Anatomy of a failed Revolution on 9 thermidor (About the book by Colin Jones)
Tchoudinov Alexander
The author of the article analyzes the latest monograph by the British historian Colin Jones, «The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Paris During the French Revolution» published in 2025 in Russian. Based on a wide range of archival documents, Jones tells by the hour and even by the minute about what was happening simultaneously in different parts of Paris with different people on 9 Thermidor, which gives his study not only a cinematic quality, but also a character of genuine drama. If most of his predecessors who wrote about 9 Thermidor were attracted, first of all, by the collision that took place at the morning session of the Convention, which ended with the arrest of the Robespierrists, then the British historian focuses his attention on the subsequent multidirectional mass movement, which contemporaries called the «revolution of 9 Thermidor». As the author of the article notes, Jones's detailed analysis of how the Paris Commune organized the uprising in defense of the Robespierrists highlights in general some characteristic features of the mechanism of this kind of urban movement – the so-called journées, which occurred repeatedly during the French Revolution.
The study is realized in the State Academic University for the Humanities within the framework of the state task of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (project FZNF–2023–0003 Traditions and values of society: mechanisms of formation and transformation in the context of global history).