710. The Terror: Death at the Guillotine (Part 4)

Introduction to the episode

0:00This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked. Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realises, or rather everybody else realises, that there is a vast continent out there.

0:31And it is, of course, the Americas. So, you know, Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people? So they asked over 100,000 people. And what came back wasn't just fear. There was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash restishistory. And keep thinking.

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The execution of Georges Danton

1:33The execution was already underway when, having crossed the Tuileries, I reached the gate opening onto the Place Louis-Cannes. From there I saw the condemned men appear one after another on the fatal stage, only to vanish at once as the plank on which their eternal rest was to begin tip them from view.

2:04Danton appeared last on that stage, drenched in the blood of all his friends. Day was fading at the foot of the dreadful structure, standing out like a colossal silhouette against the sky. I saw this tribune rise up like a shade out of Dante, half-lit by the dying sun, seeming as much to be emerging from the tomb as about to enter it. Nothing could match the formidable set of that profile defying the axe, or the expression of that head, which, about to fall, still seemed to be dictating the laws.

2:50A dreadful spectacle. Time could never erase it from my memory. Now I felt the whole force of the emotion behind Danton's last words. Terrible words, which people repeated afterwards, shuddering with horror and admiration. Above all, don't forget, he told the executioner, don't forget to show my head to the people.

3:20It's worth seeing. So that's one of the most famous scenes, not just in the history of the French Revolution, but in the entire history of France. It is the eyewitness account by Antoine Vincent Arnault of the execution of Georges Danton on the 5th of April, 1794. And it's a scene that's been immortalized in novels, in plays, in operas and films. And unsurprisingly so, because it is the spectacle of the French Revolution, devouring one of its most memorable, and I think probably attractive figures.

4:00An ebullient, larger-than-life character, Dominic, who only a year earlier seemed at the peak of his popularity. A large Falstaffian man. A lesson to us all, Danton's fate, I think. A lesson to us all, yeah. Yeah, and you're a particular admirer, aren't you, of the Franco-Polish film Danton, which came out during the Solidarity confrontation, the trades union in Poland with the communist government, and starred Gérard Depardieu as Danton.

4:34I think Gérard Depardieu is an absolutely horrendous human being, and he is brilliant as Danton in this film. And in the film, because it's a portrait, it's actually a brilliant film, both about the French Revolution and about the crushing of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the imposition of martial law. Yeah. In the film, he is the champion of moderation against extremism. He is the champion of democracy against dictatorship, which is, of course, a little bit simplistic when you look at the story of the revolution. But there is that kind of great sense of the binary, isn't there?

5:07Because on the one hand, you have Maximilien Robespierre, tall, thin, cold, fanatical, obsessed by ideas of God and virtue. And on the other side, his old friend, Georges Danton, charismatic, a man of bulk, warm, the man who wants to stop the reign of terror, the people's friend. And that dynamic of the kind of the chill, cold, thin person and the warm, jolly, fun, larger person.

5:39I mean, it's a kind of almost archetypal. The sturdy man of the people and the desiccated lover of abstract nouns. Yeah, completely. Yeah. So it's a duel for the ages, but obviously there's a lot more going on because we're at the sort of crisis moment for the revolution. Generally, war on the frontiers, war within France, loads of nuances. So we might as well get straight into it.

Danton's early life and rise

6:00And we'll get into it with our protagonist, who is Danton. So I think you're at dead right of all the French Revolution's great characters. Danton's probably the most magnetic. He's the one you'd go on a night out with, I think. And Dépardieu, shocking bloke, brilliant actor, does a really good job of capturing his appeal in that film, which I recommend to people. It's on YouTube. So Danton is a big man, you know, stocky, famously ugly, but incredibly charismatic, energetic. He's a brilliant speaker.

6:31He's theatrical. He's generous. There's something slightly Churchillian, I think, about him. A man of tremendous flaws, but also great magnetic qualities. Listeners may remember that I ventriloquized one of his most famous speeches and did it as Churchill. You did. Exactly. Danton can be flippant. He can be greedy. He can be very, very corrupt, as we will see. But he's hard to dislike. And he was born in a place called Arcy in Champagne in 1759. So that means that he's about to turn 30 when the French Revolution breaks out.

7:02Like so many of these people, he's a relatively young man. He has a very distinctive look because as a boy, he'd been both gored by a bull and trampled by pigs. That's bad luck, isn't it? Yeah, it's very unfortunate. So his lip was split and his nose was all mangled. And to make it matters worse, he had smallpox. So his face is quite a spectacle. Now, his father, who was a local prosecutor, sent him to boarding school. And then he went and settled on the left bank of Paris. And he became a lawyer. He got married. He had a couple of sons.

7:32And he's a funster, really, in the late 1780s. He has lots of sort of boozy dinner parties. He's well known for them. He has lots of affairs. He's not a very good husband. He lives life to the full. And then when the revolution breaks out, he's living there in the left bank in this district called the Caudilliers, which is a real hotbed of militancy. So there's loads of people like him, young lawyers, there's artisans, stuff like that. And he's prominent in the protests around the fall of the Bastille, summer of 1789. He becomes a sort of leading light in the district.

8:04He's hanging out with Jean-Paul Marat, who we talked about a couple of episodes ago, and with a man called Camille Desmoulins, who's a great friend of his, who we will come to. And because Danton is a really good speaker, because he's a big man, he's kind of alpha male, he becomes a beenock. Do you know what a beenock is, Tom? Big name on campus. He's a big name on campus. Yeah, exactly. He founds the Caudilliers Club in 1790, radical club, talking shop, becomes its first president.

8:37Captain of sports teams. Completely. He's the big man. Everyone knows him on the campus, all of that. And as the revolution escalates, the star carries on rising. So when, in the late summer of 1792, there was the great storming of the Tuileries Palace by the kind of sans-culottes, by the insurrectionary commune, Danton was very much at the forefront of that. When the Girondins were running France, they had him as their minister of justice. He wasn't really one of them, though.

9:09They always regarded him with a bit of suspicion. But, I mean, you mentioned the Churchillian aspect. He gives this incredible speech, you know, that the Prussians are coming, France is at bay, and he says what we need is de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace. You know, courage, more courage, and yet more courage, and we will win the day. And, you know, it works. Now, behind all that, he's not just a great speaker. He's also actually good at running things.

9:39He's pragmatic. He's one of those politicians, very common. You know, he talks a brilliant game, and he's very flamboyant. But actually, you know, when the door's shut, he's very smart. He's very pragmatic. He takes decisions. He's ruthless, all of this. Over time, though, he falls out with the Girondins a bit. And so he moves closer to the Montagnard faction. So that's Robespierre, Marat, and co. And by, let's say, 1793, Danton is seen as one of the three big beasts of that camp.

10:12So you've got Marat, Robespierre, Danton, they're the three names that everyone knows. When Charlotte Corday wrote that manifesto about killing Marat. Yeah, she mentioned Danton and Robespierre, didn't she? She did, exactly. She did. And he gets on fine with both of those guys. I mean, he's not a tremendous fan of, you know, Marat's not a great laugh. Danton is a great laugh. And neither is Robespierre. But their relations are solid. There's no enmity between them. When Danton's wife dies in childbirth, he comes back. He's been at the front, and he digs up the coffin and embraces her in a very gothic manner.

10:46Robespierre writes him a very sweet letter. He does. Yeah. You know, he says, oh, I love you until death. You're great. You're my best friend. All of this. Nothing will ever come between us. No. I mean, you could say, on the one hand, that is very much the literary formula of the day, that people do write like this. They write in an overwrought way that we would perhaps not do today. But genuinely, I think there's affection. There's a degree of affection between Danton and Robespierre. Well, I think it's important for the tragedy of what's going to happen to recognize that Robespierre does love Danton.

11:19Yeah. And indeed, loves Des Moulins as well. So there's no sense whatsoever that they are heading for a kind of great crash at this point.

The Committee of Public Safety

11:26So we're in 1793. And the beginning of 1793, I think it would be reasonable to call it a roller coaster for Danton. So, as you say, in February, his wife dies. She dies in childbirth. He's been away. He's been a massive womanizer. And I think his grief for her is perhaps slightly colored by guilt that he hasn't been the best husband in the world. Just weeks later, April 1793, as we heard in a previous episode, Danton is one of the first people appointed to the new Committee of Public Safety.

11:58And actually, at first, he's seen as the dominant figure on that committee. The only thing is, at this point, spring, summer 1793, we've talked before about how this is the beginning of the terror. The institutions are being set up, the mood of paranoia, the obsession with conspiracies. Danton is slightly losing touch with that mood, I think. He is too pragmatic. On the committee, he's sitting there and saying, well, you know, maybe we should look to make deals with some of our enemies. Could we detach the Prussians or the Austrians from the enemy coalition? Could we talk to some of these sort of provincial départements that are in revolt?

