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Twelve Who Ruled

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This is an excellent book, well written, clear and concise. It focuses on the Year of the Terror during the French Revolution.

There are several strengths to this book.

First, Palmer does an excellent job of giving short biographies of the major characters that ruled France as a committee during this period. They include Carnot,the military officer who maintained the war office during the terror,including defending the northern border of France. Collot D'Herbois, the ex-actor and fanatic had a very different temprement from the monk-like Robespierre. Saint-Just's attacks against the Dantonists was fascinating. The fall of Herault de Sechelles, the philosopher former aristocrat is very interesting.

Second, the chapters are very well organized. They are aranged around topics, including a hyistory of how the Comitteee for Public Safety evolved in the fifth year of the revolution; three chapters on maintaining control of the other regions of France during the revolution; chapters on foreign conflicts; a chapter on wage and price control and maintaining a central economy, are all well written and interesting.

I read the book after reading Hilary Mantel's novel "A Place of Greater Safety" regarding the relationship and competition between Robespierre and Danton. The two books perfectly compliment each other.

This is a very accessible history of this portion of the revolution and is extremely informative. It was written in 1941 but is fresh, current, and alive with detail.

Unlike many books written on the Reign of Terror, "Twelve Who Ruled" takes a refreshingly unbiased, as well as entertaining, view of all angles and opinions. This book's primary focus is on the Committee of Public Safety, a major governing body of France during the Terror. Detailed descriptions of the Committee's twelve members are helpful in determining the causes of the Terror, as well as the motives behind them. The author also provides several interesting and detailed descriptions of the wars in and around France, and how they directly affected the citizens and the government. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the French Revolution.

In my college Western Civilization course years ago, we read a speech Robespierre gave during a festival created by the revolutionary government. After discussing this speech for a while, we passed on to Napoleon, but before we did, one student asked the professor for recommendations for further reading on the Reign of Terror. He mentioned Twelve Who Ruled. I didn't run out and buy the book, but I did keep in the back of my mind, and whenever I browsed the history shelves of a bookstore or library, I kept an eye out for it. Several years later, I ran across the book and, after reading it, I am quite glad that I did.

The Reign of Terror is, of course, a fascinating period of history that usually gets short shrift in high school or college classes. One hears of guillotines and revolutionaries run wild, killing each other for not being radical enough. This book fleshes out the story and dispels some myths about it.

Robespierre was a member of the Committee on Public Safety, a legislative committee that was part of the National Assembly, France's short-lived revolutionary parliament set up in the 1790s. The Committee consisted of twelve people, hence the title of the book: "The Twelve Who Ruled."

Palmer describes how the Committee functions and gives a very plausible explanation for the reasons behind Robespierre's and his fellow committee members' actions. Given the nature of the period, it is no surprise that the book is not boring. But Palmer did not sacrifice academic rigor for readability.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in history or political science.

This is a small gem of a book and introduces both the characters and the influences of the period of the terror in the French Revolution. Like all good narrative histories, it maintains a balance between the detail and the sweep of history. Any book that is fresh and alive after forty years, begins to deserve the title of classic. Unfortunately history does not stand still and many of Palmer's conclusions need to be tested. It needs to be read alongside Soboul and Schama to gain an understanding of the complexity of this period. Even so, a great work that will repay careful reading.

From this starting point, you can delve back into the influences that brought this group to power and forward to the Napoleonic period.

Probably the only available book for the non-specialist on this period, even taking into account French sources. Very interesting and well written, it reads like a novel, or rather like a theater play. A must for anyone interested in the period.

I decided to read R.R. Palmer's The Twelve Who Ruled after having it recommended to me in class. The Year of the Terror and the Committee of Public Safety are often overlooked or not given enough description in history classes and it wasn't until my senior year in college that I had even heard of the Year of the Terror. Palmer's book is great for the student because he includes enough background information so that one can understand the information without feeling overwhelmed. The text deals almost exclusively the events from the summer of 1793 through the summer of 1794. Because so much happened in this one year period, Palmer presents it on an almost day-to-day status.

