enforcement of terror to the Supreme Being, then he won't need to be responsible for it himself. And that's why he stages the festival of the Supreme Being. It's why he's so delighted by its success. He thinks that maybe there is a sign here that the French people can be brought to respect the rules because now they are learning, you know, as in 1984, people are brought to love Big Brother,

people are being brought to love the Supreme Being. and pretty much every historian I've read who's written about Robespierre, they seem to concur that this festival was the single happiest day of his life because I think for the first time since the terror had begun, he can contemplate the lifting of this great burden that's on his shoulders. Wow. So has Robespierre in the Festival of the Supreme Being found his way out, has he found a way to direct the kind of moral and political life of the nation at last. Or by staging this Papier-Mashe festival, has he actually let himself

in for a whole load of trouble? And is he actually hastening towards his own demise? We will find out after the break. This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps, many of them started as hard questions that people didn't want asked. Yeah, there's a classic example of that, Tom, at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus, great pioneering voyage of discovery, and it is, of course, the Americas.

So, you know, Anthropic knows the importance of questions, and it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people. Anthropic asked 100,000 people, and what came back wasn't just fear. There was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured?

Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions. Ask yours at clod.a.I. and rest is history. And keep thinking. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess Prime Minister. With high confidence it was Russian.

Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context.

will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or Fraggo. A Fraggo that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy.

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Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the rest is history. Look at the bastard. It's not enough for him to be master. He must be God. So this was a bloke, a deputy, in the National Convention called Jacques Alexis Tuchio. and Turio was sitting, I mean, he was effectively sitting at the feet of Rob Speer

on this massive Papier-Mache Mountain, the stuff of a nursery school's wildest imaginings. It's like a kind of illustration from a children's Bible, isn't it? Of the disciples gathered around the feet of Jesus during the sermon of the Mount or something like that. Yeah, exactly. If you ever see pictures of the Tower of Babel, they always look like it's been made out of Papier-Machet. This is a sort of more natural world version of. of that. Anyway, Turio is sitting at the bottom of this flipping mountain that's been made by Jacques Louis David for the festival of the Supreme Being. And Turio is not enamored of the entire occasion.

In fact, he regards it as completely laughable, doesn't he? In fact, worse than laughable. He regards it as laughable and sinister. Yes, he does. And I think all the more so, because actually he knows Robespierre well, because the previous summer they'd both been on the Committee of Public Safety together. But Turio was an admirer. of Dantan, the kind of, you know, he thinks that Robespierre has taken a wrong course. And so he had resigned in September from the committee protesting against the kind of the surge of executions declaring, we must halt this raging torrent which is leading us to barbarism. So that was Turio in September 1793. Intriguingly, however, in general, his

disapproval of Robespier is not because he sees Robespierre as an extremist. but the opposite. He sees Robs-Pierre and criticises him as such, as a moderate. And by calling Rovst-Pierre God, Turyo is actually awarding him a promotion because most of Robespier's critics, when they insult him along these terms, tend to refer to the incorruptible as a priest. And it's the quality of the priestly in Robespierre that revolts and disgusts, Turio. He sees Robespierre as reactionary in that sense, that he is upholding superstitious standards

that he feels an enlightened and revolutionary people should be getting rid of. There's always a tendency, isn't there, among, there's a long-running antipathy that you find where more worldly people often resent, dislike and slightly look down on people who are very earnest, very heartfelt, a little bit prissy. You know, the little boy who says to his fellows, why won't you play by the rules? The rules say we should do this. The other boys don't always look on that boy with tremendous approval, do they?

And there's something of that, I think, with Tuchio and some of the others, and Robespierre. They just don't understand why he's such a drip and a fun sponge. I don't think they think he's a drip, but I do think they think he's a fun sponge, definitely. And I think they feel that he's a fun sponge in the way the priests have always been fun sponges. Yeah.