12:34We don't have to kill everybody. You know, let's find a way out of this. That's not what a lot of people want to hear. And he should have thought of that when he was busy setting all these institutions up. I mean, he clearly was not thinking through what could be done with them. No, he wasn't. I don't think he was. At the same time, there is, of course, this mood in the summer of 1793, this absolute fixation on virtue, on Republican virtue. And that's been there from the beginning, but it's become a lot more pronounced.

13:04And Danton's financial corruption, which is not unique. There are a lot of deputies taking money. This is a fairly corrupt political system. But he is well known for it. Danton has been taking bribes and he's been buying up land in his native Aksis with mysterious money. But the more that Robespierre becomes the B-knock and he is the incorruptible, so the more Danton's corruptibility comes to seem a little bit out of fashion.

13:36Totally. His style is unfashionable. So, June 1793, I mean, only a few months after his wife died, he marries again. And he marries a girl called Louise. I mean, she is a girl. She's 16 years old and she's been looking after the kids. And he takes her back to his hometown of Aksis on a break. And while he's away on the 10th of July, he is voted off the Committee of Public Safety by the convention. Now, this doesn't necessarily have to be an immensely sinister thing.

14:06People are being rotated on and off the Committee of Public Safety fairly often. And he's not completely out of favor. So, actually, in September, the people in the convention say, would you like to come back onto the committee? You know, the committee could use you. And he said, no, I don't really want to join any committee. I'd rather I'll be a spur to them all. I mean, actually, that's a very Churchillian thing to say. You can absolutely imagine Churchill doing that. I won't get involved, but I'll kind of be involved with all of them. So, that's September. Middle October 1793.

14:39Danton falls ill. This is such a theme of the revolution. As we talked about before, these blokes are young. They're under enormous pressure. They're drinking a lot. They are. I mean, imagine the stress. You know, your country's at war. There's rebellions. Plus, you could lose your head if you manage things badly. I mean, you talked about the big three. Marat, famously, is always returning to his bath because he breaks out in pustules. Yeah. And we said how Roche-Pierre is always taking to bed with kind of nervous prostration. It's a theme. Completely.

15:10They're leading a very unhealthy existence. And by the time he comes back, so he comes back about six weeks later from our sea where he's been kind of convalescing. He comes back in mid-November and things have changed. So two big things have happened that you described in the last two episodes. Marie Antoinette has been executed and the Girondins have been executed. And by now, the reign of terror is well institutionalized and is well underway, which brings us to the big picture. So to remind people, the Montagnards have been running the roost since the summer and their power is embodied now in these two committees.

15:47So you have the Committee of Public Safety, which directs policy, and the Committee of General Security, which controls the police and the Revolutionary Tribunal. Now, there is a new constitution. There is a new democratic constitution, but it has been placed on hold. Effectively, there is a state of emergency in France for completely understandable reasons. So Robespierre's kind of mini-me, Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just, the kind of archangel of death, archangel of terror, he has moved a resolution on the 10th of October to make the provisional government of France revolutionary until the peace.

16:23Basically, we're not going to implement the new constitution. The Committee of Public Safety is going to run things until we have peace, and only then will we do it. And Dominic, just to say, because people might think this is a cynical move, I really don't think it is. Saint-Just, with Robespierre, had played a key role in writing up that constitution. And we'll be talking about this in the next episode. You know, they genuinely, and I think correctly, see that this is not a time to be experimenting with new constitutions, because France is in a state of crisis, and maybe you could say it does need a firm hand.

16:56It's a complicated question, actually. And, I mean, we'll answer this to some extent in our very final episode, but I think a couple of things can be true at once. Number one, the institutions of terror, the Committee of Public Safety, do actually stabilize the situation. They do provide leadership, and they do manage to, you know, they defeat the rebellions, and they hold the line on the frontiers, and indeed start to win the war. So, to that extent, absolutely right. The only question is, when you get to 1794, there is a definite question mark about whether, you know, Robespierre, at that point,

17:31he will never be satisfied that France is at peace, because there will always be corruption and vice to be fought. Just to say that this constitution is precious to Robespierre and Saint-Just, because they've drawn it up. Of course. I don't think it is a cynical move to entrench that dictatorial power, which is sometimes how it's presented. Yeah, they're not Vladimir Putin or something. No. You know, they're not cold, cynical, just interested in power for its own sake. Absolutely not. And, of course, going hand in hand with the rule of the Committee of Public Safety is the policy of terror.

18:02Let's just say, just equate that to kind of revolutionary justice. So, Saint-Just says very clearly on the 10th of October, between the people and their enemies, there can be nothing but the sword. We must govern by iron, those who cannot be governed by justice. So, violence is a part of their sort of strategy. This is not, though, a dictatorship. It's not controlled by any one person. And the committees are still reporting to the convention. There are aspects in which it anticipates later dictatorships.

18:32So, power control by a very small group of people. Opposition is treated as treason. And dissent is punished with kind of state-sanctioned violence. So, in all those ways, it definitely looks ahead to the 20th century. And lots of historians have written about this. But I think the biggest thing is that actually what it's done is the French Revolution has been very anarchic for the last couple of years, very chaotic. And actually, under this new regime, the Committee of Public Safety, at about this point, autumn 1793, central state government in France is stronger than it has been for years, probably going back, you know, well into the reign of Louis XVI, if not further back.

19:14You know, you have a really high-functioning machine now that is handing down ruthless, decisive edicts that is actually getting stuff done. The smack of firm government. Completely. Within it, however, there are lots of tensions. So, just to look at the Committee of Public Safety, if you think about that, there are these blokes, there's 12 of them, and they're meeting in a kind of green room. They're working very hard, late at night, all of this. And they're spending a lot of time arguing among themselves. So, on one wing, you have two people we've talked about already.

19:45You have Saint-Just, and you have this bloke called Georges Couton, who's in his wheelchair, the sex addict, who claims he was paralyzed by having too much sex. Yeah. And you've got Rob Speier, who you've described already, pale, prim, glasses, wig, you know, all that. The incorruptible moral authority. Rob Speier, to be absolutely clear, it's really important, I think, that people dispel any sense of Rob Speier being a dictator. He is not a dictator. He has this great moral authority, but he's one of a committee.

20:18And actually, a lot of the decisions on the committee, and this will be really important when we talk about the fall of Rob Speier, a lot of the decisions on the committee are made by these kind of military bureaucrats. So, there's a guy called Lazar Carnot, who runs the army. There is Robert Linde, who manages all the food supplies. These guys are like, their job is to win the war and to take all the decisions, to manage the administration, to do all that. They're the people who are really keeping the show on the road. And when Rob Speier is talking at great length about the Republic of Virtue, these are men who are rolling their eyes and sort of surreptitiously signing requisition orders under the desk.

20:56Military logistics is not Rob Speier's vibe at all. Not at all. And the differences between these men and Rob Speier over time will become more and more pronounced, especially as they're working so hard, they're all knackered, they're all drunk, you know, all of this. However, the thing on which they're all united at this point is the policy of terror.

The law of suspects and terror

21:13So, you described how they passed the thing called the law of suspects. The law of suspects allows them to arrest anybody. Yeah, that's basically it, isn't it? To arrest anybody. Anybody, yeah. Basically. If basically your conduct associations, talks or writings identify you as an enemy of the people or an enemy of liberty, then you've committed a crime. So, there's that. The Paris Commune, I love this, the Paris Commune has drawn up and published a list of characteristics that render people suspect. These include speaking cryptically of the misfortunes of the revolution, spreading bad news, and this is the best one, affecting excessive severity in order to appear Republican.

21:57So, in other words, if you seem too keen on the revolution, you're probably a traitor. And this, they say very specifically, the list of enemies of the people includes those who, while not having done anything against liberty, also haven't done anything for it. Yeah. So, if you've literally done nothing at all, you're probably a traitor and an enemy of the people. If you're against the revolution, then you're guilty. And if you seem like you're in favor of the revolution, then you're guilty. And there's not really much leeway between those two categories.

22:29No, it's a very hard balance to strike. And in his history of the revolution, the American historian, Jeremy Potkin says, the great irony of this is, a republic that is devoted to the rights of man. You know, the first, really the first state in history to be so explicitly devoted, even far more so than the American Republic, to this utopian creed, is running a prison system that is now on a scale without precedent in the Western world. So, by the summer of 1794, by the time it's all over, about half a million people have been through the French prison system.

23:03Now, most of them do come out again. They obviously don't guillotine anything like a majority of these people. And even in Paris, at the height of the terror, if you were accused of a capital offense, Tom, for example, had you been too enthusiastic in your support of the revolution and outed yourself, therefore, as a traitor, the chances are that you'd still come out with your head on your shoulders. Unless I was an aristocrat. Yeah, that's true. Or Marie Antoinette. So, the official death toll of the terror, I mean, estimates differ. Timothy Tackett gives a figure.

