History UsefulNotes / TheFrenchRevolutionOrganizations

Carnot introduced {{Conscription}} by which every able man was sent into the army, where mixed units of old regime professionals would work with green recruits, while women were sent to work as nurses and fulfill other supporting functions. Thus was born total war, by which a nation's entire resources were directed to the military effort, using industrial, administrative and economic structures to direct the war effort. For the Committee, the military had to be strictly regulated, because the likes of Robespierre dreaded the possibility of military dictatorship. Indeed, that was the main reason why he opposed war in 1792, where he said that France had as much to fear from victory as defeat since putting a nation on a war footing at a time when the Republic was barely consolidated opened the doors for ambitious generals to take political power. The irony of history is that it was neither Lafayette or Dumouriez, royalist and noble officers who the Incorruptible(and Marat) accused of dictatorial ambitions that achieved what they feared. It was ultimately [[UpThroughTheRanks the beneficiary]] of their own system of army reforms that achieved their fears, Captain Napoleon Bonaparte - a Corsican refugee who courageously opposed Paoli's royalist defection at home and chose to defend the Republic when it was at a weak stage, arriving in France with his large family, with his home burned and looted by rioters.

European War in the 18th Century before the Revolution was a war of aristocrats, officer's balls and an army of professional soldiers loyal to the King or Church. Rankings were based entirely on class, and soldiers would learn dancing as part of their training and function. Tactics likewise was based more on out-maneouvering opponents and submitting them to attrition. By and large, officers and generals being aristocrats had more in common with generals and officers on the opposing sides than with their own soldiers, sometimes they were even family relations. War while bloody and ruthless was still separate from civilian life, affecting it largely in terms of economy or lack of food supplies. The Revolution changed the rules.

From the very beginning, a vital question for the people and the major leaders is ''Who exactly is the Army loyal to?'' Is it loyal to the King or to the French people. Indeed the revolt of the Bastille was sparked because of rumors that the King intended to move his soldiers towards Paris. Even if these were rumors, it made people realize that the King could do that at any time and they would not have means to defend themselves. Robespierre who consistently argued for the restructuring of the army stated that, ''"Any nation which sees in its midst a large and disciplined army under the orders of a monarch, and which think itself free, is insane."'' When the Girondins declared war in 1792, the officers and generals ranks were still aristocratic and royalist, as were the many emigres that defected to the invading enemy. There was still an issue of whether the Republic's generals would fight members of their own class when their former master, King Louis XVI, was deposed. After the initial triumph of Valmy, where a Republican Army defeated the Army of an Empire, there were a series of reversals defections, the most shocking being that of General Dumouriez, the Hero of Valmy. Faced with invasion, the Committee of Public Safety, under the Jacobins, instituted a series of reforms to redirect the war effort, chief aong this was the ''Levee en messe'' devised by Lazare Carnot.

[[Characters/TheFrenchRevolution Back to characters main index]]

--> ''"[[ReignOfTerror Ninety-three]] was the war of Europe against France, and of France against Paris. And what was the Revolution? It was the victory of France over Europe, and of Paris over France. Hence the immensity of that terrible moment?, '93, greater than all the rest of the century"''

--> ''"We cannot either honor or dishonor you here, just as it is not in your power to either dishonor or honor the French nation. There is nothing in common between you and me."''

--> ''"In 1793 such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had again suddenly become an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State... By this participation of the people in the war... a whole Nation with its natural weight came into the scale."''

