DBWI: The victory of the Thermidorian revolt.

The Thermidorian revolt - unsuccessful attempt to remove the Jacobins from power, led by Maximilian Robespierre, undertaken by the deputies of the French National Convention 9-10 Thermidor II year. The revolt was the culmination of the Great French Revolution, when the Montagnards were almost overthrown.
The turning point was the release of François Henriot (Commander of the National Guard - a supporter of the Jacobins), and the release of Robespierre. He was escorted by gendarmes to the Luxembourg prison. However, when they approached the prison, a crowd gathered around her, chanting: "Long live Robespierre!". The prison governor refused to accept Robespierre, and the gendarmes, under the pressure of the crowd, were forced to abandon their captive. It happened about the same time that the Coffinel freed Henriot.

Caught in freedom, Robespierre hurried to the Town Hall, where he was met as a hero - about the same time, around 9:00 the guardsmen of Anrio broke into the Tuileries. The deputies of the Convention were caught unawares and did not show any resistance. Henriot read out the Commune's order to arrest 14 conspiratorial deputies, including Collo d'Herbois, Talena and Fouche. All those arrested under escort were sent to the Town Hall, where Robespierre was already in command, detachments were sent to liberate Couton, Saint-Just and others, who were imprisoned in different parts of the city. Guardsmen cordoned off the Tuileries, so as not to miss a single rebel supporter in the Convent - the hour of Robespierre's triumph arrived.

However, at about midnight news began to come that the western sections supported the Thermidorians - even a detachment of about 200 guardsmen was sent, sent to defend the Convention. However, when this detachment approached the Tuileries, he found thousands of supporters of Robespierre near the palace. Without venturing to oppose such a force, the Thermidorian guards retreated and went home.

At 1:30 am Robespierre, as well as the liberated Saint-Just and Couton, accompanied by the mayor of Paris Fleori-Lescaut and the commander of the National Guard of Henrio, entered the Tuileries. Convent, 9 hours ago screaming "Down with the tyrant!" now he applauded the triumvirs. All orders for the arrests of the Jacobins were annulled. Nevertheless, guardsmen took into custody about 70 deputies from the number of former Ebertists, dantonists, as well as leaders of the "Bolot". After this, the Convention was allowed to disperse.

By the morning of the 10th Thermidor, Paris once again began to live a peaceful life - the mutiny was completely suppressed.

What would have happened if Maximilian Robespierre and François Henriot had not been able to be liberated? Was Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couton executed as a result of the coup? Has the terror ended in this case, or would it have flared up in that case with renewed vigor? How would this be reflected in the results of the First Revolutionary War?
 
I've seen evidence that Robespierre was planning on scaling back the Terror before Thermidor rekindled his paranoia. Regardless, the effects of his renewed Terror led to a corresponding negative effect on the French war effort. The British successfully supported the rebels in the Vendee, giving the movement renewed vigor, and the French failed to advance past the Rhine. Russia's intervention kind of sealed their fate; you might not get Suvurov and Archduke Charles marching through Paris in 1796.
 
I've seen evidence that Robespierre was planning on scaling back the Terror before Thermidor rekindled his paranoia. Regardless, the effects of his renewed Terror led to a corresponding negative effect on the French war effort. The British successfully supported the rebels in the Vendee, giving the movement renewed vigor, and the French failed to advance past the Rhine. Russia's intervention kind of sealed their fate; you might not get Suvurov and Archduke Charles marching through Paris in 1796.
In the case of Thermidor, has the Republic survived? Or would it otherwise be restored, until in 1848 the peoples of Western Europe finished this archaic form of government?
 
In the case of Thermidor, has the Republic survived? Or would it otherwise be restored, until in 1848 the peoples of Western Europe finished this archaic form of government?
I feel like in the case of a successful Thermidor the new government would have an identity crisis; if you were a Republican chances are you either were a Montagnard or a Federalist, neither of which would support the Thermidorians, and the Right were mostly radicalized to Absolutism by the Terror. Who exactly would support them? You'd either see a restoration of the Monarchy or of the Montagnards.
 