Robespierre is obviously passionately interested in questions of morality and religion. You know, you were saying how he's not bothering himself with the practical demands of logistics or food provision for the army or anything like that. He's all about questions of virtue. Let me assure the listeners, there is nothing worse than somebody who is always talking to you about religion, just to be clear. And yet here we are talking about religion, Dominic. Yeah, I know. I'm too real in this analogy, by the way. And then there's the fact that Robespier does inspire this kind of fanatical devotion,

and particularly from women, and it is often said by his critics, his male critics, that this is typical of a priest, that women are far more inc, are naturally superstitious and therefore prone to the blandishness of a priest-like figure. So that's a criticism. And then, of course, in the autumn of 1793, there had come this overt declaration of war against atheism. So, I mean, it's very clear. he stood up in the Jacobin who were accustomed to kind of radical declarations of let's rip everything up and bring in a new world and he had said,

whoever tries to stop the saying of mass is a worse fanatic than the priest who says it. And I think there were a lot of jaws dropping when Rolfs-Pierre made that statement. And to someone like Turio, who wasn't just an atheist, but a very committed de-Christianizer, he saw this as fundamental to the cause

that the revolution should be taking. It had come as a massive shock to hear the supposed leader of the Montagnan say such a thing. And so he comes to see Robsbyr not just as moderate, but verging on the counter-revolutionary. Yeah, because that anti-clericalism is such an important part of the revolution, isn't it? There are so many of those middle-class Montanier deputies who are fired up with a loathing of Catholic priests and are determined to basically rip out all the churches and all of that sort of thing. And I think it's as much, there's a sort of political, psychological, aesthetic quality to it as much as anything. They can't get why Rob Spierre is not on board with that.

And of course, Robespierre is right in the sense that most ordinary French men and women are baffled by all this because they're quite happy to, I mean, they might have resented the bishop or they might have resented the local priest, perfect. You know, they've structured their lives around the Christian calendar. They don't want to see it scrapped. Completely. Yeah. And so that is definitely a crucial part of why Rospier is opposed to de-Christianisation. He thinks that it's, you know, it's poking at a wasps nest. Why would you do this? You know, just let the wasps buzzer around if they're not causing any harm. But I think also to do Rospier credit, it's, you know, he's not just being cynical about it. It's a point of principle for him that there should be freedom of religion. So, kind of Elizabeth the first style, he said there is no commanding of consciences. He genuinely believes that.

Now, acknowledging that much, this principle for Rods-Pier does come with a serious caveat, namely that Christianity must know its place, or indeed any religion, Judaism or whatever, Protestantism. He does think it is insupportable for priests to start barging into areas that they have no right to poke their noses into. So while Robs Pierre is fine with the Christianity that confines itself purely to the private sphere, he is not happy at all with a Christianity that, for instance, backs kings or priests who have not sworn oaths to support the revolution, that actually maybe identifies itself overtly with counter-revolution. And there's an obvious reason for this, because there's been this massive war going in in the Vonday and in the

Western reaches of France, where rebels have been consciously attempting to stop the revolution. They've been wearing the sacred heart on their clothes. They've been attending mass before military engagements. They've been shouting out for God and the king as their war cry. There's no way that Robspierre is going to tolerate this. And so he completely recognizes that there is a need to educate the mass of the people out of superstitions such as this, and if necessary, brutally so. And as for priests who set themselves up

against the revolution and preach to their flocks that God hates what Robespierre is doing, they are plainly beyond the pale. And as counter-revolutionaries, clearly they have to go to the guillotine. And sure enough, over the course of the terror, a thousand of these priests do go to the So there is nothing moderate about Robespierre's treatment of them there. There's something very Protestant about Robespierre, isn't that? So Protestant. I mean, there's something very Protestant about the whole wave of de-Christianisation, as we will see. You know, with church and state relationship between church and state, get rid of barbaric, backward superstitions, all of that sort of stuff.

And also the sort of austere insistence upon the rules, I think is something very protestant about that. Well, I mean, it's a point I may have made before, but I think it is so difficult, even for the most radical revolutionaries, to think themselves out of the box, the Christian box, that their country has been in for centuries and centuries and centuries. You're just impossible to do it overnight. And so if you look at Robs-Pierre, his ambition is to see Christianity replaced by the cult of the supreme being. but the dynamics of what he wants are recognizably bred of Christianity, I think. And I think the Protestant element of it is clearly, really strong. And you can see this manifest on the date that Rospier had chosen for his festival because it was on what originally was the Christian Feast Day of Pentecost.

