# French Revolution: Was Robespierre a tragic figure? A misunderstood figure? A tyrant? Something else? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511 "2021-10-14T19:58:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/1 "2021-10-14T19:58:43Z")
My limited understanding of Maximilien Robespierre is he started out as not a bad guy at all. Indeed, he was very liberal for his day and wanted to get more rights to the populace. He even argued against the death penalty. And then…he got really murdery. Was he a good guy gone bad? Caught up in events beyond his control and spiraled ever deeper to become a tyrant? Always an evil schemer? I am not supporting one view or another here. I am really curious. He seemed such a decent guy at the start and then…reign of terror. Seems quite a turnaround. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/2 "2021-10-14T20:28:11Z")
He was an evil man who used the language of virtue as the means manipulate the masses and gain power. He’s probably a unique anomaly in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/3 "2021-10-14T21:52:24Z")
Robespierre was a zealot. He reminds me a bit of Cromwell. Robespierre’s murdery rampage follows directly from his fanatical beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/4 "2021-10-14T22:01:33Z")
What beliefs of his were fanatical? (really asking) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/5 "2021-10-14T23:14:46Z")
Didn’t Robespierre found the cult of the supreme being? I remember he was very against atheism, and had notable atheist revolutionaries executed. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/6 "2021-10-15T20:28:59Z")
Some good ideas for his day, I’d say, but power corrupted him and he became a monster. For more: > **[Maximilien Robespierre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (French: \[maksimiljɛ̃ ʁɔbɛspjɛʁ\]; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly, and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage, the right to vote for people of color, Jews, actors, domestic staff and th... ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2021, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/7 "2021-10-16T16:17:43Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Some good ideas for his day, I’d say, but power corrupted him and he became a monster. Agreed. He had very good ideas and his beliefs were pure at heart much like America’s founding fathers. And while ours had personality flaws (like how they couldn’t see slavery for the evil it was), Robespierre had personality _disorders_ and as you note, was wholly corrupted by power. Cromwell is a good comparison. Many people in France and the UK still admire Robespierre and Cromwell respectively despite their insane murdery-ness. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/8 "2021-10-17T08:19:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > …Robespierre had personality _disorders_… Literal personality disorders? As in, clinically defined personality disorders? Or he was just a dick? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/9 "2021-10-17T09:43:13Z")
I don’t want to derail the thread, but I wouldn’t call Cromwell an insane murderer. Like Robespierre, he was caught up in the problem that there was no sufficiently broad and secure basis of agreement for a lasting political system that could accommodate different factions: but they dealt with the problems very differently. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/10 "2021-10-17T15:43:37Z")
I would compare Robespierre to Lenin. They both believed they were creating an ideal society which would benefit everyone. And they both justified doing horrible things as a means of reaching that goal. Power didn’t change them. Power just enabled them. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/11 "2021-10-17T16:16:41Z")
If only Louis XV hadn’t made little Robespierre stand in the rain when he was a schoolboy. It’s childhood humiliations that don’t fully break a kid entirely yet bends them in a distorted direction for lIfe that often does it. Louis XV was the real villain for whom XVI and XVII paid the price. Like Jack Woltz in the _Godfather,_ he needed ever-younger women for his flagging libido, until he was down to the kiddies. The turning point in public opinion was the torture execution of [Robert-François Damiens](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert-Fran%C3%A7ois_Damiens). When his own time came, they took care to see Robespierre off as unpleasantly as possible: tore the blood-glued bandage off his jaw, laid him face-up so he’d see the blade coming down. In histories favored by Catholics, the turning point was the guillotining of [the Martyrs of Compiègne](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cYq614xqnlI), 16 nuns whose order, ironically, had fled to France from England to avoid persecution by Henry VII/Thomas Cromwell. back when the SDMB was more tolerant of bad taste, I’d posted that Robespierre’s theme sone was “you kill 16 nuns, what do you get? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/12 "2021-10-17T16:26:21Z")
I’ve never quite understood why French society could not settle on anything to replace the monarchy. I mean sure, there were going to be winners and losers and the losers didn’t want to, well, lose. But once the revolution occurred you would think everyone would be pulling more one way than another. I guess not. Perhaps not surprising…the US certainly had its own trouble getting enough people to agree on some form of government. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/13 "2021-10-17T16:30:10Z")
