Who is Catherine Théot? .. can you explain her story please ? And what is her connection with robespierre? Because I don't understand her role during the period of robespierre's downfall.
And Thanks a lot.
Catherine Théot was born on March 5 1716, to a peasant family living in Barenton. In a letter written during the revolution, she said that she had been ”given to God from infancy,” and one of her disciples recalled that Théot had stated that, when she was only four years old, ”God had made known to her that he would make an alliance with her.” After having acquired a local reputation for piety, she was sent to Paris by her parish priest, where she was placed under the spiritual direction of Abbé Joseph Grisel. For many years Théot worked as a domestic servant in the Convent of the Miramionnes. At one point she returned to Normandy and sought admission to a convent near her home, but went back to Paris once God told her to, where she would then live out the rest of her austere religious life — taking communion every morning at five o’clock, spending part of each night carrying out penitences she imposed upon herself, and submitting herself to a harch regimen of penitence.
In 1779, Théot was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille after having come to believe she was the only one who could understand the Scriptures and preaching about it against local priests. Being interrogated, she described herself as ”the virgin who would receive the little Jesus, who would come down from heaven to earth to bring peace to all the earth and to receive all nations.” After six weeks spent in the Bastille, she was moved to a mental hospital, where she remained until 1782.
Once released, Théot came to live on 20 rue des Rosiers together with the widow Godefroy (Marie Madelaine Amblard), a seamstress who sometimes served as her secretary. A circle began to form around the two that only grew over the following ten years. It was not a secret society in the sense that initiations rites and membership cards were needed, and its sessions consisted only of harmless activities – short sermons by Théot, singing, and readings from the Bible and the missal. In 1793, the wife of one of the people frequenting the circle nevertheless claimed that, within it, Théot was called ”the new Eve, who will redeem the human race,” and that she ”announced the general Happiness and a uniform Religion for all the universe.” The people that came to Théot’s sessions belonged to both the wealthy and poor classes, but most common were artisans, shopkeepers and servants. Women were also more common than men. The circle’s most famous member was the former National Assembly deputy Dom Gerle, who became Théot’s disciple sometime during 1792 and sometimes spoke directly to the group along with the widow Godefroy. Someone else who frequented the circle was none other than Marie-Louise Vaugeois, sister of Robespierre’s host Françoise Duplay, although this didn’t become known until after thermidor.
In 1793, the number of people seen going into Théot’s lodgings proved suspicious for the public prosecutor of the Paris Commune Anaxagoras Chaumette. On January 10,he therefore ordered Théot’s house to be searched, something which was carried out five days later. The file was transmitted to Chaumette on February 10, who, far from closing the case, sought to find out more. Théot and the widow Godefroy were taken in but released soon afterwards, and in June 1793 they moved to the third floor of an apartment on rue de la Contrescrape (today rue Blainville) where they could continue to hold meetings without interference. But less than a year later, May 12 1794, two gendarmes, Jaton and Pidoux, wrote to the Committee of General Security (CGS) to denounce Théot after having asked to be admitted to her circle’s sessions, but, not being known, instead been met with a certain mistrust. The CGS acted quickly, already on the same day it ordered a home visit be made to Théot, participants of her sessions interrogated, and those among them found suspect arrested. Théot was arrested on May 17 along the widow Godefroy, Dom Gerle and twelve others. In the weeks that followed several new arrests were issued against people believed to belong to her ”clique” as well.
A month later, on June 15, Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier, the president of the CGS, read a report regarding Théot to the Convention. In it, Théot’s circle was presented as ”a sect” that was in fact a conspiracy including ”royalists, usurers, fools, egoists, fops, counterrevolutionaries of both sexes” and to which mystics, mesmerists, émigrés, Pitt and Frederick William of Prussia belonged. Vadier wrapped up the report by demanding no clemency for ”scroundel priests” (refractory priests), and ordering Catherine Théot, the widow Godefroy, Dom Gerle and two others brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Like with Théot’s arrest, the report was again followed by a wave of new arrests of people believed to have been in associated with her.
However, sometime shortly after Vadier’s report, Robespierre ordered Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, to leave him the papers concerning the Théot affair and to suspend the investigation of the trial. In his Mémoire de Fouquier-Tinville pour sa défense (1795) Fouquier described the scene as following:
Robespierre told me at the Committee of Public Safety, in the name of said committee, that it was necessary to postpone the Catherine Théot affair. After having observed to him in vain that a decree imposed on me the duty to follow it up and not having been able to make myself heard, I withdrew and went to the General Security Committee where I reported on the facts and my embarrassment, indicating three times "he, he, he, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, opposes it.” “You mean Robespierre?” replied a member, whom I believe to be Amar or Citizen Vadier.