It's deliberately designed to replace it. But of course, if you're replacing something that overtly, you are in a sense paying homage to it. replacing Christianity. I mean, obviously this is something that most ordinary French men and women would find completely bewildering and baffling. But actually, they are prepared to go to quite considerable lengths in order to do that. And the classic example of this, one of the most famous things that people know about the French Revolution, is the, I mean, I already mentioned the calendar.

People structure their lives by the Christian calendar, the feast days, the festivals, Christmas, Easter, Sunday services and so on and so forth. If you're a French peasant, that's what gives you a life. meaning and structure. But the revolution is now saying we're going to actually get rid of all that. We're going to invent an entirely new calendar and we are, I mean, we're not going to start with year zero,

but we're going to start with year one. Yeah, they're going to inaugurate a completely new order of time. And they've done this back on the 5th of October 1793 when the convention with the full approval of the Committee of Public Safety they declare that the Christian era is officially at an end and that years will no longer be dated from the birth of Christ but instead from the first day of the French Republic so the day that the monarchy was abolished

so that in the Christian calendar had been the 22nd of September 1792 but it's not just the years that have been replaced it's also the traditional names of months as well So a whole new kind of yearly calendar has been brought in. So the year now begins with three months of autumn. And these are Vondamillers, Bumere and Frimère. And these are named respectively after the French for the wine harvest, fog and cold. And then winter you have Nivos, so named after French for snow.

Pluvios, rain, vontoes, wind. Spring, it does. germinates with a month that is called geminal. It flowers in a month called florial, and it spreads through the ripening fields in prairieal. So prairie is a kind of meadow, isn't it? And it's the name prairie. And then in summer, you have Messido, named after the harvest, termidor named after heat, and fructidor fruition when the crops and the fruit are coming to full ripeness. I think they're beautiful names and they are the creation of a poet and a playwright whom we've already met, Fabre d'oglottein. Yeah, corrupt, making up mad conspiracy

theories about corruption and ending up with Donto on the guillotine. Yes, and the way they're structured wipes out the traditional Christian week. So that rhythm of Sundays every seventh day, that goes. So it's completely erased. And just to deal with kind of leap years and things, like that. He adds in five extra days, which he calls I mean ludicrously, son collotide. So son collot days.

Yeah, that's a bad name. He's let himself down there, I think, Fab. He had to go. So what does Robespier think about this? He's not against it at all. In fact, he brings an amendment to the convention proposing that one of these

sonculotid, these five days named after the poor of Harris should be enshrined as a festival of virtue. And this motion is passed. So I can see your face lighting up with joy at the thought of an annual festival of virtue. That feels so Sadiq Khan, doesn't it? Completely. Completely.

Sidney Khan and our lionesses will be celebrating diversity in Trafalgarious. Completely. Yeah. That's what it would be. And also, you know, at the speech he gives. to the convention announcing the festival of the supreme being. He gives the date not in the traditional calendar, so not on the 8th of June 1794,

but he says it's going to be the 20th of Praerial year two. And it's sad that by this point, Egleteen has been guillotined, so he's not around to enjoy the spectacle of his calendar being garnished with this great festival. So sad for him. So Rob's sure is okay with the calendar. He's fine with that.

In fact, he's enthusiastic. But de-Christianisation, I mean, there's de-Christianisation, de-Christianisation. He's happy with something that appears, you know, that's all about celebrating, you know, inclusivity. Decarus. Exactly. However, there's a lot of de-Christianisation that he is not keen on. This is where de-Christianisation, where it is more feral, where it is more obviously tipping into vandalism or vulgarity, I suppose. Yes.

Or indeed, openly violent. and he's against Tasteless and he's against violence if it's tied up with de-Christianisation. Well, he's against violence if it is not centralised, controlled, rules-based violence. Yes, not rules-based, yes, exactly. So you could see that manifest in his ambition to destroy Abert and the de-Christianisers who are around A-Beer.

But he's anxious to root it out in the provinces as well as in the capital. And here, by the end of 1793, the tide has definitely turned in favour of the revolution. And so essentially the task now for the revolutionary elites is to inflict reprisals and punishments. And the most notorious of these takes place unsurprisingly in the Vande and unsurprisingly because that was where the peril had been the greatest.

