In early March 1795 deputy Jean-Baptiste Saladin presented the report of the Committee of Twenty-One to the National Convention. The committee had been called into being to answer demands for justice after the Terror and charged with examining the conduct of four legislators charged with excesses. That it existed at all is testimony to revolutionaries' commitment to political accountability. That it issued indictments signaled the official determination to assign responsibility for the Terror.1 At the same time, however, Saladin's language suggested more than a simple wish to pursue justice and prosecute particular acts. Abandoning any pretense of impartiality, he damned the government under Robespierre—a government in which he and his colleagues had shared—as a corruption of all that revolutionaries fought for.2 How was it possible to promise equitable punishment while preemptively condemning the entire system in which defendants and...
Article navigation
Introduction|August 01 2016
Introduction
Laura Mason
Laura Mason
LAURA MASON is senior lecturer in history and the Program in Film and Media Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She is completing a manuscript on activism, democracy, and social welfare after the Terror, tentatively titled The Last Revolutionaries: The Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals.
Search for other works by this author on:
French Historical Studies (2016) 39 (3): 415-418.
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Advertisement