“Passersby, do not weep for my fate. If I were alive, you would be dead.”
INITIATION
They call me Incorruptible. I was born in Arras. Does that matter?
Until 1933, no one in my town remembered me. Ciel !
Since childhood, I was disciplined and brilliant. I wrote letters and treatises. I sucked on candies. I danced sarabandes. How lovely was my Ophelia Mondlen!
At the Metz Academy, I wrote Éloge de Gresset, a treatise on criminal law—pocketing 400 francs.
I was accepted at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. I learned to love Rousseau—La Nouvelle Héloïsealways by my side.
Back to Arras. I am a defense attorney. I protect the poor and oppressed. I dress elegantly (see me as a young man, painted by Pierre-Roch Vigneron). Mmm, the delicious rustic cakes of Artois.
I win notable cases: “Vissery,” “Carnot,” “Déteuf,” the ruling in favor of Hilaire-Louis de Conzié, Archbishop of Arras.
Hail, Fame! Two pamphlets against royal taxation in the province of Artois (written in the secrétaire of my house on Rue des Rapposteurs) cause a stir: a new discourse, inspired by le Citoyen de Genève. I am read by illustrious figures from all over France.
In 1789, I was elected to the Assembly of the States General, convened by the king, in the city of Artois.
Paris, get ready!
VERSAILLES
On May 4, 1789, I went to Versailles: the premiere of Les États Généraux, a comedy of the absurd. Louis Capet greeting the void; la autrichiana porcelain smile; the nobles applauding their own funeral with silk gloves. The Third Estate preaches to deaf ears. I left before the second act. The stench of incense suffocates reason.
In June, someone paints me on canvas: my hands clasped over my chest, as if trying to hold back my racing heart—a gesture befitting a soft and hesitant Lafayette, not a purebred picardo, austere and tenacious like me.
Something inside me said: Go for it!
I spend my mornings in the Assembly. At night, my pen replaces my voice. They say that in four years I wrote five hundred speeches. Ha! I have no fortune or party: my only asset is my eloquence. I feed on my own liturgy. I am deliberate, precise, and unyielding. Saint-Just understood this better than anyone: “Maximilien speaks to purify.” Yes—oratory is my mass, my pulpit, and my altar.
Shh! I aspire to hypnotic clarity.
THE BASTILLE
The storming of the Bastille changed my life. Who believes that a fortress taken by the hungry decides the end of a monarchy?
The causes hide a tangle of appearances: taxes, famines, wars, misfortunes. When you unravel the tangle, the same thread always emerges. Yes, the Bastille was the rumbling. The ruinous war of 1786 against England? The 120,000 beggars that Mirabeau counted as if they were not souls? The floods of ’87, the scarce flour, the phantom bread? All symptoms, but the cause, as clear as blood on snow: despotism.
PARIS
Around that time, I decided to wear a white wig.
People think I’m reserved. In reality, I’m shy.
Some nights I go to the Théâtre-Français in the company of Lamartine. I object to comedy. Long live tragedy!
I was a founding member of the Jacobin Club. After the meetings, I enjoyed a few beers in the company of Saint-Just. I received many letters from women who admired me. They saw in me not a man, but a symbol.
The people are the king—the maxim is Rousseau’s. People think my love for the people is an extravagance. Non, mille fois non. History put me there. I have ashé.
I am the founder of class struggle!
Mirabeau est mort. Ah, Mirabeau! Tongue of thunder, spine of lead. Without your speeches and pleas, the Revolution would have progressed more smoothly. You claimed not to be a Jacobin. You were a broom, sweeping crumbs from a fallen scepter. You were killed by indigestion from a rotten pheasant, not by virtue. Blessed be your bed, more merciful than the guillotine!
I asked for the hand of Maurice Duplay’s daughter. Éléonore: you looked at me in silence without asking for anything. We did not marry—and not for lack of tenderness. You kept my medallion until the end—they say you wore it on your chest like a wound. Hélas, my faith offered to another abstract and cruel cause. I called it virtue; you called it madness.
From Marat, explosive words were expected—followed by silence that awaited the cry again. I met him at chez les Duplay. A dwarf, hunched over with Herculean shoulders, guillotine manners. Low forehead, shaggy hair, gray eyes, bile-colored skin. He dressed as if hygiene were counterrevolutionary. Not fierce, ferocious.
