9 Thermidor — fall of Robespierre — 27 juillet 1794

The Convention indicted Robespierre; he was guillotined the next day along with Saint-Just and Couthon. The fall of the Incorruptible ended the Terror and opened the Thermidorian Reaction. As a protégé of Augustin Robespierre, Bonaparte was arrested for some ten days at Antibes and then set aside from command: his career seemed broken.

The Terror turns on Robespierre

The law of 22 Prairial Year II, voted in June 1794, had brought the Terror to its peak by removing almost every safeguard before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Military victories, beginning with Fleurus on 26 June, deprived the revolutionary government of the argument of emergency: the guillotine went on while the danger receded.

On 8 Thermidor Year II, 26 July 1794, Robespierre returned to the rostrum of the Convention and denounced a conspiracy without naming anyone. Every man thought himself the target: fear built the coalition that manoeuvring had failed to form.

Two days and a night

On 9 Thermidor, 27 July, the Convention refused Saint-Just the floor, shouted Robespierre down and decreed his arrest along with that of his brother Augustin, of Couthon and of Le Bas. Freed by the Commune, they took refuge at the Hôtel de Ville without daring to call for insurrection.

The Convention's troops broke in during the night. Robespierre had his jaw shattered by a pistol shot, Le Bas killed himself, Couthon was found at the foot of a staircase. On 10 Thermidor, 28 July, twenty-two condemned men were guillotined on the Place de la Révolution, without trial, on a simple verification of identity.

Bonaparte caught in the fall

The Thermidorian reaction dismantled the revolutionary government, closed the Jacobin club in November and opened the way to the Constitution of Year III. It also swept away the protégés of the defeated: Bonaparte, close to Augustin Robespierre since Toulon, was arrested on 9 August 1794 and held in the Fort Carré at Antibes.

Released after some ten days for want of charges, he emerged unemployed and under suspicion. Fourteen months of uncertainty followed, until 13 Vendémiaire.