Famous Dictators Quiz #2

The excesses that were committed in these days by some "Représentants en mission" (Members of the National Convention that would be sent by their collegues with full authority to reestablish order in the countryside) were usually condemned by Robespierre. For instance Fouché participated actively to the overthrow of Robespierre in Thermidor precisely because Robespierre wanted him tried for his atrocities in Lyon. The killing of Robespierre and his partisans was in fact the single biggest day of executions of the revolution : I wonder who was the underdog and who was the terrorist, right ?

He presided the Committee of Public Safety, which only took decision at the absolute majority, had to be reconducted every month by the National Convention, and was responsible in front of it. No decision could ever hope to pass if the National Convention opposed it. There a reason he was so easy to eliminate : the theoretical and institutional framework of that part of the French Revolution didn't enable him to ever become a dictator, and he never wanted to be one. On the contrary, he was usually in the minority in the National Convention : only his aura as a competent orator supported by the Parisian masses enabled him to have a semblance of authority over the National Convention, authority which always remained a moral one.