Originally written in 1939 and 1940, Palmer mentions in the Bibliographical Essay how difficult it was to gather information from the French archives, but upon reading this book and having some basic knowledge of the events of the period, one finds it difficult to find any deficiency in Palmer's work. The 2005 edition of The Twelve Who Ruled opens with a new foreword by Isser Woloch, Moore Collegiate Professor of History at Columbia University. In this foreword, Woloch gives the reader a little history of Palmer's book, as well as a brief overview of the events detailed in the book.

Palmer begins his book with a one page list, titled "The Twelve", of the members of the CPS and gives a brief one-line description of each. On the next page is a sketched map with the locations and provinces mentioned in his book, as well as a translation of the Republican Calendar. I don't want to go into detail about all of Palmer's 15 chapters, but some need mentioning. The first chapter, "Twelve Terrorists to Be", gives a detailed description about the history of each member of the Committee of Public Safety leading up to the Revolution. The subsequent chapters describe the different political groups of the Revolution and how the CPS came to be as powerful as it did.

Chapters 6-9 deal with the individual missions of the CPS members to different parts of France. Chapter 6, "Republic in Miniature", describes Georges Couthon's mission to his native region of Clermont-Ferrand and his attempt to turn Puy-de-Dôme into a model for the Republic. Chapter 7, "Doom at Lyons", is self-explanatory and deals with Collot d'Herbois and the Committee's shocking actions in Lyons. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with the missions of Committee members to Alsace and Brittany to deal with the army and naval affairs in those regions, respectively.

The beginning of the end becomes apparent in chapter 11, "Finding the Narrow Way". In this chapter Danton makes his return to Paris and Robespierre and other members of the Committee are becoming more and more adamant in their positions. The remaining chapters detail the downfall of the Committee of Public Safety and the numerous executions that take place. The exception to this is chapter 14, "The Rush upon Europe", which describes the military events during the spring and early summer of 1794.

During the epilogue, Palmer sums up the lives of the eight of the original twelve that were remaining after 10 Thermidor and the different ways each one went. It is interesting to see how some of the members played a part during Napoleon's reign. Palmer end's the book with discussing Barère, him being the last surviving member of the Committee (passed away in 1841), and his last days.

Readability was something that I was looking for when I was choosing a book for this assignment. I didn't want a book that would be so in depth that it would be a chore to read, yet I didn't want a book that would have less information than my textbook. The Twelve Who Ruled was perfect in that sense and Palmer kept it interesting by including many quotations from meetings and correspondence of the period in his book. I haven't read any other books on the Year of the Terror, but I would have to recommend this book to anyone interested in the French Revolution, or even political science.

In print since 1941, this fine book is a group portrait and analysis of the Committee of Public Safety, the most important organ of government in France from the fall of 1793 to the summer of 1794. Writing at the end of the 1930s, Palmer was particularly interested in the psychology of dictatorship and how much governments emerge.

When the members of the Committee took their seats, France and the French Revolution appeared headed for disaster. There was widespread dissent in the provinces, and in some, outright revolt. The chaotic politics in Paris made government from the center difficult and the armies of almost every other major European state seemed poised to dismember France. The members of the committee were on the face of it, an undistinguished lot of modest prior accomplishments. Almost exclusively middle class, none of them would have been able to rise high under the Ancien Regime. Most were lawyers or had legal training. Several were simultaneously minor provincial intellectuals. Two were army officers whose plebian origins would have prevented them from attaining significant rank in the Royal Army. As a group, and despite significant internal political strains, they proved to be an energetic and capable group of administrators and politicians. Palmer does very well in describing the considerable obstacles to success, the enormous efforts made by most of the Committee, and their considerable success as administrators.

