Week 9: The Republic of Virtue

Textbook Reading: Censer & Hunt, Chapter 3. Read for discussion in class: Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), Speech at the Trial of Louis XVI (31 December 1792).

The Transformation of Political Culture

I. Ending Monarchy

Image: Louis XVI stopped at Varennes, 1791
Image: The King's Disguise, 1791
Image: Pierre-Gabriel Berthault, Arrestation de Louis Capet à Varennes, 1791 (1804)
Image: Louis' Return to Paris, 1791

Image: Georges Danton, Republican (1759–1794)
Image: Alexandre de Lameth, Constitutional Monarchist (1760–1829)
Image: Lameth Speaking at the Jacobin Club (1790)
Image: The Salle du Manège, seat of the National Assembly

A. Killing the King’s Two Bodies
1. The Insurrection of August 1792 and the Fall of the Monarchy
2. The Trial of Louis (Autumn 1792)

Image: Jacques Bertaux, La prise du palais des Tuileries, 10 August 1792 (1793)
Image: The Trial of Louis XVI (1792)
Image: The Execution of Louis XVI (January 1793)
Image: The Severed Head of Louis XVI
Image: Reception de Louis Capet aux Enfers

B. Revolutionary Republicanism as a Problem of Political Culture

Symbolizing the Revolution: Marianne and Hercules

Image: The Revolutionary Calendar
Image: The Festival of the Supreme Being (1794)

Image left: The Death of Robespierre. This engraving, based on a color portrait by Beys, depicts the death of Robespierre on the guillotine. The executioners wear not the traditional hangman’s hood but red bonnets representing liberty. This judgment notes Robespierre’s failure to the Revolution itself. Contemporaries emphasized that Robespierre’s punishment was just because it was the same to which "he had condemned so many thousands of innocent victims."