AHC:Save Robespierre

Perhaps it could help if he would be much more moderate. Hard then to say what would happen. Perhaps then it is possible that French monarchy could survive. But this could work only if other revolutionary leaders are moderate enough.
 
Make Robespeare somewhat less extreme. Enough so for him to not go for the terror while still placating the radicals. Also stop him from going crazy.
 
All you are both saying is "Make Robespierre not be Robespierre".

Pretty much.

It's basically the same sort of issue as the "successful Nazis" threads, a lot of the changes that would make the person or the country they ran survive would require this person or regime to work completely against its character.
 
to change the man you would have to change the events around the man. As initially, Robespierre was harshly against the death penalty, but eventually swayed to direct opposite if memory serves.
 
If you just want to keep him in power a bit longer, save Marat? He was one of the Montagards major supporters of the Montagards IIRC and might have preserved their support a bit longer.

Similarly, say St. Just picks up a little generaling while he's acompanying the republican armies, and Robnspierre's partisans might be able to retake Paris by force before he's executed.


Both of those extend his power by a factor of weeks or months at best though. You really need a Terror that's kept well in hand and never becomes as expansive as it did.
 
I'll go the other way. Have him be more extreme and less concerned about legality (difficult since he was a lawyer, but still) so that when he is first arrested and then freed by the Paris sections, he agrees to use force instead of trying to convince the convention to support him. So, on the morning of 10 thermidor, the sections invade the convention and the main anti-robespierre leaders are killed or arrested (and then guillotined). Robespierre and his supporters then rule paris using the sections mob to cow any opponents.

The question of how long Robespierre can stay in power that way is another one, but it will definitely be longer than OTL.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
No, I'm saying have him stay a different era's Robespierre, the one who fervently opposed the death penalty and the exact tactics he used.
So no gillotine? But I like the gillotine! That's what I liked the French back then. They didn't fuck around!
 
Why don't you just make him execute enough people so that no one is left to stage a coup against him?

That would be pretty hard to accomplish (though he tried). Robespierre wasn't royalty, or a military commander, or even the elected chief executive of the country. He had been elected as one of about 750 members of the Convention. The more power he attempted to hold, the more his legitimacy came into question - especially as the domestic situation in France in 1793-94 was pretty grim.
 
Robespierre actually was a very minor figure in the overall history of the period. His personal capacities and ambitions helped toss him to the top of the heap during a particularly confused period of the revolution, but he was no more than a factional leader in Paris without an overiding ideology or plan. He emerged as a temporary leader, over-reached, and was overthrown and killed. He left behind no legacy except for a legend. Remove him from the scene and little if anything is changed. Give him a few more months of power and little if anything is changed. He did not have the stature, nature, or national power base to remain a leading figure. He should be considered as an extremely over-rated actor on the stage of history.
 
I see only two ways of doing this, change Robespierre, or find some way of continuing the Reign of Terror for the rest of his life
 
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