He wants to make his mark, break tongues, cut off thumbs, impale half of Paris. No one escapes his murderous pen: Mirabeau, Lafayette, Condorcet, Danton. Even the heroes of the Bastille! He respects me. We are well-matched. Assembly day. I am impeccably dressed. A fine green cloth jacket, fitted at the waist, with straight tails.
A pale yellow satin waistcoat, buttoned up to the neck. An impeccable white shirt, stiff front, and lace cravat around the neck. White knee-length breeches, held up with discreet buckles. Silk stockings, light-colored, without wrinkles. Black shoes with laces, polished, without a speck of dust. Of course, powdered hair: neat side curls, the tail gathered with a ribbon, without extravagance. No sword. No jewelry. Nothing to remind me of the aristocratic pomp I so despise.
Today is August 10, 1792, and the monarchy is collapsing amid the tolling of bells, the roar of cannons, and the sharp crack of rifles. Rage, fear, pain, fury, jubilation—all the passions of France mixed into a single clamor. The crowd stormed the Tuileries.
And the royal family? They were torn from their sleep by the ringing of the bells of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, the same bells that once announced the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre.
I do not follow George Washington. My models are Lycurgus, Brutus, and Cato the Elder.
I created the Revolutionary Army, a militia of Cederista squads that I entrusted with the surveillance and punishment of the vermin. Down with the scum!
Couthon has introduced me to a concoction called tea. I have developed the habit of drinking a cup at the club every afternoon while reading L’Ami du peuple.
I established the Committee of Public Safety. I like that word: committee. How about “Committees for the Defense of the Revolution”?
My favorite menu at Chez Duplay? Boiled chicken, bread, cheese, and a glass of lemonade. For dessert, candied fruit. Do you find it bland? I am no friend of heavy meals or ostentatious seasonings. I chew slowly and prefer silence. If the conversation is frivolous or vulgar, I look for the slightest excuse to leave the table.
“Women adore him, men admire him”: that’s how they write about me in
Chronique de Paris. And the reason they give? I am incorruptible.
My enemies accuse me of being relentless. They are wrong; my voice is not born of hatred. It is justice crying out! When I speak of the people, I do not reason: I feel. Their suffering is my language, their virtue my faith.
Is it inhuman for the Republic to be incorruptible?
(September 4, 1792) I have been unanimously elected vice president and first deputy.
Poor Louis, nature did not conceive him to reign. He was clumsily molded for the bland existence of a prosperous bourgeois, or—to be generous—the decorous smallness of a rural gentleman.
Affairs of state exasperated him. His only interest was hunting, which he had to give up when he arrived in Paris. Since then, he took refuge in a ridiculous pastime: playing with locks and keys, locked for hours in a room prepared exclusively for that purpose. France was burning while Louis carved mechanisms. The people begged for bread; he played with keys. He was not a tyrant by choice. He was simply a useless man with delusions of power.
(November 4) Six hundred soldiers from counterrevolutionary and federalist regiments in Marseille marched through Paris yesterday demanding “the heads of Marat, Robespierre, Danton, and all those who defend them! Long live Roland! No to the king’s trial!”
My life is in danger. My friends are hiding me.
MY GOOD LUCK
The Gironde saw me as a moralist without power. My influence was not in the corridors, but among the people of Paris. They launched attacks in newspapers and pamphlets, confident that they would be enough to bring me down. While they published articles, I shaped political consciousness. They could have arrested me. They didn’t. They could have expelled me from the club. They didn’t. They could have mobilized the provinces against me, nana nina. Worst of all? The idea of killing to save the revolution repulsed them.
177 Girondins have been guillotined. I saw four of them march one day. Vergniaud, Brissot, Gensonné, Lasource… the cart moving down Saint-Honoré Street. Without the angry crowd chanting for revenge. A heavy silence, as if the city were holding its breath. They sang La Marseillaise—France did not listen. Vergniaud smiled, accepting his fate. Brissot whispered. Lasource prayed. Gensonné looked out the windows, searching for a hand that never appeared. When I heard the drums stop, I felt neither joy nor hatred. The blade fell four times, one after the other, without drama. It was all over, and the crowd did not shout. Worse, it barely murmured. The revolution does not forgive.
