Speeches of Maximilien Robespierre/Report on the Principles of a Revolutionary Government

by Maximilien Robespierre

REPORT ON THE PRINCIPLES OF A
REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT

On 19 Vendémiaire (October 10, 1793), Saint-Just demanded, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, that the Convention proclaim the Government of the Republic as the revolutionary government up to the conclusion of peace. The following speech was delivered in motivation of this innovation, with which Robespierre was commissioned by the Committee of Public Safety. This speech was then posted publicly in all parishes by the Convention and by the Club of the Jacobins, and was brought to the attention of the Army of the Republic at home and at the front.

Citizens, members of the Convention! Success induces the weak to sleep, but fills the strong with even more powers of resistance.

Let us leave to Europe and to history the task of lauding the marvels of Toulon, and let us arm for new victories of liberty!

The defenders of the Republic will be guided by Cæsar's maxim, and believe that nothing has been accomplished so long as anything remains to be accomplished.

To judge by the power and the will of our republican soldiers, it will be easy to defeat the English and the traitors. But we have another task of no less importance, but unfortunately of greater difficulty. This task is the task of frustrating, by an uninterrupted excess of energy, the eternal intrigues of all enemies of freedom within the country, and of paving the way for the victory of the principles on which the general weal depends.

These are the big tasks that you have imposed upon your Committee of Public Safety.

Let us first demonstrate the principles and the necessity of a revolutionary government, after which we shall describe those factors that aim to paralyze the birth of such a government.

The theory of the revolutionary government is as new as the Revolution itself, from which this government was born. This theory may not be found in the books of the political writers who were unable to predict the Revolution, nor in the law books of the tyrants. The revolutionary government is the cause of the fear of the aristocracy, or the pretext for its calumnies. For the tyrants this government is a scandal, for most people it is a miracle. It must be explained to all, so that at least all good citizens may be rallied around the principles of the general weal. …

The goal of a constitutional government is the protection of the Republic; that of a revolutionary government is the establishment of the Republic.

The Revolution is the war waged by liberty against its foes—but the Constitution is the régime of victorious and peaceful freedom.

The Revolutionary Government will need to put forth extraordinary activity, because it is at war. It is subject to no constant laws, since the circumstances under which it prevails are those of a storm, and change with every moment. This government is obliged unceasingly to disclose new sources of energy to oppose the rapidly changing face of danger.

Under constitutional rule, it is sufficient to protect individuals against the encroachments of the state power. Under a revolutionary régime, the state power itself must protect itself against all that attack it.

The revolutionary government owes a national protection to good citizens; to its foes it owes only death. …

Is the revolutionary government, by reason of the greater rapidity of its course and the greater freedom of its movements than are characteristic of an ordinary government, therefore less just and less legitimate? No, it is based on the most sacred of all laws, on the general weal and on the ironclad law of necessity!

This government has nothing in common with anarchy or with disorder; on the contrary, its goal requires the destruction of anarchy and disorder in order to realize a dominion of law. It has nothing in common with autocracy, for it is not inspired by personal passions.

The measure of its strength is the stubbornness and perfidy of its enemies; the more cruelly it proceeds against its enemies, the closer is its intimacy with the republicans; the greater the severities required from it by circumstances, the more must it recoil from unnecessary violations of private interests, unless the latter are demanded by the public necessity. …

If we were permitted a choice between an excess of patriotism and a base deficiency in public spirit, or even a morass of moderation, our choice should soon be made. A healthy body, tormented by an excess of strength, has better prospects than a corpse.

Let us beware of slaying patriotism in the delusion that we are healing and moderating it.

By its very nature, patriotism is energetic and enthusiastic. Who can love his country coldly and moderately? Patriotism is the quality of common men who are not always capable of measuring the consequences of all their acts, and where is the patriot to be found who is so enlightened as never to err? If we admit the existence of moderates and cowards who act in good faith, why should there not also exist patriots in good faith, who sometimes err by excess of zeal? If, therefore, we are to regard all those as criminals who have exceeded the limits of caution in the revolutionary movement, we should be obliged to condemn equally the bad citizens, the enemies of the republic, as well as its enthusiastic friends, and should thus destroy the stoutest props of the Republic. There could be no other outcome than that the emissaries of tyranny would be our public prosecutors.

In indicating the duties of the revolutionary government we have also pointed out the spots in which it is endangered. But the greater its power, the freer and swifter its actions, the more must they be subjected to the test of good faith. The day on which such a government falls into unclean and perfidious hands is the day of the death of the Republic. Its name will become the pretext, the excuse of counter-revolution; its strength will be the strength of venom.

The establishment of the French Revolution was no child's play; it cannot be the work of caprice and carelessness, nor can it be the accidental product of the coalition of all the individual demands and of the revolutionary elements. Wisdom and power created the universe. In assigning to men from your own midst the terrible task of watching over the destinies of our country, you have placed at their disposal your abilities and your confidence. If the revolutionary government is not supported by the intelligence and the patriotism and by the benevolence of all the representatives of the people, where else should it draw the strength enabling it to face the efforts of a united Europe on an equal plane? The authority of the Constituent Assembly must be respected by all Europe. The tyrants are exhausting the resources of their politics, and sacrificing their treasures, in order to degrade this authority and destroy it. The National Assembly, however, prefers its government to the cabinets of London and all the other courts of Europe. Either we shall rule, or the tyrants will rule us. What are the resources of our enemies in this war of treachery and corruption waged by them against the Republic? All the vices fight for them; the Republic has all the virtues on its side. The virtues are simple, poor, often ignorant, sometimes brutal. They are the heritage of the unhappy, the possession of the people. Vice is surrounded by all the treasures, armed with all the charms of voluptuousness, with all the enticements of perfidy; it is escorted by all the dangerous talents that have placed their services at the disposal of crime.

