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After Robespierre: The Thermidorian Reaction
A companion volume to Matthiez' great history of the French Revolution (UL-169), After Robespierre describes the crucial period following Robespierre's overthrow and execution that was to end, finally, in the supremacy of Napoleon. It was a period of intrigue, misgovernment, corruption and counter-revolution as politicians jostled and competed with one another in bids for popularity and power. For with Robespierre's fall, revolutionary idealism had perished as an effective force in France, replaced only by personal rivalries and private interests. Matthiez' masterly account of the breakdown of the first great European experiment in representative democracy is drama of the highest order and history of the first rank.
- GenresFrance
281 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1929
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About the author
Albert Mathiez
60 books2 followersAlbert-Xavier-Émile Mathiez was a French historian, best known for his Marxist interpretation of the Great French Revolution.
He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1894, by which time he had already displayed a strong anti-clerical bias. After graduation, he passed the aggregation in history and after doing his military service entered the teaching profession. He taught at a variety of local lycèes until he completed his doctorate which he wrote under the direction of François Victor Alphonse Aulard, then the leading historian of the Revolution, who admired Georges Danton.
Mathiez was greatly influenced by Jean Jaurès, who propounded a more radical economic and social interpretation. At first a good friend of Aulard, he broke with his mentor in 1907, founding his own society, the Société des études robespierristes, with its journal, the Annales révolutionnaires. He also moved up from the lycée to the university level, teaching at Besançon and Dijon.
He made extensive use of archival documents in producing his numerous publications. Initially he studied the political and religious achievements of the Revolution and, after the First World War, its economic and social consequences emphasized class conflict. He argued that 1789 pitted the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy and then the Revolution pitted the bourgeoisie against the sans-culottes, who were a proletariat-in-the-making.
Mathiez greatly influenced Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul in forming what came to be known as the orthodox Marxist interpretation of the Revolution. Mathiez admired Maximilien Robespierre, praised the Reign of Terror and did not extend complete sympathy to the struggle of the proletariat.
A commemorative plaque in his likeness is still to this day in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne.
He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1894, by which time he had already displayed a strong anti-clerical bias. After graduation, he passed the aggregation in history and after doing his military service entered the teaching profession. He taught at a variety of local lycèes until he completed his doctorate which he wrote under the direction of François Victor Alphonse Aulard, then the leading historian of the Revolution, who admired Georges Danton.
Mathiez was greatly influenced by Jean Jaurès, who propounded a more radical economic and social interpretation. At first a good friend of Aulard, he broke with his mentor in 1907, founding his own society, the Société des études robespierristes, with its journal, the Annales révolutionnaires. He also moved up from the lycée to the university level, teaching at Besançon and Dijon.
He made extensive use of archival documents in producing his numerous publications. Initially he studied the political and religious achievements of the Revolution and, after the First World War, its economic and social consequences emphasized class conflict. He argued that 1789 pitted the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy and then the Revolution pitted the bourgeoisie against the sans-culottes, who were a proletariat-in-the-making.
Mathiez greatly influenced Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul in forming what came to be known as the orthodox Marxist interpretation of the Revolution. Mathiez admired Maximilien Robespierre, praised the Reign of Terror and did not extend complete sympathy to the struggle of the proletariat.
A commemorative plaque in his likeness is still to this day in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 12, 2025
Old but still worth reading. Kind of hard to read because of its difficult vocabulary. It's 100 years ago after all.
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