Maximilien Robespierre: Encyclopedia II - Maximilien Robespierre - Robespierre's opposition to war with Austria

Maximilien Robespierre - Robespierre's opposition to war with Austria

On December 18, 1791, Robespierre made a speech that marked a new epoch in his life. Brissot de Warville, the dame politique of the Girondist party which had been formed in the Legislative Assembly, urged that war should be declared against Austria. Marie Antoinette, the queen, was equally urgent, in the hope that victorious foreign armies might restore the old absolutism of the Bourbons. In opposition stood Marat and Robespierre.

Robespierre feared a development of militarism, which might then be turned to the advantage of the forces of reaction. This opposition from those whom they had expected to aid them irritated the Girondins greatly, and from that moment began the struggle which ended in the coups d'état on May 31 and June 2, 1793.

Robespierre persisted in his opposition to the war. The Girondists, especially Brissot, attacked him violently. In April 1792, Robespierre resigned the post of public prosecutor at the tribunal of Paris, which he had held since February, and started a journal, Le Defenseur de la Constitution, in his own defence. It is noteworthy that during the summer months of 1792 in which the fate of the Bourbon dynasty was being sealed, neither the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly nor Robespierre took any active part in overthrowing it.

Stronger men with practical instincts of statesmanship, like Georges Danton and Billaud Varenne, were the men who made the insurrection of August 10 and took the Tuileries. The Girondists, however, were quite ready to take advantage of the fait accompli; and Robespierre, likewise, was willing to take his seat on the Commune of Paris, which had overthrown Louis XVI, as a means to check the political ambitions of the Girondins.

The strong men of the Commune were glad to have Robespierre's assistance, not because they cared for him or believed in him, but because of his popularity, his reputation for virtue (which had won for him the surname of "The Incorruptible"), and his influence over the Jacobin Club and its branches ubiquitous throughout France. It was he who presented the petition of the Commune of Paris on August 16 to the Legislative Assembly, demanding the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal and the summoning of a Convention.

The massacres of September in the prisons, which Robespierre unsuccessfully attempted to suppress, showed that the Commune had more confidence in Billaud than in him. Yet, as a proof of his personal popularity, he was a few days later elected first deputy for Paris to the National Convention. Robespierre and his allies took the benches high at he back of the hall, giving the faction the label 'the Mountain' (Montagnards); below them was the Manège of the Girondins and then 'the Plain' of the independents.

On the meeting of the Convention the Girondins immediately attacked Robespierre; they were jealous of his influence in Paris, and knew that his single-hearted fanaticism would never forgive their intrigues with the king at the end of July. As early as September 26 the Girondists Marc-David Lasource accused him of aiming at the dictatorship; afterwards he was informed that Marat, Danton and himself were plotting to become triumvirs; and eventually on October 29 Louvet de Couvrai attacked him in a studied and declamatory harangue, abounding in ridiculous falsehoods and obviously concocted in Madame Roland's boudoir. Robespierre had no difficulty in rebutting this attack (November 5), while he denounced the federalist plans of the Girondists.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Robespierre's opposition to war with Austria", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki