Chapter 60 Why Do People Need Trials (Two Chapters in One)

The mobs in Paris are not a bunch of easy-to-bully people, or rather, they have always been the only ones bullying others.

Roland's behavior caused great disgust among the people of Paris, and after this incident, Roland was like a dementia.

Not only did he not punish Viscount Noailles, he also did not take further punishment actions against the king, but he persuaded people to let go of their hatred.

In fact, Roland was also forced to do so, as the royalists had already controlled Lyon, the second largest city in France.

He could ignore Leopold II's statement, but the oppression of the royalists was real.

Since the Revolution, many officers have defected from the army, which not only weakened the army's combat effectiveness, but also increased the possibility of a mutiny in the army. After all, these defectors were both nobles and old leaders of the soldiers.

In this case, Roland certainly wanted to depose Louis XVI, but he couldn't do so.

As the boss of the National Constituent Assembly, once he took action, he was destined to withstand the counterattack from the royalists.

This was exactly what Roland could not accept, so he took a method that he thought was perfect but was actually very stupid - taking sides.

Taking advantage of Roland's distraction, Robespierre began to call on the Jacobins to give speeches every day at the Champ de Mars.

He wanted to roast the Girondists on the fire.

As the "incorruptible" leader of the Jacobins, he was naturally the first speaker.

On the afternoon of January 27, 1790, at the Champ de Mars, Robespierre began his speech.

"Citizens, the National Convention has been misled, unknowingly, far away from the real problem.

I don't want to list who the misleaders are, because I hope they can repent and rejoin the ranks of the revolution.

I am not doing any judgment here.

Louis is not the defendant, and you are not the judges.

Yes, you are not judges. You are nothing except the representatives of the nation and politicians.

What you have is not a judgment that is favorable or unfavorable to someone, but a means to save France, an action to realize the wishes of the French people.

We have obviously carried out a revolution, why hasn't the king abdicated? Why does the Republic still remain in the mouths of some people?

The king has made many mistakes. He used force to He used all his strength to suppress the people; he colluded with foreign tyrants; he sold out the interests of the country for the throne; he allowed the church to take away the people's wealth in order to go to heaven; he broke his promise and fled privately.

But what about us? The people of France just forgave him again and again, were deceived by him again and again, and laughed at him in their hearts that France was almost full of fools, and no one dared to punish him.

In this case, should we keep this king?

Should we continue to keep him until the so-called coalition forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold arrive in Paris and tell all the French that you must continue to bear his oppression.

People of France, your fate and the future of France should be decided by you. "

As soon as Robespierre finished speaking, the crowd in the square shouted fiercely.

"He is no longer worthy of being the king of France!"

"This bastard should be expelled from the country, France does not welcome him!"

"Abolish him, abolish him, France needs to move towards a republic!"

The voices of the people were getting louder and louder, watching the excited scene of the people.

Robespierre raised his hand, and people gradually quieted down again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to me.

Our original intention, or the original intention of all revolutionaries, was to abolish the king out of respect for the king.

But Roland did nothing. When the king's secrets were repeatedly exposed, when the king fled at will, when the king colluded with the tyrant.

Roland just stood there and watched the people being bullied by the king.

But we should also be grateful that Roland's behavior made me fully realize the essence of the so-called king's abdication. He can be restored at any time as long as there are people like Roland to support him.

A king who abdicates and can be restored can only be used in two situations: either endangering the stability of the regime or threatening freedom, or achieving both results at the same time.

I now firmly believe that your enthusiasm so far will essentially go in the opposite direction of such a goal.

In fact, Roland's policy is hindering a resolution that could have consolidated the nascent republic.

Yes What resolution? To impress upon the people the revulsion of the monarchy, and to stun all the royalists.

So, to make his crimes known to the world; to make his trial the most impressive, sacred, and arduous resolution possible in the minds of the representatives of the French people; to draw an insurmountable gap between the paltry memory of his past and the dignity of the citizens.

We should have realized that keeping him alive would be a great threat to liberty.

All your discussions should be based on the premise that Louis should no longer be a king and that a republic must be established.

No one took the throne from Louis.

Louis lost his throne because of his crime - he declared the French people to be rebels and therefore called up the arms of the tyrants who were in cahoots with him.

However, the attitude of the French people and all the sympathizers of the revolution in Europe made it clear that Louis was the rebel.

Therefore, there was no way to put Louis on trial - if Louis was not admitted to be guilty, how could the birth of the Republic be declared innocent? (Please note the principle of the rule of law represented by the French Revolution, that is, the presumption of innocence). Louis' trial-no matter how it is concluded-will mean that it is legal to return the current country to monarchy and tyranny. era.

The idea that Louis should be tried was counter-revolutionary because it meant that the revolution was thrust into the forefront of controversy.

In fact, if Louis were to be tried, there would be a possibility of acquitting him.

See what I'm saying, "He may not be guilty"! And until the end of the trial, he must be presumed innocent.

But if Louis had been acquitted, or, to say the least, if he could have been presumed innocent, what would have become of our revolution?

If Louis is not guilty, then all the defenders of liberty become slanderers; then the royalist rebels become the friends of the truth, the protectors of the "suppressed innocent"; then the foreigners All judgments issued by the Royal Court have become legal attacks on a "usurping small group";

Then even Louis' detention so far has become unfair persecution.

Then the people of Paris, and all other French patriots, also became guilty.

Moreover, in the court of natural law, if crime and virtue, freedom and tyranny are brought to court, isn't it already partiality for crime and tyranny?

Citizens, please note that you have now been misled by some false propositions given by counter-revolutionaries mixed with revolutionaries.

You are confusing the relationship between citizens with the relationship between the nation as a whole and a scheming public enemy; you are confusing the position of a person in a revolution with that person's position in a stable government; you are confusing Confusing the punishment of a public official who protects the regime with the punishment of a person who wants to destroy the regime.

Faced with an exceptional situation that we have never seen before, we are still using concepts that we are familiar with but only apply to general situations to understand it. Because we are accustomed to using normal principles to deal with common violations.

Therefore, we are naturally inclined to think that if other principles are used, it is impossible for the state to justly punish a person who violates civil rights; we may also think that if there is no jury, no trial bench, and no litigation process , there is no justice.

These symbolic words ultimately mislead us.

This is the result of letting habits influence our thinking: these most casual gatherings, sometimes the most defective organizations, are regarded by us as absolute means of measuring truth and falsehood, justice and fairness.

We do not even realize that most of these ideas are related to the prejudices imposed on us by tyranny.

We have succumbed to the shackles of tyranny for so long that we have difficulty even identifying ourselves with the eternal principles of justice, so that anything connected with the sacred principles of law is considered illegal and the true order of nature. Chaos.

The solemn actions of the people, the noble love of virtue, seem to us, timidly, like volcanic eruptions or social collapse.

What we look forward to is free rule, which requires pure ideas and spirits, which is irreconcilable with our moral weakness and conceptual degradation.

And this is by no means a small problem.

When the people are forced to resort to the right of insurrection, the tyrant reverts to his true self.

How can a tyrant enter into a social contract? Tyrants only break contracts.

And this is exactly what Louis is doing and has done.

On the contrary, the people will retain the content of the social contract regarding the relations between citizens if they see fit.

But as for the content about the monarch, due to the relationship between tyranny and revolution, they are all invalid.

The rule of a tyrant and the revolution of the people are at war with each other, and courts and legal procedures can only apply to one of the two camps.

How can we use weapons to protect the people to maintain the authority of the tyrant? Isn't this a blasphemy against the law?

Justice under axioms has faded when it is used in the wrong place.

And if you think that constitutionalism can continue to apply under today's new order, it would be a huge fallacy, that is, assuming that constitutionalism can exist naturally.

So what kind of legal system is to replace constitutional government?

It is the basis for the existence of society - natural law. It is also the savior of the people.

The right to punish a tyrant and the right to abolish his royal power are actually one and the same thing.

Both manifest themselves in the same form. Revolution is the trial of a tyrant, and the collapse of the tyrant's power is the climax of this trial.

The final verdict is all that the freedom of the people demands.

The way people and courts make decisions is different.

The people did not pronounce the verdict, but vigorously launched a revolutionary movement; the people did not condemn the king, but threw the royal power into nothingness. The justice of the people is as valuable as the courts.

If the people took up arms against their oppressors in order to save themselves, how could they accept the emergence of a new threat as punishment for their uprising?

We are already allowing foreign cases that have nothing to do with any of this to mislead us.

Cromwell tried Charles I by a judicial committee controlled by him; Elizabeth I used the same method to deal with Mary I.

Apparently, these tyrants sacrificed their servants not for the sake of the people, but for their own ambitions, and they were trying to mislead the public with an illusion.

Absolute justice belongs to freedom and principles, not to fraud and conspiracy.

So for the people, if they abandon the justice and axioms governed by their own absolute power, is there any other legal principle to follow?

How can there be any dispute over whether it is legal or not to punish a tyrant?

Could anyone still ask Tarquin (the last king of Rome before the city entered the Republican era) to stand trial?

What would have happened to Rome if the Romans had claimed to defend Tarquin?

And what are we doing? We are looking for lawyers from all over to defend Louis XVI's crimes!

This is exactly what someone is good at. This betrayer of the revolution wants to leave an escape route for himself, but little does he know that his behavior is simply a matter of revolution and rebellion.

In this way, the revolutionaries will despise it, the royalists will not accept it, and its end will come.

It allows us to regard the trial of Louis XVI as a legal matter, but this approach is a heinous crime in the eyes of any free people.

We are simply letting people fall to their own devices.

It is very likely that one day we will reward Louis XVI's defenders as "citizen defenders"; after all, once they are allowed to defend, there is a possibility that the defense will be successful.

Otherwise, you are just showing the world a ridiculous set of word games.

. If this is the case, what qualifications do we have to say that we want to establish a republic!

We put forward various forms because we have no principles; we are proud of our smoothness because we have no strength; we boast of this hypocritical humanity because we are fond of the real humanity, Ye Gong loves dragons; we worship the shadow of the king, because Because we don’t know how to respect people; we are so gentle to the oppressors because we are ruthless to the oppressed.

Wake up, people of France, we should no longer hesitate, we should no longer live in the lies fabricated by the oppressors.

Is the dethroning of the king what we are now after?

No, not at all, we want to execute him and make the final break with the old system!

We want France to move towards a republic and towards the future!

Thank you all. This concludes my speech. "

The "Incorruptible" apologized and took off his hat.

The crowd burst into violent shouts, and after Robespierre's speech, the cauldron in Paris boiled even more.

This chapter is two in one.

In fact, I have always liked Robespierre very much, but I can't understand why he, with his strict logic, used the Reign of Terror in the end.

Perhaps at that time, there was nothing anyone could do.