And we've discussed the controversy around the casualty figures in the Vandei. But I think even those who would not apply the name of genocide to it would acknowledge that the degree of slaughter is very great, that perhaps a third of the population. Yeah, a third to a quarter. I mean, a colossal number of people. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Yeah, because lots of these are civilians who are not participating in the uprising.

And I think the perspective on this of the revolutionaries in Paris is that, you know, if an occasional patriot is slain by mistake, then, you know, it's a sacrifice for the good of the, of the revolutionaries. revolution and they should be proud to accept their death in that cause. So there was a general who was sent to pacify the Vonday in early 1794, and he gave his troops these instructions, spare with your bayonets, all the inhabitants you encounter along the way. I know there may be a few patriots in this region. It matters not, we must kill them all.

And we're talking about the Christian echoes in the revolution. There's an echo there of one of the most notorious comments ever made by a crusader. So this was one of the priests in the Albigensian Crusade, who supposed to be a Christian, you supposedly was asked, how do we recognise who the heretic is and who the good Christian? And he answers, kill them all. God will know his own. And I think that that spirit is still clearly very much alive in the upper echelons of the revolutionary military. And I mean, that's the sort of thing that would horrify Rob Spierre, you know, who believes in the rules. But what horrifies him even more are the atrocities that are carried out by individuals,

particularly deputies who've been sent out to the provinces who sort of go a little bit Colonel Kurtz become drunk with their own power and effectively indulge their more sadistic urges I mean I would say yes and the most notorious of these in the west of France they're not actually in the Vonde but around the region of Nantes is a guy called Jean-Baptiste Carrier

and what appalls Robespierre about him is not just his violence but also his blasphemy which Rospiers sees is completely unnecessary. So the stories that are told about Jean-Martis Carrier are debated by historians. I mean, are they counter-revolutionary propaganda? Some of them may be. But I think it's evident that in this case

there is no smoke without fire. So let's just list the things that are reported of Carrier. So it said that he loads prisoners with their hands and feet tied onto barges and that these barges have had holes soared in the bottom and then being plugged. And when these barges get out into the middle of the Loire or, you know, some other river, the plugs are pulled out, the guards leap into boats, and the people with their hands and legs fettered just sink into the river and are all drowned.

And Carrier, it amuses him to describe these mass drownings as Republican baptisms. So that's a massive banter there. And some of them, if they are young men or women, they might have been stripped of their clothing because clothes are part of the perks that you get if you're a revolutionary guard dealing with counter-revolutionaries and so the men and women

naked would then be bound facing one another and these were described by Carrier as Republican marriages so I guess you either find that funny or you don't Carier obviously thinks it's hilarious and Robespierre back in Paris I mean he's not amused by this at all I mean he's never found anything funny in his life

He's definitely not going to find this funny. No, it disgusts him. And this is why in February 1794, he summons Carrier back to Paris, and Carrier is in deep disgrace. But Carrier isn't the Republican agent whose behaviour in the provinces most appalls Robespierre. The guy who he really comes down on hard is the Republican agent in Lyon, so in the south of France a long way from the Vonday. And the reason for this is twofold.

Firstly, that the blasphemies and atrocities that he's perpetrating in Lyon are particularly creative, imaginative. But secondly, this guy is an old associate of Robespier's, and in fact, very briefly had been a suitor for the hand of Charlotte, Robespier's beloved sister. So to that extent, it's personal for Robespierre. And this is a guy called Joseph Foucher, who, spoiler alert, will have a long and distinguished career under Napoleon in due course as his chief of police. But at the moment, relative to Robs Pierre, certainly, he's not a significant player. Foucher had come originally from the west of France, from a small fishing port on the mouth of the Loire.

And he had been educated by a religious group called the Oratorians. and these were guys who ran schools across France. And after graduating in this school, Foucher had stayed on and he had worked for the oratorians as a physics teacher. That's worse than being a PE teacher, I think. No, it's not quite as bad as being a PE teacher, but it's definitely up there. Someone whittering on about mass, volume and density and stuff.