23:34It says the official death toll of 17,000 people, which in the scale of the great slaughters of the 20th century is not great. If you include in that deaths in prison from starvation and disease, you're probably looking at 40,000. And then if you look at the Vendée and so on, you're hundreds and hundreds of thousands. But, you know, it's not as enormous as the 20th century killing. Now, it's important to remember this is not senseless killing. It is killing with a purpose. I mean, that sounds a terrible thing to say. But they drew up the terror as this improvised response to the crises facing France in the summer of 1793.

24:11And basically, the terror does kind of do the trick. Yeah, it works. Yeah, they are back on their feet. So, let's give you a couple of examples. The economy was in meltdown. They have passed a thing called the Law of the General Maximum, which introduces these strict wage and price controls. And in the short time, it works. It props up the paper money, the assigner. And Paris is still getting supplied with just enough food to keep going. So, that's fine. Obviously, they're winning the war. I mean, they've turned the tide in the war. So, there are two big victories in the autumn against Britain and Austria at a place called Enchut and Vatigny.

24:47And then we talked a little bit about this last time. They've turned the tide against the Federalist rebels and against the Vendaians. So, they recaptured Lyon on the 9th of October. And then a week later, they won this big victory against the Vendaian rebels at Cholet. So, at this point, let's say October. So, this is about the point when downtown is falling ill and going away. You might say, well, brilliant. The terror has worked. Why don't we ease off now? We don't need to arrest so many people. We can give the sans-sang and the people working on the guillotine can have a few days off.

25:21And actually, there are people saying that at this point. Even, you know, there are people who have the courage to say it. So, there's a writer and deputy called Louis-Sébastien Mercier. And he said, I can't believe we're continuing with the terror. The Montagnards are men of blood and mud, stupid and ferocious beasts. So, what happens to him? Of course, he's thrown into prison. Yes, not reasonable to say such things. It's counter-revolutionary, isn't it? And part of that is because Robespierre and Saint-Just, I think in particular,

25:52have a vision of the terror that goes beyond just winning the war. They, at this point, see it as an essential tool to transform France into this virtuous, sort of almost utopian republic. And they are doing what they see as positive things, as well as just guillotining people now. So, to give you a couple of examples, they are encouraging lots of local jacobin clubs in the provinces. They're saying, you know, it's your job to go out there and to convert France,

26:23to start again, sing patriotic songs, have rallies, have readings, do all this stuff, educate the people. Well, don't forget, Robespierre had been to a Jesuit educational foundation, and the Jesuits are very keen on, you know, give me the child and I will give you the man. Exactly that. Education is a huge part of this, Tom. Yeah. Education, education, education, as another great revolutionary said. They have a plan for free education to the age of 13, and they have a new curriculum which will inculcate republican virtues.

26:53They're very interested, in a very 21st century way, in language and in the names of things. So, they want to rename whole towns, whole streets, parks and things, after the virtues that they think the republic should celebrate. So, in Orléans, for example, the different neighbourhoods are renamed. They're called things like Liberté, Égalité, Brutus, Rousseau, and so on and so forth. I mean, that's something we're very familiar with today. Was it somewhere like Birmingham had a diversity street, you know, integration avenue, kindness, close, or whatever?

27:28Diversity Street, I think, was the name of a song sung by David Brent. Well, that says it all, doesn't it? The true heir to the revolution. A very disturbing thing, actually probably the worst thing they're doing, is designing the metric system. Yeah, that's very bad, isn't it? So, plans have been afoot for that for a little while. The convention is still working on it. The convention says the metric system is a symbol of the equality and a gauge of the fraternity that should unite all men. Because, of course, it's rooted in rationality rather than in organic tradition.

28:03Chaotic imperial madness. Exactly. And, talking about language, they want to eliminate the polite vous. So, anyone who studied French at school will know there are two words for you, vous and vous. And they want to stop people saying vous because it is old-fashioned and formal. Although, one person who cannot stop himself is Maximilien Robespierre because he's so prim and formal. And he automatically keeps saying vous when everyone else would be saying tu. In the same way that he's wearing his culotte and his waistcoats.

28:35I mean, it's good to know that they want to make French more like English. Yeah, exactly. Get rid of the genders. I think that would be the key thing. No le and la. No need for it. So, there's a lot going on.

Hebert and de-Christianization

28:47And yet, there are some people who think it should go even further. And chief among them is a man we met last time. He is the editor of a newspaper called the Père Duchesne. He is the scatological, pornographic, ultra-populist Jacques Hébert. The scourge of Marie Antoinette. A man who I'm guessing that most people who listened to our last episode will not have a positive view of this bloke. And Hébert presents himself. He says, I am the champion of the working classes and of the streets.

29:18People are angry about high prices and food shortages. And the government should do something about it. They should be regulating the economy. They should be ensuring cheaper food. They should be having more surveillance to stop all the aristocrats who are clearly behind all this. People should be informing on their neighbours for hoarding food. And we should be executing merchants and shopkeepers who are not selling cheap food. It's blue sky. Yeah.

29:45Hébert is really going for it. So there's that. He's really going for the shopkeepers. But he's really going for the Catholic Church. We'll be talking more about the sort of religious side of the revolution in the next episode. But for now, just to simplify it, Hébert and his allies, particularly in the sort of government of Paris, the commune, are really keen on this de-Christianization, anti-clerical agenda. They want to convert churches to temples of reason. They want priests to show their Republican commitment by abjuring their vows, getting married, giving up the church.

30:22And they get a fair bit of momentum towards the end of 1793. So of about 60,000 priests in France, some 18,000 of them, under pressure from Hébert and his cronies, abandon their status as priests, including the Bishop of Paris. Hey, Dominic, the Archbishop of Paris to you. The Archbishop of Paris. I can't believe I've mis-bishoped him. He's encouraged to do this by Chomet and Hébert, who pay a visit to him and say that unless you do it tomorrow,

30:57you will be sentenced to death as an enemy of the people. And the whole being a martyr thing doesn't really kick in with him. He goes, fine, whatever. He had a look at the record of martyrs that he presumably had been speaking about for decades. He said, actually, on balance, I probably will give it up. Yeah. I actually wanted to get married anyway. And the irony is that he ends up being guillotined as... Oh, no. That's terrible. ...for having abetted the terror. So they're holding bonfires of sacred relics and vestments and things, Hébert and Co.

31:28And most famously in Notre Dame on the 10th of November, they hold this festival of reason. And it's a deliberately kind of sacrilegious festival. So, Hébert, in place of the altar, which he calls a stage for charlatans, he puts up a throne of liberty and he gets a very nubile young woman to come and play the goddess Liberty. Very nubile, but apparently with bad teeth. And slightly scantily dressed. Very scantily dressed. And she's perched on what will be a bit of a theme of this whole de-Christianization movement, which is a papier-mâché mountain, which is placed in the middle of the nave.

32:04And they put a Greek temple on it and she sits on the top. They carry her through the streets, don't they, to the convention, and they install her in the convention next to the president of the convention, who presumably is delighted by this. So, the thing is, I mean, obviously there are a lot of people in France who are good Catholics, and a lot of people who take religion quite seriously, and who are shocked by this. And one of these people, I mean, he's not necessarily a good Catholic, but he thinks it's a serious business, and that's Maximilien Robespierre. He hates it. Robespierre is a daist, isn't he? Yeah. He believes in the supreme being.

32:37Robespierre is not a man for a satirical joke, or indeed any form of joke, no. And he is horrified by all this. I think in two levels. I think as a believer in a deity, but also he sees it as mad to needlessly offend Catholics. What's the point? I think you're absolutely right. He thinks it's wrong, but he thinks it's politically wrong as well. And Robespierre, whenever he sees somebody make a mistake or do something that he thinks could undermine their cause, his natural reaction, his instinctive reaction is to say, well, why would Hebert do that?

33:15Has Hebert been put up to this? Why would he do something that will help our enemies? So, there's a seed of something in his head, I think, from this point. Anyway, 21st of November, so just a few days after this, Robespierre gives a speech. He attacks the atheist campaign for what he calls its exaggerated zeal. And actually, thanks to his encouragement, the convention then votes a couple of weeks later to uphold and protect freedom of worship. In other words, if you are a good Catholic, don't worry. Carry on. We won't let Hebert throw you on the bonfire, as it were.

33:47Now, above all, at the beginning of December 1793, the convention passes a thing called the Law of Freemare, which reasserts the power of the central government. This is under the pressure from the committees. The committees say, look, Hebert, radicals, people on the streets, all of this, they should not be directing the revolution. We should. And the convention votes that basically the convention and the committees will control what happens. We are not going to let other people do this. And this is really important because the trend of the revolution has been so anarchic for basically decentralization, giving power away.

34:26And now they're turning back and they're saying, actually, we've gone far too far down this road. We need a proper, efficient government. However, that doesn't mean they want to dismantle the terror. What they want to do is to centralize the terror, to institutionalize it as the guiding principle of government into 1794. It's not going to end before 1794. That's clear. It probably isn't going to end in 1794. In fact, is the terror ever going to end at all?

