Colin Jones replaces the account of 9 Thermidor An in its contingency II (July 27, 1794), day of the coup de force to the national convention against Robespierre and his supporters, by dismissing any idea of conjuration or popular revolt.
As part of the famous collection of “ Thirty days that made France », Published by Gallimard from 1959 and directed by Gérard Walter, he had written the volume entitled The conspiracy of 9 Thermidorout of the presses in 1974 (the year of his death). Without having the quality of a few others in this collection, including the Sunday of Bouvines From Georges Duby, this volume had the merit of focusing on the precise day of 9 Thermidor. Since then, Françoise Brunel has published her short but remarkable synthesis Thermidor. The fall of Robespierre (Ed. Complexe, 1989), a book which remains today a major reference.
With this work by Colin Jones, professor emeritus at Queen Mary University in London and who wrote a lot about the history of France of Enlightenment and the Revolution, the project is even tightened than that of Gérard Walter in its time. Originally published in English in 2021, his book offers readers to follow 9 Thermidor from midnight to midnight (and a little beyond) ; It is therefore split into five parts punctuated by schedules (midnight to 5 a.m., from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m., etc.). The idea is spicy, even if it hardly enters the uses of historians on this side of the English Channel, and the work can almost appear as a “ thriller Thanks to a narrative tension holding readers in suspense.
Give the story
From the first pages, short passages devoted to such or such little known characters make it possible to grasp “ the atmosphere »From 8 Thermidor at midnight, even if everything is centered, in good logic, on Maximilien Robespierre. Throughout the book, we are invited to follow the political developments hour per hour, a series of small everyday things used as a background (births recorded by civil status, citizens going to their occupations, the repertoire played that day on theatrical stages, etc.). This method gives flesh to the story, while frequent changes of perspective allow you to see at the same time different places in Paris, with so many pieces of life taken for example in six different places at 5.30 p.m.
In addition to this very lively dive towards the microscopic, the “ great story »Remains nonetheless present and Colin Jones delivers an account of events to the National Convention, the Municipality, the Jacobins, etc. We can therefore walk with him in the Paris of 9 Thermidor as well alongside a humble revolutionary activist of this or that of the 48 sections as of a protagonist of the very first plan, to start of course with Robespierre.
Basically, beyond the account of the facts (the political elimination then physical of Robespierre and a hundred of his supporters), Colin Jones highlights the largely improvised aspect of the coup de force operated on the national convention, but also the mess which then reigns as well among the opponents of Robespierre as among his supporters. THE “ drip »News, the dissemination of rumors, everything leads to making events confused, and no trace exists a conspiracy carefully organized for weeks or even months, a fortiori No trace of conspiracy.
The place of “ people »In debate
As for the idea that the national convention would have taken the lead to thwart an alleged conspiracy of Robespierre, and not a desire to carry out yet another purge with this time some conventional targeted, it is also swept by Colin Jones. Is it however correct to write that the Parisians mobilized “ in number to support an assembly elected by universal male suffrage “, And that” the choice of the people (was to defend) institutions rather than people »» ? Reading the book, we have more the impression that neither the town, favorable to Robespierre nor the convention managed to mobilize armed men in very large numbers. More precisely, the town has managed to gather in front of the town hall a substantial number of sans-culottes, but also they would have had to desert the place to go home before the force sent by the Convention invests the common house and that the outcome of the drama rushes.
Interpret everything as the fact that the people “ real “, THE “ Good “People, would turn away at that time from a” tyrant Isolated and defended by a handful of supporters – which Colin Jones does not do, but as we sometimes read – is however manifest. To the national convention, it was a question of dismissing Robespierre, but it is difficult to conclude as the author does that this is a “ joint victory of elected deputies and Parisians ». As Françoise Brunel had shown, a minority of mountain conventionals then attacks Robespierre and it is the internal contradictions to the mountain that burst into the light, not the will of a majority of the assembly. As for “ Parisians », It is also clear that their mobilization, for or against the coup de force, is far from reaching the level of previous mobilizations such as those of May 31 and June 2, 1793.
The challenge of sources
Colin Jones’ work reads in a pleasant way and therefore allows you to follow precisely the events without in depth modifying what we already knew about the facts. Certainly, several points can be discussed, and some factual errors could have easily been erased. More essential, however, is the question of sources mobilized for the work.
Colin Jones has operated large installments in the national archives and in other funds, even if many documents had already been spotted by Albert Soboul and especially Paul Sainte-Claire Deville (historian too forgotten today and to whom Colin Jones pays homage). In the same way, Colin Jones has read a lot, both in the available historiography but also in printed sources (newspapers, reports, minutes, Memoirsetc.). However, a very large part of these printed sources and handwritten documents are made up of testimonies after 9 and 10 Thermidor, thus the reports of the authorities of the Paris sections or the various memories and Memoirswithout forgetting the famous Report very posterior courtes and published in partly different versions. Admittedly, the whole is of course worthy of interest, nevertheless can we follow everything written there ? In Colin Jones’ book, a number of dialogues, at the base as at the highest peak of power, are based on this type of sources. An undeniable reader would be very likely to take everything for cash. How to do otherwise ? How to propose a story of the facts when a major part of the sources is politically more than tendentious ? Making choices is necessary. Those of Colin Jones are undoubtedly served his story of events.
Escape hasty interpretations
Despite these sources to say the least problematic, and despite these frequent oral exchanges reported according to them, Colin Jones manages to keep a distance and to conclude fairly. His “ after -face By way of conclusion shows it with clarity, at least for those who want to take the trouble to read their work without a priori unfavorable to Robespierre and without obsession to see the “ thriller “End with the death of a” dictator Having lost all popular support. Colin Jones also demonstrates how the revolutionary government (synonymous here of exceptional government) and the repressive measures of terror did not constitute the first target of those who then opposed Robespierre. It is only secondly that Tallien (and others with him) invented, in the fall of 1794, the alleged “ terror system “Attributed to Thermidor’s vanquished, thus making the” fall From Robespierre a key event.
In this sense, the last lines of the afterword are available with a particular clarity (p. 503):
The day was not subject to any preliminary planning, or so little, neither by Robespierre nor by his opponents. It was neither prepared nor planned. She arrived. (…) What happened on 9 Thermidor was not a movement to overthrow the government, but to defend it against supposed conspirators. It was only with the passage of time that history would be rewritten so that it was an attack on a man and against the system of government that he was claimed to direct.