!! Tropes
* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The Committee of Public Safety convened their meetings at the Tuilleries Palais, former residence of the Royal Family. The room with their meetings, including a famous green velvet table, was the room of UsefulNotes/LouisXVI's sister, Madame Elisabeth.
* DisproportionateRetribution: The Terror would execute people for hoarding food (called ''accapareurs'' [cornerists], they were accused of retaining cereals to [[{{Greed}} artificially rise the prices]]. Considering the food rationing and the crisis at the time, it may count as MakeAnExampleOfThem), for voicing critical sentiments and later devolving to ''body language'' (like they didn't like the way they dipped the hat). The political show trials of the Hebertists and the Dantonists were especially bad.
* EqualOpportunityEvil: Some historians wil argue against them being evil, the ones who argue for the Terror's victims however insist otherwise. In any case, the Committee of Public Safety introduced an administrative regime of meritocracy in both army and civil administration. During the Terror, a vast number of people were employed in the government from all walks of life, some of them volunteered, others GotVolunteered.
** It was the first time people from all walks of life found employment in government service. This involved mundane activities in administration, whether it's something as simple as being the city-watch organizing curfew, armies of sans-culottes sent to the countryside to requisition food supplies, cadres organizing street lighting at night and of course the more notorious vigiliance and surveillance committes, the Revolutionary Tribunals who organized the executions. Napoleon said that the Committee was the only real government of the revolution. Later historians noted that this repressive period was paradoxically the moment that was more open to public participation in the government than any time before or after it.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: At the outset of the Terror, France had suffered military setbacks. Its Northern Army of the Rhine was defeated and demoralized after a series of defections, the last and most shocking being General Dumouriez, [[FallenHero the hero of Valmy]]. A coalition of almost every major Europena nation surrounded France, including England, whose ships put a blockade on food imports, escalating the famine. On top of that it had a Civil War in the Vendée, Royalist revolts in Toulon and Provincial Revolts by Girondins to contend with. And of course, the National Convention had to contend with the angry and terrified street mobs who had successively taken down several weak and ineffective governments before it. Somehow the Committee managed to contain these threats, at which point they turned to killing each other which led to Thermidor.
* TheExile: The Committee members who participated in ousting Robespierre were exiled to French Guyana by the vengeful Thermidorian government (comprised of Moderates, Dantonists and Girondins). Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne and Barere were exiled, though the latter escaped his punishment and went underground until Napoleon rise to power and general amnesty. Lazare Carnot managed to avoid punishment and remained in government in the Directory government until he too was ousted in a coup and he was exiled after the Bourbon Restoration.
* ForeignCultureFetish: The dictatorship of public safety is a direct reference to the Roman dictatorship, and was conceived as the same, a temporary, exceptional measure to save the imperiled Republic.
* HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt: The Revolutionary Calendar and its season-based months was instituted during the Terror. They dated the beginning from the birth of the Republic on August 10, 1792. At the time the Calendar was insituted, they were in Year II. The Calendar was devised by the committee of scientists working on the Metric system and intended as a trial run and educational tool. The Montagnard deputy Gilbert Romme devised the system, while the poet Fabre d'Eglantine designed the names of the months. The Calendar lasted till 1802, after the Concordat with the Vatican brought back the Gregorian Calendar. Napoleon abolished it in 1806. The real problem of the calendar was that it was based on weather patterns (A Snowy Month, a Rainy Month, the month of Spring and Summer), which presumed uniform weather for all of France, conquered regions and overseas colonies. It was accurate for Paris weather patterns and other regions of the North but not the South.
* LastOfHisKind: Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac was the longest living Commitee member, dying in 1841, at the age of 85.
* NobleTopEnforcer: Robert Lindet was seen as this by the Convention and Thermidorians, and also later historians. He was the Committee member in charge of food supplies. When he served as a representative, he pacified a Girondin revolt without a single execution and protected his captives from execution in Paris. He was also the only Committee member who protested Danton's execution stating that [[WhatTheHellHero he didn't execute patriots]] and refused to sign it. He also didn't play a role in the Thermidor smear campaign of Robespierre and later defended the Commitee members (Barere, Billaud-Varenne, Collot d'Herbois) against the Convention. When Napoleon came to power, he refused public service out of protest.
* NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: For most of the Terror, they actually got on well with each other, but towards the final months they started bickering and conspiring against each other, culminating in the Thermidor crisis. Where earlier their meetings had a good of public presence and activity, they shifted meetings to private rooms because arguments between Robespierre, Carnot, Billaud-Varenne would become really heated.
* PoorCommunicationKills: The reason for Robespierre's downfall and the end of the major phase of the Revolution. Robespierre was seen as too extreme by some committee members (Lazare Carnot, Barere) and too moderate by others (Billaud Varenne, Collot d'Herbois), his increasing national prominence which culminated in his Festival of the Supreme Being struck them as being outsized and arrogant(an opinion shared by other members of the National Convention). Conflicts between them got so heated that Robespierre stopped attending meetings altogether in the final month before his death and a belated attempt by Saint-Just to ease tensions failed. Many of the people who participated in the purge of Robespierre's faction (which led to the largest mass guillotine of the Revolution, when 77 were killed in a single day) came to regret it, with Barere and Billaud-Varenne admitting years later that it was a terrible mistake, though they note that Robespierre was hardly blameless.
* ReignOfTerror: The TropeMaker and TropeNamer. Robespierre defined the principles of this situation in a notorious speech at the Jacobin Club in February 1794:
--> ''" If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country ... The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."''
* YouHaveFailedMe: Several generals who lost battles and representatives not zealous enough were accused of treason and subsequently executed.
** The case of general Houchard, who had won at Hondschoote, is probably the most tragic. [[UngratefulBastard Despite the victory]], Houchard was accused of cowardice because [[VillainExitStageLeft he didn't pursue and destroy the army of the allies]] in its aftermath, [[AFatherToHisMen despite the exhaustion of his troops]]. He was [[HangingJudge judged and promptly executed]], despite [[WhatTheHellHero a fierce debate in the Convention]] and the [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere demission of Thuriot from the committee]]. To put it in perspective, it's like if [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Meade]] had been accused of cowardice, demoted and executed after Gettysburg.
* {{Workaholic}}: All members of the committee worked 24/7, attended meetings late at night, slept at most 2 or 3 hours a day, and some of them bunked in beds at the working place. They also ate very frugally refusing to deny themselves the same wartime rations everyone else was subject too. This is vividly shown in the 1983 film ''Danton''.

