On This Day in History: July 28

Robespierre Loses His Head

Subscribers can listen to the audio version of today’s post here.

Today’s post is taken from the files of “Fuck this guy.” After the French Revolution there was this thing called the Reign of Terror. The guy running that shit was a fucking lawyer named Maximilien Robespierre. After a while people got sick of his terrorizing and terrorized him right back. With a guillotine. 

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: July 28, 1794--

He had some good ideas but went off the fucking deep end. With the fall of the French monarchy Robespierre was all for everyone being able to vote, so long as the “everyone” in question had a penis. He also said no more slavery, and priests are allowed to fuck. I mean, priests were fucking all the time already, but he said no more vows about not fucking. Not sure where he stood on priests raping. Big gun nut too. He saw the ‘muricans bring in their Second Amendment and Max was all fuck yeah great idea guns for everyone. 

After the revolution came a provisional government called the Committee of Public Safety, which was one of those oxymoron things. Robespierre seized dictatorial control with the help of a couple of powerful pals, one of whom was named Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. He was neither saintly nor just. Although judging by some of the people the Catholic Church made into saints, perhaps he was saintly, comparatively. Anyway, his nickname was the Angel of Death. 

Why was he called the Angel of Death? Because he was in charge of who got executed. Why was this period referred to as the Reign of Terror? Because revolutions are often like that. A group seizes control and the first thing that happens is they fear a counterrevolution will seize power right back, so they go on a fucking murder spree. And Robespierre was a primary architect of said spree of off with their heads. 

Max decided people he didn’t like weren’t being killed fast enough, so he (probably) authored the Law of 22 Prairial, which said yeah who needs due process hurry up and get on the guillotine. Seventeen thousand headless corpses later, people were getting a little freaked out about how Robespierre’s “ideal republic” required so much blood to come into being. The people started to turn against him, and Max gave a speech that made it seem another big purge of revolutionary leadership was coming, so they coup d’état-ed his ass. And because Max had taken a “fuck your fair trial” approach to executions, they waited only a day before liberating his head from the rest of his body on July 28, 1794. 

His Angel of Death pal Saint-Just got decapitated that day too, along with 106 other Robespierre supporters. There was a big and happy crowd that cheered as the heads rolled. 

Support keeping this daily column free and get access to subscriber only content:

Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.