The Terror: Killing God (Part 5)

The Rest Is History

This episode examines Maximilien Robespierre's staging of the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, 1794, exploring how his rigid moral absolutism and desire for divine surveillance shaped the French Revolution's trajectory. The hosts

Key takeaways

• Robespierre staged the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, 1794 at the Tuileries, featuring a 2,400-voice choir and elaborate papier-mâché sets designed by Jacques-Louis David.
• The festival's central pyrotechnic allegory burned a cardboard figure with ass's ears (atheism) to reveal an unburnt statue of Wisdom, symbolizing Robespierre's belief that morality requires divine surveillance.

Main topics

• Festival of the Supreme Being
• Joseph Fouché's campaigns in Lyon/Nièvre

Notable quotes

"virtue without terror is murderous and terror without virtue is powerless."

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates how Robespierre's rigid moral absolutism and desire for divine oversight ultimately

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:03) you Speaker 2 (0:12) Let us be grave and discreet in all Speaker 3 (0:14) our deliberations, as men who determine the interests of the world. Speaker 2 (0:18) Let us be ardent and tenacious in our anger towards the leagues of tyranny, imperturbable in danger, patient in labour, terrible in adversity, modest and vigilant in success. Let us be generous towards the good, compassionate towards the unfortunate, inexorable toward the wicked, just towards all. Let us not count on an unalloyed prosperity, nor on triumph without obstacles, nor on anything that depends on the fortune or perversity of others. We should rely solely on our own constancy and our own virtue alone. But infallible guarantors of our independence, let us crush the unholy league of kings, even more. by our greatness of character than Speaker 1 (1:12) by the force of our arms. Speaker 2 (1:14) So that was a speech given by Maximilien Robespierre on the 8th of June 1794 in the gardens of the Tuileries in the centre of Paris. Now some people might find that stirring. Others might think it's the kind of thing that the headmaster of a minor public school might say at the first assembly of term or that a particularly weedy Church of England bishop. would say to his dwindling congregation. But actually, in this case, the occasion was the strangest and most colourful public spectacle of the entire French Revolution. That is saying something. So, Tom, when and where and why are we? Speaker 1 (1:56) This is a festival in honour of the supreme being. So, Robespierre had announced this deeply eccentric public spectacle. a month earlier on the 7th of May. And it was a great festival to which literally everyone was invited. Robespierre wanted it to be an occasion so civic that basically every citizen could turn up and enjoy the fun, enjoy the stirring oratory. And the whole occasion was very, very much his baby. He had gone to inordinate efforts to make it a success. And he had invested a lot of his political capital in putting it on because there's a fair degree of skepticism around it has to be said. So not only had he had himself elected president of the National Convention, so basically the official government of France, four days before this festival is staged so that he can play the kind of the constitutionally appointed central role in the whole proceedings. But he has also very thoughtfully had the guillotine moved from the Place de la Révolution, which is kind of just across the road, so that the sound of the blade slicing and the spurting of blood and the cheers of the crowd won't detract from the solemnity of this great event that he's planned. So very thoughtful. That's nice. And Robespierre has one of the great impresarios in all history at his side. And this is the painter Jacques-Louis David, who we did a bonus about with Laura Speaker 2 (3:30) Cumming. Death Speaker 1 (3:31) of Mara. Yeah, exactly. And he's prepared all kinds of extravaganzas for it. So he has a massive choir. And when they're all put together, all these various choirs constitute 2,400 voices. So that's quite a volume. Incredible stage sets, brilliant special effects, and some dazzling pyrotechnics. And he's also designed the costumes. He's hired florists with baskets to hand out flowers, freshly cut flowers. And he's got girls in white dresses to hand them out from these baskets. So very, very kind of attractive. Speaker 2 (4:11) He's learned his lesson from Mara's funeral, which was the last great spectacle that he staged. So he doesn't have any rotting bodies or severed arms falling off or anything like that. Speaker 1 (4:21) No, but even so, even though he doesn't have any postural ridden bodies, kind of. threatening foul smells. He is nervous when the great day dawned, much like a Rest Is History host who is staging