Nasty subject, but...

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of the history books I've read have ever really gone into this, but - presumably, as originally intended, the Thermidor plot was to have Robespierre and co. arrested, imprisoned, and then, presumably, put on trial before the Tribunal. Could they have seriously been confident in a conviction? Some accounts of the day suggest that the Robespierristes were reluctant to be 'freed' because it appears they reckoned a trial was a better option for them, Marat style. It would also have given Robespierre's supporters more time to organise. So, what were the plotters thinking? Just 'it's now or never and we'll work the next bit out when we come to it'? Any thoughts on this?

Another bit of unpleasantness on the same subject - I recently came across an account that suggests there wasn't any lead in the wound in Robespierre's jaw, i.e., that it was a shot from a pistol charged with gunpowder but no lead bullet: that would still cause a fair bit of damage, specially if fired into your mouth, which is the suicide method, but wouldn't smash your skull...sorry, I've had toothache all week so that's the sort of thing I've been wondering about!

Comments

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think if you ever want to give schoolkids or students a masterclass in the unreliability of 'witness accounts', give them the mass of 'accounts ' of 8/9/10 Thermidor to sift some truth out of! It's 'Rashomon' stuff! I get the sense that in the hysteria the plotters were simply were thinking one step at a time, and the events - the opportunity to declare them outlaws and Robespierre being silenced but alive - just extraordinarily lucky for them. I keep reading accounts saying that animosity was caused by the various Revolutionary bodies being filled by Robespierre's supporters, but if that was really the case - and the accounts are obviously post-Thermidor - it would have been madness to try to get Robespierre held and convicted by them. At the same time, Elisabeth LeBas says her husband was considering suicide a few days prior to the 9th (how many days isn't clear from her account) so maybe their group position was a lot weaker even before the speech of the 8th than other accounts suggest?

Robespierre's injuries vary according to the animosity of the teller, it seems - I've read one where his jaw's hanging off by a few ligaments! Ditto, in some he's guillotined quickly, but in one account (a footnote in Thiers, I think) his bandages are removed so the executioner can show him to the crowd for a while - look, it's really him - not simply to provide a clean cut. I think there's a nerve in the lower jaw that if severed causes paralysis (at any rate, I had to sign a document on this when I had a jaw operation when I was a teenager - and my god there was a lot of blood, too!) so the account of him thanking the person who gives him some paper is an odd one - it's not hostile, unless his saying 'monsieur' is implying he's dodgy - though I've read other non-hostile accounts of him saying he carried on using 'monsieur' and 'vous' in speech, so...later on, he indicated he wanted pen and paper, though his head was bound up by then so even if he was capable of speech at this point he presumably couldn't because of the bandages.

Yes, I love speculating on that - I suppose by that point all the Robespierristes would have been doomed, as Elisabeth LeBas' suicide story suggests: Mathiez records regional Jacobins killing themselves in sorrow when the news reached them. I wonder what would have happened if Robespierre had been assassinated in the street beforehand? Would the left have survived, and Saint-Just etc. been able to stay in the CPS? Or if - as Napoleon commented later, he had been in Paris, as he had had the option of being, on the 9th? His political allegiances seem pretty flexible, but the comment suggests he'd have fought with the Robespierristes at that point (with what result? destruction of the Convention, chaos in Paris, civil war, and the foreign powers moving in to take advantage, I suppose?)

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

It's been argued that Saint-Just came pretty close to smoothing things over between the Committees and the Convention, but a dispute with some colleagues and then a conversation with Robespierre made him change course--in the latter we don't know what was said--so one wonders what impact he could have had had he pursued his initial course of action. Furthermore, what were his thoughts when it all fell apart?

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Saint-Just's silence on 9th Thermidor question! Sometimes it reminds me of a description in 'Titus Groan ' - when Steerpike is locked, trapped, in a room, he doesn't bother to rattle the doorhandle because he's clearly heard the key turn in the lock. Maybe the attack is a scenario he's already gone through in his mind, he's been through the outcomes, knows it's hopeless, so chooses a statuesque neoclassical stoicism. I like the interpretation that their relative inaction that evening is because they know that if they fight they'll have to destroy the democratic institutions they've fought for, so they choose death - but it could be simply that they're all so damn tired they're like sleepwalkers by this point: Saint-Just can't have had much sleep on the 8th, either, and his silence could simply be shock and inexperience in the Convention. They seem to have lost their 'political antennae' by this point.

On your earlier point - it's a shame they didn't have the concept of 'gardening leave' - it's the British term for a cooling off period where colleagues at each others throats are made to stay at home without losing their official position while others sort things out (much in the news yesterday because there's a big spat in the police)!