Joseph Fouché

Joseph Fouché had been strongly in favor of the king's immediate execution, and had denounced those who wavered.

The crisis that resulted from the declaration of war by the Convention against Great Britain and the Dutch Republic (February 1793) and a little later against Spain, had made Fouché famous as one of the Jacobin radicals holding power in Paris.

While the armies of the First Coalition threaten the northeast of France, a revolt of the Royalist peasants in Brittany and La Vendée menaces the Convention on the west.

That body had sent Fouché with a colleague, Villers, as representatives on mission invested with almost dictatorial powers for the crushing of the revolt of "the whites" (the royalist color).

The vigor with which he had carried out these duties has earned him a reputation, and he soon holds the post of commissioner of the republic in the département of the Nièvre.

Together with Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, he helps to initiate the dechristianization (a term first coined by its enemies) movement in the autumn of 1793.

In the Nièvre department, Fouché ransacks churches, sends their valuables to the treasury, and helps establish the Cult of Reason.

He orders the words "Death is an eternal sleep" to be inscribed over the gates to cemeteries.

He also fights luxury and wealth, wanting to abolish the use of currenc

Fouché was born in Le Pellerin, a small village near Nantes.

His mother was Marie Françoise Croizet (1720–1793), and his father was Julien Joseph Fouché (1719–1771).

Educated at the college of the Oratorians at Nantes, had had shown aptitude for literary and scientific studies.

Wanting to become a teacher, he had been sent to an institution kept by brethren of the same order in Paris, where he had made rapid progress, and was soon appointed to tutorial duties at the colleges of Niort, Saumur, Vendôme, Juilly and Arras.

At Arras, he had had some encounters with Maximilien Robespierre both before the revolution and in the early days of the French Revolution (1789).

In October 1790, he had been transferred by the Oratorians to their college at Nantes, in an attempt to control his advocacy of revolutionary principles—however, Fouché became even more of a democrat.

His talents and anti-clericalism had brought him into favor with the population of Nantes, especially after he became a leading member of the local Jacobin Club.

When the college of the Oratorians was dissolved in May 1792, Fouché gave up the church, whose major vows he had not taken.

After the downfall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792 (following the storming of the royal Tuileries Palace), he was elected as deputy for the départment of the Loire-Inférieure to the National Convention—which met on 22 September and proclaimed the French Republic.

Fouché's interests had brought him into contact with the Marquis de Condorcet and the Girondists, and he had become a Girondist himself.

However, their lack of support for the trial and execution of King Louis XVI (December 1792 - January 21, 1793) has led him to join the Jacobins, the more decided partisans of revolutionary doctrine.

The official nationwide Fête de la Raison, supervised by Hébert and Antoine-François Momoro on 20 Brumaire, Year II (November 10, 1793) will come to epitomize the new republican way of religion.

In ceremonies devised and organized by Chaumette, churches across France were transformed into modern Temples of Reason.

The largest ceremony of all is at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

The Christian altar is dismantled and an altar to Liberty is installed and the inscription "To Philosophy" is carved in stone over the cathedral's doors.

Festive girls in white Roman dress and tricolor sashes mill around a costumed Goddess of Reason who "impersonated Liberty".

A flame burns on the altar, which is symbolic of truth.

To avoid statuary and idolatry, the Goddess figures are portrayed by living women, and in Paris the role is played by Momoro's own wife Sophie, who is said to have dressed "provocatively" and, according to Thomas Carlyle, "made one of the best Goddesses of Reason; though her teeth were a little defective."

Before his retirement, Georges Danton had warned against dechristianizers and their "rhetorical excesses", but support for the Cult will only increase in the zealous early years of the First Republic.

By late 1793, it us conceivable that the Convention might accept the invitation to attend the Paris festival en masse, but the unshakeable opposition of Maximilien Robespierre and others like him prevent it from becoming an official affair.

Undeterred, Chaumette and Hébert proudly lead a sizable delegation of deputies to Notre Dame.

It is here that Fouché gives “the most famous example of its [dechristianization] early phase."

Ironically enough, it was only a year previous that Fouché had been "an advocate of the role of the clergy in education," yet he is now "abandoning the role of religion in society altogether in favour of 'the revolutionary and clearly philosophical spirit' he had first wanted for education."

Overall, the dechristianization movement "reflected the wholesale transformation that Jacobin and radical leaders were beginning to see as necessary for the survival of the Republic, and the creation of a republican citizenry." (David Andress, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 239.)

Fouché goes on to Lyon in November with Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois to execute the reprisals of the Convention.