Danton returns and forms the Indulgents

34:55Well, so this is the context for Danton to return to Paris from the countryside where he has been ill. And he comes back around the 19th of November. So that is the peak of Hebert's campaign against Christianity and the terror is in full swing. Slightly disappointingly, it's quite hard for us to know what Danton is thinking. Unusually, we have really few sources about Danton compared with other big figures of the revolution. But as far as we can tell, Danton is tired of the relentless radicalization.

35:30He thinks the terror should probably start to be wound down. He thinks we can't wage war against all these enemies forever. Some sort of deal is going to have to be made with the Austrians and the Prussians. And ultimately, we've got our republic now. Let's enjoy it. Let's settle down and have some stable, sensible government. Have a massive dinner. Yeah. He's becoming a little bit restist politics, isn't he? He's becoming a little bit sort of sensible government. So in the next few weeks, he gathers this little group of supporters and they're called the, let's anglicize it, they're called the indulgence.

36:05So in other words, they are people who, you know, agree with him. We should calm down a bit. People should agree disagreeably. Agree disagreeably. No, sorry, I should disagree. Agree. Yeah, hold on. No, on the rest is politics. They agree disagreeably, don't they?

36:25Yeah. And most of the people who associate with Danton, then, I mean, the thing is, they are at this point, because he's slightly unfashionable, they are not the absolute big name top dogs. They're slightly second rank figures. He's been dropped from the football team. He's on the bench. Yeah, he has been. And the people who he's hanging out with are the people who can't even get into the first team. So to give an example, there's somebody we'll come back to. He's a former actor and poet called Philippe Fabre de Glantin. And this bloke, Fabre, he designed the new revolutionary calendar.

36:58But the one really interesting person that Danton associates with, an old friend of his, actually, someone we've met before. Back in the year, I mean, about 17 years ago, when we started the French Revolution, he's a young man called Camille de Moulin. If listeners can remember, just before the fall of the Bastille, there was this scene of this young man, pale, long-haired, standing up in the Palais Royale in the centre of Paris on a table in a cafe, exhorting everybody to rise up against Louis XVI. And this was the kind of one of the great triggers of the whole revolution.

37:29And this guy, Camille de Moulin, he's now 33 years old. But people always treat him like he's about 10, don't they? They do. They completely infantilise him. They don't call him de Moulin. They always call him Camille by his first name because they see him as immature. Robespierre and Camille had been at school together. They had been to the same Lycée Loulacan. De Moulin was two years younger than Robespierre, but they were great friends. They read Cicero. They read Tacitus. They read Rousseau.

38:00All of this. Robespierre was a witness at De Moulin's wedding. He married a very sparky, clever young woman called Lucille, who also was very invested in the revolution. God, I hope nothing bad happens to her. Yeah. I mean, let's hope I haven't introduced her or anything to kill her off.

38:18De Moulin is much more excitable than his friend Maximilien. He is more sentimental. He becomes a Montagnard deputy, but no one ever gives him a proper job. And as you say, he's always seen as a bit of a, one historian calls him an immature, lightweight. So, you know, he's unreliable. He's a bit babyish. All of this. Camille De Moulin has been shocked by the turn towards the terror. And he was reportedly horrified by the execution of the Girondin.

38:48It was claimed later that he had cried out in horror when the death sentence was handed down. And by the time Danton comes back, De Moulin has started to publicly call for particular acts of clemency. For example, because of the sort of xenophobia of the revolution in some ways, of the terror anyway, they're clamping down on foreign citizens. And De Moulin says, oh, this is really unfair. You know, leave them alone. Now, he's a useful ally to Danton for two reasons. Number one, because De Moulin is friends with Robespierre, childhood friends.

39:21So useful to have him. But also because De Moulin, for all his supposed immaturity, he's a very talented journalist. And two weeks after Danton's return, and almost certainly with Danton's encouragement in connivance, he launches a new newspaper. It's called Le Vieux Cordelier, the Old Cordelier. And it's sort of looking back to the early days of the revolution. You know, remember the old days when we were full of idealism, you know, at the Cordelier Club, in the Cordelier District, all of this.

39:52The first issue of this comes out on the 5th of December, and it's a blistering attack on Hebert and his faction. And De Moulin says, you know, Hebert takes public money to produce this newspaper, and he fills it with the language of the charnel house. Hebert talks about how he loves the revolution. Yet when I was giving speeches encouraging people to march on the Bastille, what was Hebert? He was collecting tickets in the Variety Theatre, which he was. He was a ticket collector. The second edition, five days later, De Moulin goes for Hebert's atheism.

40:24He says, this campaign against Christianity is undermining the revolution. It's doing the foreigners' work for them. And both of these issues have been read and approved by Robespierre. Robespierre is fine with them, because Robespierre thinks Hebert's getting a kicking. Brilliant. You know, Robespierre's sick of Hebert. But then the next two issues, which come out on the 15th and the 20th of December, go much further. So the 15th, which is issue three, De Moulin prints an attack on the terror, and he disguises it as a sort of fake translation from Tacitus.

41:00So it's basically Roman emperors, you know, swapped liberty for tyranny. They change simple glances, sadness, compassion, sighs, even silence into crimes. So there's that. And then issue number four is a really direct challenge to the government. De Moulin says, we have lost sight of what this revolution was meant to be about. It was meant to be about happiness, reason, equality, justice. He says, we've got two committees, public safety and general security.

41:31We should have a committee of clemency because we've got 200,000 people in prison. And I think we should let a lot of these people go. They've done nothing wrong. Be kind to them. Yeah. And he addresses Robespierre directly, his old friend. And he says, you want to remove all your enemies by means of the guillotine. Has there ever been such great folly? And these two issues are an absolute sensation. So government agents report to the committees that they are selling out.

42:01People are reading them out in the cafes. People are applauding what they're hearing. And why have they struck such a chord? Well, why they've struck such a chord goes back to something outside Paris. Obviously, there are always people who don't like a police state. So there are lots of people who don't like the terror, never liked it. But also, there are, I think, specific reasons of timing. First of all, these issues come out precisely to the point when the French have just had an amazing victory. They have retaken the crucial naval base at Toulon.

42:33From the British. Not least. From the British. Thanks, not least, to a young man called Napoleon Bonaparte. So the war is now going really quite well. But at the same time, news is reaching Paris around about Christmas 1793 and then the early days of 1794 about the reprisals that are taking place where they've already defeated the rebels. So we'll be hearing more about these in the next episode. But Lyon, thousands of people blown up by cannons or bayoneted or shot. Nantes, 2,000 people drowned, forcibly drowned in boats that were towed out into the Loire and then deliberately sunk.

43:12And then, of course, the Vendée. So in the Vendée, thousands of people executed, entire towns wiped out, children, women forced to dig their own mass graves. Because one junior officer, I mean, this quote repeats it a couple of times in General History of the Revolution. I mean, it really jumps out at you. One junior officer wrote, we will use steel and flames, a rifle in one hand, a burning torch in the other. Men and women, all of them must die except the small children. But the bonkers thing about that, he wrote it to his mother.

43:45Yeah. Like, that was his letter. Dear mummy, just to fill you in on what's going on. Anyway, even in Paris, there are a lot of people who think this is actually going much too far. This is bonkers. Like, we can't kill everybody. Rob Speer is not one of them. Rob Speer doesn't like the arbitrary use of terror. No. But Rob Speer does believe in terror as a guiding principle. He does believe that violence must go hand in hand with virtue because otherwise virtue is powerless.

44:15It must be virtuous. Yes, exactly. But he's not in favour of random atrocities to the degree that some of the revolutionaries are, I think. Exactly. We will see. He falls out with people who he thinks are just being sadists. Yeah. But Rob Speer thinks if it's properly planned and if these people are enemies of the people, sure, they've got to go. Yeah. So when Desmoulins is attacking the terror, Rob Speer thinks, well, this is just stupid and childish from Desmoulins. He's not serious. When Danton attacks the terror, Rob Speer thinks, this is typical Danton.

44:46He's corrupt. He's too lax. He's worldly. Again, he's unserious about protecting what we've got. So on Christmas Day, which is now a working day for the convention, there's the fifth day of Niveaux, as they call it, under their new calendar. Rob Speer gets up and he gives a big speech in the convention and he says, you know, I'm going to explain the principles of our revolutionary government. And Rob Speer says, we are fighting for liberty against its enemies and the war's not over.

45:16Rob Speer sets out his theory of what becomes known as the foreign plot. So this is, of course, something that has been brewing since the beginning of the revolution. But Rob Speer says, you know, I know that Britain, Austria and Prussia have a secret network inside France. They have agents in the clubs. They have agents in the ministries. They have agents here in the convention among the people I'm talking to. There are people who are working with the British. They know all about us.

