The scene: Paris. The time: the summer of 1794. Only a year and a half before—January 21, 1793—French rebels had guillotined their King Louis XVI in the name of the revolutionary governing body, the National Convention. That fall the infamous Year of Terror began under the cruel dictatorship of the so-called Committee of Public Safety, the executive strength behind the National Convention (Carroll 224). Dozens of men and women were guillotined every day; by the law of 22 Prairial (June 10, 1794), they were arrested and killed without trial (Carroll 266). A person accidentally brought to the guillotine was often murdered even after the mistake was discovered (Carroll 281). And yet, this death machine of a government would betray its own architects in perhaps the most perfectly theatrical coup d’état in history.

Now for the dramatis personae: Joseph Fouché, thirty-five, fallen-away Catholic priest, lacking even a pretense of principle. Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois, forty-five, actor, who had once responded to the Revolution’s overwhelming number of political prisoners by suggesting that they be collected in a mine and summarily blown up. Jean-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, thirty-eight, unsuccessful lawyer, vehemently anti-Catholic, who lived the belief that “in sacrificing [killing] your enemies you accomplish your duty” (Carroll 170). Jean Tallien, twenty-seven, a lawyer’s clerk, a once-radical revolutionary softened by a romance with the prisoner Teresa Cabarrus. And of course, the antagonist: Maximilien Robespierre, thirty-five, lawyer, dominator of the murderous and tyrannical Committee of Public Safety (Carroll 166 – 167, 170, 228, 272; “Jean-Lambert Tallien,” par. 3; “Maximilien Robespierre,” par. 3).

The coup began June 12, 1794, when Robespierre’s added Fouché to his “conscription list” of those destined for the guillotine. For next six weeks Fouché never spent two nights at the same house. While in constant flight, he sowed insurrectionary seeds: at night he traveled to the homes of Convention deputies, telling them that they were doomed to Robespierre’s next conscription list. True or not, it was believable. No more was the guillotine reserved for royalists alone; now, even the most radical revolutionaries could be killed as long as they were “suspected” to be Robespierre’s political enemies. Fouché’s story therefore terrified the Convention members. When Robespierre discovered Fouché’s mutinous work, however, he dismissed it as nugatory (Carroll 282 – 283).

Among those Fouché claimed to be on the next conscription list were Collot and Billaud, both members of the Committee of Public Safety and, significantly, open enemies of Robespierre (“Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois,” par. 4; “Jean-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne,” par. 5). With terrified anticipation, then, did these two men and the rest of Fouché’s targets await a speech Robespierre gave to the National Convention on July 26, during which he was expected to publicize his conscription. Robespierre only increased their agony, promising to crush opposition to the Revolution without giving specific names. The Convention disintegrated into hullaballoo as the unsatisfied delegates demanded the names on the list. Nevertheless, they were left in suspense to await the next day’s speech by Robespierre’s friend Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (Carroll 284 – 285).

That evening of the 26th, Collot and Billaud were going to a meeting of the Jacobin Club, a radical political party that had engineered the Revolution. Welcomed by cries of “to the guillotine!,” they were beaten up and forced to flee the minute they entered the door. In a frenzy, they hunted down Saint-Just and demanded whether they really were conscripted. Saint-Just promised to show Collot and Billaud the contents of his speech before delivering it—and then broke his promise minutes before the Convention met at 11:00 a.m. the next morning (Carroll 286 – 287).

The Convention was unusually full. Saint-Just began to speak. Enter young, romantic Tallien, who leaped to his feet and interrupted the speech. Pushing Saint-Just aside, Tallien began yelling from the rostrum, publicly denouncing the hypocrisy of France’s new government, which pretended to protect its citizens. “I demand that the curtain be torn away!” Collot, who was the Convention’s president of the day, began ringing his bell. Billaud leaped to the rostrum to protest the near-murder of Collot and himself. Neither Saint-Just nor any of Robespierre’s alarmed friends were allowed to speak (Carroll 288 – 289). In the midst of the excitement, a deputy named Louchet cried, “I demand the arrest of Robespierre!” The response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic: “Down with the tyrant!” Like a hunted animal, Robespierre fled from one section of the Convention to another and was rebuffed on all sides (Carroll 290).

He had not lost yet. The mayor of Paris, Jean-Baptiste Edmond Lescot-Fleuriot, ordered Paris’ prisons to refuse Robespierre, who was instead brought to the City Hall. Fleuriot prepared for a military encounter. Unfortunately for him, his general, Francois Hanriot, was a good-for-nothing drunkard, incapable of keeping an army together. Meanwhile, Convention deputy Paul Barras was gathering his own troops. Breaking into the City Hall practically unopposed at 2:00 a.m. on the 28th, Barras arrested Robespierre, Saint-Just, Fleuriot, and Hanriot, who were put on trial a few hours later. By the Law of 22 Prairial, the accused were not allowed a defense; they were convicted and guillotined that same day, July 28, 1794 (Carroll 291 – 294).

The Revolution was so evil that it betrayed itself and collapsed, killing its proponents by their own laws. France would not find peace for a long time; over the next several years, she would suffer more revolutions and the Napoleonic wars. But thanks to the plots of a fallen-away priest—as unlikely a hero as ever lived—the curtain was torn away and the tyrant was brought down. The Terror was ended.

Works Cited
Carroll, Warren H. The Revolution against Christendom. Christendom Press, 2005.
“Jean-Lambert Tallien.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Lambert-Tallien. Accessed 1 Mar. 2017.
“Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Marie-Collot-dHerbois. Accessed 1 Mar. 2017.
“Jean-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Nicolas-Billaud-Varenne#ref82330. Accessed 1 Mar.
2017.
“Maximilien Robespierre.” BBC. BBC 2014.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/robespierre_maximilien.shtml. Accessed 1 Mar.
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