Maximilien
Robespierre (1758-1794) was one of the leaders of the Committee of Public
Safety, the effective governing body of France during the most radical
phase of the revolution. Although this period - from mid 1793 to mid
1794 is usually known as the reign of terror, it was also a period of
very effective government. Many of the changes which later enable Napoleon
to dominate Europe for a generation were begun by the Committee. The
leaders of this revolution attempted, perhaps more than any other revolutionary
leaders before or since, to totally transform human society in every
way. For instance the Revolution abolished the traditional calendar
with its Christian associations. Some were anti-religion, but Robespierre
was interested in religion, and promoted a state cult, first of Supreme
Reason and then later of the Supreme Being. This a case of Deism being
made a state religion. The failure of the revolution to transform society
totally had provided matter for political thinkers ever since.
The
Cult of the Supreme Being
The day
forever fortunate has arrived, which the French people have consecrated
to the Supreme Being. Never has the world which He created offered to
Him a spectacle so worthy of His notice. He has seen reigning on the
earth tyranny, crime, and imposture. He sees at this moment a whole
nation, grappling with all the oppressions of the human race, suspend
the course of its heroic labors to elevate its thoughts and vows toward
the great Being who has given it the mission it has undertaken and the
strength to accomplish it.
Is it not He whose immortal hand, engraving on the heart of man the
code of justice and equality, has written there the death sentence of
tyrants? Is it not He who, from the beginning of time, decreed for all
the ages and for all peoples liberty, good faith, and justice?
He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create
priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and
to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice,
debauchery, and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power.
He created men to help each other, to love each other mutually, and
to attain to happiness by the way of virtue.
It is He who implanted in the breast of the triumphant oppressor remorse
and terror, and in the heart of the oppressed and innocent calmness
and fortitude. It is He who impels the just man to hate the evil one,
and the evil man to respect the just one. It is He who adorns with modesty
the brow of beauty, to make it yet more beautiful. It is He who makes
the mother's heart beat with tenderness and joy. It is He who bathes
with delicious tears the eyes of the son pressed to the bosom of his
mother. It is He who silences the most imperious and tender passions
before the sublime love of the fatherland. It is He who has covered
nature with charms, riches, and majesty. All that is good is His work,
or is Himself. Evil belongs to the depraved man who oppresses his fellow
man or suffers him to be oppressed.
The Author of Nature has bound all mortals by a boundless chain of love
and happiness. Perish the tyrants who have dared to break it!
Republican Frenchmen, it is yours to purify the earth which they have
soiled, and to recall to it the justice that they have banished! Liberty
and virtue together came from the breast of Divinity. Neither can abide
with mankind without the other.
O generous People, would you triumph over all your enemies? Practice
justice, and render the Divinity the only worship worthy of Him. O People,
let us deliver ourselves today, under His auspices, to the just transports
of a pure festivity. Tomorrow we shall return to the combat with vice
and tyrants. We shall give to the world the example of republican virtues.
And that will be to honor Him still.
The monster which the genius of kings had vomited over France has gone
back into nothingness. May all the crimes and all the misfortunes of
the world disappear with it! Armed in turn with the daggers of fanaticism
and the poisons of atheism, kings have always conspired to assassinate
humanity. If they are able no longer to disfigure Divinity by superstition,
to associate it with their crimes, they try to banish it from the earth,
so that they may reign there alone with crime.
O People, fear no more their sacrilegious plots! They can no more snatch
the world from the breast of its Author than remorse from their own
hearts. Unfortunate ones, uplift your eyes toward heaven! Heroes of
the fatherland, your generous devotion is not a brilliant madness. If
the satellites of tyranny can assassinate you, it is not in their power
entirely to destroy you. Man, whoever thou mayest be, thou canst still
conceive high thoughts for thyself. Thou canst bind thy fleeting life
to God, and to immortality. Let nature seize again all her splendor,
and wisdom all her empire! The Supreme Being has not been annihilated.
It is wisdom above all that our guilty enemies would drive from the
republic. To wisdom alone it is given to strengthen the prosperity of
empires. It is for her to guarantee to us the rewards of our courage.
Let us associate wisdom, then, with all our enterprises. Let us be grave
and discreet in all our deliberations, as men who are providing for
the interests of the world. Let us be ardent and obstinate in our anger
against conspiring tyrants, imperturbable in dangers, patient in labors,
terrible in striking back, modest and vigilant in successes. Let us
be generous toward the good, compassionate with the unfortunate, inexorable
with the evil, just toward every one. Let us not count on an unmixed
prosperity, and on triumphs without attacks, nor on all that depends
on fortune or the perversity of others. Sole, but infallible guarantors
of our independence, let us crush the impious league of kings by the
grandeur of our character, even more than by the strength of our arms.
Frenchmen, you war against kings; you are therefore worthy to honor
Divinity. Being of Beings, Author of Nature, the brutalized slave, the
vile instrument of despotism, the perfidious and cruel aristocrat, outrages
Thee by his very invocation of Thy name. But the defenders of liberty
can give themselves up to Thee, and rest with confidence upon Thy paternal
bosom. Being of Beings, we need not offer to Thee unjust prayers. Thou
knowest Thy creatures, proceeding from Thy hands. Their needs do not
escape Thy notice, more than their secret thoughts. Hatred of bad faith
and tyranny burns in our hearts, with love of justice and the fatherland.
Our blood flows for the cause of humanity. Behold our prayer. Behold
our sacrifices. Behold the worship we offer Thee.