I feel like in the case of a successful Thermidor the new government would have an identity crisis; if you were a Republican chances are you either were a Montagnard or a Federalist, neither of which would support the Thermidorians, and the Right were mostly radicalized to Absolutism by the Terror. Who exactly would support them? You'd either see a restoration of the Monarchy or of the Montagnards.
The French are unlikely to allow the revival of the monarchy so easily - the Bourbons were returned to the bayonets by the interventionists
 
The French are unlikely to allow the revival of the monarchy so easily - the Bourbons were returned to the bayonets by the interventionists
Not really true. You had one major region in outright revolt in their favor(that played a role in the final victory at Paris) and most people across the provinces weren't exactly going to fight tooth and nail, for their lives, to prevent the return of the monarchy. There's a reason the majority of France surrendered after the fall of Paris(with of course the Montagnards governors of Lyon and Marseilles being the exception).
 
Not really true. You had one major region in outright revolt in their favor(that played a role in the final victory at Paris) and most people across the provinces weren't exactly going to fight tooth and nail, for their lives, to prevent the return of the monarchy. There's a reason the majority of France surrendered after the fall of Paris(with of course the Montagnards governors of Lyon and Marseilles being the exception).
When Robespierre was going to be bested in the prison, Townspeople protested and shouted "Robespierre!". In addition, there is a difference between occupation and a revolutionary coup within the country.
 
When Robespierre was going to be bested in the prison, Townspeople protested and shouted "Robespierre!". In addition, there is a difference between occupation and a revolutionary coup within the country.
Yeah, of course the Parisians are going to be protesting that, Robespierre's their guy. Paris was the center of the Revolution, and too often historians conflate Paris and France in general. Anyway, it is hard to argue that the optics of Louis XVIII being escorted by Cossacks and Hussars didn't contribute to the Second Republic; the idea of the Monarchy as a symbol of foreign domination allowed for the final victory of a Republicanism, which is why Germany, despite being formed in the same Revolution that birthed the Second Republic, remains a Monarchy today; you just didn't have that kind of association.
 
Not really true. You had one major region in outright revolt in their favor(that played a role in the final victory at Paris) and most people across the provinces weren't exactly going to fight tooth and nail, for their lives, to prevent the return of the monarchy. There's a reason the majority of France surrendered after the fall of Paris(with of course the Montagnards governors of Lyon and Marseilles being the exception).

One major region hardly describes how deeply resistance, if not outright organized revolt, ran within broader French society. As you said, far too often Paris is cast as a mirror of France as a whole, intellectuals forgetting that in the late 18th century France was still by and large a rural society, which until La Grande Anarchie (Also refered to as the First Revolution) was organized around feudal and religious estates with a population accustomed to a paternalistic, rather simple lifestyle as opposed to the rising intellectual fervor of the metropolitan centers, with a completely different set of concerns. Its not as though they solemnly handed over their grain "tax" to the Revolutionary Guard troops sent to confiscate it to feed the urban masses, and though always short on arms many rural milita forces were organized to defend their property, local priests, or resist the glorified kidnappers sent to "draft" them into defending a regieme they had never voted for. In particular, Robespierre's attempt to enforce the Cult of the Supreme Being on the pious population of Greater France contributed greatly to rural resistance as it gave the dissident clergy a powerful enough catalyst to move their flocks from passive to active resistance.

Its hard to say they surrendered, because in effect they were never fighting the broader invasion in the first place, at least outside the general resistance that came along the path of invasion to prevent excessive looting by the Russian and Hapsburg forces. Speaking of which, you'd also avoid the picking clean of the German countryside as they marched in their glorified victory parade during the 1796-1797 campaigning season, which would help avoid the regional famine that so affected the Prussian corridor in those years. Having the peasantry see how willing the nobility were willing to allow them to calliously suffer for their military pomp and politicing really did plant the earliest seeds of resentment against Absolutism in the Holy Roman Empire, which probably sped up the 1848 Revolution. Not that I'm a fan of that puzzle wrapped in an enigma that's Germany's strange unity of Monarchy and Republicanism, wrapped up in its Confederate structure with each of its 200 little parts forming a pile of legal complexities and astricks in the nominal laws a mile long. There's a reason nobody has ever wanted to do business in Germany.
 
It would be interesting to think how a more successful Thermidorian purge would have affected the politics of Britain, for example. After all, it was the covert arrival of so many French figures who in the chaos of the revolt and invasion rocked up onto our shores that built the British left into the engine of revolution that triumphed in 1848. That the military is still formally known as the League of the Just Saint should tell you all you need to know on that front.
 
