What did he do wrong?

Satanic Free masonry

besides that?

Nothing.

He has an ugly face

>>262104
manipulated the poors into thinking they were starving?

Basically made the new French regime a regime of mass murder. The French Revolution was too fast and too drastic of a change to be very successful. Change can only work without much problem if it happens slowly over time.

He wasn't smart enough to realize he was being scapegoated until it was too late.

He was a fedora, like the Founding Fathers, and tried to introduce a fedora cult of pure reason

>>262104
He was too vague in saying who he wanted to kill so everyone was scared it was their turn

Studying Robespierre is fascinating, if only to see how much modern historiography on him almost totally relies on the we're-saving-our-own-asses reactionary version of events promoted by Robespierre's political enemies after his death.

>>262317

He was very specifically anti-Fedora and anti-dechristianization, to the point where he burnt an effigy of atheism. He did try to introduce the cult of reason, but it was not meant to replace Christianity as a religion, but just to be a civic ideology of sorts.

>>262335

This is the direct cause of his death/Thermidor. Not to mention he didn't create legitimacy for the Committee of Public Safety's continued emergency powers, as no one felt they were in an emergency anymore. The Federalists were beaten, the Vendée revolt was put down, and the first coalition had totally retreated and ceded the Low Countries to the revolutionaries.

>>262224
the poors love him

>>262374
>but just to be a civic ideology of sorts.
can you detail this ?

>>262104
Murdered innocent people.

>>262140
Not really, though.

>>262808
>Murdered innocent people.

Name one person Robespierre murdered.

>>262335
This. He and saint just were more or less the people keeping the republic together

>>262821
My bad. Should have said *caused* innocent people to be murdered.

>>262104
>10 day workweek

>>262865
How so? What, specifically, did Robespierre do that directly caused innocent people to be murdered?

>>262260
More like "looks like you've got some getting guillotined to do".

>>262745
Something very similar to the cult of the Republic which still dominates French politics and institutions today. A system of values that should be followed religiously.

What people don't get about Robespierre is that he was actually a moderating force.

Before he came to power, the Girondins (liberal centrists, bourgeois merchants who wanted the Revolution to stop at abolishing the aristocracy and just wanted to have total liberalism) controlled the National Assembly. It was they who started the policy of runaway inflation based on paper money originally backed by property seized from the Church, and who when that didn't work started the war with everyone else.

On the other end, the Hebertists controlled the riotous crowds and the Paris Commune. These were total radicals who just wanted to fucking destroy everything, basically anarcho-communists controlled by a few journalists like Hébert and Marat. Anyone mentioned in their papers in a negative light was about sure to be guillotined by the Commune the next day.

All this while France was in total financial ruin and fighting wars against all of Europe and against royalists within itself.

What Robespierre did during the Reign of Terror was exterminate both Girondins and Hebertists (as well as wiping out the royalist uprising). He's the reason the Republic reached a somewhat peaceful and stable state.

I don't know a lot about the French Revolution, but from an outside perspective it looks like one of the big issues that was kind of ignored was that all of France's power was centralized into the Government in Paris/Versailles because of what Louis XIV did, and the revolution didn't do too much to try and fix that. France is a pretty big country (not as big as America's thirteen states, but pretty huge and possibly a little more varied culturally) and could have done with less centralization.

That had nothing to do with Robespierre, who was stuck in a difficult position that explain his actions without excusing his involvement in the Reign of Terror. Though he was probably the most self aware of the people involved and was doing his very best to put an end to it.

Put Louis Antoine de Saint-Just into power

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>>262260
>he was the first commie
Liberals not even once

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>>264070
Saint-Just did nothing wrong. He was just fervently putting criminal counter-revolutionaries to death, and putting order back in the army and in the government. The republic would have survived and thrived if he would have had more power instead of being guillotined.

>>262104

TERROR IS A VIRTUE

Terror period.Sent to guilotine thousands of french innocent people.

>>262104
He didn't execute all enemies of the Revolution

>>262104
On the ethical side, literally nothing.
On the practical side, failed to secure his position.

>>264226

BLOOD; MORE BLOOD

Modern historians never seem to reach an agreement regarding Robespierre, Simon Schama that he's the second coming of Satan, while Zizek and Scurr just have this fucking massive boner for good ol' Maxime.

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>>262374
>He was very specifically anti-Fedora and anti-dechristianization, to the point where he burnt an effigy of atheism.
That's because he was a deist, which is what fedoras were during the Enlightenment.

>>262821
Judicial murder is also murder.

>>264226
>be no one
>deliver a speech to the national convention so hot that it gets the convention from 'we should compromise with the king' to 'off with his head! [allahu akbar!]'
>rise straight to the top, become BFFs with robespierre
>go to the front line to halt the army from falling apart
>speak so hardcore that the whole army gets back to its feet and turns the tide against the enemy
>be the spokesman of the reign of terror, get nicknamed the (fucking) angel of death
>get publicly beheaded by a bunch of jelly nobodies
>all this before turning 27

how can one man be so metal?

