Maximilien Franois Marie Isidore de Robespierre (French: [mak.si.mi.lj .bs.pj]; 6 May 1758 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage and the abolition of both clerical celibacy and slavery. In 1791, Robespierre was elected as "public accuser" and became an outspoken advocate for male citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and to the commissioned ranks of the army, for the right to petition and the right to bear arms in self defence. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention. His goal was to create a one and indivisible France, equality before the law, to abolish prerogatives and to defend the principles of direct democracy. He earned the nickname "the incorruptible" for his adherence to strict moral values.

As one of the leading members of the Paris Commune, Robespierre was elected as a deputy to the French Convention in early September 1792 but was soon criticised for trying to establish either a triumvirate or a dictatorship. In April 1793, Robespierre urged the creation of a sans-culotte army to enforce revolutionary laws and sweep away any counter-revolutionary conspirator, leading to the armed Insurrection of 31 May 2 June 1793. Because of his health, Robespierre announced he was to resign but in July he was appointed as a member of the powerful Committee of Public Safety, and reorganized the Revolutionary Tribunal. In October, after Robespierre proposed in vain to close the convention, the Committees declared itself a revolutionary government, the joint domination of the Committee of Public Safety and Committee of General Security. Those who were not actively defending France (modrantisme) became his enemy. He exerted his influence to suppress the republican Girondins to the right, the radical Hbertists to the left and then the indulgent Dantonists in the centre.

Robespierre is best known for his role as a member of the Committee of Public Safety as he signed 542 arrests, especially in the spring and summer of 1794. The question of just how personally responsible Robespierre was for the law of 22 Prairial remains controversial. Coming into effect at the height of la Grande Terreur, the law would free the Revolutionary Tribunals from control by the Convention and would greatly strengthen the position of prosecutors (public accusers) by limiting the ability of suspects to defend themselves. Although Robespierre always had like-minded allies, the politically motivated violence that the Montagne faction often promoted disillusioned others. Moreover, the deist Cult of the Supreme Being that he had founded and zealously promoted generated suspicion in the eyes of both anticlericals and other political factions, who felt he was developing grandiose delusions about his place in French society.After exactly one year, Robespierre was undone by his obsession with the vision of an ideal republic and his indifference to the human costs of installing it, turning both members of the Convention and the French public against him. He and his allies were arrested in the Paris town hall on 9 Thermidor. Robespierre was wounded in his jaw, but it is not known if it was self-inflicted or the outcome of the skirmish. About 90 people, including Robespierre, were executed in the days after, events that initiated a period known as the Thermidorian Reaction.A divisive figure during his lifetime due to his views and policies, Robespierre remains controversial to this day. His legacy and reputation continue to be subject to academic and popular debate. To some, Robespierre was the Revolution's principal ideologist and embodied the country's first democratic experience, marked by the often revised and never implemented French Constitution of 1793. To others, he was the incarnation of the Terror itself, and provided in his speeches a justification of civilian armament. George Rud estimates that the spokesman made some 900 speeches, in which he often expressed his political and philosophical views forcefully.

The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while phrases like liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution, and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. The values and institutions it created dominate French politics to this day.Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political and economic factors, which the existing regime proved unable to manage. In May 1789, widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. Continuing unrest culminated in the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, including the abolition of feudalism, the imposition of state control over the Catholic Church in France, and extension of the right to vote.

The next three years were dominated by the struggle for political control, exacerbated by economic depression and Civil disorder. Opposition from external powers like Austria, Britain, and Prussia resulted in the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792. Disillusionment with Louis XVI led to the establishment of the French First Republic on 22 September 1792, followed by his execution in January 1793. In June, an uprising in Paris replaced the Girondins who dominated the National Assembly with the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Maximilien Robespierre.

This sparked the Reign of Terror, an attempt to eradicate alleged "counter-revolutionaries"; by the time it ended in July 1794, over 16,600 had been executed in Paris and the provinces. As well as its external enemies, the Republic faced internal opposition from both Royalists and Jacobins and in order to deal with these threats, the French Directory took power in November 1795. Despite a series of military victories, many won by Napoleon Bonaparte, political divisions and economic stagnation resulted in the Directory being replaced by the Consulate in November 1799. This is generally seen as marking the end of the Revolutionary period.