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: 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. He used his immense power to root out and destroy anyone he thought might be a threat to the Revolution, using the most ruthless methods available. Violence and bloodshed had always been part and parcel of the Revolution from day one, but under The Terror it became a regular feature of public life. So long as France was besieged by hostile foreign powers who wanted to restore the French monarchy, then terror could in some ways be justified as a necessary measure to protect the nation from traitors and saboteurs. But once the tide began to turn in favor of the French Revolutionary Army, which chalked up a remarkable string of victories on the battlefield, then it became much harder for Robespierre and the other radical Jacobins to justify their increasingly repressive policies. Inevitably, Robespierre, intoxicated with power, overreached himself.