ABSTRACT
The deputies of the Legislative Assembly concluded their business on20 September 1792, all too aware that they had failed to steer the revolution into calmer waters. Having held power – ingloriously – for barely 12 months, most of them would be relegated to the footnotes of history. Instead, the revolution was heading into uncharted waters on which few vessels of state had sailed before. But at least there no longer existed any constitutional obstacle to prevent the most experienced and talented deputies and former deputies from assembling on the bridge. The National Convention, as the new legislature was called, would contain a large contingent of representatives (269) who had sat before, whether in the first or the second legislature. Thus, Robespierre, Pétion, Sieyès, François Buzot, Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai and Jean-François Reubell, to name only those already embarked upon significant careers, returned to office, while the mandates of Brissot, Vergniaud and Couthon were renewed without interruption. On the benches of the old royal riding school, which had served as the chamber since November 1789, they were joined by men who had yet to become national and international figures: the young ex-nobleman, Antoine Saint-Just; Georges Danton, who had resigned as a minister; Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Paul Marat, the fiery street-level journalists; Fabre d’Eglantine and Collot d’Herbois, both dramatists; and Billaud-Varenne. But would these individuals be able to work together? Many of those named had been chosen by the electorate of Paris, and their past went ahead of them, so to speak. Some were Cordeliers militants who had graduated to the Jacobin Club; a few were even suspected of involvement in the prison massacres which had taken place earlier in the month. How would they respond to the pressures for partnership in government? The democratisation of public life that was now under way implied a radical revision of policy objectives. Then there was the question of ‘terror’: should it be employed solely as a means of preserving the nation from its growing list of enemies, or as a tool with which to forge a new and purer society?
