Committee of Public Safety

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Comité de Salut Public, 1794. Anonymous French print, 18th century.

The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comité de salut public), created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured July 1793, formed the de facto executive government of France during the Reign of Terror (1793-4), a stage of the French Revolution. Under war conditions and with national survival seemingly at stake, the Jacobins, under Maximilien Robespierre, centralized denunciations, trials, and executions under the supervision of this committee of first nine and later twelve members. The committee was responsible for thousands of executions, with many high-profile executions at the guillotine, in what was known as the "Reign of Terror." Frenchmen were executed under the pretext of being a supporter of monarchy or opposing the Revolution. The Committee ceased meeting in 1795.

Composition

The Committee was formally composed of nine members, all selected by the National Convention for one month at a time, without period limits. Its first members, instated on 6 April 1793 were as follows, in order of election. Later, Robespierre joined the Committee and largely dominated it.

• Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, representative of Hautes-Pyrénées
• Jean-François Delmas, representative of Haute-Garonne
• Jean-Jacques Bréard, representative of Charente-Inférieure
• Pierre-Joseph Cambon, representative of Hérault
• Georges Danton, representative of Paris proper
• Jean-Antoine Debry, representative of Aisne, later replaced by Robert Lindet, representative of Eure upon resignation
• Louis-Bernard Guyton-Morveau, representative of Côte d'Or
• Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, representative of Seine-at-Oise
• Jean-François Delacroix, representative of Eure-at-Loir

On 10 July, the Committee was recomposed and renamed the Grand Committee of Public Safety (le Grand Comité de salut public). Most of the original members were replaced, and the committee received extraordinary powers. In September 1793, the size of the committee was restructured to hold twelve members. It was almost completely dominated by Robespierre upon his election to the committee on 27 July.

• Maximilien de Robespierre, representative of Paris
• Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, representative of Hautes-Pyrénées
• Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet, representative of Eure
• André Jeanbon Saint André, representative of Lot
• Georges Couthon, representantive of Puy-at-Dôme
• Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, representative of Seine-at-Oise
• Pierre-Louis Prieur (dit Prieur de la Marne), representative of Marne
• Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, representative of Aisne
• Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, representative of Pas-de-Calais
• Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois (former Prior of Côte-d’Or), representative of Côte-d'Or
• Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, representative of Paris
• Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, representative of Paris

The Committee lost its power in the Thermidorian reaction on 27 July 1794. The de facto dictatorship of Robespierre, whose powers had reached their height with the executions of Danton and Hébert during the spring of 1794, was effectively ended, and with it the Reign of Terror. Robespierre was guillotined the following day, along with most of the members of the Committee who had held actual power. The Committee was finally abolished in 1795, when a new constitution was promulgated, ending the rule of the National Convention that had lasted from the proclamation of the republic in 1792.

Actions

• Passed the Maximum Price Act
• Hundreds of thousands conscripted in the Levée en masse. France had over 1,500,000 men in its armies
• Creation of a war dictatorship.
• Suppression of counter-revolution and rebellions.
• Created the Law of 22 Prairial

Failures

• Around 40,000 French citizens were killed.
• Many tens of thousands more were alienated from the Revolution
• Grain shortages and hoarding caused by price controls.
• The poor bore the burden of conscription and grain requisitions.
• Hospitals, schools and charities were deprived of staff because of attacks on religious orders.
• Deepening hostilities in the countryside over the dechristianisation campaign.

Prominent members

• Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac - Earlier a Girondist, later a Bonapartist, drew up the 9 Thermidor report outlawing Robespierre.
• Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, an Hébertist
• Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès was a member only after 9 Thermidor
• Lazare Carnot - physicist, the "Organizer of Victory"
• Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, an Hébertist
• Georges Couthon
• Georges Danton, only from April - July 1793
• Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles
• Robert Lindet
• Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, only from March - June 1793, also mayor of Paris
• Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois (also known as Prieur de la Côte-d'Or)
• Pierre Louis Prieur (also known as Prieur de la Marne)
• Maximilien Robespierre, a Montagnard
• Jean Bon Saint-André
• Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, a Montagnard
• Jean-Lambert Tallien was a member only after 9 Thermidor
• Jacques-Louis David

See also

• Committee of General Security
• National Convention
• Historiography of the French Revolution
• Public safety
• Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Revolutionary Tribunal

References

• R.R. Palmer Twelve Who Ruled (1941, ISBN 0-691-05119-4)