Robespierre stands revealed, as he also stands condemned, by the two acts associated with his career as dictator, the proclamation of a new religion and the Law of Prairial altering for the worse the already monstrous Revolutionary Tribunal. Robespierre had once said in public, "If God did not exist we should have to invent Him." Fortunately for a man of such poverty of thought as he, he did not have to resort to invention but found God already invented by his idolized Rousseau. He devoted his attention to getting the Convention to give official sanction to Rousseau's ideas concerning the Deity. The Convention at his instigation formally recognized "the existence of the Supreme Being and the Immortality of the Soul." On June 8, a festival was held in honor of the new religion, quite as famous, in its way, as the ceremonies connected with the inauguration, a few months before, of the Worship of Reason. It was a wondrous spectacle, staged by the master hand of the artist David. A vast amphitheater was erected in the gardens of the Tuileries. Thither marched the members of the Convention in solemn procession, carrying flowers and sheaves of grain, Robespierre at the head, for he was president that day and played the pontiff, a part which suited him. He set fire to colossal figures, symbolizing Atheism and Vice, and then floated forth upon a long rhapsody. "Here," he cried from the platform, "is the Universe assembled. O Nature, how sublime, how exquisite, thy power! How tyrants will pale at the tidings of our feast!" A hundred thousand voices chanted a sacred hymn which had been composed for the occasion and for which they had been training for a week. Robespierre stood the cynosure of all eyes, at the very summit of ambition, receiving boundless admiration as he thus inaugurated the new worship of the Supreme Being, and breathed the intoxicating incense that arose. Profound was the irony of this scene, the incredible culmination of a century of skepticism. Some ungodly persons made merry over this mummery, indulging in indiscreet gibes at "The Incorruptible's" expense. The power of sarcasm was not yet dead in France, as this man who never smiled now learned.
Two days later Robespierre caused a bill to be introduced into the Convention which showed that this delicate hand could brandish daggers as well as carry flowers and shocks of corn. The irreverent, the dangerous, must be swept like chaff into the burning pit. This bill, became the Law of 22d Prairial, made the procedure of Revolutionary Tribunal more murderous still. The accused were deprived of counsel. Witnesses need not be heard in cases where the prosecutor could adduce any material or "moral" proof. Any kind of opposition to the government was made punishable with death. The question of guilt was left to the "enlightened conscience" of the jury. The jury was purged of all members who were supposed to be lukewarm toward Robespierre. The accused might be sent before this packed and servile court either by the Convention, or by the Committee of Public Safety, or by the Committee of General Security, or by the public prosecutor alone. In other words, any life in France was at the mercy of this latter official, Fouquier-Tinville, a tool of Robespierre. The members of the Convention itself were no safer than others, nor were the members of the great Committee, if they incurred the displeasure of the dictator.
Now began what is called the Great Terror, as if to distinguish it from what had preceded. In the thirteen months which had preceded the 22d of Prairial 1,200 persons had been guillotined in Paris. In the forty-nine days between that date and the fall of Robespierre, on the 9th of Thermidor, 1,376 were guillotined. On two days alone, namely the 7th and 8th of July, 150 persons were executed. Day after day the butchery went on.
It brought about the fall of Robespierre. This hideous measure united his enemies, those who feared him because they stood for clemency, and those who feared him because, though Terrorists themselves, they knew that he had marked them for destruction. They could lose no more by opposing him than by acquiescing, and if they could overthrow him they would gain the safety of their heads. Thus in desperation and in terror was woven a conspiracy not to end the Terror, but to end Robespierre.
The storm broke on July 27, 1794 (the 9th of Thermidor). When Robespierre attempted to speak in the Convention, which had cowered under him and at his demand had indelibly debased itself by passing the infamous law of Prairial, he was shouted down. Cries of "Down with the tyrant!" were heard. Attempting to arouse the people in the galleries, he this time met with no response. The magic was gone. There was a confused, noisy struggle, lasting several hours. Robespierre's voice failed him. "Danton's blood is choking him!" exclaimed one of the conspirators. Finally the Convention voted his arrest and that of his satellites, his brother, Saint-Just, and Couthon.
All was not yet lost. The Revolutionary Tribunal was devoted to Robespierre and, if tried, there was an excellent chance that he would be acquitted. The Commune likewise was favorable to him. It took the initiative. It announced an insurrection. Its agents broke into his prison, released him, and bore him to the City Hall. Thereupon the Convention, hearing of this act of rebellion, declared him and his associates outlaws. No trial therefore was necessary. As soon as re-arrested he would be guillotined. During the evening and early hours of the night a confused attempt to organize an attack against the Convention went on. But a little before midnight a drenching storm dispersed his thousands of supporters in the square. Moreover Robespierre hesitated, lacked the spirit of decision and daring. The whole matter was ended by the Convention sending troops against the Commune. At two in the morning these troops seized the Hotel de Ville and arrested Robespierre and the leading members of the Commune. Robespierre had been wounded in the fray, his jaw fractured by a bullet.
He was borne to the Convention, which declined to receive him. "The Convention unanimously refused to let him be brought into the sanctuary of the law which he had so long polluted," so ran the official report of this session. That day he and twenty others were sent to the guillotine. An enormous throng witnessed the scene and broke into wild acclaim. On the two following days eighty-three more executions took place.
France breathed more freely. The worst, evidently, was over. In the succeeding months the system of the Terror was gradually abandoned. This is what is called the Thermidorian reaction.The various branches of the terrible machine of government were either destroyed or greatly altered. A milder regime began. The storm did not subside at once, but it subsided steadily, though not without several violent shocks, several attempts on the part of the dwindling Jacobins to recover their former position by again letting loose the street mobs. The policy of the Convention came to be summed up in the cry "Death to the Terror and to Monarchy!" The Convention was now controlled by the moderates but it was unanimously republican. Signs that a monarchical party was reappearing, demanding the restoration of the Bourbons, but not of the Old Regime, prompted the Convention to counter-measures designed to strengthen and perpetuate the Republic.
To accomplish this and thus prevent the relapse into monarchy, the Convention drew up a new constitution, the third in six years. Though the radicals of Paris demanded vociferously that the suspended Constitution of 1793 be now put into force, the Convention refused, finding it too "anarchical" a document. Instead, it framed the Constitution of 1795 or of the Year Three. Universal suffrage was abandoned, the motive being to reduce the political importance of the Parisian populace. Democracy, established on August 10, was replaced by a suffrage based upon property. There was practically no protest. The example of the American states was quoted, none of which at that time admitted universal suffrage. The suffrage became practically what it had been under the monarchical Constitution of 1791. The national legislature was henceforth to consist of two chambers, not one, as had its predecessors. The example of America was again cited. "Nearly all the constitutions of these states," said one member, "our seniors in the cause of liberty, have divided the legislature into two chambers; and the result has been public tranquility." It was, however, chiefly the experience which France had herself had with single-chambered legislatures during the last few years that caused her to abandon that form. One of the chambers was to be called the Council of Elders. This was to consist of 250 members, who must be at least forty years of age, and be either married or widowers. The other, the Council of the Five Hundred, was to consist of members of at least thirty years of age. This council alone was to have the right to propose