Days later, I had a horrible nightmare about Madame Roland. She was walking dressed in white. She was holding her severed head, as if it were a lamp. Is this virtue, Maximilien? I wanted to answer, but my tongue was bleeding.
THE KING MUST DIE
On a cloudy day, I ordered the king to be killed. Paris was in suspense, the very air waiting for a verdict. My speech—one of the clearest and most inevitable I ever gave—was born not of a desire to shine, but of certainty. The Revolution cannot retreat without disappearing. Freedom does not allow for truce with the executioner.
They say Louis must be tried. I ask: for what purpose? If Louis can be tried, then he can be acquitted. And if Louis can be declared innocent, what remains of the Revolution? Who are the guilty ones? All those who fought, suffered, and died believing they were defending freedom. If Louis is innocent, then his imprisonment is a crime; his downfall, an injustice; the insurrection, a betrayal. In that case, the entire nation—the people of Paris, the National Guard, the Assembly, the volunteers, the martyrs of liberty—we would all be criminals. And who can believe such a thing? The people do not condemn kings: they overthrow them. Louis is not a defendant. Louis is an enemy. And an enemy of the nation is not acquitted. Louis must die so that France may live!
I AM POWERFUL AND UNHAPPY
I have pushed through the Law of Suspects to annihilate the counterrevolution. The suspects? Former nobles, officials of the old regime, refractory priests, merchants accused of hoarding, people without identity cards, and, in general, anyone denounced for counterrevolutionary attitudes—even without evidence. Down with the vermin!
I have given power to the people. They are honest and childish. They enjoy watching each other. In France, there are snitches to make crème brûlée.
A certain Louise Jaquin has proposed marriage to me in an eloquent letter. I replied no. I have another love called the Assembly. When was the last time I masturbated?
During the year I ruled, I defended the peasant as if he were the heart of the Republic. I wanted property to lean in favor of humanity; I spoke of protecting those who work the land. However, I did not achieve agrarian reform. I thought about it, I named it without pronouncing it. Ylich Uliánov will come: mystical bald man, dialectical goat, dogmatic mustache. He will die surrounded by vermin, everyone waiting to position themselves in a world without him.
Have I gone too far with my Dangerousness Law? I am blamed for almost 2,000 guillotined. Traitors! They kill for pleasure and then blame me. I have lost my appetite.
With the death of Danton and Hébert, I imposed my total authority. Neither the left nor the right can cope with terror. Hébert, a salaud.
Danton… you, even in the Jacobin Club, the room full of smoke and hope. You were the roar of the people made flesh. I admired you, yes—not for your virtue. Something forbidden to me burned in you, a living, impure fire. You spoke of freedom, glass raised high, laughing among corpses. I defended you, even when your corruption stank. On the scaffold, you declared to the executioner: “Show my head to the people; it will be worth it.” Why did you say that?
FALL OF THERMIDOR
(July 26, 1794) Fate has me by the scruff of my neck. I haven’t been to the Assembly in two weeks. I know they are conspiring against me. What did I do wrong? I believed that virtue could defend man; then I realized that man can rarely defend it. I confused purity with caution. No one dared to contradict me; “Long live Robespierre!” they said—hypocrites waiting for my downfall. Being right? It’s not enough. Men prefer the inertia of lies to the sleeplessness of truth. I feel so alone!
(Dawn of the 26th, by lamplight) The hall sleeps, but the conspiracy watches. The corrupt Barras whispers against me in the corridors. As long as I live, he will not be able to return to his feasts of raised glasses celebrating the misfortune of the people. Fouché repeats his catechism; he hates that I do not forgive his stilted patriotism. Tallien imitates them out of stupidity: he seeks redemption and trembles before his own bloody decrees. Barras saves his skin, Fouché his reputation, Tallien his vanity. Three discordant logics, one single knot. I can hear it clearly: “Die so that we may live.” Then d’Herbois appears, the fourth leg of the table: the smallest and the most useful. He acts out of wounded vanity. He still dreams of the applause he never received, the glory he never achieved either on stage or in politics. He lives by humiliating those who shine and biting those who outshine him. The circle closes: Barras betrays me out of convenience, Fouché out of resentment, Tallien out of fear, and d’Herbois out of revenge. Four different paths, one gallows. I am not destroyed by enemies: I am destroyed by those who applauded too much. Tomorrow they will shout freedom with the same voice with which they prepare the noose today. Qu’importe. The fall does not belie the height. Let them decide. I decided long ago.
