Speeches of Maximilien Robespierre/Report on the Principles of Political Morality
REPORT ON THE PRINCIPLES OF
POLITICAL MORALITY
Robespierre, on the instructions of the Committee of Public Safety, delivered the following speech in the Convention, which was an attack both on the Right and on the Left.
Some time ago we analyzed the principles of our external policy; to-day we shall take up the internal policy. …
Having for some time been led often enough by accidents, the representatives of the French people are now beginning to aspire to a political consistency permeated with a strong revolutionary character. Thus far we have been led rather by the storms of circumstances, by our love of the good, by our feeling for the needs of the fatherland, than by any precise theory.
What is the purpose, what is the goal for which we strive? We wish a peaceful enjoyment of freedom and equality, the rule of that eternal justice whose laws are graven not in marble or in stone, but in the hearts of all men. We wish a social order that shall hold in check all base and cruel passions, which shall awaken to life all benevolent and noble impulses, that shall make the noblest ambition that of being useful to our country, that shall draw its honorable distinctions only from equality, in which the generality shall safeguard the welfare of the individual, and in which all hearts may be moved by any evidence of republican spirit. … We want morality in the place of egotism, principles in the place of mere habit, the rule of reason in the place of the slavery of tradition, contempt for vice in the place of contempt for misfortune, the love of glory in the place of avarice. Honest men instead of "good society," truth instead of empty show, manly greatness instead of the depravity of the great, a sublime, powerful, victorious and happy people!
The splendor of the goal pursued by our Revolution is simultaneously the source of our strength and our weakness. It is the source of our weakness, because it unites all the perfidious and vicious individuals, all the advocates of tyranny who think of plunder, who think to find in the Revolution a trade and in the Republic a booty. Thus we may explain the disaffection of many persons who began the struggle together with us, but who have left us when our path was but half accomplished, because they did not pursue the objects we were pursuing. …
You are surrounded beyond the boundaries; at home, all the friends of the tyrants conspire, and will continue to conspire, so long as treason still has a hope. We must stifle the domestic and foreign enemies of the Republic, or we must be destroyed with the Republic. And therefore, under the present circumstances, the principle of our Republic is this: to influence the people by the use of reason, to influence our enemies by the use of terror.
In times of peace, virtue is the source from which the government of the people takes its power. During the Revolution, the sources of this power are virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror will be a disaster; and terror, without which virtue is powerless. But terror is nothing more nor less than swift, severe and indomitable justice. …
It has been said that terror is the means by which a despotic government rules. Has your rule anything in common with such a government? Yes, indeed, but only in the sense that the sword in the hands of the protagonists of liberty resembles the sword in the hands of the champion of tyranny. When despots rule because their subjects are terrified, the despots are justified—as despots. You put down all the enemies of freedom by means of terror, and you are justified—as founders of the Republic. The government of the Revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Must might be used only in order to protect crime? …
If tyranny prevails for but a single day, all the patriots will have been wiped out by the next morning. And yet some persons dare declare that despotism is justice and that the justice of the people is despotism and rebellion. …
Either we or our enemies must succumb. "Show consideration for the Royalists!" shout some persons; "have compassion with the criminal!" "No, I tell you; have compassion with innocence, compassion with the weak, and compassion with humanity! …"
The whole task of protecting the Republic is for the advantage of the loyal citizen. In the Republic, only republicans may be citizens. The Royalists and conspirators are foreigners to us, enemies. Is not the terrible war in which we now are involved a single indissoluble struggle? Are the enemies within not the allies of those who attack us from without? The murderers who rend the flesh of their country at home; the intriguers who seek to purchase the conscience of the representatives of the people; the traitors who sell themselves; the pamphleteers who besmirch us and are preparing for a political counter-revolution by means of a moral counter-revolution;—are all these individuals any less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve? All those who would intervene between these criminals and the sword of justice are like unto those who would throw themselves between the bayonets of our soldiers and the troops of the enemy, and the enthusiasm of their false feelings amounts in my eyes only to sighs directed toward England and Austria!
… For whom does the heart of these gentlemen beat so gently? Does it beat for the two hundred thousand heroes who have already perished by the sword: of our enemies? Alas, these slain were only plebeians, patriots! To be worthy of our sympathy, of our compassion, the object of these feelings must be at least the widow of some general who has betrayed his country no less than twenty times. To be worthy of the compassion of these gentlemen one must be able to show that one has murdered at least ten thousand Frenchmen. They preserve their indifference when faced with the reports of the terrible blood-baths to which our heroes are subjected, or of the crimes perpetrated against their mothers and children, and yet, the punishment of a new traitor is called a savage massacre. The wretchedness of our citizens in the cities, their painful wounds, is borne with equanimity, but the wives of the conspirators move them to eloquence. These persons may defeat the ends of justice and law; they are permitted to defend the cause of their accomplices; they may even organize as a privileged body. …
We should commit an unpardonable act of levity if we should regard a few victories as the end of all our dangers. Just cast your eyes on our actual situation, and you will feel that caution and energy were never more necessary than now. A disguised ill-will sabotages the measures of the government at every step. For such is the fatal influence of the foreign courts, and because this influence is a hidden one, it is nonetheless active and nonetheless dangerous. The intimidated criminals are concealing their steps with greater cleverness.
