Help

[morfiel.livejournal.com]

Hello there, i'm new here and I need some help.
I'm on a deadline(yeh, i'm an idiot who forgot the due date) and my term paper is about Robespierre. Mostly "Robespierre: hero or villain?"
I'm tend to think of him more like a hero, and not villain, and I need a little help to prove that, so any ideas that can help to explain why he should not be concidered a villain would be very helpful. Like qutes, or links on some resources or just you opinions.
I promise to keep the copyrights.
Thank you

Comments

[toi-marguerite.livejournal.com]

Hm. Hilary Mantel's articles on Robespierre's are good starts:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/mant01_.html
and
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/mant01_.html

It's important to point out Robespierre's political ideology (i.e. he was against slavery, for the freedom of the press, for Jewish civil rights, against war with Austria, and against capital violence). He stuck to it right up until the Terror, which he despaired over (I think he suffered from numerous psychosomatic illnesses as a result of feeling that he had no other alternative than the Terror, which compromised his principles) and that he was only the spokesperson for the Committee of Public Security and not the head of the Committee. Since the Committee didn't really record their meetings or anything, it's not entirely clear how much power Robespierre wielded. He also lived a life of unstinting moral purity, and stuck to his principles in all matters. There's a good example of when he had just become a judge, where he was required to pass a death sentence for someone. He got so ill that he ended up quitting the position.

You might also want to try and look on google for "Robespierre republic of vertu" since Robespierre believed that mankind was inherently good, just led astray by a corrupt society. He believed that he needed to establish a republic of vertu, where politicans weren't corrupt, where the Revolution was morally right, and where everyone could live in a free, natural, Rousseau-ian idyll. (Also a note- Robespierre was a Rousseau- devotee, to the extent where he slept with a copy of The Social Contract under his pillow, and Robespierre's policies reflected Rousseau's philosophies to a large extent).

For lasting contributions, there's the famous St. Just quote. After all the Jacobins had been captured and imprisoned, and were about to be prepared for the guillotine, St. Just pointed out the Declaration of the Rights of Man hanging on the wall to Robespierre and said, "At least we did that." (or something to that extent)

Hope that helps!

[morfiel.livejournal.com]

Thank so much, you were a big help!