a festival at Hampton Court Palace. Would such a person be nervous? I don't believe they would. Maybe one of us was a little bit. But Robespierre, he's trying to get himself in the mood. He's trying to kind of pep himself up. by looking at his absolute best. And of course, we've been talking throughout this series about how fastidious he is, how concerned about his appearance he is. And so he has put on his very best Republican finery. So he has an exquisite blue coat, which we'll be featuring later in the series. He's wearing a tricolour sash. He's got a plumed hat. But unfortunately, he's so nervous that when he left. the house of Maurice Dupleix, his landlord, he left behind a large bouquet of flowers that had been made for him by one of the Dupleix daughters. So that's very sad. And the other indication of how nervous he is, his stomach is clearly so knotted up that he doesn't have breakfast and he has to be persuaded to go up and kind of picket it. So he's very anxious. He wants this day to be a massive success. But in the event, you know, he needn't have worried because everything goes brilliantly. Everybody absolutely loves it. It doesn't rain. Everyone has an absolutely lovely time. And the great thing, thousands upon thousands of patriotic citizens do flock to the Tuileries to partake of the fun. Well, Speaker 2 (5:54) they love a Speaker 1 (5:54) public show. Yeah, there's a slightly Trump quality to the estimation of how many people turned up. So Robespierre's admirers say that half a million are there. It's probably an exaggeration, but it's certainly, it's very, very enthusiastically attended. And the girls all look lovely in their beautiful white dresses. The flowers all smell gorgeous. It's great. Everyone has a fantastic time. Speaker 2 (6:16) Oh, sounds wonderful. And David's stuff goes off, passes off much better than at the funeral of Mara, presumably. Yeah, brilliantly. Speaker 1 (6:22) So the morning's highlight. People gather around this enormous spectacle and it's a large statue of a hideous figure with the ears of asses made entirely out of cardboard. which I don't think sounds very impressive, but everyone is incredibly impressed by it. Maybe it's very thick cardboard. Robespierre is there. He's looking very natty in his sash and his blue coat. And he appears in front of the crowds. He gives a speech, which again, we're told goes down very well, but I suspect nobody can hear it. I mean, obviously there's no kind of amplification. Speaker 2 (6:55) I think this is the case with all open air speeches before about 1950, isn't it? The crowd loved it, but actually no one could tell what was being Speaker 1 (7:02) said. Maybe reports of it are being kind of funneled backwards through the crowd. I don't know. Anyway, then the excitement. He's presented with a torch, a flaming torch, and he sets fire to the cardboard figure. So it goes up in flames. And then from the flames, another cardboard statue emerges. And to quote Ruth Gerr in her biography of Rosbierre. This second cardboard statue was fair, majestic and only slightly singed. And this matters because this is an allegorical pyrotechnic stunt. And obviously, if you're doing an allegorical pyrotechnic stunt, you don't want both of your statues going up in flames because it turns out that the statue with the ass's ear represents atheism. And the slightly singed figure. that emerges from within it once it's been burnt is wisdom. So if wisdom had gone up in flames as well as atheism, the whole point would have been lost. As it is, the watching crowds cheer and toss their liberty caps in the air and shout hurrah for Robespierre. Robespierre gives another speech, which again, I presume no one can hear. And then everyone joins in with a patriotic hymn, which has been composed especially for the occasion. So, I mean, the fun is limitless. And then that afternoon, there's another spectacle. And this takes place in the middle of the Champ de Mars, just down from where the Eiffel Tower now stands. And all the deputies and the crowds have processed there from the Tuileries. And there, in the previous episode, Dominic, there was a papier-mâché mountain that had been built in the nave of Notre Dame. This is on a vastly greater scale. It's been built by David. presumably is excellent david has tremendous taste i Speaker 2 (8:49) mean a skeptic might say the french revolution is spending an awful lot of time making things that normally are made by four-year-olds in preschool glasses yeah Speaker 1 (8:57) you might say that but four-year-olds don't tend to um put statues of apollo on top of their papier-mâché mountains which is what david has done right and also there's a tree on the summit which i think is impressive i mean i've never seen a papier-mâché mountain with a tree on the summit Town nursery in Chippy Norton does some pretty good stuff, to be fair. The Fate. Yeah. Flower