With the success of the War against the First Coalition, the power of Robespierre and the Committee of General Security considerably aumented and effectively began to manage the country's internal police. The policy of the Terror was formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention on 1 August 1798, in a proclamation which read: "
It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads. It is time to horrify all the conspirators. So legislators, place Terror on the order of the day! Let us be in revolution, because everywhere counter-revolution is being woven by our enemies. The blade of the law should hover over all the guilty."
As an exceptional orator, Robespierre praised revolutionary government and argued that "
terror" – at least as he defined it – was necessary, laudable and inevitable. Was his belief that the Republic and "virtue" were of necessity inseparable, and reasoned that the Republic could be saved only by the virtue of its citizens, and that a Robespierrist Terror was virtuous because it attempted to maintain the Revolution and the Republic.
Was then notorious for all his political rivals and even his own partisans, that for him couldn't be no room for mercy in his Terror, stating that
"slowness of judgments is equal to impunity" and "
uncertainty of punishment encourages all the guilty". In his thinking, there wasn't enough that could be done faster in defence against enemies at home and abroad. A staunch believer in the teachings of Rousseau, Robespierre believed that it was his duty as a public servant to push the Revolution forward, and that the only rational way to do that was to defend it on all fronts. He did not merely call for blood but also expounded many of the original ideas of the 1789 Revolution, such as political equality, suffrage and abolition of privileges.
While temporarily ending internal opposition, the Reign of Terror ultimately weakened the revolutionary government, was was notorious in the winter of 1798-99, when a majority of the Committee decided the Jacques René Hébert (an extreme radical revolutionary and former close advisor of Robespierre) and his followers must be "erradicated". Robespierre also had personal reasons for disliking Hébert for his "
atheism" and "
bloodthirstiness", which he associated with the old aristocracy.
In early 1799, Danton finally publicy separated from Robespierre, angered many other members of the Committee of Public Safety with his more moderate views on the Terror, but whom Robespierre had, until this point, persisted in defending. Subsequently, he joined in attacks on the Dantonists and the Hébertists, charging them with complicity with foreign powers for the Restoration of the Bourbons.
After a short license for health reason, Robespierre reasumed the Control of the Commitee and the guillotine began to work again: on 10 February, Hébert, his wife (a former nun) and nineteen of his followers were arrested and guillotined five days later. Danton, Desmoulins and their friends were arrested on 18 February and guillotined two days later.
Georges Couthon, the main ally of Robespierre in the Committee, introduced and carried on 10 June the drastic
Law of 22 Prairial. Under this law, the Tribunal became a simple court of condemnation without need of witnesses; with this, in one instant was erased from the Republic any sign of justice or right for a fair trial.
This law also permitted executions to be carried out even under simple suspicion of citizens thought to be counter-revolutionaries without extensive trials. When the Committee of Public Safety allowed this law to be passed, the Convention began to question them, out of fear that Robespierre and his allies might come after certain members of the Convention and even the Committee itself due to the excesses carried out by its on-mission representatives such as Joseph Fouché, Jean-Baptiste Carrier, Jean-Lambert Tallien, and several others. This was part of the beginning of Robespierre's downfall.
The Convention ordered the arrest of Robespierre, his brother Augustin, and his close colaborators Couthon, Saint-Just, François Hanriot, and Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas (1 July 1799). Troops from the Commune, under General Coffinhal, arrived to free the prisoners and then marched against the Convention itself. The Convention responded by ordering troops of its own under Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras to be called out. When the Commune's troops heard the news of this, order began to break down, and Hanriot ordered his remaining troops to withdraw to the Hôtel de Ville, where Robespierre and his supporters also gathered. The Convention declared them to be outlaws, meaning that upon verification the fugitives could be executed within twenty-four hours without a trial. As the night went on, the forces of the Commune deserted the Hôtel de Ville and, at around two in the morning, those of the Convention under the command of Barras arrived there. In order to avoid capture, Augustin Robespierre threw himself out of a window, only to break both of his legs; Couthon was found lying at the bottom of a staircase; Le Bas committed suicide after shot himself in the head.
Robespierre tried to kill himself with a pistol but managed only to shatter his lower jaw, although some eyewitnesses claimed that he was shot by Charles-André Merda.
For the remainder of the night, the one day omnipotent Dictator and First Citizen of the Republic was moved to a table in the room of the Committee of Public Safety where he awaited execution. He lay on the table bleeding abundantly until a doctor was brought in to attempt to stop the bleeding from his jaw. Robespierre's last recorded words may have been "
Merci, monsieur," to a man who had given him a handkerchief for the blood on his face and clothing. Later, Robespierre was held in the same containment chamber where Danton and Hébert had been previously held.
The next day, 2 July 1799, Robespierre was guillotined without trial in the
Place de la Révolution. His brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just, Hanriot, and twelve other followers were also executed. When clearing Robespierre's neck, the executioner tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing Robespierre to produce an agonized scream until the fall of the blade silenced him. Together with those executed with him, he was buried in a common grave at the newly opened Errancis Cemetery. At the end, the words that Danton say to Robespierre some time ago became true: "
the Revolution soon could turned against us like a mother renegated from her children".