The earliest, and perhaps most common interpretation of this affair is that it was a machination of the Committee of General Security in general and Vadier in particular. (for this interpretation, see Albert Mathiez’s L’affair Catherine Théot et le mysticisme chrétien révolutionnaire). They had as their aim to ridicule both Robespierre himself, who many of the committee members were becoming wary of, as well as his deism and Cult of the Supreme Being, which, it is commonly stated, they disliked due to being atheists. This last claim I’m however having a hard time finding any primary source for, but it can nevertheless be observed that Théot’s arrest was ordered just five days after Robespierre had held a speech announcing that ”the French people believe in the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortailty of the soul” and Vadier read his report against Théot just a week after the Festival of the Supreme Being.
Evidence to support this interpretation is first and foremost Vadier’s report. Although he never mentioned Robespierre’s name, or any connection he might have to Théot’s clique in it, he nevertheless managed to cast ridicule on Robespierre’s religious ideas through an exaggerated language, provoking many laughs from the stands.
Another piece that supports this interpretation is Robespierre’s speech on 8 thermidor, where he says the following:
The first attempt the malevolent people made was to seek to debase the great principles that you had proclaimed and to erase the touching memory of the national holiday (the festival of the Supreme Being). Such was the aim of the character and the solemnity which was given to what was called the Catherine Théot affair. Malevolence has taken advantage of the political conspiracy hidden under the name of a few imbecile devotees, and nothing was presented to public attention but a mystical farce and an inexhaustible subject of indecent or childish sarcasm.
On 9 thermidor, Vadier also claimed that a letter (that may or may not actually have existed) proclaiming Robespierre to be the high priest of the new cult had been found under Théot’s matress in order to denounce him, and finally, according to the memoirs of Philarete Chasles, Vadier confirmed in his old age that ridiculing Robespierre had indeed been his intention all along:
[Vadier] continued his story. He told us for the hundredth time how the fools went back to saying mass; how Robespierre himself — the incorruptible! — (and he made this word vibrate with an inimitable southern irony) was going to turn into cagotism; — how the incorruptible aimed at becoming high priest.
”So it was by a terrible chance that it was learned that la petite maman Théot was gathering her little congregation in a Venetian attic; — and that set me to work!… and that made them jump… and…”
”We know it well,” said the honest little Robert Lindet who was growing bored from this. ”You have told us the story one hundred times!”
”Ah! Ah!” continued the voltarian revolutionary, straightening up despite his gout, ”when I gave them my report… you see… fanaticism, he was shot down… He had a long time to get up… and Robespierre! wiped out! finished!… I damaged him!”
And he threw himself into his armchair with an unspeakable joy.
In his account of the affair, Mathiez goes further than what the above pieces tell us, and adds that the CGS had sought Théot out before being informed about her on May 12, no doubt learning about her through the papers gathered when her house had first been searched in early 1793. Mathiez writes that the CGS had been infiltrating the Théot sessions before arresting her, citing the imprisoned Dom Gerle who said that, since a month back, two men that he found suspicious had come to attend Théot’s sessions — men that Mathiez identify as the CGS agents Senar and Heron. Speaking of Gerle, Mathiez also writes that, when his apartment was searched after his arrest, the gendarmes found a note written by Robespierre, certifying Dom Gerle to be a good patriot. But if that is so, they never appeared to have gotten the chance to use it as a weapon against Robespierre.
As for Robespierre’s motivation for acting as he did, Mathiez means he intervened to put a stop to the affair both because it would prove humiliating for him, and because he wished to save people he conceived to just be a harmless group of religious zealots without political importance. Mathiez also argues that Robespierre tried (and failed) to remove Fouquier-Tinville as public prosecutor right after the Théot affair, judging him to be too close with the CGS (Fouquier Tinville et Robespierre (1917)).
In his Points de vue sur l’affaire Catherine Théot (1969), Michel Eude has however concluded that, although it’s clear Vadier & co seized the opportunity to humiliate Robespierre with the affair, it’s also possible they actually saw a real threat in it. This considering the fact similar cases regarding ”fanatical gatherings” had attracted the CGS’s attention already before Théot’s arrest, and would continue to do so after it as well (without there being any indication they saw these plots as being connected to the Théot affair). Since any confabulation, at that time, was considered suspect by definition, Eude argues there is nothing to suggest that the concern of the CGS was feigned in the Théot case. Humiliating Robespierre was just a bonus.
