What you'll learn

• 1 (00:00) **Opening: Robespierre's Last Speech** - The episode opens with a dramatic reading of Maximilien Robespierre's speech to the National Convention on 26 July 1794, in which he denies being a tyrant and portrays himself as a martyr for liberty.
• 2 (05:07) **The Story Is Not Inevitable** - The hosts establish that Robespierre's fall was not predetermined but hinged on individual decisions and personal rivalries, not a broad backlash against the Terror.
• 3 (06:34) **Setting the Scene: The Law of Prairial** - The episode sets the stage in mid-June 1794, just after the Law of 22 Prairial created a new category of "enemies of the people" with no legal protections, making the guillotine the only possible sentence for conviction.
• 4 (10:10) **The Committee of Public Safety: The Ten Men Running France** - The camera zooms into the Tuileries Palace, where the ten members of the Committee of Public Safety work around an oval table, divided into three factions: Robespierre and his friends, the technocrats, and the radicals.
• 5 (18:12) **The Catherine Théot Affair** - On June 15, the Committee of General Security tries to entrap Robespierre using a mad old woman who claims to be the mother of God and that Robespierre is her prophet.
• 6 (21:44) **Saint-Just Returns; Robespierre Walks Out** - On June 29, Saint-Just returns from the army bearing news of the French victory at Fleurus, the first battle to use aerial observation (a hot air balloon), which makes it clear France will not lose the war.
• 7 (23:55) **Robespierre's Absence and His Enemies** - While Robespierre stays home, his enemies in the Convention—Fouché, Barras, and Tallien—begin organizing against him, each terrified they are on his secret purge list.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app