The new government was predominantly formed by Girondists who had survived the Terror, who after taking power, taken their revenge persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the
White Terror.
In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved a new Constitution on 22 August. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against. The results of the voting were announced on 28 September 1799, and the new constitution took effect on 1 October. The new regime was called "
The Directory".
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Hampton Court Palace, July 1798-November 1799:
In the middle of the bloody event of the Revolutionary France, the life at the court-in-exile at Hampton Court changed again: the Dauphine Maria Amalia go into labor slightly early, on the first hours of 3 February 1799.
Like the first time, took some hours with several witnesses the birth. Finally, by 8 p.m of 3 February, the Dauphine gave birth a son, the now third in line to the French throne.
Unlike the first time, the courtesans erupted in demostrations of happiness and joy that wasn't see in much time. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were statisfied and happy: the baby seems to be healthy and "
extremely handsome, like a true King", as the Queen wrote to her sister Maria Carolina, the maternal grandmother.
The Dauphin Louis Joseph, proudly kissed his wife and, with his son in arms and helped by his brother the Duke of Normandy, he says to the courtesans who ceremoniously inclined to the infant:
"My lord and ladies, I presented to you the Duke of Burgundy".
The only faces that didn't showed much happiness are the Counts of Provence and Artois, especially Provence, who with this birth saw his chances to become King completely destroyed.
Almost inmediately after the birth of her grandson, Marie Antoinette began to wrote extensive letters to a ruler who never took any participation in the War of the First Coalition and looked quite eccentric by all Europe: Paul I, Emperor of Russia.
Being an authocratic and extremely Catholic ruler, Paul detested the French Revolution, with their republican and anti-religious views, and although he even didn't like the French before, he showed truly compassion about the Royal Family and their fate, and admired Marie Antoinette's courage and diplomatic capacities, despite his own personal feelings towards this kind of woman (who resembled his late mother, the formidable Empress Catherine II the Great).
Two months after being born, on 18 April, the Duke of Burgundy was solemnly baptized at the Chapel of Hampton Court with the names of Louis Ferdinand Paul, in honor of both grandparents and the Russian Emperor, who served as godfather with his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna (born Princess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) as godmother.
The birth of her grandson gave Marie Antoinette a new breath: courtesans saw her more talkative and extremely tenderful towards her children and grandchildren. When in mid-June the health of the Dauphin suffered a serious decline, the Queen and the Dauphine joined forces to helped him, and thanks to their care, he could recovered, at least partially his forces. The relation between Marie Antoinette and Maria Amalia, her niece and daughter-in-law, was like a mother and daughter:
I love her if I had given birth to her, she wrote to her sister Maria Carolina, mother of the Dauphine.
Once hearing the news of the fall and execution of Robespierre, Marie Antoinette was overjoyed: she inmediately directed to the chapel with the Princess of Lamballe and some other courtesans, giving thanks to God "
for being finally justice to our cause and erased from the earth that devils who only caused pain and suffering to our beloved children of France".
After this, she inmediately reasumed her contacts with the European royals and exhorted them to retaken the arms against the Revolution, because "
with the main devil now dead, this is our opportunity, my lords, to act, we must due!", as she wrote in many of her official documents.
However, at this time the other European rulers decided to take care of their own countries (the Revolution success forced them to make reactionary measures) and refused to participate in any other political conflict.
Without possitive results, Marie Antoinette felt alone and trapped in a country who now she seems like a second Tulleries; but soon she received the news that she ardently hoped:
By official charter dated 12 August 1799, Paul I, Emperor of all the Russias, granted to King Louis XVI of France, the government of the
Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, with full powers over that territory, although as a vassal.
Louis XVI, following the advices of his consort, inmediately responded the letter and accepted, giving thanks "
to our belover brother and mighty ruler, who gave his precious help in this time of difficulty and adversity to us".
The preparations of the trip began almost inmediately. The
émigrés began to leave Great Britain in direction to Courland by mid-August; on 1 November, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette made a state visit to King George III and Queen Charlotte at Windsor Castle and, giving thanks to them for their hospitality, they announced their plans to leave the country in a couple of days.
Queen Charlotte apparently was sincerely sad about the departure of Marie Antoinette; but the French Queen, after the events of the First Coalition, show a cold but polite friendship to the British Queen.
On 4 November 1799, the French Royal Family parted from the port of Dover in the HMS
Pandora, the same ship who rescue them years ago.
This time, they can't arrived to the Netherlands, now in control of the French Republic, so was decided that the ship must be go to the port of Ribe, in the Kingdom of Denmark, after being received the authorization of the
kronprinsregent (Crown Prince Regent) Frederick, a maternal nephew of King George III and ruler of the Kingdom on behalf of his mentally ill father Christian VII.
The British ship arrived to Ribe on 8 November, and after a short stay in the town, the French Royal Family continue their trip through the Danish towns of Egeboek, Skoerboek, Bredebro and Tonder, arriving in the city of Lübeck in the first hours of 13 November. Now, the French Royal Family entered in the Holy Roman Empire, the first stop to their way to Courland.
TO BE CONTINUED......