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Committee of Public Safety

For other uses, see Committee of Public Safety (disam-

biguation).

The Committee of Public Safety(French:   Comité de sa-

lut public ), created in March 1793 by the National Con-

vention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de

 facto executive government in France during the Reign of

Terror (1793–1794), a stage of the  French Revolution.

The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous

Committee of General Defence (established in January

1793) and assumed its role of protecting the newly estab-lished republic against foreign attacks and internal rebel-

lion. As a wartime measure, the Committee—composed

at first of nine, and later of twelve, members—was given

broad supervisory powers over military, judicial, and leg-

islative efforts. It was formed as an administrative body

to supervise and expedite the work of the executive bod-

ies of the Convention and of the government ministers

appointed by the Convention. As the Committee tried

to meet the dangers of a coalition of European nations

and counter-revolutionary forces within the country, it

became more and more powerful.

In July 1793, following the defeat at the Convention ofthe moderate Republicans (or "Girondists"), the promi-

nent leaders of the radical Jacobins—Maximilien Robe-

spierre and Saint-Just  —were added to the Committee.

The power of the Committee peaked between August

1793 and July 1794, under the leadership of Robespierre.

In December 1793, the Convention formally conferred

executive power upon the Committee, and Robespierre

established a virtual dictatorship.

The execution of Robespierre in July 1794 represented

a reactionary period against the Committee of Public

Safety. This is known as the  Thermidorian Reaction,

as Robespierre’s fall from power occurred during theRevolutionary month  of Thermidor. The Committee’s

influence diminished, and it was disestablished in 1795.

1 Origins and evolution

1.1 Committee of discussion

On 5 April 1793, the French military commander and

former minister of war General  Charles François Du-

mouriez   defected to Austria, following the publicationof an incendiary letter in which he threatened to march

his army on the city of Paris if the National Conven-

Lettre anglaise (English Letter) dated 29 June 1793 as published 

by the French National convention during the Revolution (1793).

This document was used to prove English spying and conspiracy.

tion did not accede to his leadership. News of his de-

fection caused alarm in Paris, where imminent defeat by

the Austrians and their allies was feared. A widespread

belief held that revolutionary France was in immediate

peril, threatened not only by foreign armies and by recentanti-revolutionary revolts in the Vendée, but also by for-

eign agents who plotted the destruction of the nation from

within.[1]

The betrayal of the revolutionary government by Du-

mouriez lent greater credence to this belief. In light

of this threat, the  Girondin leader Maximin Isnard pro-

posed the creation of a nine-member Committee of Pub-

lic Safety. Isnard was supported in this effort by Georges

Danton, who declared, “This Committee is precisely what

we want, a hand to grasp the weapon of the Revolutionary

Tribunal.”[1]

The Committee was formally created on 6 April 1793.Closely associated with the leadership of Danton, it was

initially known as “the Danton Committee”.[2] Danton

steered the Committee through the 31 May and 2 June

1793  journées   that resulted in the fall of the Girondins,

and through the intensifying war in the Vendée. How-

ever, when the Committee was recomposed on 10 July,

Danton was not included. Nevertheless, he continued to

support the centralization of power by the Committee.[3]

On 27 July 1793, Maximilien Robespierre was elected to

the Committee. At this time, the Committee was enter-

ing a more powerful and active phase, which would see

it become a de facto  dictatorship alongside its powerfulpartner, the  Committee of General Security. The role

of the Committee of Public Safety included the gover-

1

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2   1 ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION 

nance of the war (including the appointment of generals),

the appointing of judges and juries for the Revolutionary

Tribunal,[4] the provisioning of the armies and the pub-

lic, the maintenance of public order, and oversight of the

state bureaucracy.[5]

The Committee was also responsible for interpreting andapplying the decrees of theNational Convention, and thus

for implementing some of the most stringent policies of

the Terror—for instance, the levée en masse, passedon 23

August 1793, the Law of Suspects, passed on 17 Septem-

ber 1793, and the Law of the Maximum, passed on 29

September 1793. The broad and centralized powers of

the Committee were codified by the Law of 14 Frimaire

(also known as the Law of Revolutionary Government)

on 4 December 1793.

