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 Well written and tragic October 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A well written and fascinating account of the life and career of this most famous and infamous of French revolutionaries. Robespierre is a fascinating man of contrasts. For much of his life, certainly before the Revolution and for a couple of years after the fall of the Bastille, his positive points predominate - a passion for justice and for the plight of the poor, as shown by his advocacy of the poor in many court cases when he was a simple lawyer in Arras, and by many of his speeches afterwards; and his radical and uncompromising democracy, an advanced phenomenon in the 18th century. It is only really from 1792, the fall of the monarchy and the suspension of the 1793 constitution before it ever came into effect, that we see the awful side of Robespierre - his singlemindedness becoming a complete personal identification of his own views with the interests of the Revolution, and an utterly and chillingly sincere belief therefore that those opposed to himself and, ipso facto, the Revolution must die - the title of this biography "Fatal Purity" is well chosen. The story from the arrest of the Girondins in June 1793 is the story of the fall and massacring of one faction after another until Robespierre's own fall and death in late July 1794. There are some sickening, horrific and tragic stories along the way, especially those of the prison massacres of September 1792, the separating of Marie Antoinette from her children, the execution of Camille Desmoulins's wife and the many poor and working class people who fell under the guillotine's blade - it was by no means aristocrats who were its most common victims as is commonly supposed. A great and tragic read.
 Fatally flawed September 14, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a classic example of revisionist history. The common perception of Robespierre is of a power hungry monster prepared to have anyone who stood in his way sent to the guillotine. This isn't entirely accurate - he actually opposed many of the early calls for a campaign of terror - but then again the common perception has not been a credible one for a long time. As pointed out by William Doyle, quite possibly the most highly regarded English speaking historian of the French Revolution, Robespierre was not always a monster. What's not in doubt either amongst respected historians is that he definitely did become a monster.
Scurr tries to show the "real" Robespierre mostly through his speeches, ignoring the fact that these were carefully written days or weeks before being delivered. Scurr mistakes these carefully worded speeches as Robespierres absolute beliefs, when in fact they were just posturing that was convenient at any given moment. When he was forced to actually speak on the spur of the moment, he was incapable of doing so. Scurr also tries, tortuously, to prove that Robespierres hypocritical and selfish acts during the reign of terror had some sort of logical, moral consistency.
So as I said, classic revisionism - questioning the accepted, painstakingly researched orthodoxy, but ultimately unconvincing to all but the most uncritical reader.
 Fatal purity? How about vicious psychopath! March 12, 2008
6 out of 16 found this review helpful
This book suggests that Robespierre's only crime was trying to help too much.
We have no window into Robespierre's mind, so perhaps if we knew only his words there might be some minute probability that his crime was to be too virtuous. But, of course we have far more than words: we have his behavior over an extended period in total power: From what he did, we see that Robespierre was an ideological tyrant, presaging Himmler in the efficient construction of a machinery for murder - ultimately killing tens of thousands of innocent people.
Think about it: Literally week-long, round-the-clock sessions of blood-letting, thousands butchered in scenes that beggar belief, inspired and capitalised upon by Robespierre. Installed as dictator, the pace of atrocity was maintained as Robespierre's Revolutionary Tribunal carried on killing a thousand people a month.
The idea, lauded by other reviewers on this site, that Robespierre can somehow be understood as misunderstood beggars belief. The elements of culpability are surely cognition of one's acts, and a lack of coercion in carrying them out: Robespierre had both and if he believed he was right, this is not mitigation, but an object lesson in just why ideologues and those who "come to help" are to be feared.
This is a case study from which we must learn and remember: from the Jacobin "Committee of Public Safety" to the all-to avoidable tragedy of dictatorship. The inevitable consequences of demonizing those who do not submit to the state. This book does not, however sound a warning, or derive a message, but is instead understanding of our poor murderous friend. Quite incredible.
And what was this "fatal purity" of Robespierre? Was this pure-heart Temperate? Charitable? Merciful? Full of Probity? Robespierre's morality shifted like sand - whatever needed clearing from his way was bad, people who disagreed were conspirators, and the response always the same: merciless violence. One searches the lexicon, from Aristotle thru Hammurabi and Jesus in vain to find ideology, suspicion, and violence described as virtues.
Robespierre is a case study of not of virtue, but of pure psychopathy. The lesson is not that those who would "help" risk being misunderstood, but that reasoned discussions of morality are of little effect in dealing with ideologues.
I am not a Simon Schama fan, but his book Citizens is far more helpful in understanding this butcher and the circumstances that allow his kind to gain power.
Brilliant, a new insight, and absolutely unputdownable February 13, 2007
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a fantastic achievement, and really readable with it. The French Revolution is one of those events which is difficult for the modern mind to get fully to grips with - reasonably straightforward perhaps until about 1791 and then increasingly foggy until 1794. The haziness largely centres on Robespierre, because he is difficult for us, in a (post-Marxian) world in which we think through political formulae, really to get to grips with. As he moves increasingly centre-stage it is important to understand what he is after, and why the revolution sways chaotically around him. Ruth Scurr really gets to the heart of Maximilian Robespierre (the "Incorruptible", as she continually describes him), and translates him into modern form. This is a highly sympathetic history, but avowedly a convincing one. Here is a man with a true vision of virtue, of a society of truth and goodness, and in touch with its element. If the revolution is anything, he believes, it must achieve goodness, whatever the ambiguities that involves. It is remarkable how popular that man's vision for the revolution proved to be for his people in a time of almost anarchic violence and uncertainty. This was not a bloodthirsty despot, the first of the dictators. The Festival of the Supreme Being was a sublime moment of realisation for Robespierre, even if not necessarily for his own people, and far from the Cult of Personality of the later dictators, as it has been seen. Two hundred years down the road here is a British historian dishing the "sea-green" image of Carlyle which has so influenced our Anglocentric view of Robespierre since then.
This is fine revisionist writing, clearly argued, and above all, absolutely unputdownable. The sort of book you think will take you a week, but which you finish in a day and a half.
Chilling December 4, 2006
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Impossible to put down. Compelling narrative. Stresses importance of natural religion and the pefectability of man to Robespierre. Shows how things spiralled as he could trust fewer and fewer people to share his vision, or his purity. He was also very vain, however, seeing himself as the embodiment of the virtues he sought to promote. She makes quite a lot of his dislike of physical violence and that fact that he never himself fought or had to get physically engaged - he got others to do it. Sees him as reluctantly pushed to killing his enemies; he was at first an opponent of capital punishment. R as romantic, though she does not say that explicitly.
Not quite sure she gets fully inside his skin or relates him adequately to prevailing currents of ideas, though she is strong on his reliance on Rousseau. But was Robespierre representative of a wider group of people who thought like him? and why was he so popular still with some people even at the time of his fall, and despite the Terror? who backed him, and why? - was it just fear? - probably not, but then one needs more emphasis on his context, and less on him as an individual, maybe.
She says at the start that she treats R as a 'friend', but the book ultimately presents him as a priggish and self-satisfied monster. That is probably because he WAS a priggish monster, and there is little eventually one can do to avoid that fact...
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