The Fall of Robespierre

The Fall of Robespierre

By Colin Jones
$29.99
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“Vital, incisive, revelatory…It takes us to the place, to the instant, to the heartbeat of revolution in the making.”

Hilary Mantel, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A Sunday Times (London) Best Book of the Year

A History Today Pick of Best Books of 2021

The day of 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) is universally acknowledged as a major turning-point in the history of the French Revolution. At 12:00 midnight, Maximilien Robespierre, the most prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety which had for more than a year directed the Reign of Terror, was planning to destroy one of the most dangerous plots that the Revolution had faced.

By 12:00 midnight at the close of the day, following a day of uncertainty, surprises, upsets and reverses, his world had been turned upside down. He was an outlaw, on the run, and himself wanted for conspiracy against the Republic. He felt that his whole life and his Revolutionary career were drawing to an end. As indeed they were. He shot himself shortly afterwards. Half-dead, the guillotine finished him off in grisly fashion the next day.

The Fall of Robespierre provides an hour-by-hour analysis of these twenty-four hours.