45:46They caress our passions. They try to sway our opinions. They turn our own resolutions against us. And Dominic, they have his brother, Augustin, had been to Toulon. He'd been a kind of agent on the scene at Toulon. And so he had been there and seen for himself the collaboration in Toulon with the British. So he's paranoid about the British. And the very fact that people are arguing in Paris is for Rob Speer proof. Pitt's gold. Exactly. British gold. So he says, you know, we in your committees, are we going to ignore the voices on the one

46:21side that are saying that are fanatical and overzealous? And on the other side, the voices of kind of weakness and moderation, we're going to stick to our course and do the right thing. And there's this great torrent of applause from the convention and Rob Speer breathes a sigh of relief. However, this does not solve the issue of Danton and Desmoulins because what does he do about them? His friends. Two weeks later, Rob Speer goes to the Jacobin Club. And it's a very febrile mood in the Jacobin Club because, of course, they are Jacobins

46:53too. And Rob Speer actually starts the meeting in quite a conciliatory style. He says, look, what I'm going to say to you tonight is enough of the factions. I see no factions anymore. I see only Frenchmen. You know, there's just us, the French people, against our enemies. This is what the Kaiser said, by the way, at the beginning of the First World War. I see only Germans. Is there anything that would join all French people in the common cause, Dominic, that they could rally behind? I mean, you think you've heard some bad things in this episode with the drownings and the

47:24shootings, but now it gets worse. I should warn listeners, if you're driving, pull over because Rob Speer is going to say something very, very incendiary. This is a massive trigger warning. He says, for tonight's debate, I propose the following subject. The crimes of the English government and the vices of the British constitution. Monstrous. That's insane from Rob Speer. You know, he's really let himself down. He deserves everything he gets. So they're about to embark on this demented debate, slacking off the British. And then Desmoulins turns up. He turns up late.

47:55And as he makes his way in, there's a bit of heckling. You know, some of the hardliners are shouting at Desmoulins, you know, I hate your newspaper. And there's an argument that breaks out about the newspaper. And some people start shouting at Rob Speer, you know, are you going to condemn this? He's your friend. And Rob Speer tries to play this cleverly because he is still very fond of Desmoulins. And he says, I agree. Camille should renounce his political heresies. His writings are dangerous. They give hope to our enemies. And then Rob Speer says, however, we should distinguish between the person and his works.

48:30I mean, this is so patronizing. Camille is a thoughtless child. He's 33. Who has good inclinations, but he's been led astray by bad company. And the bad company is Danton, is it? Danton and people like that. Exactly. Yeah. So let's not expel him from the club. Let's burn his newspaper in front of the members of the club. To Rob Speer's horror, Desmoulins does not take this as the gift that Rob Speer intends. Desmoulins is like, what? Burn the newspaper? Are you mad? And Desmoulins says, I reply in the words of Rousseau.

49:05Burning is not an answer. So that's a famous phrase from Rousseau. And Rousseau is Rob Speer's great hero and political lodestar. Imagine how provocative that is for Rob Speer. This huge argument breaks out. Rob Speer basically issues a threat to Desmoulins. He says, you must learn Camille that if you were not Camille, you would not be treated so lightly. In other words, watch your head. And actually, of all people, the person who jumps in to try to say, come on, let's leave it.

49:35Let's leave it. It's Danton. So Danton jumps in, managed to calm it down. But what Danton does not know is that Rob Speer is now in possession of a secret that could destroy him. Because in the last few weeks, informants have been coming to Rob Speer and Saint-Just with bombshell revelations about this foreign conspiracy to undermine the revolution. And these are revelations that, for Danton, will be literally fatal.

50:06Blimey, what could these revelations be? Only one way to find out. Join us after the break. I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX's The Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. No, stop! Or not.

50:36We are outgunned. And we are outmanned. But we have each other.

50:43FX's The Bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+. Welcome back to The Rest is History. So, Dominic, at the end of part one, you were promising bombshell revelations. What are these bombshell revelations?

Fabre and the foreign plot

50:58Okay. So, one day in the middle of October 1793, one of Danton's friends, the bloke who designed the new calendar, Philippe Fabre d'Aglantine. He sounds a robin. Yeah, a terrible name. He asked to see Rob Speer and Saint-Just. And they met him. And they met him along with the Committee of General Security, the police committee. And Fabre said to them, I have sensational information about the foreign plot to undermine the revolution. He said, I have uncovered this network of spies and basically financiers, speculators, Spanish, Belgian, Austrian, Czech, Prussian, loads of different names.

51:40It's this big web of very shady characters. And a lot of these people are posing as foreign friends of the revolution. And they are being funded by the worst people in the world, the British, by William Pitt. They have infiltrated our clubs. They've infiltrated the convention. They have even infiltrated the ruling committees. And it is these people who are funding the factions, criticizing the government. For example, Hebert and his ultra-radical campaign. They are the spearhead of this.

52:13And Rob Speer and Saint-Just listen to this. And they are shocked, of course. They're appalled by it. But they are not surprised because, of course, they've always believed there was a foreign plot. This is just confirming everything they had suspected. Is there really a foreign plot? No. This is the crazy thing. This bloke, Fabre, has made all this up. So basically, this isn't an absolutely bonkers story. Fabre has made this up to hide his own corruption.

52:46So what Fabre has been doing is, we mentioned in the first half, that there's been a lot of corruption. There's a lot of money changing hands, bribes and all of this. Fabre and some of his pals have been extorting and embezzling vast sums of money from banks, from life insurance companies, and above all, from a company called the French East India Company, which is in the process of being wound up by government order. So Fabre's been taking all this money, and Fabre's worried that Hebert is going to expose him.

53:17So what he thought he'd do is, he thought, well, I'll denounce Hebert as a tool of a foreign conspiracy. I'll tell Robespierre what he wants to believe. I'll bring down Hebert before he can expose my corruption. Because that's the key, isn't it? That he's telling Robespierre what he knows Robespierre will want to hear. Completely. Exactly. Now, at first, Robespierre and co. don't do anything with this information. They sort of sit on it. But clearly, people are talking because rumors start to spread. And the rumors spread around the convention. There's talk of corruption.

53:47There's talk of foreign bankers and embezzling and the plot and all this. And at this, another deputy, who's called Francois Chabot, he's also worried about being exposed for quite separate corruption. So he goes to see Robespierre with a different conspiracy. He says, I have evidence that foreigners and royalists are behind a plot to embezzle money from the East India Company.

54:19Got it. I mean, if you had shares in the East India Company, you'd be getting them out with all this talk going around. You would. So that's the company that Fab has been embezzling from. So at this point, Robespierre has information from two different people about basically two different plots. Both of them are kind of fictional. But both of them are inspired by real corruption, by people trying to cover up their own corruption. And Robespierre, when he sits down and looks at these plots, he says, well, it's pretty obvious that both of these plots are real. And they're both part, clearly, of the same conspiracy.

54:52There's this massive spider's web of foreign financiers, corrupt deputies, and the East India Company. And as Robespierre sits and thinks about it, he thinks, well, this explains everything. This explains Hebert and his attack on the Christian church. It explains all the faction fighting, the criticism that we've been getting about the terror and the convention. All of this is being funded by the British. That flipping William Pitts is behind the whole thing. And Fab, remember, is friends with Danton.

55:23And Danton is famously corrupt. Danton is incredibly corrupt. Both Fab and Danton have been criticising the terror. So at this point, does Robespierre seriously think that Danton is part of a foreign conspiracy? I think it's very hard to say because we don't have a window into Robespierre's mind. But what is definitely true is that if Robespierre wanted to think that, he could, he now has the ammunition to do it. And there's also all that, the chat of the fact that Danton had been making over to us to Marie Antoinette and the Austrians in the summer.

55:58So this is all part of the swirl of conspiracy theory. There's a lot of chat about Danton generally, isn't there? I think there's been, for months, there has been talk that Danton is not quite as pure. He's not as dedicated. Well, he's not incorruptible. No, exactly. So Robespierre doesn't rush into action. I think if Robespierre had genuinely been burning with hatred for Danton, he would have used this straight away. He doesn't. What he does, though, is he prepares the ground.

56:30So all through January 1794, they've had this row at the Jacquemain Club, which we had before the break. In the next few weeks, he's talking to the enforcers of the revolution, the Committee of General Security, who run the police in the Revolutionary Tribunal. And a lot of the people on the Committee of General Security hate Danton because they quite enjoy running the terror. And one of these guys is called Vadier. And Vadier says, when they're talking about Danton, Vadier says, he has this extraordinary line, I'm looking forward to gutting that fat turbot.

57:02And when word of this reaches Danton, if you'll forgive my language, it's Danton's language, not mine. He says, if Vadier touches me, I will eat his brains and shit in his skull. So it's just like Cicero. Yeah. It's like the dying days of the Keir Starmer government.

