The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris, by Colin Jones

Abstract

It is a great irony that the Library of Congress has catalogued this book under ‘Robespierre’ and ‘the Reign of Terror’. In his innovative study, Colin Jones argues that, on the contrary, Robespierre should be decentred in the story of his own political demise on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794), and that the Thermidorian-spun narrative that the Terror concluded with his execution is inaccurate. In lieu of these frameworks, Jones offers a compelling third perspective to explain the momentous day. He highlights a constellation of institutional tensions (including those among sectional committees, the Commune, the National Convention, National Guard troops, artillery command chains, police branches and spy networks); long-term changes in political culture (including the rise of legalism, a growing suspicion of celebrity and the decline of sans-culotte influence); and a city-wide cast of characters with highly localised understandings of the journée (including militia troops, protesting workers, press owners and judges, among others).