The Revolution Eats Its Maker

He had sent thousands to the guillotine. On July 28, 1794, the guillotine finally came for him.

Maximilien Robespierre, known as "the Incorruptible," had been the moral voice of the French Revolution — and then its most feared enforcer. As the dominant figure of the Committee of Public Safety, he presided over the Reign of Terror, during which tens of thousands of people were executed for treason, sedition, and conspiracy.

On July 26, 1794, Robespierre gave a menacing speech to the National Convention, warning of traitors and conspirators in their midst — but refusing to name them. Every deputy in the hall went home wondering: am I on the list? The next day, July 27, they struck first. Led by men like Jean-Lambert Tallien, the Convention turned on Robespierre and voted to arrest him.

He fled to the Paris city hall, hoping his supporters would rise up. They didn't. In the chaos of the night, Robespierre was shot in the jaw — whether by a young gendarme or by his own trembling hand, historians still argue. He spent the night in agony, bandaged, fading in and out of consciousness.

On July 28, he was hauled before the Revolutionary Tribunal and, declared an outlaw, was sent to the Place de la Révolution with no real trial. He climbed the scaffold with his jaw still wrapped in bandages, and that afternoon the blade fell. With him died 21 associates — including his closest allies, Saint-Just and Couthon, and his own brother Augustin. Their bodies went into an unmarked mass grave.

With Robespierre died the Terror. The Thermidorian Reaction that followed dismantled the machinery of the revolutionary government, eased the purges, and eventually produced the Directory — and, five years later, Napoleon Bonaparte.

The French Revolution promised liberty and devoured its own children. July 28, 1794 is the day it finally turned on its maker.

Photo: 'The Death of Robespierre,' an engraving published in London in 1799 (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.