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DANTON DID NOTHING WRONG
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>>265625
>Saint-Just saved his dignity at the lectern but not his life. Rising in his support, Robespierre sputtered and lost his voice; his brother Augustin, Philippe Lebas, and other key allies all tried to sway the deputies, but failed.[92] The meeting ended with an order for their arrest. Saint-Just, still on the platform, remained unmoved and "looked on contemptuously" at the scene.[93] His confidence seemed validated when troops from the Paris Commune under Hanriot arrived to liberate them, but within hours the entire group was confined to the Hôtel de Ville. When soldiers finally broke inside, a number of the defeated Jacobins tried to commit suicide; Saint-Just stood beside Lebas who shot himself in the head. Any contemplation of his own suicide is unclear, but he alone emerged unruffled from the wild, violent final arrest – among the captured, "only St. Just, his hands bound but his head held high, was able to walk."[94] Robespierre, Saint-Just and twenty of their allies were guillotined the next day, and Saint-Just reputedly accepted his death with coolness and pride. At a last formality of identification, he gestured to a copy of the Constitution of 1793 and said, "I am the one who made that."

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>>265637
>Camille Desmoulins once wrote of Saint-Just, "He carries his head like a sacred host."
>Legendarily, Saint-Just responded: "I'll make him carry his like Saint Denis."

Pic related, it's St. Denis

>>265614
*tips constitution*

>>262260
>MY OPINION AND I ARE ABSOLUTELY INSANE
>My point is well articulated and calm, thus proving me right
literally my fav meme

>>265620
What unjustified capitol punishment did Robespierre personally sign off on?

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>>262224
well, in his christmas speech (http://www.tees.ac.uk/schools/lahs/rev_france/docs/robespierre_all.htm) you can see what he claims legitimacy through the people's best interests.

so, "Revolutionary government owes to all good citizens the fullest protection the state can afford; to the enemies of the people it owes nothing but death." means that they can't be threated as people and therefore fuck them all...
this is a political speech that every major dictator did to justify the killing of those who they didn't like (latest ones in europe being "the traitors of motherland" in russia or "the subhuman species" in germany)

but i have to say that at some point i agree with him and if i had absolute power i could possibly to the same, but the problem is that absolute power corrupts or even worse - reigned through terror without absolute power could lead to your own death as it happened in this particular case.

>>265815
He inspired plenty. Certainly not a good dude. Deserved having the tables turned on him.

>>267708
Man the retropedalling is fierce.
All those years and people still repeat that reactionary slander. Are you still butthurt about not having census suffrage?

Nothing. True revolutionaries are ready to die for the revolution.

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>hey guys, this whole absolute monarchy is awful, let's replace that with an even worst tyrannical regime

Revolutionaries, not even once.

>>267735
>slander
Lol.

>>267765
>quote
Where is that from? It's very good (though I'd say the Absolutist period (post Henry IV) did plenty still to whittle away at those institutions as well by slowly reining in the decentralized nobles and what not)

>>267708
How did he "inspire plenty"? Why wasn't he a "good dude"? Can you, or anyone, actually name any specific facts about Robespierre or are we playing the "Wiki, pop culture, and History Channel documentary" game where people just say "he was totally evil, man" without being able to back it up with anything substantial?

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>>262104
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see oyurself become the villain."

-Maxamillian "As seen on TV, the all new Slap Chop" Robspierre

Here are a couple of words on the topic from our favourite Slovenian philosopher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azKNngXBICs

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>>262978
>>Something very similar to the cult of the Republic which still dominates French politics and institutions today
every political system must sanctify a few of its human conventions, in order to precisely avoid the indifference of the people. I do not think that we can avoid a cult in any country. even the americans turn their constitutions into a fetish.

>>268001
I don't know this Mella fellow but what he's saying is nothing new. You have people saying the same thing throughout the 19th century from conservatives to liberals to socialists. Tocqueville has the most famous formulation of this thesis in his Ancient Regime and the Revolution.

>>262104

He missed.

>>263002

>merchants

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>>267765

This

>>262104
I just read Fatal Purity. It really made me feel bad for him. I ended up sympathizing with him a lot but FUCK HIM WHEN HE KILLED DANTON AND DESMOULINS. THOSE WERE YOUR ONLY TWO FRIENDS THEY WERENT GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU GODDAMNIT ROBESPIERRE

>>262317
He was anti-dechristianization to the point where it caused him issues with the other Jacobins

>>262313
This, his only fault was being too good for this world.

>>262224
It was already crashing and burning by the time he gained significant influence. Once Lafayette fell from grace it was a matter of time for the revolution to fuck up.

>>262317
Bad. He held a lot of respect for the Catholic Church, grouped Atheists in with Reactionaries who wanted to destroy the Revolution, and even when he got shit from other Jacobins went out of his way to prevent Dechristianization.

>>262335
This is the big one senpai. Its fucking hilarious but he basically said he was going to have to purge the next bunch of delegates and when he wouldn't say who everyone assumed it was themselves.