!! Tropes
* CassandraTruth: Practically all the problems unleashed by the 1792 Declaration of War was anticipated by Robespierre. He noted that the war would put them against all of Europe, would upset the consolidation of the Republic, would eventually fail to spread democracy by making the Revolution an existential threat, and pave the way for dictatorship.
--> ''"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."''
* CivilWar: The Vendeean Crisis became especially brutal and vicious, with Jean-Clement Martin noting that 400,000(Republicans and Vendeeans each) were killed in a brutal conflict that cast a long shadow over France for several decades. This crisis was escalated in part because of the incompetence of the early generals and poor discipline of raw recruits sent there (later generals such as Hoche who arrived there had greater success).
* FieldPromotion: The Committee restructured the army by mixture of meritocracy and purges. Within a single year, 82 generals were executed (many of them killed by Firing Squad comprised of their own men) and the percentage of nobility in the army dropped from 90% to 3%. [[TheExtremistWasRight It worked wonders]]. A new cadre of officers and generals emerged, several of them WorkingClassHero such as Lazare Hoche and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan.
* FourStarBadass: NapoleonBonaparte of course, but several others: Thomas Alexandre Dumas, François Séverin Marceau, Kellerman, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, Lazare Hoche, to name a few.
* GeneralRipper:The Committee oversaw the military efforts via plenipotentiaries, representatives on mission. While some of these representatives were effective, others were extremely brutal, with war crimes in Nantes(overseen by Carrier) and Lyon providing much amunition to counter-revolutionary propaganda.
* PatrioticFervor: The main reason why the French Armies triumphed as per Alan Forrest. They had superior mobilization, a strong civilian administration as well as some technological innovations (like the Chappe Telegraph) but it was largely because the armies needed to win their war more than the coalition did.
* WonTheWarLostThePeace: The problem of the Revolutionary Wars and its sequel, the NapoleonicWars. The Committee of Public Safety in their final months disavowed any plans for conquest and insisted they would remain "revolutionary until the peace". However despite their victories, the neighboring kingdoms refused to make peace with them, since they saw the young Republic as an existential threat, which they did not face in earlier wars between Kingdoms. This existential threat was acknowledged by the Republic as well, as Saint-Just's quote makes clear above[[note]]What he, and other representatives were making clear was that had the Republic's enemies triumphed, they would not be dealt with as equals, not being aristocratic officers and generals, but as "regicides" and "disloyal subjects" and perhaps subject to brutal executions and reprisals, so it was absurd for them "in principle" to discuss ideas of "honor" when calling for surrender.[[/note]]. Napoleon inherited the same problem, since his legitimacy came from military victories and the Revolution itself. As far as the rest of Europe were concerned, he was "Robespierre on Horseback", a Corsican upstart from an Island that wasn't even French for fifty years he had no claim to being Emperor, nor was he an elected representative of the people.[[note]]Despite all his attempts to integrate with the European aristocracy, including divorcing Josephine and marrying the niece of Marie-Antoinette, it never stuck and the rest of Europe were waiting for him to make a mistake to unseat him.[[/note]]

* HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt: The Revolutionary Calendar and its season-based months was instituted during the Terror. They dated the beginning from the birth of the Republic on August 10, 1792. At the time the Calendar was insituted, they were in Year II. The Calendar was devised by the committee of scientists working on the Metric system and intended as a trial run and educational tool. The Montagnard deputy Gilbert Romme devised the system, while the poet Fabre d'Eglantine designed the names of the months. The Calendar lasted till 1802, after the Concordat with the Vatican brought back the Gregorian Calendar. Napoleon abolished it in 1806. The real problem of the calendar was that it was based on weather patterns (A Snowy Month, a Rainy Month, the month of Spring and Summer), which presumed uniform weather for all of France, conquered regions and overseas colonies. It was accurate for Paris weather patterns and other regions of the North but not the South.

