Jacobin Leader of the French Revolution, Driver of the "Reign of Terror"
Robespierre (1758–1794) was a core Jacobin leader of the French Revolution, styling himself "the Incorruptible," who while dominating the Committee of Public Safety drove a mass "Reign of Terror," in which thousands suspected as counter-revolutionaries (including the former queen Marie Antoinette) were sent to the guillotine. He firmly believed only purging all dissent by terror could defend the purity of the Revolution, but the logic turned on him — in the "Thermidorian Reaction" of 1794 he too was arrested and sent, without formal trial, to the very guillotine he had helped install, and the Terror ended with him.
In a speech to the National Convention, Robespierre held that the guiding principle of the republic should be "virtue and terror" together: "terror without virtue is disastrous; virtue without terror is powerless." This theory gave ideological cover to the mass executions he drove, and made "the Reign of Terror" itself the most direct label for this period of history.
In July 1794 (the month of "Thermidor" in the Revolutionary calendar), ever more members of the Convention, fearing they too would be denounced by Robespierre as "counter-revolutionaries," joined together and suddenly moved to arrest him. The next day Robespierre was sent to the guillotine without formal trial, and the Terror ended abruptly with his death.
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