Lyon has revolted against the Convention and needs to be dealt with.

On November 23, Lyon is declared to be in a "state of revolutionary war" by Collot and Fouché.

The two men then form the Temporary Commission for Republican Surveillance.

Fouché inaugurates his mission with a festival notable for its obscene parody of religious rites.

Fouché and Collot then bring in "a contingent of almost two thousand of the Parisian Revolutionary Army" to begin their terrorizing.

"On 4 December, 60 men, chained together, were blasted with grapeshot on the paline de Brotteaux outside the city, and 211 more the following day.” (Hanson, P.R. (2003) The Jacobin Republic Under Fire. The Federalist Revolt in the French Revolution, p. 193).

"Grotesquely ineffective, these mitraillades result in heaps of mutilated, screaming, half-dead victims, who have to be finished off with sabers and musket fire by soldiers physically sickened at the task." (David Andress, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 237.)

It is through events like this that make Fouché infamous as "The Executioner of Lyon."

The Commission is not happy with the methods used for killing the rebels, so soon after this "more normal firing squads supplemented the guillotine." (Schom, Alan (1997). "Fouche's Police". Napoleon Bonaparte. HarperCollins Publishers, New York. pp. 253–255).

These methods lead to the carrying out of "over 1800 executions in the coming months."

Fouché, claiming that "Terror, salutary terror, is now the order of the day here....We are causing much impure blood to flow, but it is our duty to do so, it is for humanity's sake," calls for the execution of 1,905 citizens.

As Napoleon's biographer Alan Schom has written: Alas, Fouché's enthusiasm had proved a little too effective, for when the blood from the mass executions in the center of Lyons gushed from severed heads and bodies into the streets, drenching the gutters of the Rue Lafont, the vile-smelling red flow nauseated the local residents, who irately complained to Fouché and demanded payment for damages.

Fouché, sensitive to their outcry, obliged them by ordering the executions moved out of the city to the Brotteaux field, along the Rhône.

From late 1793 into spring, 1794, every day "batch after batch of bankers, scholars, aristocrats, priests, nuns, and wealthy merchants and their wives, mistresses, and children" are taken from the city jails to Brotteaux field, tied to stakes, and dispatched by firing squads or mobs. (Schom)

Outwardly, his conduct is marked by the utmost rigor, and on his return to Paris early in April 1794, he thus characterizes his policy: "The blood of criminals fertilizes the soil of liberty and establishes power on sure foundations".

Robespierre has struck down one by one the other prominent leaders of the revolution of both the right, (the Rolands and the Girondists), the ultra left (Jacques Hébert and the Herbertists), and the moderates (Georges Danton and his associates).

However, at the time of Robespierre's "Festival of the Supreme Being", Fouché had ventured to mock the theistic revival which Robespierre had then inaugurated.

A sharp exchange had taken place between them, and Robespierre tries to expel Fouché from the Jacobin Club on July 14, 1794.

At this time, expulsion from the club is tantamount to a death sentence.

Fouché, however, is working with his usual energy and plots Robespierre's overthrow from behind the scenes while in hiding in Paris.

Because Robespierre is losing his influence and because Fouché is under the protection of Barras, Fouché ultimately survives this expulsion.

Remaining ultraleftists (Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne) and moderates (Bourdon de l'Oise, Fréron), who had won the support of the nonaligned majority of the Convention (Marais), also opposes Robespierre's reign.

Fouché is reported to have worked furiously on Robespierre's overthrow.

As both a ruthless suppressor of Federalist rebellion and one of the proponents of Robespierre's overthrow, Fouché demonstrated the mercilessness that politics have taken on in France during the de-Christianization period.

Fouché is a dangerous critic of Robespierre, and his influence undoubtedly contributes to Robespierre's apparent nervous breakdown, which loosens his hold on Parisian politics and the Convention, and ultimately leads to his overthrow and execution.

Reports are coming into Paris about excesses committed by the envoys sent en-mission to the provinces, particularly Jean-Lambert Tallien in Bordeaux and Joseph Fouché in Lyons.

Robespierre has them recalled to Paris to account for their actions and then expels them from the Jacobins club.

However, they evade arrest.

Fouché spends the evenings moving house to house, warning members of the Convention that Robespierre is after them, while organizing a coup d'état.

Robespierre appears at the Convention on 26 July (8th Thermidor, year II, according to the Revolutionary calendar), and delivers a two-hour-long speech.

He defends himself against charges of dictatorship and tyranny, then proceeds to warn of a conspiracy against the Republic.

