Maximilian Robespierre

“If you start by trying to revolutionize society to aid and feed the poor and end by beheading nuns, you probably went wrong somewhere.” This is the legacy of Maximilien Robespierre, one of the primary progenitors of the French Revolution. If ever a man attempted to exalt the virtue of reason above all else, at least in a pragmatic and political sense, this man would, on this proposition, stand guilty as charged. Not merely iconoclastic in his temperaments, he did not simply wish to dismantle the pervading structures and moral regulations of the Catholic Church, but also wanted to dissolve the archaic apparitions of the political past through nothing less than a total revolution of epic proportions. His basic tenet was to use logic and ethical principles based on a form of social contract as propounded by the French philosopher, Rousseau. Robespierre attempted to vanquish the foundational premises of necessary objective morality, though he still attempted to maintain integrity, sobriety and, above all, temperance in his personal life – and all through the guild of pure reason. Despite this apparent moral effort in his personal struggle, he yet plunged even to the depths of the bottom of the already miry and horrid moral environment of the time in which he inhabited. The guillotine is nearly synonymous with the name of Robespierre, as even by the end of his so-called “Reign of Terror,” even minor suspicions of counter-revolution could land one’s neck on the chopping block. Ironically, as much as he tried to divest the Catholic Church of its influence and power, he nonetheless established his own ‘religion’ – if it could be called such – to the otherwise anonymous Supreme Being. This makes sense in light of the fact that the vacuum of secularism will ultimately be filled with something that at least has a more compelling meta-narrative. Perhaps even more ironic is the reality that Robespierre had his life ended on the same device that he so gregariously used on virtually anyone and everyone that had crossed his path. In a sense, he became the self-fulfilling prophet, like Shakespeare’s Oedipus Rex, and designed his own death. He stands a radiant star of epic proportions concerning the value of reason over moral absolutes being inducted into a society…a radiant falling star that left a large crater upon impact!