“He Rendered a Great Service to Humanity”: On the Role of J.-L. Tallien in Dismantling the System of Terror

Abstract

The summer of 1794 in France was marked by crucial events that set the course of the Revolution in a new direction. After the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial, according to which almost any person could fall into the category “enemy of the people”, the Reign of Terror began. The end was put to it by the coup of 9 Thermidor (July 27) when Robespierre was overthrown. After that, the authorities started a gradual departure from the policy of Terror. A significant role in the ousting of Robespierre and in the consequent dismantling of the revolutionary dictatorship was played by a member of the National Convention JeanLambert Tallien. A butler’s son, Tallien received education and made a political career during the era of the Revolution, but became famous primarily for the fact that at the Convention’s meeting on 9 Thermidor he was the first to venture to speak out against Robespierre. Tallien had earlier been on a mission to Bordeaux as a people’s representative, where he incurred suspicions of corruption, which, according to many contemporaries, motivated him to participate in a conspiracy against Robespierre. Historians, too, generally focused on rumours discrediting Tallien’s reputation and considered his involvement in the Thermidorian coup through the prism of Tallien’s concerns for his own safety. As a rule, historiography tends to consider Tallien’s political activities during the post-Thermidorian period solely in the context of his self-defence. In the article, the author attempts to move away from this tradition and to analyse Tallien’s concrete steps taken in the process of dismantling the Terror in the first weeks after the coup and aimed at leading France out of these difficult times.