Question

What polices did robespierre follow when he was inpower?

Answer 1

The socialists of the first generation, those who because they are insufficiently known are summarily qualified as utopians, professed a limitless admiration for Robespierre. The leader of the Chartists, Bronterre O’Brien, openly proclaimed himself his disciple and wrote an entire book in defense of his memory, a book whose title bespeaks its content: “The Life and Character of Maximilien Robespierre, proving by facts and arguments, that that much-calumniated person was one of the greatest men, and one of the purest and most enlightened reformers, that ever exited in the world.”

Bronterre O’Brien strove to demonstrate in that work that “the only ambition in the life of Robespierre was that of establishing in France the rule of virtue and universal happiness and reforming the social organization of all its members.” Robespierre rose up against the bourgeois class, which wanted to confiscate the Revolution to its profit by the constitution of 1791 and engaged it in a merciless combat.” Robespierre and his friends aspired to a true democracy which guaranteed every man the right to the entire product of his labor. If they worked at ensuring the constitution of 1793 it was more with socialist than political aims.” Political equality for them was nothing but the means; social equality was the goal.

The Chartist movement was thus directly inspired by Robespierrist thought.

Bronterre O’Brien came to Robespierre via Buonarotti, whose “Conspiracy for Equality” he had translated in 1836.

It’s a remarkable thing, and one to which insufficient attention has been paid, that English and French socialism have the same origin; that both grew out of Babouvism, which presented itself as the continuator and resurrection of Robespierrism.

All historians are in agreement in granting Buonarotti the most important part in the formation and education of the French socialist party of the era of 1830. The venerable descendant of Michelangelo, the glorious escapee of the High Court of Vendôme, was the leader of a school, a man who continued to preach by example; a kind of patriarch whose counsels were attentively listened to.

Ranc, who at the beginning of his career produced a popular edition of the “Conspiracy for Equality,” correctly noted that Buonarotti was the living link between the revolutionaries of the Directory and those of the Restoration, and that thanks to him the socialist tradition was not interrupted a single minute.

Little is known about his life under the Consulate and the Empire, and there is nothing surprising in this. A conspirator leaves as few traces of his actions as possible. It is known, however, that placed under surveillance in Geneva he founded, with the assistance of Marat’s brother, the Masonic lodge “Amis Sincères,” (Sincere Friends) which was affiliated with the Philadelphes. The lodge was dissolved by the prefect. We also know that after 1815 Buonarotti founded the group of “Sublimes Maîtres Parfaits” (Sublime Perfect Masters) which continued the Philadelphes. He strove to free Italy and worked at this through one of his students, Andryane, who was arrested in Milan in 1823. Expelled from Geneva after Andryane’s arrest he settled in Brussels and soon formed new disciples, like the Delhasse brothers and Charles Teste. It was there that he wrote “The Conspiracy for Equality,” whose first edition appeared in 1828.

Returned to France after 1830, he was actively involved in revolutionary agitation from the beginnings of the reign of Louis-Philippe. He inspired the most ardent section of the Society of the Rights of Man and the Society of Friends of the People. The insurgents of Lyon consulted him, but didn’t listen to the counsels of calm he sent them. Voyer d’Argenson had him to his home. Trélat and Hauréau listened to him recount his memories with admiration. Raspail went to see him. Louis Blanc, who perhaps owed him a few of his social ideas left us an apologetic portrait of him: “The gravity of his bearing, the authority of his ever-unctuous but severe speech, his visage nobly altered by the habit of meditation and a long practice of life, his vast forehead, his gaze full of thoughts, the proud outline of his lips, accustomed to prudence, all of this made him resemble the sages of ancient Greece. He had their virtue, the penetration, their goodness. Even his austerity was of an infinite gentleness.” Louis Blanc, who proclaimed himself Buonarotti’s student, explained that he was little known to the crowd, living retired and unnoticed. “His action was far from being without strength... Poor and in order to live reduced to giving music lessons, from deep within his retreat he governed generous spirits, made many hidden gears move, and in the sphere in which he exercised his ascendant, assisted by Voyer d’Argenson and Teste, he held the reins of propaganda, whether it needed to be speeded up or to be slowed down.” It is probable that Louis Blanc owed him his admiration for Robespierre.