show. Nice. Anyway, so this is the huge Papier-Machy mountain, and it's the measure of the scale of it. is that all the deputies climb up the side of it and Robespierre perches himself right on the summit so the deputies then kind of congregate around him and meanwhile the mass choir that David's been rehearsing so that's all 2,400 of them they perched themselves decorously on the lower slopes of the mountain so I mean that is a massive amount of papier-mâché I mean I think that's quite impressive I would enjoy seeing that and I might also enjoy the spectacle that then ensues because it's It's an assemblage of patriotic songs. Okay. Do you like a patriotic song? Depends where it's from. I mean, Speaker 2 (10:02) a patriotic song from our own beloved country or from, I don't know, Costa Rica or Bosnia. I'd be all in favour of that. A patriotic song from just across Speaker 1 (10:12) the Speaker 2 (10:12) channel? Speaker 1 (10:13) Maybe not. I think the odds that they're singing patriotic English songs on a papier-mâché mountain in the middle of Speaker 2 (10:19) the Speaker 1 (10:19) French Revolution are low. I mean, these are French ones. And then there's this specially composed... hymn, and we'll be coming later to who this hymn is being sung to or what. Those are the kind of the festivities on the Papia Maschi mountain. And then finally, in a way that is deliberately designed to ape the athletic contests of ancient Greece, there is a display of sports. The crowds drift away, and it's generally agreed that a good time has been had by all. People enjoyed it. Speaker 2 (10:47) Although there are people who find this sinister, are there not? Speaker 1 (10:51) Ludicrous and sinister, I would say. Okay. Because some of the deputies who followed, um, Ross Pierre in a train, you know, like a kind of a crocodile, um, a school procession. They followed him from the Tuileries down to this Papier-Mâché mountain and then they followed him up the side of the Papier-Mâché mountain and they've had to congregate all around him. And they are scoffing and sneering and bitching away like nobody's business. Loads of them. They really think it's ludicrous. And I think that the general feeling is that the whole occasion is mad. that this is a bizarre way to spend your time. The people who particularly feel this are the atheists. Because the atheists have just seen this cardboard guy with the asses ears portraying their atheism torched. And the whole occasion, despite the tricklers, despite the patriotic songs, the object of the celebrations hasn't really overtly been the revolution. It's been a god. And this god isn't even a god with which most people are familiar because it's a very chill, distant, anemic god. And this is a god termed by Robespierre, l'être suprême, the supreme being. And this is what it's all about. This is a festival in honor of the supreme being. Now, who is the supreme being? So back in November, people may remember Robespierre. goes to the Jacobin Club and he publicly confronts the atheist trend that's been catching fire among the Montagnards. And he opposed this by saying that even if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him, kind of echoing the famous aphorism of Voltaire. But Robespierre definitely thinks that there is a God. And this is the God that he calls the supreme deity. And he denies that he has invented this God. He thinks this God exists, and he says that this is the God of the people, and that to think otherwise, to doubt the existence of this God, is counter-revolutionary. So in this speech that he gave in the Jacobin, he declared that atheism is aristocratic, which might sound ludicrous to us, but if you think about the tradition of aristocratic atheism in France, the Marquis de Sade is the most notorious exemplar. But the kind of sense that the characters that you would find in Dangerous Liaisons, that they don't believe in God at all, is very, very strong. Surely. I mean, yeah. The common people that Robespierre claims to represent. They Speaker 2 (13:27) all Speaker 1 (13:27) love God. Speaker 2 (13:28) They're not atheists. Speaker 1 (13:29) No, they're all believers. And so this is why it has some force. And Robespierre then goes on to say, the idea of a great being who watches over oppressed innocents and punishes triumphant crime is one that entirely belongs to the people. essence he's saying that if people don't believe that there is justice in the afterlife then how can they possibly believe that there is justice in this life that i think is essentially the core of his argument and that if they if they come to feel that there is no justice in this life then they will relapse into cynicism and despair and that is not what a revolution means at all Speaker 2 (14:04) well is it not right that basically for rob spier and so many of the other revolutionary radicals their belief in the revolution is tied up with their