Robespierre~

Right, so House and I are doing our 9HD* project on Maximilien Robespierre, who happens to be incredibly fun to draw and also to research. So I thought that, to celebrate Lynda (who isn't yet in the lovely warm south of France but will be soon, leaving us in crappy, still winter weather back home /sob) going to Europe, I'd give you guys a lesson on Robespierre, one of Europe's finest. :D

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JSYK, all pictures excluding this wonderful painting were drawn by me. xiy. So don't you dare claim anything below as your own work. Or else I shall be angry.

Robespierre's full name was Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, but I guess he thought that it was too unwieldy and so he eventually just became commonly known as Maximilien Robespierre (dropping the "de" in his last name). He had quite a few relatives (i.e., his father and grandfather) also called Maximilien de Robespierre, so I guess maybe he wanted to be unique or something. I call him Robesy, because R-O-B-E-S-P-I-E-R-R-E is just so darn tiresome to spell all the time, let alone Maximilien.

Robesy's parents died when he was young, so he and his sisters and brother got left with various relatives; eventually, being a smart cookie, he got into a school in Paris called Louis-le-Grand. What's interesting is that said school was visited by the soon-to-be-headless king, Louis XVI, while Robesy was still in attendance there. Robesy even got to make a speech. I'm sure he was proud.

("No, I'm not," says Robesy. "The Robespierre is unamused.")

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(Which really makes you wonder, did they know that in another thirteen years, give or take, everything would be completely different?)

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At any rate, after finishing his education, Robesy went back to his hometown of Arras and became a lawyer, and he didn't do anything terribly of note until 1789, when he was elected to be one of the representatives to the Estates General (which was, for those who don't know, a big meeting of all the estates, or classes, of France so that they could work out a plan for how to solve problems). After the Revolution started, he helped with the (eventually failed) Constitution.

Not too long after, Robesy joined the Jacobin club; this was a group of intellectuals that broke up later on into the Feuillants (the more moderate people) and the Jacobins (the radicals, that Robesy was affiliated with).

While all this was going on, the king (Louis XVI, remember) was secretly trying to slip away from Paris, but that plan went south and he ended up getting captured. Later, after he was tried and then beheaded, France got even more chaotic; thus started Robesy's most infamous blaze of glory--the Reign of Terror.

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("YOU ARE ALL COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY!" says Robesy. "YOU DESERVE TO DIE.")

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Basically, the Reign of Terror was a year-long thing in which lots and lots and lots of people were accused of being counterrevolutionary (most on really stupid charges, like saying "A fig for the Nation!" or making bad morale-damaging wine or supposedly poking their eyes out to not have to fight in the army**). Anybody could be accused, really, and there were lots of laws made to justify it all. During this time, Robesy was part of the Committee of Public Safety; he is, probably, its most infamous member.

Since they were all forward-thinking revolutionaries and all, the entire calendar was changed during the Reign of Terror. Instead of the conventional twelve-month year, the revolutionary calendar was split into months that were based off of natural themes. Which still doesn't excuse them for naming a month Fructidor, of all things (apparently it was the month of fruits?), or giving every month a promotional painting, many of them featuring half-naked women. Anyway.

Robesy even started this thing called the Cult of the Supreme Being, which was sort of like a religion but not really, because obviously forward-thinking revolutionaries thought that religion was a bunch of nonsense. Robesy, of course, was the head.

Eventually, though, people thought that Robesy was going too far and they ousted him on 9 Thermidor Year II by the revolutionary calendar, aka 27 July 1794. Robesy was shot in the jaw and pretty much spent his last hours in extreme pain. He was guillotined without trial the next day.

(And thus ends Robesy's tale.)

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Some Other Interesting Stuff:

• Robesy was BFFs with a guy named Saint-Just (aka Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just). They were both (along with Robesy's brother Augustin) guillotined on the same day. Whee.
• What's interesting about Robesy is that it became more and more difficult, as the Revolution went on, for him to distinguish between the Revolution and himself. He treated them as one, and the end result, as you can see, wasn't pretty.
• Robsey made a lot of speeches about his vision for a future, virtuous French republic that was basically all sunshine and flowers. But first, he said, you had to kill all the horrid counterrevolutionaries that were mucking it up for everybody. Cue the RoT.
• Poor Robesy. Nobody likes him. Napoleon is considered nicer. Or more heroic. Or something. Anyway, Napoleon's more famous.

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If I haven't yet bored you to tears and you still want to know more, I recommend the book Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr, and also this wonderful documentary called "Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution." Their portrayal of Robesy sometimes looks like a sheep, which is always nice. :)

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♥

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Well, yeah, that's it for today. Unless you want to read about me rambling about my life, which I'm sure you don't, since I just assaulted your eyeballs with such a huge post. |D

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*National History Day, or NHD, is the actual legit tenth-grade competition. However, since we're still little kids and can't handle the big-kid projects, our history teacher has come up with the idea of 9HD, which is the watered-down version. Which is still pretty intense, I guess, but not really. At all.


**Because, seriously, France was fighting, like, half of Europe during the revolution. None of the other countries with monarchies wanted to risk revolutions like France's, and they were all trying to invade and reinstall the king.

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xiy