The purge of the Girondins: the use and abuse of violence from the September massacres to the assassination of Marat
Date
2002
Authors
Dodds, Dawn Marija
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Abstract
Looking at the work of Jean Paul Marat and Maximilien Robespierre from the September massacres of 1792 to the assassination of Marat 13 July 1793, this thesis examines the implications of putting violence at the center of analysis of the French Revolution. By focussing on the tension between violence as a force which the masses used to express themselves, while at the same time one which revolutionary leaders manipulated towards their ultimately partisan ends, this thesis demonstrates the extent to which historians have tended to treat violence as a spontaneous response to certain circumstances rather than the product of deliberate political calculation. In particular, this thesis argues that radical leaders manipulated the use of violence as a means of overcoming the barriers between the official political sphere of revolutionary institutions, and the unofficial sphere of popular street politics.