Robespierre | Document signed by Robespierre, Couthon and Barrère, ordering 7 prisoners to be brought for trial, 1794

Robespierre, Maximilien de

Printed and manuscript document signed ("Robespierre"), as member of the Comité de Salut public, also signed by Georges Couthon and Bertrand Barère, 19 June 1794;

being a warrant for the arrest of several named persons, an Extract from the Registers of the "Comité de Salut public", giving orders to the Agent national of the District of Orleans to arrest and bring to Paris, within ten days, "sous bonne garde", certain named persons, whose occupations are given, including a tribunal judge, a police superintendent, a shoe-maker and a carpenter

...de faire arrêter et transférer à Paris, dans le même délai Bouneau agent M[unicip]^al de la Commune d'orléans, Corbon couverturier, Ponceaux Charpentier, Cazotlange Commissaire de Police, Cusson officier municipal, Gratta lefevre juge de Tribunal, Laguette Doreur. Et Lebeau cordonnier et officier M^al..."

1 page, folio, with at the head an engraved vignette of the Committee displaying the "all-seeing eye" and motto ("Activité, Pureté, Surveillance"), Paris, 1 messidor an 2 [19 June 1794],

This is a striking document dating from the final days of the "Terror" during the French Revolution, only a month before the fall of its principal architect, Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794). This document shows him in his iconic role as prosecutor and judge, arraigning persons of all types and classes; his regime accounted for over sixteen thousand deaths in 1793 and 1794 until his downfall on 19 July. 

The two other signatories to this warrant met contrasting fates; Georges Couthon, fanatically anti-clerical, went to the guillotine on the same day as Robespierre. However Bertrand Barère de Veiuzac (1755-1841) survived the Terror and became a secret agent under Napoleon.

PROVENANCE:

Earl of Crawford and Crawford & Balcarres ("Bibliotheca Lindesiana"); his sale, Sotheby's 4 December 1924, lot 478; Sotheby's 3 July 1973, lot 381