Great skill is shown by the tyrants in turning against us—not to mention our passions and our weaknesses—even our patriotism! No doubt the germs of disunion which they sow among us would be capable of rapid dissemination if we should not hasten to stifle them.

By virtue of five years of treason, by virtue of feeble precautions, and by virtue of our gullibility, Austria, England, Russia and Italy have had time to set up, as it were, a secret government in France, a government that competes with the French government. They have their secret committees, their treasures, their agents, they absorb men from us and appropriate them to themselves, they have the unity that we lack, they have the policy that we have often neglected, they have the consistency which we have so often failed to show.

Foreign courts have for some time been spewing out on French soil their well-paid criminals. Their agents still infect our armies, as even our victory at Toulon will show. All the bravery of our soldiers, all the devotion of our generals, and all the heroism of the members of this Assembly had to be put forth to defeat treason. These gentlemen still speak in our administrative bodies, in the various sections; they secure admission to the clubs; they sometimes may be found sitting among us; they lead the counter-revolution; they lurk about us, they eavesdrop on our secrets; they flatter our passions and seek even to influence our opinions and to turn our own decisions against us. When you are weak, they praise our caution. When you are cautious, they accuse us of weakness. Your courage they designate as audacity, your justice as cruelty. If we spare them, they will conspire publicly; if we threaten them, they will conspire secretly or under the mask of patriotism. Yesterday they murdered the defenders of liberty; to-day they mingle in the procession of mourners and weep for their own victims. Blood has flowed all over the country on their account, but we need this blood in the struggle against the tyrants of Europe. The foreigners have set themselves up as the arbitrators of public peace; they have sought to do their work with money; at their behest, the people found bread; when they willed it otherwise, the bread was not available; they succeeded in inaugurating gatherings in front of the bakeshops and in securing the leadership of bands of famished men. We are surrounded by their hired assassins and their spies. We know this, we witness it ourselves, and yet they live! The perfidious emissaries who address us, who flatter us—these are the brothers, the accomplices, the bodyguard of those who destroy our crops, who threaten our cities, massacre our brothers, cut down our prisoners. They are all looking for a leader, even among us. Their chief interest is to incite us to enmity among ourselves. If they succeed in this, this will mean a new lease of life for the aristocracy, the hour of the rebirth of the Federalist plans. They would punish the faction of the Girondistes for the obstacles that have been placed in their way. They would avenge themselves on the Mountain for its splendid spirit of self-sacrifice, for their attacks are aimed at the Convention. We shall continue to make war, war against England, against the Austrians, against all their allies. Our only possible answer to their pamphlets and lies is to destroy them. And we shall know how to hate the enemies of our country.

It is not in the hearts of the poor and the patriots that the fear of terror must dwell, but there in the midst of the camp of the foreign brigands, who would bargain for our skin, who would drink the blood of the French people.

The Committee of Public Safety has recognized that the law does not punish the great criminals with the necessary swiftness. Foreigners, well-known agents of the allied kings, generals besmirched with the blood of Frenchmen, former accomplices of Dumouriez and Custine and Lamarlières have long been in custody and are yet not executed.

The conspirators are very numerous. It is far less necessary to punish a hundred unknown, obscure wretches, than to seize and put to death a single leader of the conspirators.

The members of the Revolutionary Tribunal, whose patriotism and rectitude can for the most part only be praised, have called the attention even of the members of the Committee of Public Safety to the deficiencies in the laws. We propose to you that the Committee of Public Safety be entrusted with the task of introducing a number of innovations in this connection, with the purpose of strengthening and accelerating the hand of justice in its procedure against intrigues. You have already commissioned the Committee, in a decree, to this effect. We propose that you create the means by which its judgments may be accelerated against foreigners and against generals conspiring with the tyrants.

It is not enough to terrify the enemies of our country; we must also aid its defenders.

We ask that favorable conditions be created for the soldiers who are fighting and dying for liberty.

The French army is not only a terror to the tyrants, it is the glory of humanity and of the nation. In their march to victory, our victorious warriors shout, "Long live the Republic!" They die under the swords of the foe, with the shout, "Long live the Republic!" on their lips; their last words are pæans to liberty, their last gasps are exclamations of homage to their country. If the leaders of the army were as valiant as our soldiers, Europe would have been defeated long ago.

Any measure adopted in favor of the army is an act of national gratitude.

What we have done thus far for the defenders of our country and for their families seems far too little. We should increase the allowances one-third. The immense resources of the Republic permit it; our country demands it. We have also ascertained that the invalids, as well as the widows and children of those who have died for their country, are often injured by the formalities of the law, and by the indifference and ill-favor of subaltern officers. We demand that they be aided by official advocates, who will assist them in attaining their rights. For all these reasons, I ask that the Convention adopt the following measures:

I. The public prosecutor assigned to the revolutionary tribunal shall at once draw up articles of indictment against Dietrich Custine, the son of the general condemned by law, Desbrullis, Biron, Barthélemy, and all the other generals and officers who were connected with Dumouriez, Custine, Lamarlières and Houchard. The public prosecutor shall also indict foreigners, bankers, and all other individuals having any communications with the kings allied against the Republic.

II. The Committee of Public Safety shall report at the earliest possible moment on the appropriate means for securing an improvement in the organization of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

III. Allowances and aids, as paid hitherto to veterans or their dependents, shall be increased one-third.

IV. A commission shall be appointed entrusted with the task of defending the rights of veterans and their dependents.

V. The members of this Commission shall be appointed by the Convention and shall be nominated by the Committee of Public Safety.

—Speech delivered December 25, 1793.