The counterrevolution in the hands of a coalition of men loyal to Danton, representatives of the Marsh, and secret agents of Louis XVIII. Vadier, are you betraying me? Inquisitor of pantomime, prosecutor of routine, virtuoso of suspicion. You smelled terror, expensive perfume. You feigned prudence and exuded venom. You disguised your resentment as reason. Conspiring against me was your only lucid act: the cunning of a mouse biting a dying cat. Ha, your betrayal came too late: history forgot you before the executioner sharpened his blade. Now that all is quiet, I think you did not hate me; you feared being my rival.
(July 27) I arrive at the Assembly and they almost prevent me from speaking. I bring with me a blacklist. There are three defendants: Cambon, Mallarmé, Ramel-Nogaret. I declare that there are other traitors without naming them. I take the floor and people tremble. Cambon, until then a discreet ally, interrupts me. We argue. My voice is drowned out. His reply reverberates and changes everything. Now my accusation defeats me. Disorder in the chamber. The enemy voices grow in waves. Revolt is born of panic. The edifice of virtue collapses. Save yourselves, whoever can. They forcibly remove me from the podium. The parliamentarians reproach me for the atrocities. They do not fear me, they hate me! Antoine Garnier invokes sacrilege: “Robespierre, you hesitate… Danton’s blood drowns you.” I have signed my death warrant.
(6 p.m.) They demand my arrest. What am I accused of? Treason against the Convention. Me, the Convention! For the first time, I hate that word: treason. My whole life summed up in one word, now turned against me. I have uttered it a thousand times to defend the Republic, and now they throw it back in my face.
(July 28, 2 a.m.) We arrive at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Bad news: they are coming for me. I have decided to kill myself—but no one can make a decision in the midst of a fall. I aimed at my forehead; my hand trembled and the shot ended up in my face. I don’t know if I missed or if I regretted it a second too late.
The bullet tore out my jaw and teeth; blood is coming out of my mouth, nose, and ears. My right eye can no longer see. I am nothing but pain and noise. I want to die.
The news comes amid screams and footsteps on the stairs: one after another, all my people have fallen. La Bas has blown her brains out. My dear Augustin threw himself out the window. Saint-Just is under arrest, cold and perfect as ever, defeat has no right to touch him. Couthon was pushed down the stairs in his chair: not even the invalid is spared.
(July 28, dawn) They lift me onto the cart. The bandage tightens around the wound; every bump is a blow to the skull. I cannot speak. My jaw hangs loose. People stare at me—some horrified, others satisfied, most confused. Yesterday they demanded virtue; today they demand spectacle. They point their fingers at me. There goes the tyrant! They throw stones, rotten fruit. I bleed onto my green coat, soaked in scarlet. I think of the speeches, of the dream of an honest republic, and now I cannot speak. I have lived for words and I die without a mouth.
On the corner of Rue Saint-Honoré, I see someone crying. Paris passes by, and I pass with it.
The cart stops abruptly before the scaffold. Two guards lift me up; I feel my legs trembling; I can still back out. No. Not now. The fall does not belie the summit.
I think one last time—not of death, but of the Republic. The executioner tears the blindfold from my face. My jaw comes loose. I howl in pain. They force me to kneel. With a push, they place my neck against the edge of the guillotine. I hear: Down with the tyrant! Honor, come for me.
A bloodcurdling whistle shakes everything.
EPILOGUE
After my execution, they threw me into a mass grave in the old cemetery of Errancis. No tomb, no name, no cross; just a ditch for the plague victim. In 1797, they closed Errancis, and later—as if sweeping away a tasteless remnant—they moved the bones to the Catacombs of Paris. There, my bones were mixed with those of thousands of citizens executed during the Reign of Terror. Today, no skull bears my name. History has rendered man anonymous. Underground, there are no factions, no Mountain or Gironde; no victims or executioners. All is dust and silence.