Awful. Soul destroying. Dominic, this had required him to take minor religious vows and wear a clerical robe. And you were saying how the vein of anti-clericalism among a lot of the revolutionaries. I think a lot of these revolutionaries, and again, there's a parallel here with the Reformation,

are people who themselves had been clerics or had been clerically adjacent? That they, when they are anti-clerical, they know whereof they speak. You know, they've had personal experience of it, and therefore their contempt for it comes from the wellsprings of everything they've been through. I mean, it sounds so reductive and a banal of points,

but personal resentment, born of frustration, humiliation, disappointed expectations, all of those kinds of things. That's what drives quite a lot of these people. It drives Mara, it drives Rob Spierre. You know, Fusha, you can imagine he's a physics teacher. Everyone hates a physics teacher. And the other people in the kind of oratorian order, you know, who knows? He maybe burns with some resentment of them.

They put him down in some way and he thinks one day I'll show you. And now he's got the opportunity because of the revolution. Yeah, all agreed. and another possibility, something else to add into the mix, is that he is a physics teacher and natural philosophers at this point are very prominent in coming to view Catholicism as superstition.

And so there may be a tension between the discipline that he's teaching and the requirement to go in 10 services every day or something like that. So that might be part of us well. We don't know. Yeah, I mean, he could be messing around with magnets. Yes. Or, well, bellows.

Yeah. So it's clear that already by 1788, he goes to Arras, the home, obviously, of Robsbier and his sister. And he is already starting to take an interest in radical politics then. And it's in Arras, so the hometown of Robsbier, that he meets with The Incorruptible. He embarks on his courtship of Charlotte. And Charlotte, to give her credit, she identifies him. as a wrongen right from the start. She says to her brother, he's only after me because he thinks it's a way to

get into your affections. And so she has nothing to do with him. So when the revolution starts, Rochevier goes to Paris. Foucher doesn't, he doesn't go as a deputy. And so they don't see each other for a couple of years, two or three years. But then in 1792, their acquaintance is renewed because by now Foucher has been elected as a deputy and he arrives in Paris where he votes for the execution. of Louis the 16th.

And by 1793, he has become a fairly prominent member of the Shakabang Club. You know, he's starting to make a name for himself. And he is exactly what you would expect from a physics teacher, Dominic. So he is cold. He is cerebral. He is self-controlled. And he is a man generally who flourishes in the shadows. And he is, he's admired by,

radicals in the Jacquan club for his fanatical zeal and for his ability and for the general sense that he will do anything for the cause. I have to say, I think Foucher is quite a serious person

even though he's a physics teacher. Okay, well, he's, I mean, he's graduating from the physics teaching lock. He's moving on to other things. Yeah, I know he's about to let himself down and behave badly, but sometimes you've got to be robust. I mean, perhaps by the Sanbrook lights, he's not going to behave badly.

perhaps he's just doing what needs to be done. I mean, we can discuss. We can't make an omelet and all that. This is by way of introducing his record in the provinces. So in the summer of 1793, this is at a point where the revolution generally seems to be, you know, it's back against the wall. France is imploding, all of that. He gets sent out to deal with counter-revolutionary behavior in a region called Nievre, which is midway between Paris and Lyon. and his mission there is to stamp down such counter-revolutionary activity as there may be,

to requisition grain and to ready the locals for this mass conscription, which is hoving into view. And Foucher does all this very effectively, but he also takes his opportunity to embark on what is at this point the first systematic campaign of de-Christianisation that France has seen. So this is before anything that Abert is getting up to in Paris. This is the first attempt. And Foucher, who clearly has a lot of resentment that has built up over his years working for the oratorians, he forces priests to renounce their vows. He closes, desecrates, repurposes churches.

He strips them of their gold and silver, and he sends it all to off. to Paris to fund the war. In place of the mass, he goes kind of very, very humanist, very Richard Dawkins. Cult of reason. Cults devoted to reason. We're not going to have superstition. We're going to have cults devoted to reason. I mean, like that's not madly superstitious in its own right. And on the gateways of cemeteries across Nieveh, he inscribes a very famous message, which is a kind of murderous Dawkinsism, I guess. Death is an eternal sleep. And he thinks this is brilliant.

You're not coming back from this. You're nothing, you're dust. It was like the thing that Richard Dawkins put up on his bus. You know, there's no God get over it or something. I think it was kind of along those lines. At this point, like Philip Pullman's listening to this and wiping away tears of joy. Yeah, exactly. And the measure of how influential this is is the renown that it wins Foucher back in Paris.