* 1st Committee (April to July 1793) - Barère (secretary), Bréard (navy), Cambon (finances), Danton (diplomacy), Delacroix (colonies), Delmas (war), Guyton-Morveau (sciences), Thuriot, Treilhard (policy).
* 2nd Committee (September 1793 to July 1794) or Great Committee - Barère (secretary, rapporteur, diplomacy, education, arts), Billaud-Varenne (representatives in mission), Carnot (war), Lindet (finances, food supplies, transports), Collot d'Herbois (representatives in mission), Couthon (Justice), Hérault de Séchelles (diplomacy), Prieur de la Marne (navy), Prieur de la Côte d'Or (weapons & munitions), Robespierre (policy, relationships with the Convention), Jeanbon Saint-André (navy), Saint-Just (war)

** The case of general Houchard, who had won at Hondschoote, is probably the most tragic. [[UngratefulBastard Despite the victory]], Houchard was accused of cowardice because [[VillainExistStageLeft he didn't pursue and destroy the army of the allies]] in its aftermath, [[AFatherToHisMen despite the exhaustion of his troops]]. He was [[HangingJudge judged and promptly executed]], despite [[WhatTheHellHero a fierce debate in the Convention]] and the [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere demission of Thuriot from the committee]]. To put it in perspective, it's like if [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Meade]] had been accused of cowardice, demoted and executed after Gettysburg.

** The case of general Houchard, who had won at Hondschoote, is probably the most tragic. [[UngratefulBastard Despite the victory]], Houchard was accused of cowardice because [[VillainExistStageLeft he didn't pursue and destroy the army of the allies in the aftermath, despite the exhaustion of his troops. He was [[HangingJudge judged and promptly executed]], despite [[WhatTheHellHero a fierce debate in the Convention]] and the [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere demission of Thuriot from the committee]]. To put it in perspective, it's like if [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Meade]] had been accused of cowardice, demoted and executed after Gettysburg.

* 1st Committee (April to July 1793) - Barère, Cambon, Danton
* 2nd Committee (September 1793 to July 1794) or Great Committee - Barère, Billaud-Varenne, Carnot, Lindet, Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, Hérault de Séchelles, Prieur de la Marne, Prieur de la Côte d'Or, Robespierre. Jeanbon Saint-André, Saint-Just

* DisproportionateRetribution: The Terror would execute people for hoarding food(which considering the food rationing and the crisis might count as MakeAnExampleOfThem), for voicing critical sentiments and later devolving to ''body language'' (like they didn't like the way they dipped the hat). The political show trials of the Hebertists and the Dantonists were especially bad.

* EverythingTryingToKillYou: At the outset of the Terror, France had suffered military setbacks. Its Northern Army of the Rhine was defeated and demoralized after a series of defections, the last and most shocking being General Dumouriez, [[FallenHero the hero of Valmy]]. A coalition of almost every major Europena nation surrounded France, including England, whose ships put a blockade on food imports, escalating the famine. On top of that it had a Civil War in the Vendee, Royalist revolts in Toulon and Provincial Revolts by Girondins to contend with. And of course, the National Convention had to contend with the angry and terrified street mobs who had successively taken down several weak and ineffective governments before it. Somehow the Committee managed to contain these threats, at which point they turned to killing each other which led to Thermidor.

* PoorCommunicationKills: The reason for Robespierre's downfall and the end of the major phase of the Revolution. Robespierre was seen as too extreme by some committee members (Lazare Carnot, Barere) and too moderate by others (Billaud Varenne, Collot d'Herbois), his increasing national prominence which culminated in his Festival of the Supreme Being struck them as being outsized and arrogant(an opinion shared by other members of the National Convention). Conflicts between them got so heated that Robespierre stopped attending meetings altogether in the final month before his death and a belated attempt by Saint-Just to ease tensions failed. Many of the people who participated in the purge of Robespierre's faction(which led to the largest mass guillotine of the Revolution, when 77 were killed in a single day) came to regret it, with Barere and Billaud-Varenne admitting years later that it was a terrible mistake, though they note that Robespierre was hardly blameless.