Yeah to me the fact he did apparently have those principles earlier I’m his career makes him even more culpable IMO. He wasn’t some amoral thug, he understood what he was doing when he initiated the terror, and thoughtfully planned out things like the mass murder (verging on genocide) in the Vendee. I have heard the argument that he actually had a mental breakdown in the later stages of the terror, when things really went off the rails. But don’t buy it myself. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/14 "2021-10-17T16:36:07Z")
Lord Acton was thinking of Robespierre (among others, mainly popes) when he penned: _Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority._ ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/15 "2021-10-17T21:50:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I would compare Robespierre to Lenin. They both believed they were creating an ideal society which would benefit everyone. And they both justified doing horrible things as a means of reaching that goal. > > Power didn’t change them. Power just enabled them. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?’ _George Orwell_ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/16 "2021-10-18T18:09:47Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Lord Acton was thinking of Robespierre (among others, mainly popes) when he penned: _Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely…_ My favorite variant: “Power corrupts, and absolute power is actually pretty neat.” ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/17 "2021-10-18T18:23:09Z")
Yes I recall that being coined by Regan’s SecNav John Lehman, who out-Potemkin Villaged the same nation who filmed the Battleship Potemkin, to the misery of the actual swabbies in both navies. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/18 "2021-10-18T18:40:39Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’ve never quite understood why French society could not settle on anything to replace the monarchy. I mean sure, there were going to be winners and losers and the losers didn’t want to, well, lose. But once the revolution occurred you would think everyone would be pulling more one way than another. Compare the civil wars in Britain in the 17th century. Charles I was executed and the monarchy was abolished. Then the Commonwealth turned into a dictatorship with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. The monarchy was re-established under Charles II. Then the Glorious Revolution resulted in James II and VII being deposed and replaced by William, and a constitutional monarchy was established. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/19 "2021-10-18T18:53:06Z")
Monarchy, Theocracy, anarchy, Communism, dictatorship, etc. France or its regions has tried or at least flirted with pretty much everything. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511/20 "2021-10-18T19:18:26Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > > I’ve never quite understood why French society could not settle on anything to replace the monarchy. I mean sure, there were going to be winners and losers and the losers didn’t want to, well, lose. But once the revolution occurred you would think everyone would be pulling more one way than another. > > Compare the civil wars in Britain in the 17th century. > > Charles I was executed and the monarchy was abolished. Then the Commonwealth turned into a dictatorship with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. The monarchy was re-established under Charles II. Then the Glorious Revolution resulted in James II and VII being deposed and replaced by William, and a constitutional monarchy was established. Somewhat different in many respects. With the execution of Charles I the Westminster Parliament asserted its supremacy, which other than the brief time of the Protectorate has never again been seriously questioned. Charles II was also likely brought back in part to make it easier to govern Scotland, as the Scots had named him King upon Charles I’s execution and most of the Scottish people still viewed him as King-in-Exile. There were a number of policies in which Charles II was overruled by Parliament or otherwise had his hand forced. His efforts to normalize the treatment of Catholics in the country had failed sufficiently that his brother James II/VII was largely setup for failure, as the Parliament’s lack of real acceptance for James’s religion was the core reason Parliament and James could never get on. When James fled the country Parliament made clear it was now the Kingmaker, and things have continued apace along that line ever since. France on the other hand: Pre-1789: Absolute Monarchy 1789 - 1792 - Functionally a Constitutional monarchy (although not officially declared one until 1791) 1792 - 1804 - A Republic with varying forms of government, including a quasi-dictatorial executive council, and later a “Consulship” (under Napoleon), ended when Napoleon declared himself Emperor 1804 - 1814 - Absolutist Empire 1814 - 1815 - Constitutional monarchy (with strongish monarch) 1815 - 1815 - Absolutist Empire 1815 - 1830 - Constitutional monarchy (with strongish monarch) 1830 - 1848 - Constitutional monarchy (with weakish monarch) 1848 - 1852 - Republic 1852 - 1869 - Absolutist Empire 1869 - 1870 - Parliamentary constitutional monarchy 1870 - 1940 - Republic 1940 - 1944 - Puppet-State Dictatorship 1944 - 1946 - Democratic “Unity Government” (interim) 1946 - 1958 - Republic (parliamentary Republic) 1958 - Present - Republic (semi-Presidential Republic) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-revolution-was-robespierre-a-tragic-figure-a-misunderstood-figure-a-tyrant-something-else/952511.md?page=2)