Over the course of a year, the committee met the great challenges in front of them more or less successfully. Revolts in the provinces were crushed, often with great brutality. Though the Parisian political scene remained volatile, it did stabilize and the Committee was able to construct a reasonably effective central government. Assisted by dissent and incompetence among the monarchial opponents of France, the Committee found the resources and military leadership needed to prosecute the war successfully. The Committee arguably saved the Revolution and went a long way towards the construction of a powerful, centralized French state.

But what kind of Revolution did they save? Palmer shows very well that the Committee were not merely reacting to the pressure of events but were all committed Republicans of varying degrees of radicalism. It is impossible to understand their actions without recognizing their ideological commitment to a new kind of Republican society informed strongly by Rousseauist ideals. Detestation of inherited privilege, anti-clericalism (though not atheism), worship of the idea of virtue, a commitment to some form of popular sovereignty, and the pursuit of a strong state were common ideals of the Committee. As is often the case, war produced radicalization and these ideals would also justify the Terror and the ruthless suppression of provincial revolts, and encourage French armies in practices that anticipate the brutal behavior of Napoleon's armies in occupied Europe. In a few cases, the Committee made pragmatic choices that contradicted some of their earlier convictions. Most of the committee disliked the violent de-Christianization carried out by some radicals but did not interfere in some cases to maintain their political support in Paris. All the Committee members would have prefered an economic system based on free trade but the exigencies of war resulted in the first systematic and partially successful effort at a planned economy.

Palmer both describes the actions of the committee well and writes well about the individual members. His objective treatment of Robespierre is particularly good. This book is a model in terms of melding biographical information with the broader context of historical events. As a study of revolutionary psychology and a case example of how dictatorships form, this book is excellent.

