Maximilien Robespierre

Biography

Maximilien Robespierre was born in Arras in 1758. After his mother died and his father left the family, he was raised by his maternal grandparents, and in 1769 a scholarship took him to the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He studied law, graduated in 1780 and practised in Arras, where he was briefly a judge of the criminal court before resigning because he opposed the death penalty.

In 1789 he was elected to the Estates General as a deputy of the Third Estate for Artois and sat in the National Constituent Assembly until 1791. There he argued for the vote for all men, their free admission to the National Guard, the right of petition and the abolition of the slave trade. He became a leading speaker of the Jacobin Club, which he twice presided.

Elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he became a leader of the radical Mountain, and in July 1793 he joined the Committee of Public Safety. As one of its most influential members he defended the harsh measures of the Reign of Terror, and he promoted the Cult of the Supreme Being as a civic religion. He was twice president of the Convention, in August 1793 and June 1794.

Fear among deputies that he was preparing a new purge led to his downfall on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794). He was arrested with Saint-Just, Couthon, his brother Augustin and others, and guillotined without trial the next day.