1.1.1 Execution of the Hébertists and Dantonists

On 5 December 1793, journalist Camille Desmoulins be-

gan publishing Le Vieux Cordelier , a newspaper initially

aimed—with the approval of Robespierre and the Com-

mittee of Public Safety[6]—at the ultra-revolutionary

Hébertist   faction, whose extremist demands, anti-

religious fervor, and propensity for sudden insurrec-

tions were problematic for the Committee. However,

Desmoulins quickly turned his pen against the Committee

of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security,

comparing their reign to that of the Roman tyrants chron-

icled by Tacitus, and expounding the "indulgent " views of

the Dantonist faction.

Consequently, though the Hébertists were arrested and

executed in March 1794, the Committee of Public Safety

and the Committee of General Security ensured that

Desmoulins and Danton were also arrested.   Hérault de

Séchelles—a friend and ally of Danton—was expelled

from the Committee of Public Safety, arrested, and tried

alongside them. On 5 April 1794, the Dantonists went to

the guillotine.

1.2 Committee of rule

The elimination of the Hébertists and the Dantonists, inthe opinion of historian François Furet, “had definitively

closed the book on a collegial executive: Robespierre

was, in fact, the head of the Republic’s government.”[7]

Certainly the strength of the committees had been made

evident, as had their ability to control and silence opposi-

tion. The Law of 14 Frimaire was enacted in December

1793 to centralize and consolidate power within the Com-

mittee of Public Safety. The creation, in March 1794, of

a “General Police Bureau”—reporting nominally to the

Committee of Public Safety, but more often directly to

Robespierre and his closest ally, Louis Antoine de Saint-

Just—served to increase the power of the Committee ofPublic Safety, and of Robespierre himself.

The Law of 22 Prairial, proposed by the Committee of

Maximilien Robespierre , spokesman and a radical voice behind 

the leadership of the Committee of Public Safety

Public Safety and enacted on 10 June 1794, went further

in establishing the iron control of the Revolutionary Tri-

bunal and, above it, the Committees of Public Safety and

General Security. The law enumerated various forms of

public enemies, made mandatory their denunciation, and

severely limited the legal recourse available to those ac-

cused. The punishment for all crimes under the Law of

22 Prairal was death. From the initiation of this law to

the fall of Robespierre on 27 July, more people were con-

demned to death than in the entire previous history of the

Revolutionary Tribunal.[8]

However, even as the Terror reached its height, and with

it the Committee’s political power, discord was growing

within the revolutionary government. Members of the

Committee of General Security resented the autocratic

behavior of the Committee of Public Safety, and par-

ticularly the encroachment of Robespierre’s General Po-

lice Bureau upon their own brief.[9] Arguments within

the Committee of Public Safety itself had grown so vi-

olent that it relocated its meetings to a more private

room to preserve the illusion of agreement.[10] Robe-

spierre, a fervent supporter of the theistic  Cult of the

Supreme Being, found himself frequently in conflict with

anti-religious Committee members Collot d'Herbois and

Billaud-Varenne. Moreover, Robespierre’s increasingly

extensive absences from the Committee due to illness (heall but ceased to attend meetings in June 1794) created

the impression that he was isolated and out of touch.

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3

1.3 Fall of the Committee, and aftermath

When it became evident, in mid-July 1794, that Robe-

spierre and Saint-Just were planning to strike against their

political opponents  Joseph Fouché,   Jean-Lambert Tal-

lien, and Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier  (the latter two

of whom were members of the Committee of General

Security), the fragile truce within the government was

dissolved. Saint-Just and his fellow Committee of Pub-

lic Safety member  Barère attempted to keep the peace

between the Committees of Public Safety and General

Security; however, on 26 July, Robespierre delivered a

speech to the National Convention in which he empha-

sized the need to “purify” the Committees and “crush all

factions.”[11] In a speech to the Jacobin Club that night,

he attacked Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, who

had refused to allow the printing and distribution of his

speech to the Convention.

On the following day, 27 July 1794 (or  9 Thermidor ac-

cording to the Revolutionary calendar), Saint-Just began

to deliver a speech to the Convention in which he had

planned to denounce Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne,

and other members of the Committee of Public Safety.

However, he was almost immediately interrupted by Tal-

lien and by Billaud-Varenne, who accused Saint-Just of

intending to “murder the Convention.”[12] Barère, Vadier,

and Stanislas Fréron joined the accusations against Saint-

Just and Robespierre. The arrest of Robespierre, his

brother Augustin, and Saint-Just was ordered, along with

that of their supporters,   Philippe Le Bas   and   Georges

Couthon.

