Robespierre | Document signed, for the Committee of Public Safety, ordering two men be brought for trial, 1794

Robespierre, Maximilien de

Document signed ("Robespierre"), demanding that two men are brought for trial, signed also by Lazare Carnot and Georges Couthon, 23 May 1794

in French, being an authorized Extract from the register of the Committee of Public Safety, instructing the Committee of Surveillance in the Clamart Departément of Paris to transfer the prisoners Lango and Berthouille within three days from the local prisons where they were being held, so that they can appear before them for trial.

"...de retirer des maisons d'Arrete où ils sont détenus, Lango et Berthouille, habitans de cette commune, et de les lui présenter sous trois jours pour être entendus..."

1 page, folio, printed stationery with the device of the French Republic and title ("Extrait des registres du Comité de Salut Public"), also signed by two other members of the Committee for Public Safety, with at the head an engraved vignette of the Committee displaying the "all-seeing eye" and motto ("Activité, Pureté, Surveillance"), Paris, 4 Prairial, l'an 2 [23 May 1794]

Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794) was the architect of the "The Reign of Terror" during the French Revolution, and this document shows him in his iconic role as prosecutor and judge; his regime accounted for over sixteen thousand deaths in 1793 and 1794 until his downfall on 19 July. The case dealt with here came in the wake of the overthrow of the insurrectionary Commune of Paris on 24 March 1794 and the re-assertion of the power of Robespierre's notorious Committee of Public Safety. Ninety-three members of the Commune were subsequently guillotined.

The Police surveillance department had pointed out two days before this letter that the commune at Clamart, south-west of Paris, had asked for the release of the two men, saying that Berthouille was a civil servant of the municipality of whom nothing untoward was known and that Lango, detained in Paris, was not a counter-revolutionary. Nevertheless Robespierre and his colleagues pressed ahead with the case and a note at the foot of this letter, from the Chief of Police on 8 Prairial, confirms that the two men have been correctly identified.

The two other signatories met contrasting fates; Georges Couthon, fanatically anti-clerical, went to the guillotine on the same day as Robespierre. However Lazare Carnot (1753-1823), turned on Robespierre and had him arrested. He was successively Minister of War for the Jacobins, Directory and Napoleon himself, whom he appointed to head the Army of Italy in 1795. He reorganized the French Armies, including conscription and supply, and was generally credited with being "The Organizer of Victory".

Also included in this lot are five illustrations:

1) Robespierre Blesse

2) Les Troupes de la Convention font Irruption dans la piece ou Robespierre Tente de se suicide.

3) La Nuit du 9 au 10 Thermidor An II (26/27 Juli 1794)

4) Robespiere va a la guillotine insulte par ceux qui l'acclaimaient la veille (rue Saint-Honore 28 juillet 1794)

5) Couthon

LITERATURE:

Charles-Aimé Dauban, Paris en 1794 et en 1795: histoire de la rue, du club, de la famine : composée d'après des documents inédits, particulièrement les rapports de police et les registres du Comité de salut public : avec une introduction par C.A. Dauban, (1869), p.372,