The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre

by Jordan, David P.

• ISBN13: 9780226410371
• ISBN10: 0226410374
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1989-07-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

As it changed forever the political landscape of the modern world, the French Revolution was driven by a new type of personality: the confirmed, self-aware revolutionary. Maximilien Robespierre originated the role and embodied its ideological essence and extremes; the self that he projected to the people was equated with the ideals for which he strove. In creating this intellectual biography of so enigmatic a figure, David Jordan has stressed the words of the man about himself. With great imagination and insight, Jordan places Robespierre's self-conceptualization within the context of events and explains how Robespierre "The Incorruptible"--a man seen by contemporaries as virtuous--could not only equate justice with vengeance and demand it of the people, but also stand as its symbol before the world.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Prologue	1	(12)
The Memory of a Tyrant	13	(10)
The Revolutionary Revealed	23	(20)
Representative of the People	43	(20)
Robespierre the Orator	63	(18)
The War Debates	81	(16)
Conversion to Insurrection	97	(20)
The King's Trial	117	(16)
Purging the Convention	133	(16)
Robespierre the Ideologue	149	(16)
The Committee of Public Safety	165	(20)
A Mortal Blow to Fanaticism	185	(20)
Thermidor	205	(16)
The Incorruptible	221	(16)
Epilogue	237	(12)
Appendix: Portraits of Robespierre	249	(8)
Notes	257	(42)
List of Works Cited	299	(6)
Index	305