Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being: The Search for a Republican Morality - Paperback

by Jonathan Smyth (Author)

Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being provides an exciting new study of an important event in the French Revolution and a defining moment in the career of its principal actor, Maximilien Robespierre, the Festival of the Supreme Being. This day of national celebration was held to inaugurate the new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, and whilst traditionally it has been dismissed as a compulsory political event, this book redefines its importance as a hugely popular national event. Hitherto unused or disregarded source material is used to offer new perspective to the national reaction to Robespierre's creation of the Festival and of his search for a new republican morality. It is the first ever detailed study in English of this area of French Revolutionary history, the first in any language since 1988 and will be welcomed by scholars and students of this period.

Front Jacket

In Year II of the French Revolution (1794) Maximilien Robespierre, seeking to establish a new deist national morality, created the Festival of the Supreme Being, to be celebrated on 20 Prairial Year II (8 June 1794). This is the first book since the 1980s and the only work in English to focus on the festival, to redefine its importance in the development of the Revolution. Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being traces the development of Robespierre's thinking on the importance of the problem which the lack of any acceptable national moral system through the early years of the Revolution had created. It explains his vision of a new attitude towards religion and morality and why he chose a Revolutionary Festival to launch his idea. It focuses on the importance of the Festival by showing that it was not only a major event in Paris, with a huge man-made mountain erected on the Champ de Mars, but that it was equally celebrated in almost every city, town and village throughout France. This book seeks to redefine the importance of the Festival in the history of the Revolution, not, as historians have traditionally dismissed it, merely as the performance of a sterile and compulsory political duty, but on the contrary, as a massively popular national event. Source material from national and local archives is used to describe the celebrations, together with evidence from contemporary commentators of the reaction to the event and its importance. This book will appeal to students and academics in French revolutionary history and modern French history.

Back Jacket

In Year II of the French Revolution (1794) Maximilien Robespierre, seeking to establish a new deist national morality, created the Festival of the Supreme Being, to be celebrated on 20 Prairial Year II (8 June 1794). This is the first book since the 1980s and the only work in English to focus on the festival, to redefine its importance in the development of the Revolution.

Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being traces the development of Robespierre's thinking on the importance of the problem which the lack of any acceptable national moral system through the early years of the Revolution had created. It explains his vision of a new attitude towards religion and morality and why he chose a Revolutionary Festival to launch his idea. It focuses on the importance of the Festival by showing that it was not only a major event in Paris, with a huge man-made mountain erected on the Champ de Mars, but that it was equally celebrated in almost every city, town and village throughout France. This book seeks to redefine the importance of the Festival in the history of the Revolution, not, as historians have traditionally dismissed it, merely as the performance of a sterile and compulsory political duty, but on the contrary, as a massively popular national event. Source material from national and local archives is used to describe the celebrations, together with evidence from contemporary commentators of the reaction to the event and its importance.

Author Biography

Jonathan Smyth is Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London