Inside Robespierre 's mind

PERSONAL papers written by Maximilien de Robespierre, the architect of the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution, have been saved for the nation by culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand during an auction at Sotheby’s in Paris.

The minister used his right of pre-emption to buy the 116 pages for €979,400, the hammer price of €900,000 plus Sotheby’s charges.

Dating from January 1792 to Robespierre’s death in July 1794, the documents lay bare his thinking, with rough drafts of speeches and articles that feature many crossings-out and rewritten sections. The papers detail his insistence that Louis XVI face trial and then the death sentence. He also tells how members of the National Convention who did not support the death sentence gathered on the right of the hall while those who did gathered on the left — marking the origin of today’s terms of right and left in politics.

Also among the papers are Robespierre’s notes for his last and most famous speech, made on 8 Thermidor, Year II, of the Revolutionary calendar, or July 26, 1794. He was appearing before the Convention to save his own life, but he went to the guillotine the next day.

The papers were sold by descendants of Robespierre’s friend Philippe Le Bas, who held on to them for more than 200 years. The ministry also bought papers from Le Bas, a
Convention member executed the day after Robespierre.

There had been fears the papers would be lost after a bid by the Communist newspaper L’Humanité to save them got no official response.