57:19So the 17th of January, to 10 days after the row at the Jacquemain, the Committee of General Security make their first move. They arrest Fabre and they arrest Chabot. So these are the two informants. And they arrest a few of Danton's other friends. Now, meanwhile, the tension between Danton and Robespierre is growing almost day by day. Danton is still giving speeches saying, you know, we should not go to extremes. If anything, we should err on the side of liberty. And when he says about erring on the side of liberty, that seems to send a coded message that he's against the terror.

57:54There's then a sort of pause for 10 days, which is dominated by arguments about the revolt in what's now Haiti and Saint-Domingue. And ultimately, the abolition of slavery. A huge, huge issue, huge deal. We don't really have time for it. Today, we'll have to do it in a separate series, I think. But the day after the abolition of slavery, which is the 5th of February, Robespierre gives another of these landmark speeches, clearly aimed at Danton. It's a banger of a speech, this. It's a big speech.

58:25What's the point of the revolution? What's the point of the terror? And he borrows from Cicero, of course, who they've all read. They're all obsessed with Cicero. And he paints this picture of this republic of virtue in which, you know, vices will become virtues and all of this. And he says, we want France to be the model to the nations, the terror of oppressors, the consolation of the oppressed, the ornament of the universe. That is our ambition. That is our aim. You know, a wonderful vision.

58:55But we cannot have that without the terror. Without terror, virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice. Famous, chilling words. Yeah. And he says, you know, the critics of the terror say the terror is falling on ordinary people. But it isn't because if you're a virtuous patriot and you're a citizen, you have nothing to fear. If you are against us, you have no rights because you cannot be a citizen.

59:28You're putting yourself outside the republic. So as long as you stay in the tent, the terror will never fall on you. You don't have anything to worry about. Now, as R.R. Palmer says in his great book, Twelve Who Ruled, the thing about this is basically it's kind of a recipe for permanent terror. Because Rob Spear is saying the terror will fall on you if you ever step outside the tent. But basically, he's saying if you ever criticize or if you ever disagree, you are not a citizen. You are not a patriot.

59:59You are not a Frenchman. And therefore, you know, there's only one way you're headed. And that's you're getting on your tumble. Rob, this is the kind of blueprint for the 20th century totalitarian states. But I guess to defend Rob Spear, he doesn't know that. He is still negotiating the contours of this kind of new dispensation, which is something very novel and potentially chilling, as you said. But I think you have to believe in Rob Spear's incorruptibility.

1:00:35He does think he's doing the right thing. But that's the chilling thing, though, isn't it, about Rob Spear? He's totally sincere. Yeah. If he was here now, he would say, you don't understand. I am going to build a better world. I genuinely am interested in virtue. Because virtue without terror is nothing. That's exactly what he thinks. That is exactly what he thinks. But it's telling, I think, because people keep falling ill so often in this series. It's a sign of how overwrought Rob Spear is, that he gives the speech and he immediately falls ill, overworked, stressed. He seems, I mean, everybody has it, but he does seem especially prone to burnout.

1:01:09And he retreats for almost a month to the DuPle family's house, which is where he lodges, which you described before. Now, while he's away, the pressure carries on building. France is now mobilizing militarily on an unprecedented scale in European history. 700,000 men in uniform. The whole economy is basically being put to work to feed and supply the army. And that means that everything else is deteriorating.

1:01:40So on the 23rd of February, government agents report to the committees. The situation in Paris is really alarming. There are shops that are completely empty. The butchers are all closed. People are fighting in the streets for food. And when merchants arrive in the city with supplies in the countryside, they're being attacked by mobs of women who are scrabbling to get all this bread or vegetables or whatever. So it's like 1789 all over again. It is like 1789 all over again. But the committee are very unsympathetic. So the committee actually say, well, if the public, you know, they're whinging about no bread,

1:02:12they must cultivate Spartan virtues. Georges Couton says, what are they complaining about? All they need is a single scrap of me today. If I had the police power in my hands, I would make privation the order of the day. Slogans for happier France. Of course, the person who's benefiting from this is Hebert on the ultra radical wing. Because by early February, Hebert has turned his rhetoric up to 11. He is running these absolutely ferocious editorials saying, you know, tavern keepers, butchers,

1:02:46grocers, farmers, get them all to the guillotine. If they can't provide for the people of Paris, we will, you know, punish them until they do. There are protests in the streets. There's this sort of sense that we've had so often the revolution of momentum, of tension, of moving towards an inevitable showdown. And that moment seems to come on the 4th of March, 1794. Hebert goes to the Cordelier Club, founded ironically by Danton. And he says, you know, heads have got a role.

1:03:16I've got a list here of 73 deputies. These are people who supported the Girondins. They've got to go. Desmond has got to go. There's a lot of moderates and weaklings. They're traitors. They've got to go. And at the end of this meeting, they take a black veil and they put it over the framed picture of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. And they say, we are not going to withdraw it until the people have recovered their sacred rights. And everybody understands this is the cue, the signal for a new insurrection, a new attack on the convention, effectively a new sans-culottes coup.

1:03:52But the difference between this and previous ones is that this one fizzles out almost immediately because they call to the sections of Paris, the neighborhoods. But only one of them, the Cordelier, their own one, is the only one that answers the call. The Paris Commune, the city government, doesn't call out the National Guard. There is a sense, I think, that Paris is exhausted. That basically people are sick of grabbing their halberds or whatever and, you know, taking to the streets.

1:04:23Is this the first time that an attempt to outflank the kind of establishment on the left fails? Yes, it is. That radicalism up till now has always seemed to have the wind in its sails. And this is the first time that the wind doesn't blow the sails. Yes, it is. That's what Hebert's fate absolutely denotes. It's like this far and no further.

The fall of Hebert

1:04:44However, the radical energies of the revolution have reached that kind of natural limit, I would say. So amid all this, amid all this kind of chaos, the convention votes to renew the powers of the Committee of Public Safety for another month. And that same evening, Robespierre returns from his sickbed for the first time in weeks. And he goes to the Committee of Public Safety. It's a momentous sort of late night meeting. Saint-Just has brought along a big report on the rival factions, a denunciation of the factions. He says, I want to read this to the convention tomorrow.

1:05:17The rest of the committee say, fine, go for it. So the next day, the 13th of March, Saint-Just gets up in the tribune of the convention. And he reads out what he calls a report on the factions of foreign inspiration and on the conspiracy plotted by them to destroy representative government by corruption and to starve Paris. And Saint-Just says to the convention, Saint-Just is a very compelling speaker. People are frightened of Saint-Just as a speaker because he's so good at it. He says, all of this that we see on the streets right now, the food shortages, the political opposition, the sense of mounting chaos.

1:05:52This is part of a vast conspiracy masterminded from London. A conspiracy so vast that it's penetrated the clubs and it's working through the factions. People who are moderates, people who are extremists, they're all pretending they are working for our enemies. Every faction is criminal because it works to divide our citizens. And as Palmer says in his book, it's not the voice of revolution. It's not the voice of rebellion. This is the voice, the language of men in power. So it's the language of authority stamping out dissent.

1:06:24And that evening, the committee makes its move. Hebert and his key collaborators are arrested and taken off to prison alongside, and this is a very reign of terror trick, this bizarre collection of people that they will just throw in to try to give the appearance of a conspiracy. So to quote Palmer on this, the people arrested included a Dutch banker, a French general, a hairdresser, a bookseller, a tobacconist, a doctor, a surgeon's apprentice, an ex-peasant woman, and someone described as a man of letters.

1:06:58String up the man of letters. Definitely. Someone described as a man of letters is a very nice touch. It's like in the old days of my mid-market newspaper, tub thumping when I used to refer to people I disapproved of as self-styled intellectuals.

1:07:19Anyway, these people are all dragged in front of the tribunal. They're accused of being a foreign conspiracy. The trial begins on the 22nd of March. Hebert is accused of trying to undermine the economy, but there's a tax on shopkeepers. Hebert can't believe this. Yeah, he's the toast of the streets. He's a friend of the people. Yeah. Hebert is completely stunned by this, and he doesn't take it seriously, I think. He thinks the streets will rise and rescue him, and this doesn't happen at all. And when he's proclaimed guilty on the 24th of March, and he's sentenced to death, Hebert is stunned.

1:07:52He can't believe it. Don't you know who I am? Yeah, exactly. He's taken away. He's taken straight to the guillotine. There's a massive crowd, and people are so excited about this. I mean, Hebert, the man who wanted to guillotine everybody else, he's getting guillotined, and he disgraces himself. He's a shambles. He's no Marie Antoinette. So he does not behave with, yeah, the dignity of the ex-queen. No. So one man in the crowd, the government agents reported to the committees what was said. So there's brilliant quotes. One man in the crowd apparently said of Hebert and his collaborators, they died like cowards without balls.

1:08:28And another one, sounding very Trumpy, and I have to say, said, we thought that Hebert would have more courage, but he died like a loser.