belief in moral absolutes, in an absolute morality. And if you take that away, then you have nothing. And Robespierre lives in a world, as we've talked about so many times in this series, of virtue and terror. And his belief in virtue, it can't come from, he's not a moral relativist, it doesn't come from nowhere. He believes that it is linked to a kind of metaphysical reality. Speaker 1 (14:37) Yes, Speaker 2 (14:38) that's exactly what he's saying. And more than that, Speaker 1 (14:40) He could point out that this idea, this notion of a supreme being who keeps watch over the revolution and is guiding it to its conclusion, that this has actually been determinist with the revolution itself. Because right from the beginning, the revolutionaries had been very keen to demonstrate and make exactly the point you were making, that their ideals are not culturally relative. They're not contingent. They're not... ideals that have been thrown up by circumstance. That they are absolute, they are eternal, they are universal. That is why the revolution can proclaim itself to be not just for the French, but for everyone across the face of the planet. And in this, of course, the revolutionaries are very self-consciously following the example of the founding fathers in America. And it's telling that Thomas Jefferson, who was serving in Paris as the American ambassador in the summer of 1789, had actually been on hand to give them advice. No Speaker 2 (15:41) wonder it went to the dogs and they all end up being terrible people. I mean, they were Speaker 1 (15:45) taking advice from one of the worst men in history. The role that Jefferson plays that's very significant, and we talked about this way back in our first series, he had helped the revolutionaries to draw up an equivalent of the Declaration of Independence with its insistence on human rights. the significance of human rights. And on the 26th of August 1789, the revolutionaries had not just formally asserted that human rights do exist, that they have a kind of absolute existence, but in very Jeffersonian terms had declared them to be natural, inalienable, and sacred, which they called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. And it is still being honored in 1794 as the foundational text of the entire revolution. And Robespierre absolutely reveres it. So back in 1793, he had said flatly, the Declaration of Rights is the constitution of all peoples. So not just the French, all peoples. It has a universal application. All other laws being variable by nature and subordinated to this one. And what enables him to feel confident in making this seemingly ludicrous assertion is another claim that had been made in the Declaration of Rights. It was there in black and white. that the Declaration of Rights had been promulgated, and I quote, under the auspices of the supreme being. And it's this supreme being, Robespierre believes, who has engraved the laws of eternal justice, and again to quote the Declaration of Rights, not upon marble or stone, but in the hearts of all men. And this is a massive deal for Robespierre, that this should be so, because for him, so much is at stake. Because should the French doubt that the promptings of what they can read on their hearts is genuinely expressive of the purposes of a divine being, then he fears the worst. And what he fears is the return of the tyranny that the revolution has been launched to overthrow. So basically the tyranny of kings. Speaker 1 (17:51) And citizens to behave well, Robespierre believes, need to feel that they are being watched at all times, because only then will they be steeled to follow the course of virtue. If they don't feel they're being watched, then they might get up to all kinds of shenanigans. And only if they follow the course of virtue will the revolution be fully secured. And there's a brilliant book on this by a guy called Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Right. This is why at the festival, The supreme being is symbolized, to quote Edelstein, primarily as a disembodied eye. So an eye that can see into the heart of every citizen. And Edelstein describes it as an internalized surveillance mechanism. Speaker 2 (18:36) Is that not a very common 18th century device, the idea of the supreme being as an eye and one that owes something to Freemasonry? And you see it in the American iconography as well, the dollar bill. So it Speaker 1 (18:47) is current among kind of free-thinking intellectuals, this idea of a Saron-type lidless eye, gazing and penetrating and watching. And this is why Rospier stages the festival of the supreme being, and it's why its success matters so much to him, because he essentially believes that in its success lies the best prospects for the future of the entire revolution. He believes this passionately. There are all kinds of people who obviously think this is mad. But the reason that Robespierre