Robespierre implies that members of the Convention are a part of this conspiracy, though when pressed he refuses to provide any names.

The speech, however, alarms members, particularly given Fouché's warnings.

Those members who feel that Robespierre is alluding to them try to prevent the speech from being printed, and a bitter debate ensues until Barère forces an end to it.

Later that evening, Robespierre delivers the same speech again at the Jacobin Club, where it is very well received.

Saint-Just begins to give a speech in support of Robespierre the next day.

However, those who had seen him working on his speech the night before expect accusations to arise from it.

He has time to give only a small part of his speech before Jean-Lambert Tallien interrupts him.

While the accusations begin to pile up, Saint-Just remains uncharacteristically silent.

Robespierre then attempts to secure the tribunal to speak but his voice is shouted down.

Robespierre soon finds himself at a loss for words after one deputy calls for his arrest and another, Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier, gives a mocking impression of him.

When one deputy realizes Robespierre's inability to respond, the man shouts, "The blood of Danton chokes him!"

A faction within the National Convention including Jacobin revolutionary Paul Francois Jean Nicolas, Vicomte de Barras and military commissioner Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, topples Robespierre.

The Convention orders the arrest of Robespierre, his brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just, François Hanriot and Le Bas.

Troops from the Commune, under General Coffinhal, arrive to free the prisoners and then march against the Convention itself.

The Convention responds by ordering troops of its own under Barras to be called out.

When the Commune's troops hear the news of this, order begins to break down, and Hanriot orders his remaining troops to withdraw to the Hôtel de Ville, where Robespierre and his supporters also gather.

The Convention declares them to be outlaws, meaning that upon verification the fugitives can be executed within twenty-four hours without a trial.

As the night goes on, the forces of the Commune desert the Hôtel de Ville and, at around two in the morning, those of the Convention under the command of Barras arrive there.

In order to avoid capture, Augustin Robespierre throws himself out of a window, only to break both of his legs; Couthon is found lying at the bottom of a staircase; Le Bas commits suicide; another radical shoots himself in the head.

Robespierre tries to kill himself with a pistol but manages only to shatter his lower jaw, although some eyewitnesses claim that Robespierre had been shot by Charles-André Merda.

The ensuing movement in favor of more merciful methods of government had threatened to sweep away the group of politicians who had been mainly instrumental in carrying through the coup d'état.

Nonetheless, largely because of Fouché's intrigues, they had remained in power for a time after July.

This has also brought divisions in the Thermidor group, which soon became almost isolated, with Fouché spending all his energy on countering the attacks of the moderates.

He is himself denounced by François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas on August 9, 1795, which causes his arrest, but the Royalist rebellion of 13 Vendémiaire Year IV aborts his execution, and he is released in the amnesty which follows the proclamation of the Constitution of 5 Fructidor (August 22, 1795).

By adopting the Constitution of the Year III, the National Convention reestablishes freedom of worship, begins releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiates elections for a new legislative body.

The Constitution of the Year III establishes a liberal republic with a franchise based on the payment of taxes, similar to that of the French Constitution of 1791; a bicameral legislature, (Council of Ancients, and a Council of 500) to slow down the legislative process; and a five-man Directory.

The central government retained great power, including emergency powers to curb freedom of the press and freedom of association.

The Declaration of Rights and Duties of Mankind at the beginning of the constitution include an explicit ban on slavery.

The Constitution, which establishes the Directoire as the national governing body, specifies that the colonies are integral parts of the French Republic and to be governed by the same laws.

Annual coups against radical or conservative revivals occur until the shadowy Abbe Sieyes, a member of the Directory determined to strengthen central power, uses his position to arrange a coup d’etat by which he, Pierre Roger Ducos and Bonaparte, aided militarily by his brother Lucien, overthrow the Directory and provisional councils on November 9 and 10.

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès—one of the five Directors who constitute the executive branch of the French government—approached Bonaparte for his support in a coup to overthrow the French Constitution of 1795.

The leaders of the plot include his brother Lucien, at this time serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred; the speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos; another Director, Joseph Fouché; and Talleyrand.

On November 9—18 Brumaire by the French Republican Calendar—Bonaparte is charged with the safety of the legislative councils, who are persuaded to remove to the Château de Saint-Cloud, to the west of Paris, after a rumor of a Jacobin rebellion is spread by the plotters.

By the following day, the deputies have realized they face an attempted coup.

Faced with their remonstrations, Bonaparte leads troops to seize control and disperse them, which leaves a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government.