And it becomes a direct influence on the campaign of de-Christianization that that Abert and Schomet, his immediate superior in the Paris Commune, the one that the campaign that they launch. And it also wins him a much more significant posting after he's come back from Nievere, which is the job of taking vengeance on the city of Lyon for having dared to divide the convention.

So this has been a kind of rumbling theme in the background of our previous episode, hasn't it? The fact that Leon, the second city in France, had dared to oppose. the dictates of the revolutionary government in Paris and therefore needs to be made an example of. And the government in Paris thinks Foucher is just the guy for this. He's clearly brilliant. And so Foucher arrives in Lyon on the 10th of November, 1793, and he kicks things off in very Protestant style, although that's not how he would have seen it with a public parody of the mass.

So there's a lot of smashing of icons. There's kind of usual Protestant shenanigans with donkeys wearing mitres, dragging Bibles and crucifixes by its tail, all of this, great stuff. Very hard to tell the difference there between what the Anabaptists were getting up to and what the revolutionaries are getting up to. And he then follows it up with a series of atrocities that become notorious across France. And what Foucher does, he feels that the guillotine isn't quick enough. There are too many counter-revolutionaries who need dealing with. he introduces efficiency savings and he ties up 60 young people together, chains them up, leads them outside the city where there's a row of cannon and he then blasts them with grape shot.

And most of them initially are not dead. They're kind of left mutilated, screaming, guts spilling out of their stomachs, whatever, absolute carnage. And so they then have to be finished off by cavalrymen who gallop in with their drawn sabers. and trample them down and, you know, stick them with their sabres and finish it that way. Yeah. So it's not actually that efficient after all. I guess you could say that, but Foucher is trying to learn.

And so the following day, he does it with 210 young people. And I do like the emphasis and the sources that it's young people. Again, Foucher may be working off his resentment of the students that he'd had to teach. I don't know. Is the Douglas Haig of French Revolutionary reprisals sort of. of commanders. You know, he's learning from, he's learning and he's throwing more and more people into it the next time. And one day, he'll finally reach the efficient breakthrough that he's looking for. I'm apologising to Gary Sheffield, the great historian of Douglas Haig, if he's

listening to that, I am not associating myself with that comment at all. Basically, does Douglas Haig learn? I don't know, we'll be getting on to that in our next series on the First World War, I guess. But definitely Fouché has learned because this time the, the canon are aimed much more effectively. And so the deaths are much more instantaneous. And these kind of executions continue for months. And by April 1794, Foucher has been responsible for over 2,000 deaths. And we know that that's accurate because he's keeping a very precise account of everyone he's killed. And he thinks, you know, he sees nothing to apologize here. He thinks that he is serving the revolution. And so he exalts terror, salitary terror is now the order of the day here. We are causing much

impure blood to flow, but it is our duty to do so. It is for the sake of humanity. But Robespierre, back in Paris, he doesn't agree at all. So those lines are a chilling foreshadowing of what, you know, the Nazis said about their own behaviour in the 1940s. We're doing this for the sake of the human race. Yeah, or whoever. But of course, listeners may think, well, Robespierre,

who is horrified and disgusted by these reports, says this is absolutely abhorrent to behave in this barbaric and sadistic way. But you might say, what is the difference? I mean, the only difference is that Foucher is using a different method. You're also killing hundreds and thousands of people, but you say, you know, oh, it's different because it's the guillotine and it's ordered. And here you come back, I suppose, to Rob Spier and the rules. He thinks, well, I follow the rules.

Yeah, he's not following the rules. He's not following the rules. So he talks about this with Charles. his sister, you know, who Foucher had once courted. And they agree that, to quote Charlotte, Fouche was a hypocritical, treacherous man without convictions, without morality, capable to doing anything to satisfy his wild ambition. He's not following the rules.

He's doing it because he enjoys it. He's not doing it because it is prescribed by the dictates of revolutionary virtue. It's as simple as that. That's what separates Robs-Pier from Foucher in Robs-Pier's own opinion. And it is sufficient to have Foucher summoned back to Paris. So on the 3rd of April, he sets off from Leon, someone back by the Committee of Public Safety, and the journey takes him five days.

And, you know, this is a mad time to be arriving, if you're a notorious de-Christianizer in Paris, because this is in the middle of Rovst Pierre's elimination of Ebert and his gang. And you could easily imagine that Foucher might have been caught up in this. He isn't. And one of the reasons for this is that he starts to play a very daring and brilliant game.