1:08:39Thank you for your attention to this matter. Yeah, he died like a dog. Anyway, that's the end of Hebert. Now, as you said, Tom, this is a very significant moment in the revolution, because it's the first time you've had authority versus the streets, and authority has definitively won. And there's a sense, I think, now, okay, it's clear where the revolution's not going to go. You know, it's not going to tip over into this sort of ultra-populism. However, the other implication of this, the committees wanted to hold what they saw as the line between the two factions.

1:09:15They've basically crushed one. What are they going to do about the other, which is Danton and his allies? So now we come back to the issue of Danton and Robespierre. As you said at the beginning, it's seen as this kind of titanic duel between these two completely different personalities, struggle for the soul of the revolution, all of this. A struggle for power between two implacable antagonists. But that's really not right. Robespierre, I think, does not want to kill Danton.

1:09:45That's why it takes so long to do it. And he genuinely, I think, hopes that Danton will come round. So if you've seen the film, in the film from the 1980s, there's this very celebrated scene where Danton and Robespierre have a kind of reconciliation dinner. Organized by Danton in the film, which I think is not correct. And Danton is like stuffing himself with oysters. He's like a man at the rest of his history as Christmas dinner. Wine, port, foie gras, you name it. It's all funny. But Robespierre is just sitting there, chilly, doesn't want to eat anything.

1:10:18Actually, in the written sources, most of them say that they had this meeting, Danton was very emotional, and some of them say Danton burst into tears. Those sources tend to come from the later 19th century, and I think what historians think is they probably, what probably happened was, it might not have been a dinner, it might have been a dinner, we don't know. But they must have had one or more meetings in the last week in March, Robespierre saying to Danton, could you give us your support, could you back the committees, you know, surely we can find a way through this.

1:10:55And Danton not playing ball, saying, no, I don't agree with you, I think the terror has to end. I think, I mean, I remember that Robespierre, the stories that Danton cried, that Robespierre saw this as a malign tactic on the part of Danton to make him feel bad. Yeah, exactly. But they're so emotional, they're always crying, aren't they, the French revolutionary leaders? I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable by Danton. Anyway, the truth is, the sources on this are so vague, it's impossible to know. What we do know is that by the end of March, Robespierre has made up his mind that Danton has to go.

1:11:26It is clear to Robespierre, Danton is not going to abandon his campaign against the terror. And actually, Desmoulins has prepared a new issue of the Vieux Cour d'Eulieu, and it's seen as so damning about the Committee of Public Safety that the printers are refusing to touch it. So, as Robespierre sees it, I mean, people always tell the story from Danton's perspective, completely understandably, and not Robespierre's, but just from Robespierre's perspective. Robespierre's perspective is, Danton is going to destroy the revolution.

1:11:58The terror is what's keeping the revolution going, and Danton is going to destroy it, and he's surrounded himself with a load of kind of total mediocrities and actors. Plus, he's massively corrupt, and he's always taking bungs. Yeah. And you can't have that in a virtuous republic.

The arrest of Danton

1:12:14No.

The arrest of Danton

1:12:15So, the last days of March, Robespierre and Saint-Just prepared the indictment. The case, as we've said, writes itself, right? The corruption. We know that Danton took dodgy money. Robespierre has all these allegations of massive conspiracies and things. And, you know, Danton has been unguarded, and he has said things to Robespierre that most people would laugh off. But Robespierre, you know, he's not a funster. So, when Danton said to him, they were talking about virtue, and Danton said to Robespierre, I know no virtue greater than that which I practice every night with my wife, Robespierre does not smile at this.

1:12:52He thinks this is disgraceful. And Saint-Just thinks it's disgraceful as well. And in the speech that he will give against Danton, he cites that specifically and clearly does not take it as a joke in the slightest. And I think the lesson is it's dangerous to make jokes when Robespierre and Saint-Just are on the scene. Completely. So, late on the evening of the 29th of March, the drama is set in train. So, there's a joint meeting of the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security. Saint-Just presents them with his indictment.

1:13:23He says, I'm going to read this in the convention tomorrow, and then I'm going to call for Danton's arrest. And the men from the General Security Committee, basically the political police, Verdier and Amard, they say, are you mad? Danton's a brilliant speaker. If you read this out in the convention, Danton will reply, he will destroy you, and then you'll look like a fool. You arrest him first, get him safely locked up, then denounce him. Saint-Just is very offended by this, by the thought that they don't rate his rhetorical ability compared with Danton's.

1:13:57He basically has a strop. He throws his hat in the fire and then storms out. That is a strop. Yeah, it's a massive sulk. So, he storms out, and actually all the other members of the Committee of Public Safety say, do you know what, you're right. We probably should arrest him first. So, they agreed they'll do that. They drew up the warrant. One by one, they sign it. You can see this in the film, very famous scene. One member of the Committee of General Security says he won't sign it. And also a member of the Committee of Public Safety, Robert Linde, who's in charge of supplying the army.

1:14:28And Linde says, my job is to provide for our citizens, not to execute our patriots. And that little hint there of a fracture within the Committee of Public Safety, between the people who are getting stuff done, Linde, Karno, and people like that, and then the people who love talking about virtue and organizing executions, that's going to become more pronounced in a couple of months. Anyway, this meeting breaks up. So, it's now the early hours of the 30th of March. I think it's pretty clear that in the next few hours, rumors spread and somebody tipped Danton and Desmoulins off.

1:15:04There are various accounts of what was said. Danton, supposedly, one version said that he was told, flee the city. And he said, no, they won't move against me. They wouldn't dare. Danton was cocky. Another version, he's told to emigrate. And he said, no, I will never leave France. You cannot carry your homeland on the soles of your shoes. A nice line. And there are stories that Desmoulins went to see his old classmate, Maximilien Robespierre, went to his house, but was turned away from the door and said, I am lost. If he won't see me, I am lost.

1:15:36Anyway, that night, the 30th, they are arrested. They're taken to the Luxembourg prison. They're going to face trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal. We don't have any accounts of the scene when they were arrested, unfortunately. But we do know that the next day, the 31st, the news spread very quickly. It was a massive sensation. A police agent reported, people are stunned and don't know what to think. And in the convention, a scene of total chaos. So one of Danton's allies rushes into the convention. He says, unbelievable.

1:16:06Danton's been arrested. Citizens, I declare that Danton's as pure as I am. It's an unwise thing to say. Yeah, I know. I know. God. I mean, lots of trouble, why don't you? Risky. So there's tumult in the hall. This guy who broke the news is called Legend. He says, they should bring in the prisoners. Bring in Danton and Demer. Let them face their accusers. Bring in the committee. Let's have this out. And Rob Speer forces his way through the shouting throng of people. He's described as pale with anger and seemingly impelled by the sense of a great danger.

1:16:39And he gets up there and he says to the convention, from his perspective, not unreasonably, we've arrested so many people. Why does Danton get special treatment? You know, we should treat the people we arrest equally. And he says to them, do you not have the courage to break a false idol? And then he is followed onto the tribunal by Saint-Just. The archangel of death. Icy kind of recital of the charges. Danton was working with the foreign plot. Danton was taking money. And if you doubt it, look what's happening to France.

1:17:12Look at the shortages. Look at the collapse of our currency. Look at the hoarding of goods. Look at the unrest in the provinces. This is all the foreign plot. The men we are denouncing were never patriots. They were aristocrats, more adroit and cunning than those at Koblenz, i.e. the immigrés. Yeah, their maxims were those of Catiline. Exactly. So they've gone from being Cicero, they've become Catiline. So this does the trick. The Robsbier-Saint-Just combo, which often works. The convention fall into line.

The trial of Danton and Desmoulins

1:17:42And so it is that two days later, on the 2nd of April, Danton and Desmoulins are led into the Palais de Justice for trial by the tribunal. And as with Hébert, the committee have muddied the waters by throwing in a load of random people, bankers and things. There's a Dutchman, a Belgian, there's two Moravians, there's a Dane, and there's a Spaniard. I mean, to be fair, everyone hates a foreign banker. They do. Exactly. I thought you were going to say everyone hates a Dutchman, but... No, I love a Dutchman. You love the Dutch. And Fabre and Chabot, they're also there.

1:18:13So the two blokes who'd gone to Robsbier to save themselves with their plot stories, they've failed to do so. And the point, of course, is throwing so many people in this to create a sense of conspiracy. And from the start, Danton's in great form. He says to his fellow prisoners, Provided they let us speak at length, I am sure of routing my accusers. I don't think he thinks he's going to get away. He thinks he's just going to humiliate them and they will execute him, but he will go down fighting. And history will reward him. Yeah. He'll leave a name to posterity.