Eude observes that though Vadier’s report invoked laughter in the Convention (as he most likely meant for it to do) it was the cause of just as many applauds, suggesting the affair was taken seriously by the members of the Convention. And Vadier made sure to underline that the gatherings at Théot’s place was ”only a primary school of fanaticism, the real instigators are much higher up.” Something he might not have done if the goal was simply to slander Robespierre.
Eude likewise challanges Mathiez’s idea that Robespierre tried getting rid of Fouquier-Tinville (Robespierre a-t-il voulu faire destituer Fouquier-Tinville ? (1965)) as well as the idea that the reason he imposed a reprieve was because he realized Théot & co were harmless and the affair would prove embarrassing for him. It was instead because he wanted to take it out of the hands of the CGS and let investigation be run by the CPS’s Police Bureau, which was under the thumb of Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre personally. Robespierre was already suspicious of many of the CGS members, and felt the investigation conducted by them hadn’t implicated all people actually involved in the conspiracy. This is proven through a letter dated June 26 from Dumas (president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, ally of Robespierre) to Lejeune (president of the police bureau, him too an ally of Robespierre) — ”If citizen Lejeune received from the Committee (of Public Safety) documents relating to the conspiracy under the cloak of fanaticism, especially those which concern declarations and interrogations of arrested peddlers, it is the intention of Robespierre that these documents be given to us during the day.” The next day, Dumas sent Robespierre documents regarding twenty people, half of which concerned the Catherine Théot affair, and the other half the affair of one Pierre-Guillaume Ducy, who had been arrested a month after Théot. Like her, Ducy had come under suspicion for ”fanatical gatherings,” but while the CGS who had arrested him didn’t seem to have believed there was a connection between him and Théot, the letter shows us Robespierre did, and that further research would lead to the head of the joint conspiracy. When Robespierre spoke about the Théot affair the very same day at the Jacobins, he too appeared to treat Vadier’s report seriously, saying that ”a faithful representative made a report whose purpose was to enlighten the people on a new plot. It was about unveiling a deep conspiracy, hidden under a veneer of fanaticism and mysticism,” and only regretting ”the culpable activity taken to diminish the importance of Vadier's report by making it disappear under a cloud of brochures in the style of Father Duchêne, and which are nothing but an indecent parody of this same report.”Finally, on July 1, Lejeune sent Dumas, on behalf of Robespierre, documents relating to Catherine Théot and six of her followers, and, on the 15th, he passed on to him the report of the interrogation that the revolutionary committee of the Social Contract section had subjected a woman "accused of complicity with the Théot woman, known as the Mother of God."
Robespierre, Lejeune and Dumas were all executed before the affair really went anywhere, but it’s possible that, had they remained in charge of it, even more people would have appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal than Vadier had originally intended (as already stated, Vadier ended his report by ordering the transfer of only five people to the Revolutionary Tribunal). However, thermidor ended up putting a stop to the whole story, and by the spring of 1795, all those arrested as Théot’s disciples had been released from their captivity. The only one who didn’t get out with her life intact was Théot herself, who died in prison on September 1 1794, just a month after Robespierre’s execution.
I don’t know just how essential this affair really is for Robespierre’s downfall, but the fact that Robespierre’s influence was big enough for him to single-handedly (if we’re to believe Fouquier-Tinville’s account) take away an affair from the CGS surely must have concerned the deputies already worried that he was aiming at dictatorship. Robespierre in his turn can’t have improved his opinion on the CGS as a whole from the affair. It can probably also be concluded that, had not the Théot case existed, the resentment of Robespierre’s enemies would have just found other opportunities to manifest itself.
Sources:
Popular Piety in the French Revolution: Catherine Théot (1974) by Clarke Garrett
L’affair Catherine Théot et le mysticisme chrétien révolutionnaire in Contributions à l’histoire religieuse de la Révolution française (1907) by Albert Mathiez
Robespierre et le procès de Catherine Théot (1929) by Albert Mathiez
Fouquier Tinville et Robespierre (1917) by Albert Mathiez
Robespierre a-t-il voulu faire destituer Fouquier-Tinville ?(1965) by Michel Eude
Points de vue sur l’affaire Catherine Théot (1969) by Michel Eude
Rapport de Vadier, au nom des comités de salut public et de sûreté générale, sur la découverte d’une nouvelle conspiration (June 15 1794)
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