So first of all, he arrives in Paris and rather than wait to be summoned by the convention to answer for what he's been getting up to, he goes there directly, he gets given the floor by the president, and he says, this is everything I've done. I'm unapologetic. I've done it for the revolution. He emphasises the fact that it's a virtuous terror, and who's to complain about that? And then he goes to see Rothpierre in his own private apartments, you know, in his Spartan little room. Robespier tears a strip off Foucher and Fouche comes out, you know, feeling pretty nervous. I mean, it's a bold move. It's a punchy move. And I think it kind of unsettles Robespier. He thinks, maybe this is more of a player than I'd appreciated. Yeah. Well, we'll see next time, actually, as we reach the final weeks of the terror. Political ability, boldness, seizing the moment and making the right call makes a massive difference.

difference to your, you know, it really does come down to kind of political skill. And Foucher has played a blinder here. If he'd waited for them to come to him, he'd probably have been destined for the job. But by taking the initiative, putting himself out there, getting his story out, he has, he's wrong-footed Rob Speer, I think. Yeah, he sees the initiative. And this is what he does even more brilliantly on the 6th of June. So this is two days before the festival of the Supreme Breying.

when he pulls an absolute blinder because not only does he stand as election for president of the Jacoban Club he wins it. Absolutely massive result and Robespierre of course is outraged and decides well I've got to take him down now you know this is a direct challenge so two days after the festival of the supreme being

on the 10th of June as it was the 22nd of Prairieal as it is now under the revolutionary calendar Robespierre kind of promotes a new law, and this is probably the most notorious law of the entire French Revolution. So it's called the Law of Prairielle. And it was formally proposed by George Couton, one of Rodsfier's closest to allies, but it had basically been written up by Robespier himself. And by its terms, the right of suspects to a defense lawyer was abolished. So that's a big, big step.

Plus the need for evidential testimony. So basically, you don't need annoying things like facts, evidence to prove the guilt of someone who is being arraigned. If the jurors feel in their hearts that this guy is an enemy, a wrongan, then that's enough. and this was actually something that Rob Speer had tried out with the Girondin because the trial with the Girondin had been going quite well and he basically said to the jurors, look, if you feel that they're guilty, that's enough, condemn them. And he's now instituting this and so he's bringing in the rules.

I mean, again, it's the point that you keep making. At the trial of Danton, I mean, again, they changed the rules halfway through, but it's important that there are rules. And at the end of that trial of Dantone, the prosecutor Fouqueton, said to the jury, forget about what you've heard and about the evidence. The question is very simple. Do you feel in your heart that Dantan is guilty?

And that's what they're now saying, isn't it? But what I think even more chilling about this, is not just that you don't get legal representation and they don't need any evidence to convict you. It is that you can be charged effectively for anything, because anything makes you an enemy of the people. Yeah, and this is exactly it, that enemy of the people becomes a new category of criminal under this law.

So to quote it, those who in any manner and no matter with what mask they have concealed themselves has sought to thwart the progress of the revolution and prevent the strengthening of the republic. And that has Rovier's fingerprints all over it. He's so frustrated by people who display the show of virtue that he needs to create a criminal category that is capable of dealing with it. And so what that means in practice, I'll quote what risker lists the category of people who are now subject to potentially capital punishment. Anyone seeking to re-establish monarchy, discredit the convention, betray the Republic, communicate with foreign enemies, interfere with food provision, shelter conspirators, speak ill of patriotism, corrupt officials, mislead the people, spread false news, insult morality, deprave the public conscience, steal public property, abuse public office or plot against the liberty, unity and security of the state. For those found guilty, there is only the one sentence death, and basically that is a sufficiently flexible array of categories that you can bring it against. anyone. Well, who has not, you know, spread false news or spoken ill of public officials or

spoken ill of their country or whatever. Yeah, you know, especially you don't have to have defence lawyers or actually any evidence. Yeah, you also don't need any evidence that they've done it. You know, you can basically go after anyone. And so the day after he's introduced this, Robespierre turns on fuchsie and he goes to the jacquant club and he denounces foucher as a, I quote, base and contemptible cheat, and he issued a very blunt warning. I have made these remarks only say that the conspirators know once and for all that they will not escape the people's vengeance, and he does not say who he thinks the conspirators are. So essentially anyone listening to him might start thinking, am I a conspirator? Or does Rojpiers think I'm a conspirator? And so the

