Title: What was the significance of Maximilien Robespierre in the French Revolution? - eNotes.com
Headings: What was the significance of Maximilien Robespierre in the French Revolution?
European History
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What was the significance of Maximilien Robespierre in the French Revolution?
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Content: Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. David Morrison
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The name of Maximilien Robespierre has come to be associated with the most violent phase of the French Revolution, The Reign of Terror. It is this particular phase that tends to epitomize the French Revolution for most people: that terrible period in European history when violence and bloodshed were the order of the day and countless innocent victims were dispatched by the swift blow of the guillotine. Robespierre, like most political fanatics, genuinely believed that what he was doing was right. He regarded himself as the paragon of revolutionary virtue, an incorruptible man of integrity whose determination to defend the Revolution at all costs was second to none. Robespierre looked about him and saw only traitors and backsliders, who lacked his firm, unshakeable conviction. He developed a paranoid mindset which encouraged him to believe that the Revolution was under threat from all sides and that only he could save the nation from traitors both within and without. To do this, Robespierre insisted on the necessity of terror. As head of the notorious Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre became the most powerful—and feared—man in the whole of France.