A period of intense civil unrest ensued, during which

the members of the Committees of Public Safety and

General Security were forced to seek refuge in the Con-

vention. The Robespierre brothers, Saint-Just, Le Bas,

and Couthon ensconced themselves in the Hôtel de Ville,

attempting to incite an insurrection. Ultimately, faced

with defeat and arrest, Le Bas committed suicide. Saint-

Just, Couthon, and Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre

were arrested and guillotined on 28 July.

The ensuing period of upheaval, dubbed the

Thermidorian Reaction, saw the repeal of many of

the Terror’s most unpopular laws and the reduction

in power of the Committees of General Security and

Public Safety. The Committees ceased to exist under the

Constitution of 1795, which marked the beginning of

the Directory.

2 Composition

The Committee was initially composed of nine members,

all selected by the National Convention for one month ata time, without term limits. Its first members, instated on

6 April 1793, were as follows, in order of election.

•   Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, representative of

Hautes-Pyrénées (imprisoned, escaped guillotine to

live in hiding)

•   Jean-François Delmas, representative of Haute-

Garonne

•   Jean-Jacques Bréard, representative of Charente-

Inférieure

•   Pierre-Joseph Cambon, representative of   Hérault

(forced to live in hiding)

•   Georges Danton, representative of Paris proper

(guillotined)

•   Jean-Antoine Debry, representative of Aisne, later

replaced by Robert Lindet, representative of Eure

upon resignation

•  Louis-Bernard Guyton-Morveau, representative ofCôte d'Or

•  Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, representative of Seine-at-

Oise

•  Jean-François Delacroix, representative of Eure-at-

Loir (guillotined)

After Robespierre’s election to the Committee on 27

July 1793, the Committee increased its membership

to twelve. The list below represents the Committee’s

membership from the addition of Collot d'Herbois andBillaud-Varenne in September 1793 through the arrest of

Hérault de Séchelles in March 1794.

•  Maximilien de Robespierre, representative of Paris

(guillotined)

•   Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, representative of

Hautes-Pyrénées (imprisoned)

•  Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet, representative of Eure

(denounced and tried)

•

  André Jeanbon Saint André, representative of Lot(arrested but released)

•   Georges Couthon, representative of Puy-at-Dôme

(guillotined)

•  Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, representative of

Seine-at-Oise (guillotined)

•   Pierre-Louis Prieur (called Prieur de la Marne), rep-

resentative of Marne

•  Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, representative of

Aisne (guillotined)

•   Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, representative of

Pas-de-Calais

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4   5 REFERENCES 

•   Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois (former Prior of

Côte-d’Or), representative of Côte-d'Or

•  Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, representative of

Paris (arrested and exiled)

•   Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, representative of Paris

(arrested and deported)

3 See also

•   Commissioners of the Committee of Public Safety

•  Committee of General Security

•   National Convention

•   Historiography of the French Revolution

•   Revolutionary Tribunal

•   Reflections on the Revolution in France

4 Notes

[1]   Belloc (1899), p. 210.

[2]   Mantel (2009).

[3]   Belloc (1899), p. 235.

[4]   Scurr (2006), p. 284.

[5]   Furet (1992), p. 134.

[6]   Furet (1992), p. 141.

[7]   Furet (1992), p. 142.

[8]   Scurr (2006), p. 328.

[9]   Scurr (2006), p. 331.

[10]   Scurr (2006), p. 340.

[11]  Madelin (1916), p. 418.

[12]  Madelin (1916), p. 422.

5 References

•   Belloc, Hillaire   (1899).   Danton: A Study. New

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

•   Furet, François   (1992).   Revolutionary France,

1770–1880. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

•   Madelin, Louis   (1916).   The French Revolution.

New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

•   Mantel, Hilary (6 August 2009). “He Roared”. Lon-don Review of Books  3 (15): 3–6. Retrieved 16 Jan-

uary 2010.

•   Palmer, R.R. (September 1941). “Fifty Years of the

Committee of Public Safety”.   Journal of Modern

History 13  (3): 375–397. JSTOR 1871581.

•  ——— (1970).  Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the

Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton: Prince-

ton University Press. ISBN 0-691-05119-4.

•  Schama, Simon (1989).  Citizens: A Chronicle of the

French Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

•   Scurr, Ruth (2006).   Fatal Purity: Robespierre and 

the French Revolution. New York: Owl Books.

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