Rousseau, Robespierre and the French Revolution. Reflections on the importance of intellectual influences on politics

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse and problematize Rousseau’s influence on Robespierre and, from this example, to examine the question of influences in general. This article sets out to refute those interpretations in which Robespierre is basically described as a kind of mere application or practical extension of Rousseau’s thought. To do so, it examines the various issues relating to his “great influence”: among other things, the contradictions of this thinker with what was said in his name, how he was claimed by practically all sides (even counter-revolutionaries) or how there were other very important influences among the main revolutionary actors (such as Greco-Roman Antiquity). It is also noted that Rousseau was rarely quoted explicitly by Robespierre, even in a laudatory way, which is why his speeches are analysed in detail, and this type of internalist approach is combined with externalist or contextual analyses. The purpose is not to deny the influence, but to qualify it and show how the reception of Rousseau during the French Revolution was productive, complex, conjunctural, shifting and publicly contested. In fact, the symbolic dimension was often more important than the discursive one.