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The Committee of Public Safety convened their meetings at the Tuilleries Palais, former residence of the Royal Family. The room with their meetings, including a famous green velvet table, was the room of UsefulNotes/LouisXVI's sister, Princesse de Lamballe, who famously suffered a CruelAndUnusualDeath in the September Massacres.

However, the deteriorating war-time situation and volatile political activity on the street, meant that the Convention and the Committee was menaced by sans-culottes from the Commune who threatened repeated insurrections if their demands were not met. A popular slogan among them was "[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Make Terror the order of the day]]." These demands included price ceilings for bread, executions of traitors and counter-revolutionaries and a vigorous defense of the Republic to meet the external and internal threats. Not wanting to suffer the fate of the Girondins by seeming weak towards "the enemies of the nation" and undergo an insurrection, against them, the Convention agreed to undertake emergency laws and formed various Committees to administer it. At the same time wanted to claim "monopoly of violence" by shutting down the insurrections as well as minimizing the likelihood of incidents such as the September Massacres. As Danton stated, "Let us be terrible so that the people don't have to be." The Terror had several objectives - winning the war, ending civil war, consolidating the young nation and the Revolution and an assertion of state power over popular sovereignty. The Committee's members were all appointed by the National Convention and its membership and status was renewed every month by the mandate of the convention. The Convention also voted for the expansion of its powers owing to the efficiency and competence with which the Committee functioned. As such, while the Committee had dictature over state apparatus, officially it functioned under the aegis of the Convention and was answerable to it, a crude method of "check-and-balance" but ultimately successful in the Thermidor Crisis.

* LastOfHisKind: Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac was the longest living Commitee member, dying in 1841.

* {{Workaholic}}: All members of the committee worked 24/7, attended nearly every meeting, slept at most 2 or 3 hours a day, and some of them bunked in beds at the working place. They also ate very frugally refusing to deny themselves the same wartime rations everyone else was subject too. This is vividly shown in the 1983 film ''Danton''.

-->-- '''Creator/VictorHugo''', ''Quatre-Vingt-Treize''

The '''Committee of Public Safety''' was the governing organization of France during the ReignOfTerror. This committee never had more than 12 members, all of them delegates of the National Convention. While the organization remains infamous to do this day for setting a precedent for revolutionary dictatorship, that aspect was a consequence of its original function - a war cabinet tasked with wide discretionary powers to centralize authority so as to effectively mobilize France towards total war. The Committee was initially formed by the Girondins for a similar purpose but upon the ousting of the Girondins, the National Convention became dominated by Jacobins and Hebertists, as well as menaced by sans-culottes from the Commune who threatened repeated insurrections if their demands were not met. A popular slogan among them was "[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Make Terror the order of the day]]." These demands included price ceilings for bread, executions of traitors and counter-revolutionaries and a vigorous defense of the Republic to meet the external and internal threats.

The Jacobins had not planned for Terror upon taking power, since they were working on completing the Constitution of the First Republic, a project that the Girondins had started but did not finish as a result of war and schisms between them and the other parties. The Jacobins under a committee comprising of Hérault de Séchelles and Saint-Just completed the 1793 Constitution (based on Condorcet's 1792 project, though more centralized and biased towards state power), the most radical document at the end of the 18th Century, which had features that would only be implemented by France and other nations over the course of the 19th Century. However, the Jacobins did not want to suffer the fate of the Girondins by seeming weak towards "the enemies of the nation" and suffer in turn, an insurrection, against them. At the same time wanted to claim "monopoly of violence" by shutting down the insurrections as well as minimizing the likelihood of incidents such as the September Massacres. As Danton stated, "Let us be terrible so that the people don't have to be." The Terror had several objectives - winning the war, ending civil war, consolidating the young nation and the Revolution and an assertion of state power over popular sovereignty. The Committee's members were all appointed by the National Convention and its membership and status was renewed every month by the mandate of the convention. The Convention also voted for the expansion of its powers owing to the efficiency and competence with which the Committee functioned. As such, while the Committee had dictature over state apparatus, officially it functioned under the aegis of the Convention and was answerable to it, a crude method of "check-and-balance" but ultimately successful in the Thermidor Crisis.

--> ''"In 1793 such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had again suddenly become an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State... By this participation of the people in the war... a whole Nation with its natural weight came into the scale."''
-->-- '''Clausewitz''', ''On War''

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