#the pre-thermidor schemes against him sound a lot like children fantasizing about creative ways to get revenge on a strict teacher

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Fouché in his memoirs (1825):

Tallien contended for two lives, of which one was then dearer to him than his own: he therefore resolved upon assassinating the future dictator, even in the Convention itself. But what a hazardous chance was this! Robespierre’s popularity would have survived him, and we should have been immolated to his manes. I therefore dissuaded Tallien from an isolated enterprise, which would have destroyed the man, but preserved his system. 

Also Fouché, as reported in De 1800 à 1812. Un aide de champ de Napoléon. Mémoires du général compte de Ségar (1894):

…I persisted; and, addressing all the enemies of the Dictator, either separately or in meetings that I convened as head of public education, I reassured them, encouraged them, and got the Committee to call Robespierre before it to defend itself. It was putting him in a false position, he did not accept it; he refused to present himself and confined himself to the Jacobins, where I proposed to have him attacked, seized as a rebel and thrown into the river! We were preparing the means when the 9th of Thermidor arrived, the day when Tallien, single-handedly, unexpectedly, without having warned us, without knowing our project, warning us, denounced Robespierre as the tyrant of his colleagues!