The internal enemies of the nation have divided into two camps, the camp of the Moderates and the camp of the Counter-Revolutionaries. They are marching on "opposite" paths and under different colors, but they are aiming at the same goal. One of these factions would mislead us into weakness, the other into excess. The one would make of liberty a bacchante, the other a prostitute. The ones have been called "Moderates." The designation of "Ultra-Revolutionaries" perhaps is more brilliant than true. This designation, perhaps appropriate when used of men who, acting in good faith, and ignorant of the facts, have sometimes neglected to practice due caution in the revolutionary policy, is by no means applicable to those perfidious individuals who would compromise us, who would make the principles of the Revolution a plaything to trifle with. The poor revolutionary moves to and fro, straddles, sometimes on either side of the fence. To-day he is a moderate and to-morrow he becomes a fanatic, each time with as little reason. Whenever he discovers anything it is sure to be a plot unveiled long ago; he will tear the mask from the face of traitors who were unmasked long ago, but he will defend the living traitors. He is ever at an effort to adapt himself to the opinions of the moment and never undertakes to oppose them; he is always ready to adopt violent decisions, but he must always be assured in advance that these decisions cannot possibly be carried out; he calumniates those measures that might be fruitful of results, and even if he should approve of them, he will modify them with proposed amendments which would nullify any possible success in advance. Above all, he is very sparing in his use of the truth and resorts to it only as a means to enable him to lie the more shamelessly. High-sounding resolutions find him all fire and flame, but only so long as these resolutions have no real significance. Above all, he is indifferent on any subject that is of importance at the moment; he dotes on the forms of patriotism, the cult of patriotism, and he would rather wear out a hundred red caps than carry out a single revolutionary action.
What is the difference between these people and the Moderate? Both are servants of the same master, servants who maintain that they are hostile to each other, but only in order the better to conceal their misdeeds. Do not judge them by their different language; judge them by the identity of their results. Is he who attacks the Convention publicly in inflammatory speeches any different from him who seeks to deceive and compromise us? Are not these two persons acting in an understanding with each other? …
Even the aristocracy is now attempting to make itself popular. It conceals its counter-revolutionary pride, it hides its dagger under its rags and filth. Royalism is trying to overcome the victories of the Republic. The nobility, having learned from past experience, is ready to clasp liberty in a sweet embrace, in order to stifle it in the act. Tyranny strews flowers on the graves of the defenders of liberty. Their hearts have remained the same; only their masks have changed! How many traitors are attempting to ruin us by conducting our affairs?
But they should be put to the test. Instead of oaths and declamations, let us require them to deliver services and sacrifices!
Action is required—they talk. Deliberation is necessary—they declare we must act at once. In times of peace, they are opposed to all necessary reforms. In times of commotion, they will promise to introduce any innovation, any transformation. When you are planning to punish traitors, they will be at hand immediately, to remind you of Cæsar's leniency. They discover that this man or that was once a nobleman, although he is now defending the Republic, and they will forget these antecedents only in cases in which this man or that among the nobles is betraying the Republic. When peace is necessary, why, they will promise you victory. When war is necessary, rest assured that they will laud the delights of peace. If it behooves us to defend our territory—no doubt they will be found talking of the necessity of proceeding to the offensive against the tyrants beyond all the seas and mountains. If our fortresses should be recovered, they will propose that we mob the churches and wage war aganist Heaven. They will forget the Austrians in order to antagonize the faithful. Or, if we need allies on whose fidelity we can depend—in such cases, they will shout vehemently against all the governments of all the world and demand that we brand the Great Mogul a criminal. If the people are eager to celebrate victory at the Capitol, they will intone hymns of gloom and remind us of our adversities in the past. They sow disaffection among us. And when we proceed to clothe the people's sovereignty in the concrete form of a powerful and respected government, they discover that the principles of this government are a violation of the sovereignty of the people. They wish to disorganize us, they wish to paralyze the acts of the republican government.
It is in this way that these gentlemen serve the Revolution! They have found an excellent means of supporting the efforts of the Republican government: to disorganize us, degrade us, indeed make war upon those who support us. If you are seeking means for provisioning the army, or if you are engaged in forcing from the hands of avarice and fear the foodstuffs necessary for our warriors—they will shed patriotic tears over the general woe and predict a sure famine. Their alleged desire to avoid the evil is always sufficient reason for them to increase the evil. In the north, they put chickens to death under the pretext that they were consuming the barley. In the south, they destroyed silk worms under the pretext that silk was an article of luxury, and cut down the orange trees under the pretext that oranges were not a necessity.
It is impossible for you to conceive of all the devious ways pursued by all these sowers of discord, these spreaders of false rumors, who disseminate every possible kind of false report, which is not unprofitable in a country in which, as in ours, superstition is still so widespread. …
The domestic situation of our country demands your entire attention. Remember that it is our duty simultaneously to make war against the tyrants of all Europe, to keep fed and equipped an army of 1,200,000 men, and that the government is obliged ceaselessly to keep down with due energy and caution all our internal foes, as well as to repair all our defects. …
—Speech delivered February 5, 1794.