It would be interesting to think how a more successful Thermidorian purge would have affected the politics of Britain, for example. After all, it was the covert arrival of so many French figures who in the chaos of the revolt and invasion rocked up onto our shores that built the British left into the engine of revolution that triumphed in 1848. That the military is still formally known as the League of the Just Saint should tell you all you need to know on that front.

Although let's not forget that were it not for Ernest Augustus being such a badly incompetent ruler(and a usurper!), there likely would never have been a revolution in Britain at all.

Also, it'd be interesting to speculate how the success of the Thermidorian revolt might have affected the U.S.-in the real world, America eventually stretched from the Atlantic all the way to the Pacific coast from the Haida Islands to Baja California....but what could have changed? Would the U.S. still be come to be known as one of the models of liberalism, together with France, Canada, Italy, and Britain? And what of the large Franco-American communities in New York + Maryland, as well as what's now Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan?
 
Would the U.S. still be come to be known as one of the models of liberalism, together with France, Canada, Italy, and Britain?

It really is a sign of how broad a church liberalism still is that all five can comfortably reside within it. The US, after all, maintains property requirements to vote, although ones that are so small that almost all can reach them, and Italy's priesthood still has a powerful role in running the country. You can contrast this with Britain's neo-Jacobinism (the guillotine outside the House of The People is there for a reason after all, never mind how long it's been since it was used) and the oddities that the Canadian compact with the Amerindians has left it with.
 
Also, it'd be interesting to speculate how the success of the Thermidorian revolt might have affected the U.S.-in the real world, America eventually stretched from the Atlantic all the way to the Pacific coast from the Haida Islands to Baja California....but what could have changed? Would the U.S. still be come to be known as one of the models of liberalism, together with France, Canada, Italy, and Britain? And what of the large Franco-American communities in New York + Maryland, as well as what's now Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan?
Maybe voters will change their minds, and Thomas Jefferson will become president of the United States? Maybe the US policy will be more .. expansionist?
 
It really is a sign of how broad a church liberalism still is that all five can comfortably reside within it. The US, after all, maintains property requirements to vote, although ones that are so small that almost all can reach them, and Italy's priesthood still has a powerful role in running the country. You can contrast this with Britain's neo-Jacobinism (the guillotine outside the House of The People is there for a reason after all, never mind how long it's been since it was used) and the oddities that the Canadian compact with the Amerindians has left it with.

Actually, the U.S. hasn't had property requirements at all for federal voting since the 1860s(the Civil War put an end to that. A few Southern states do still technically have their old laws for state and local elections on the books, but none of these have been in effect since the early 1950s; thank the Taft Court for that.).....and for that matter, the priesthood has only a very minor political role in modern Italy, and this has been true for decades. While they do have some influence, it is almost exclusively cultural.

OOC: Sorry to say, but that bit in the bold is really implausible, TBH, even with that little caveat at the end: property requirements were never quite universally accepted to begin with and there's a very good reason that even Andrew Jackson agreed they had to be eliminated even IOTL. Assuming Jackson's rise to power is butterflied, I can see this possibly being delayed, but it certainly wouldn't have lasted to the 21st Century barring some extreme levels of blind happenstance, or a majorly illiberal clique coming to power-and staying in power-in the U.S.(but then, in the case of the latter, it wouldn't fit the scenario).

Maybe voters will change their minds, and Thomas Jefferson will become president of the United States? Maybe the US policy will be more .. expansionist?

Jefferson almost did win in 1800, and it would be interesting to see how an earlier expansion, or attempts at such, at least, might have affected things. (In our reality, California did not become a state until 1869, having previously spent some almost 20 years as a distinct nation a la Texas)

OOC: BTW, since you're the OP.....I was wondering what we might do with Texas, or Tejas. Is it an independent country today? Is it one, or two or more U.S. states? Or did it fall back into the Mexican fold?
 
After Thermidor Robespierre negotiated with the French churches. He wanted to allow priests to swear allegiance to the Constitution at his own will, but the civil structure of the clergy was not eliminated

Pfft...

and when they refused to do so he "negotiated" with bayonets. Sure, he may have preferred they had meekly signed over all their tithes (While receiving no state support to replace the funding to provide much-needed services to the under supported peas entry; including medical care and education), accept the supremacy of French law over church rules within internal excelelastic affairs, shut down all Catholic schools and surrender the right to open any others, ect., but throwing the bone that the State wouldn't become their employer and fill their positions like they were mere clerks isent a fair bargin.
 
Top