>>262346
Absolutely

>>262821
Danton. Desmoulins.

>>262889
Yeah I love how out of touch the Revolutionaries were on that one. "Lets rationalize everything! 2/3rds as much time off!"

>>263002
THIS. If he didn't fuck up Thermidor so badly I could honestly see him leading France to stability.

>>264070
Yeah that is such a weird alliance.

>>264235
Yeah that was a weird thing

>>265524
This senpai

>>265614
Didn't he slate Thomas Paine for execution for being too anti-Christian/Associated with the Girandins? Like he literally opposed that shit

>>265625
>Tennis courts
kek

>>265636
>>265636
I love Danton and I'm not sure why.

>>271705
>Yeah that is such a weird alliance.
How so? They were a great team.

>>262104
murdered some odd 50,000 people for absolutely no reason other than being a paranoid fuckwad

>>262957
As I said below, Desmoulin and Danton both seemed egregious both but killing that whole girl who tried to kill him's family seems objectively too far

>>272581
what

>>272952
He shouldn't have killed Desmoulin or Danton, and he shouldn't have killed the whole family of the girl who tried to kill him

>>272300
>murdered some odd 50,000 people for absolutely no reason other than being a paranoid fuckwad

>50,000

Source?

>absolutely no reason other than being a paranoid fuckwad?

Source?

>implying Robespierre had the sole power over arrests and executions

Source?

Didn't decapitate enough people

>>273989
every basic highschool-level Western Civ history textbook ever

>>274014
this

>>271705
>Didn't he slate Thomas Paine for execution for being too anti-Christian/Associated with the Girondins? Like he literally opposed that shit

Yeah, Thomas Paine was slated for execution the month Thermidor happened.

>>274255

History is written by the victors, see >>262346. Our modern image as a deliberate mass murdering dictator is absolutely nothing like the man Maximilien Robespierre. For one, he did not start the Terror and was against those who wanted to escalate it. The atrocities of the Terror, like the Republican Baptisms or the massacres in Lyon, were committed by bloodthirsty representatives-en-mission; other cities were hardly affected by the Terror, even those formerly in revolt. Hell, Georges Coulthon, Robespierre's close ally and friend, was the original representative in Lyon and the killing did not start until after he went back to Paris.

Really, Robespierre was a level-headed and rational dude for the majority of his life. The problems, and things like the Great Terror, began in a few months into 1794; he disappeared for a month due to sickness, and after that, was hardly the man of the past five years. When he was called a tyrant in the Committee of Public Safety, he shook with rage, unable to speak, and refused to attend further meetings for a while. When he was denounced in the National Convention on Thermidor, he was just utterly shocked and did not say a word in response. He did not have the sharp wit or rhetorical skills he used to. (That time is also the source of his possible last recorded words; noticing his silence, a delegate said "The blood of Danton chokes him!" Robespierre replied "Is it Danton you regret? ... Cowards! Why didn't you defend him?")

Really, it seems like he might have had a nervous breakdown; with things like assassination attempts and denunciations in his beloved Convention happening, combined with the political and personal pressures of the last five years, a screw might have been knocked loose. We'll never really know, of course. The Incorruptible died still without corruption.

>>274255
>every basic highschool-level Western Civ history textbook ever

So if a high school history textbook says it, it's true? Where did the history book get its information from?

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>>271705
>I love Danton and I'm not sure why.

Because he is Gerard Depardieu

>>274831
>Gerard Depardieu
>French
>Ogre

eh close enough

>>262104
I studied the French Revolution in school and I'm pretty sure Robespierre meant well right from the start and acted with integrity to a fault in all things. His problem was that he expected others to be just as virtuous as him and that's just not reasonable.

At first he was probably one of the most reasonable men representing the left in French politics but he always had too much faith in the common people. I think he'd gotten it into his head that the people of Paris were a downtrodden and oppressed people with beautiful shining souls and that they were always in the right and so he was always having to update his definition to fit whatever batshit insane violence the people of Paris were getting up to. At the start of the revolution he was anti-capital punishment but he ended up making big speeches on why Louis XVI needed to die and later why terror was so important to the revolution.

He always acted in a way that he believed was virtuous, only the French Revolution, through factors outside of his control, quickly got to a state where right and wrong became all kinds of confused but he still stuck to his radical black & white views. His view of justice was like that of a robot or something, he was never a hypocrite but his view of the world simply wasn't human. I get the feeling that even among his faction he was the weirdo, odd one out. Couthon despite contributing to laws which led to executions liked to avoid them where he personally could intervene and I get the feeling Saint-Just agreed with Robespierre's principles but knew they would all end up fucked for his approach.

Sorry, this was written badly and rambly. tl;dr: Robespierre was probably a high-functioning autistic or something. He was less a man and more a walking, talking pile of revolutionary ideology.

>>276738
>>At first he was probably one of the most reasonable men representing the left in French politics but he always had too much faith in the common people.
this kind of guy plus the two-faced liberal will always compose the proponents of the human rights. both types are ridiculous.