1:18:43Completely. At this point, I think I have, I do have to say, Danton is very confused in my mind with Winston Churchill, because I think this is exactly how Churchill would have behaved. You know, the sort of, the bumptiousness, the arrogance. Looking to history as his judge. Completely. Yeah. I mean, this is so Churchillian. They ask him at the trial. Yeah. He's sort of checking into the prison or something. What's your name and address? And he says, I will soon be living nowhere. As for my name, you will find it in the pantheon of history. I mean, that's amazing.

1:19:13Yeah. But Des Moulins is even less modest, isn't he? Yes, he is. I mean, Des Moulins, to be fair, who's often described as this sort of immature weakling, they ask him for his age. And he says, I'm 33, the same age as the Saint-Coulot Jesus Christ, when he stood before Pontius Pilate. I mean, you can see how, basically, if you were standing next to Danton, you'd raise your game, wouldn't you? You'd raise your repartee game. And actually, what follows, the trial. The trial is one of the great set pieces in all French history. So it's held in the Palais de Justice.

1:19:45It's packed. The galleries are rammed with spectators. Massive anticipation. The prosecutor, I mean, you couldn't make this up. The prosecutor is Des Moulins' distant cousin. He's a guy called Fouquier-Tainville. And he's always described as the villain of the piece, that one of Stalin's prosecutors. But actually, I think that's a bit unfair. Most historians say Fouquier is actually quite a conscientious lawyer and a stickler for details, methodical, serious and stuff.

1:20:15And he completely fails to keep order. So people are shouting all the time from the galleries. Danton, who's a very big man, is just treating this as a stage. He's like a kind of bull tossing dogs left, right and centre. Completely. And he's so loud. Everyone says he's got this tremendous voice. He's so loud that people are standing in the street outside, outside the building, and they can still hear him. He says this on day one. Men like me cannot be bought.

1:20:47On their brows are imprinted in ineffaceable characters, the seal of liberty, the genius of republicanism. And I am accused of having crawled at the feet of vile despots. And the court president tries to cut him off by tinkling this little bell. And Danton says, The voice of a man who has to defend both his life and honour must vanquish the sound of your little bell. So that's day one. He's warming up. Day two is the turn of the defence. Foucault presented the indictment.

1:21:18At this point, Danton is just on absolutely titanic form. He doesn't bother looking at the jury or the judges. He does all of his remarks to the spectators. And he says, My friends, you will judge me when you have heard me. My voice will be heard, not just by you, but by all of France. And the world. And the world, exactly. He says, you know, where are my accusers? Where is Rob Spear? Where are the committees? The cowards who slander me, but do not dare to attack me to my face. And at the end of the day, he ends with these absolutely magnificent lines.

1:21:51If ever I'm on trial for some driving offence or something, I'd like to think I'd go down like this. During the last two days, the court has got to know Danton. Tomorrow, he hopes to sleep in the bosom of glory. He has never asked for pardon. You will see him fly to the scaffold with his usual serenity and the calm of a clear conscience. Do you know, I almost want you to be arrested for a traffic offence. Let's say that I can hear you deliver that peroration. Do you know the reality would be so banal?

1:22:22I'm so sorry. I'm a bit tired. So, for the authorities, this is a terrible embarrassment. And it's actually getting worse because at the beginning of day three, Danton says, I would like to call a long list of witnesses in my defence. And he has a huge list of deputies from the convention and even members of the Committee of Public Safety. And the judges say, no, you can't call all these people. And the crowd start hooting and shouting at them. And Fouquet-Tainville, the prosecutor, who is described by one witness as affolé, which means panicked,

1:22:54he scribbles a note to the Committee of Public Safety. And he says, look, this is totally out of control now. If we don't change the rules, I cannot guarantee that we will get Danton's conviction. And Saint-Just rushes to the convention and he says, we have a national emergency. I have to say, this is shameless from Saint-Just. We've all been talking about his, you know, their rigid principles and their belief in their own virtue and they're really sincere and all this. But this, I cannot be sincere. This is cynical.

1:23:25Saint-Just says, Danton's allies in the prisons are planning a mass breakout and they're going to murder members of the convention. And actually, Desmoulins' wife, Lucille, is in on it. She's one of the organizers. That's not gallant, is it? It's not good from Saint-Just. And Saint-Just goes on to say, look at the way Danton is behaving in the courtroom, shouting, dominating, all of this. Doesn't that prove he's guilty? What innocent man ever revolted against the law? I mean, a chilling sentiment. Basically, defend yourself. It proves you're guilty.

1:23:56And the convention approves an emergency decree that the prosecutors can remove defendants from the courtroom if their behavior insults the justice of the nation. That same day, by the way, the Committee of General Security issues a warrant for Lucille Desmoulins' arrest as well, so Desmoulins' wife. Now, she, in the interim, had written Robespierre a very moving letter, reminding him of their old friendship and how important he'd been to their family. She said to him, do you think the people will respect you for destroying your friends?

1:24:28Do you think they will bless somebody who doesn't care about a widow's tears or an orphan's plight? And she even went to Robespierre's house, but Robespierre refused to see her. I mean, the thing is that for Robespierre, this is the index of his virtue, because he is genuinely distraught at the thought of them dying. Yeah. I'm such a kind person, I'm killing my friends. Well, but, you know, who would you betray, your friends or your country? He's betraying his friends. Yeah, exactly. So, in the meantime, Fouquet-Tainville now has what he needs.

1:24:59The next morning, the 5th of April, Danton and Coe are removed from the court. They're dragged out, and as they're dragged out, Danton shouts furiously. He says, we're going to be judged without being heard. And then he says very mockingly, you know, go on, take us to the scaffold. Fouquet says to the jury, I believe you've heard all you need to. Can you make your decision? The sentence is, of course, death. As they're waiting in the Luxembourg prison, Danton seems rueful. He's actually quite wry. He says, funny thing is, none of those people know anything about government.

1:25:31If I left my balls to Robespierre and my legs to Couton, the Committee of Public Safety might last a bit longer. I think that's a really good line. Des Moulins, however, is crushed at the thought of parting from his wife, Lucille. He doesn't know at this point that she has been arrested. And he writes to this last letter, very affecting, one of the most well-known letters in French history. My Lucille, my darling, despite my torment, I believe there is a God. One day I will see you again. Adieu, Lulu.

1:26:02Adieu, my life, my soul, my goddess on earth. I feel the shores of life receding before me. I see you again, Lucille. I see my arms around you. My tied hands embrace you. My severed head rests its eyes on you. But she never actually gets to read it because she has now been locked up as well.

The final execution

1:26:22So late that afternoon, they are taken to the guillotine. Dusk is falling. You described the scene, the eyewitness account. Des Moulins, just before he was executed, was told that his wife had been arrested and he was devastated. He fought with the executioners on the scaffold until the shirt had almost been ripped from his body and they have to force him into the guillotine. And then Danton goes last. He cuts this incredibly defiant figure, that amazing last line. Don't forget to show my head to the people.

1:26:53It'll be worth it. You know, a very fitting epitaph. And finally, Lucille Des Moulins, she was guillotined a week later and she wrote a very affecting last letter to her mother before she died. Good night, dear maman. A tear falls from my eyes. It is for you. I am going to sleep in the tranquility of innocence.

1:27:12So that's that. Danton's dead and Robespierre and the committees have won. And on the face of it, Robespierre now appeals unassailable. And he and his allies have crushed their critics and they've sent a clear message that basically any challenge will not be tolerated. However, inside the committees, it's clear there is now a mood of deep suspicion. So the army guy, Carnot, later said that spring, so let's say March, April, we had to move our meetings to a different room

1:27:43so that people would not be able to observe the storms that agitated us. And of course, in the convention, if you're one of the deputies and you've just seen Hébert on, as it were, the left go to the guillotine and you've seen Danton, one of the more moderate wing, go to the guillotine. You know, if they can both go. Anyone can. Who's to say you're safe? And actually, even at this point, with Robespierre apparently at his peak, there are signs that this cannot last and people who think this can't last.

1:28:16And there's a story that when Danton was on his way to the guillotine in the tumbre, he looked up as they went past Robespierre's house and he said, almost to himself, you will soon be following us. They will tear your house down and they will sow the ground with salt. And as we will see, he was not wrong. Thank you, Dominic. The stage is now set for the climax of this series, the dramatic final weeks of the Reign of Terror.

1:28:50So next week, two episodes to finish this series. First of all, the apotheosis of Robespierre, as he climbs yet another papier-mâché mountain to celebrate the festival of the Supreme being a very, I mean, kind of one of the most bizarre episodes in the whole of the French Revolution. And then the last episode, it's the final showdown as the convention turns on Robespierre and the revolution destroys its favourite son.

1:29:23And club members, of course, you can go ahead, hear those episodes right away. And if you are not a member of the club and you would like to join them, then sign up at therestishistory.com. And on Wednesday, very excitingly, club members will get a very special bonus, a discussion about the French Revolution with one of its best-known chroniclers, the great historian Simon Sharma. Au revoir. Au revoir.

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