An overview of the french revolutionary committee of public safety in 18th century

This period saw the transition from a relatively rigid system of legal proofs which predetermined when there was sufficient evidence for a condemnation, to a system based on the free evaluation of the evidence by either professional judges or lay jurors. It is the central contention of this article that the reform of the criminal law of evidence can, to an important extent, be explained by two larger underlying ideological changes. These new ideas derived from a change in the epistemological and the political-constitutional discourses between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

Origins and evolution[ edit ] Committee of discussion[ edit ] Lettre anglaise English Letter dated 29 June as published by the French National convention during the Revolution This document was used to prove English spying and conspiracy.

News of his defection caused alarm in Paris, where imminent defeat by the Austrians and their allies was feared.

Introduction

In light of this threat, the Girondin leader Maximin Isnard proposed the creation of a nine-member Committee of Public Safety. Isnard was supported in this effort by Georges Dantonwho declared, "This Committee is precisely what we want, a hand to grasp the weapon of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Closely associated with the leadership of Danton, it was initially known as "the Danton Committee". However, when the Committee was recomposed on 10 July, Danton was not included.

Nevertheless, he continued to support the centralization of power by the Committee. At this time, the Committee was entering a more powerful and active phase, which would see it become a de facto dictatorship alongside its powerful partner, the Committee of General Security.

The role of the Committee of Public Safety included the governance of the war including the appointment of generalsthe appointing of judges and juries for the Revolutionary Tribunal, [5] the provisioning of the armies and the public, the maintenance of public order, and oversight of the state bureaucracy.

The broad and centralized powers of the Committee were codified by the Law of 14 Frimaire also known as the Law of Revolutionary Government on 4 December However, Desmoulins quickly turned his pen against the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security, comparing their reign to that of the Roman tyrants chronicled by Tacitusand expounding the "indulgent" views of the Dantonist faction.

On 5 Aprilthe Dantonists went to the guillotine. The creation, in Marchof a "General Police Bureau"—reporting nominally to the Committee of Public Safety, but more often directly to Robespierre and his closest ally, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just —served to increase the power of the Committee of Public Safety, and of Robespierre himself.

The Law of 22 Prairialproposed by the Committee of Public Safety and enacted on 10 Junewent further in establishing the iron control of the Revolutionary Tribunal and, above it, the Committees of Public Safety and General Security.

The law enumerated various forms of public enemies, made mandatory their denunciation, and severely limited the legal recourse available to those accused. The punishment for all crimes under the Law of 22 Prairal was death.

From the initiation of this law to the fall of Robespierre on 27 July, more people were condemned to death than in the entire previous history of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Members of the Committee of General Security resented the autocratic behavior of the Committee of Public Safety, and particularly the encroachment of the General Police Bureau upon their own brief.

However, he was almost immediately interrupted by Tallien and by Billaud-Varenne, who accused Saint-Just of intending to "murder the Convention. A period of intense civil unrest ensued, during which the members of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security were forced to seek refuge in the Convention.

Ultimately, faced with defeat and arrest, Le Bas committed suicide. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. April Learn how and when to remove this template message The Committee was initially composed of nine members, all selected by the National Convention for one month at a time, without term limits.

Its first members, instated on 6 Aprilwere as follows, in order of election.

April — July Full Answer. The National Convention created the Committee of Public Safety to defend France from its domestic and foreign enemies, and to coordinate the French government's executive functions.

The French Revolution: A War of the Social Classes - The French Revolution was basically a war of the social classes. The middle class believed that in order to gain equality they had to get rid of the privileges that were stopping the progress of their rise in society. The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comité de salut public) Le Vieux Cordelier, a newspaper initially aimed—with the approval of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety —at the ultra-revolutionary Hébertist faction, whose extremist demands.

FRENCH REVOLUTION: An Overview "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" The conditions were no worse in the latter part of the 18th century than they had been earlier.

and for three years () a committee of this assembly, the Committee of Public Safety, ruled France while the constitution was set aside. The power of this committee did not. Indeed, in very large part the most striking characteristics of French Revolutionary warfare, together with the men and the domestic policies of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety with whom it is associated, owed their appearance to the first successes of .

A short summary of History SparkNotes's The French Revolution (–). Despite the creation of the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre, took control. Backed by the newly approved Constitution of , Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety began conscripting French soldiers and implementing laws to stabilize the.