AI Summary
5 min readThe Festival of the Supreme Being and the Road to Thermidor
On June 8, 1794, Maximilien Robespierre stood before a crowd of perhaps half a million people in the gardens of the Tuileries in Paris. He was dressed in an exquisite blue coat, a tricolor sash, and a plumed hat. He gave a speech—which almost nobody could have heard, given the lack of amplification—and then set fire to a large cardboard statue with the ears of an ass. From the flames emerged another cardboard statue, described by one biographer as "fair, majestic, and only slightly singed." The first statue represented atheism; the second, wisdom. The watching crowds cheered, tossed their liberty caps in the air, and shouted "Hurrah for Robespierre." This was the Festival of the Supreme Being, the strangest and most colorful public spectacle of the entire French Revolution.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:48) **Robespierre’s Festival of the Supreme Being** - The hosts set the scene for the strangest and most colorful public spectacle of the French Revolution, held on June 8, 1794.
- 2 (08:30) **The Festival’s Success and Hidden Tensions** - The event is a massive public success, but many deputies find it both ludicrous and sinister.
- 3 (14:50) **Robespierre’s Supreme Being: The God of the People** - The hosts explain Robespierre’s theological and political argument for the Supreme Being.
- 4 (20:50) **The Supreme Being as an Internal Surveillance Mechanism** - The hosts discuss how Robespierre’s God functions as a tool for social control.
- 5 (23:48) **The Suspended Constitution and Robespierre’s Dilemma** - The hosts examine the tension between Robespierre’s democratic constitution and the ongoing Terror.
- 6 (30:29) **The Festival as Robespierre’s Way Out** - The hosts argue that the Festival of the Supreme Being represented Robespierre’s hope to shift the burden of enforcement from himself to God.
- 7 (35:14) **Tourio’s Contempt: Robespierre as a Priest** - The hosts explore the anti-clerical critique of Robespierre from deputies like Jacques-Alexis Thuriot.
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Show Notes
Why did Robespierre hold a vast, eccentric festival in 1794 when The Reign of Terror was at its most frenzied? What does it reveal about his psychology and belief in the divine? And, did he really believe that the French Revolution could succeed in supplanting the Christian God?
Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the extraordinary spectacle of the Festival of the Supreme Being, its sinister reception, and the transformation of France.
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