The Republic Of Virtue : A French Enigma

       

I origianlly wrote this article for my college magazine but apparently it got rejected and here we are, so relax and enjoy ;)

 

  In the annals of human history, few moments have ignited the collective imagination and fervour for change as profoundly as the French Revolution. It was an era when the very essence of liberty and equality was cast into the crucible of revolution, and from its fiery depths emerged a concept both enigmatic and alluring: the “Republic of Virtue.” This visionary ideal, closely entwined with the name of Maximillian Robespierre, represents a poignant paradox—brilliant in its aspiration, yet haunting in its execution. 

   Robespierre, a prominent lawyer from Arras, he being destined for a life of obscurity until 1789, when he was propelled into the storm centre of the greatest event in history since the fall of the roman empire, The French revolution. The revolutionaries have challenged the might and arrogance of the French court in Versailles, executed their king and created a ‘republic’, whose watch words were liberty, equality, and the rights of men, a government whose sovereignty was based on the people. But the revolutionaries have also dreamed of a new type of society , one where men and women freed from social customs and tyranny could attain moral perfection, such type of perfection which was mentioned in Rousseau's “Social contract”, where increase in liberty will lead to increase in virtue , bringing humans closer to their true exotic nature. And no one believed in this ‘republic of virtue’ more than Robespierre himself. But in Robespierre, a Jacobin, the world got its first glimpse of new type of virtue philosophy , a man who believed that the road to virtue lay not through persuasion but through terror.

  Robespierre’s ideals were deeply rooted in the enlightened ideals of reason and civic virtues. And he insisted that following these ideals would make the country escape the internal and external threats. However, it was in the execution of this vision that the brilliance seem to falter, giving way to haunting darkness. Brilliant aspirations started to give way for a chilling reality in which the pursuit of virtue appeared to necessitate the loss of countless lives. Robespierre’s may have believed that he was safeguarding the virtues of the republic but the means he employed sullied the very ideals he sought to protect and at the end terror to him was prompt, severe , inflexible justice and therefore is emanation of virtue. And thus the virtue in French republic was not the language of pragmatism but rather a revolutionary discourse.