Robespierre: Or, the Tyranny of the Majority 0207954771, 9780207954771

Citation preview

EAN MATRAT

ROBESPIERRE Or the tyranny of the Majority

'H'

V

ROBESPIERRE Or the tyranny of the majority

J

BY JEAN MATRAT EAN MATRAT HAS WRITTEN A BIOGRAPHY

of Maximilien Robespierre of unusual insight and clarity. He has scoured the voluminous

correspondence

between

Maximilien and his sister Charlotte and exhaustively searched the archives of the Jacobin Club. His brilliant text illuminat¬ ing Robespierre has been ably augmented by the numerous contemporary engrav¬ ings which reveal the people and places as they appeared while the bloody drama of the French Revolution unrolled before the eyes of a horrified world. The

author

sheds

new light on

the

punctilious little man who was born four months after the forced marriage of his parents. He shows the puny judge who suffered agonies before signing an order of execution, “Of course he’s a wicked man who deserves to die. But, to kill a man; to put a man to death!” We watch the martinet having his head meticulously powdered every morning. This

is

Robespierre:

The

Nile-green

incorruptible who remained icily implac¬ able to all appeals to humanity. The advocate of the Rights of Man who choked the people of Paris in their own blood in the name of Liberty. The man who, driven by his grandiose concepts of duty and what was best for his fellow man, found himself forced to employ methods he condemned. In a narrative that gains in momentum the author keeps our attention riveted on the most powerful and frightening figure of the French Revolution.

S

v'-.

S#i .

u?4 '

*

. ': . &

' V

* M"j

C £:

ii tli;

■

^

V .>

Sh

■

'

. ,

■

"

J

.^•?v-ly:V(.'-'

■!, :■$■ :-,i ••.••■:;

■

sws .V:£

M

S3*

|pSsES @*8 /> j |»« v % i . >4^

; Ms *•*