Jacabin, who are aware of this, aware that this law could be turned against them at any point, They duly stripped Fouchet of his presidency, and they expel him from the Jacoban Club. And the following day, Rospier goes to the convention, and again, he speaks darkly of conspiracies. Again, he warns of terrible punishments. And again, as in the Jacoban Club, so now in the convention, those who listen to Rosbier, the deputies who are sitting there, are painfully aware that this law is hanging over their necks like the blade of a guillotine, and that it might be brought to drop at any moment. and Turio, you know, when he'd been sitting at the feet of Robespierre on the Papiomache Mountain,

he had muttered contemptuously that Robespierre wanted to be God. And meanwhile, Robespierre himself, only a few hours earlier at the speech at the Festival of Supreme Being, had to find what he meant by God. It is he who instills remorse and terror in the bosom of the triumph and depressor and tranquility and pride in the heart of the innocent. And Robespierre's ambition, as it had always been, was to fulfil the purpose of this supreme being, to fulfil the purpose of God as Robespier understand him, and thereby to fill the revolution. But increasingly the paradoxes, the tragedy, I guess, is that the more he tries to do this, the more blood he is spilling.

And as the final days of Paryal slipped by and then the days of Messidor, so the guillotine is, is being drawn up and dropped faster and faster and faster more and more relentlessly. And you can see this in the list of the people who are now being condemned to the guillotine. So a widow condemned for betraying the revolution to the English. A 70-year-old seamstress for quote-unquote various conspiracies. They're not listed. A tailor who's only 19 years old for soaring down a liberty tree. A vintner.

This is brilliant. for producing sour wine injurious to the health of citizens. To be fair, the vina had to go. But yeah, you're absolutely right, and I think that's the most chilling thing about it. So often when we talk about the French Revolution, we focus on the big names, Dantan, Ebert, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Gorday, whoever. But actually, this is the point that's probably the most frightening because this is ordinary people who are being denounced by their neighbours

for the most foothling and trivial offences, if they are offences. scores being settled, you know, the police state in operation, and Robespierre, because in some ways he is so unworldly, simply does not understand the implications, I think, of what he is doing, because he does not recognise the reality of human nature. You say he's unworldly. I think in lots of ways he isn't. I mean, he's a brilliant politician.

He's outsmarted the Girondin. He's outsmarted, Ebert. He's outsmarted d'Anton. I think, however, by this point, you know, he is the victim of his own virtue. I think he's losing it. On his brilliant political skills, he's a very good politician until he isn't. And then he isn't in a very catastrophic and self-destructive way.

I mean, he is not behaving wisely by this point. Because, of course, you know, if Bintas are being executed because they're making bad wine, what about someone like Foucher? He must know he's a marked man. And so he does what he always does, which is to go on the offensive while operating in the shadows. Because he knows that there are large numbers of deputies who are very, very worried about whether they will be on the face of the earth for long. And some of these are now, I think, increasingly prepared to give Fouchet an ear and other people like Foucher. People who like Foucher feel that they are marked men.

But I mean, I suppose the question is, how do you, what do you do when faced with someone like Rospier? You know, is it going to be possible to bring him down? And these questions are hanging in the air as the days continue to pass. And the month of Messador gives way to the month of Termidor. Well, Termador means heat, doesn't it? And for Robsbier, for the terror, for the people of Paris, and indeed for the French Revolution, things are about to get very hot indeed. So in our next episode, the final episode of this series, The Fall of Rob Spear,

a story of extraordinarily melodramatic twists. So a lot to come. Now, if you remember, the rest is history club, our own atheistical sect, then you will surely want to listen to that episode right away. If you're not a member of the club, this really is the time to join. If you don't join now, you're a lost cause, Frank. You were completely lost course. Catervolutionary, I would say.

Deserving death. I think, yeah. The guillotine is the only language you understand. So join the Restis History Club. The Republic of Virtue awaits. And we will see you next time for the fall of Robespierre. A-bye. Bye-bye.

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