One of the defining moments of the French Revolution was the crisis of Year II of the Revolutionary Calendar. When counter-revolutionary armies held sway over vast areas of France, royalists were gaining ground in the Vendee & the Federalist revolt was in full swing, key ports were falling to the powerful British navy and everything pointed to the inevitable overthrow of the young Republic, and with it the ideals of the Revolution, and the return of Bourbon despotism. It was at this point in time that the "twelve" who were destined to successfully guide the revolutionary machinery including the "Terror" for the crucial year (July 1793 - July 1794) of the Revolution were elected to the Committee of Public Safety. R.R. Palmer has created almost life-like portraits of those twelve men and their activities which led to the victory of Fleurus and put the European Counter-Revolution on the defensive for the next twenty-odd years and gave the Revolution breathing space.
One encounters fascinating characters including lesser known revolutionaries such as the two Prieurs, the aristocratic Herault de Seychelles, and the more well-known, such as the beautiful & terrifying Louis Antoine Saint-Just, who was the feared spokesman of the Montagnards in the Convention, and the author of the Laws of Ventôse. And of course finally, there was France's "man of destiny" in 1793 himself, Maximilien Robespierre, who had warned against going to war in 1792, especially in the guise of "armed missionaries" and had predicted the situation in which France found herself in 1793, and whose unimpeachable political character ( even his political enemies did not begrudge him the title "Incorruptible") and his immense popularity with the San-Culottes made him just the man to be one of the Twelve in July 1793 at a time when every other politician of note had failed to come to terms with the worsening position of the Republic. Revolutions, as Saint-Just had once observed, were not made with rose water. In that regard these twelve were in every sense of the word hardened revolutionaries who would not hesitate to be ruthless in defense of the Revolution. Defeat for them was not an option, it would mean the triumph of the Counter-Revolution and the death of everything France had achieved since 1789 and of course as a side note, their own executions as regicides & revolutionaries (not that personal self-preservation meant anything to them anyway). For this reason they were determined to defeat the enemies of Revolutionary France while casting aside their personal differences. Certainly from reading R.R. Palmer's descriptions, no other worthy cause then the survival of the Revolution itself would have forced these men, with their egos, cast-iron belief in the righteousness of their own political ideas & other petty vices, to put aside their very real differences to work together as a unit. R.R. Palmer certainly gives credit where credit is due, and the work is therefore well-balanced. Yet the question can be asked, did at one point the Twelve lose touch with the reality of the situation and begin to see conspiracies around every imaginable corner? Were revolutionary allies of the dictatorship, such as the Enragés & Hébertists really plotting with the counter-revolution? Was the Law of 22 Prairial necessary? Or was Saint-Just's comment, that the Ship of Revolution could only arrive in port over a sea of blood, valid? Then again, as asked by the historian Albert Mathiez, if revolutionaries of the caliber of Vergniuad and Pétion could betray the Revolution, if the great orator Mirabeau was found out to be nothing more than a vile royalist spy, just who exactly could the Revolutionary Government trust, if at all? In the final analysis, in the humble opinion of this reviewer, how one views the French Revolution ultimately depends on where one stands on the political spectrum. It was certainly true however that large numbers executed by the Terror were not aristocrats or counter-revolutionaries but ordinary citizens. Herault de Sechelles himself fell to revolutionary justice but the Committee continued to function without further losses, indeed not all of them were in Paris at the same time at any given moment. Yet as Robespierre's ascendancy with the San-Culottes and the revolutionary government grew, fear of Robespierre began to permeate all quarters. Robespierre wanted to ultimately create a "Republic of Virtue" yet very few of his revolutionary colleagues would have felt comfortable in such a Republic. One need only consider the fact that Danton & Robespierre were very close personal friends yet Danton's less than "virtuous" political acts, including embezzling thousands while he was (of all places) at the Ministry of Justice, was one of the reasons why Robespierre finally did not step in when the Dantonists were purged. If he could be unforgiving of the vices of close friends, what might such a powerful revolutionary do to others? So, did Robespierre's political incorruptibility ( and therefore inflexibility when it came to the political failings of other revolutionaries) finally make him the target of those who rightly feared revolutionary justice for their misdeeds (such as those representatives-en-mission who had exceeded their briefs and committed atrocities?) and thus set in motion the events that led to 9 Thermidor, Year II ? Certainly. Yet as along as the revolutionary government held together it was invulnerable but cracks appeared as the danger to the Republic receded. The Committee of General Security was becoming more powerful, its members such as Amar and Vadier feared the Incorruptible's "Cult of the Supreme Being" and the potentially lethal disdain for their atheism. Once the struggle turned inward, however, the revolutionary government's fall was all but inevitable. It was the moment when war profiteers & other misfits (these people would later resurface in the Directoire government of France) joined in with those who were determined to overthrow the regime, including genuinely sincere revolutionaries such as Barère (to be fair to Barère, he had tried to arrange a compromise with the great Jacobin, as an experienced revolutionary Barère knew that to strike at Robespierre raised the very real possibility of bringing down the Revolution- in the event his fears were realized, Barère would only be one of the many who would in the years to come regret their complicity in the actions of Thermidor). Tired & exhausted, he had played a major role in the great Republican victory at Fleurus, for once the feared Saint-Just was unable to reply to the coup plotters at the pre-arranged trap in the Convention on 9 Thermidor (the Thermidorians-who were now to be forever associated with counter-revolution) and the Robespierrists & their supporters in the Convention fell in July 1794. This is an exceptional work by R.R. Palmer, dated though it may be, it is still essential reading for both historians of the French Revolution and general readers who are interested in learning about one of the pivotal moments in a revolution that has defined the world since it took place. The Chinese revolutionary Chou En-Lai had reportedly said in the 1950s that it was too early an assessment of the French Revolution. While that may well be true, this fine work by R.R. Palmer is nevertheless a very good place to start learning about the Revolution before one makes one's own assessment of those world-changing events.

Although somewhat dated, this book written in the beginning of the Second World War is one of the most balanced works on the subject I have read so far. A trifle sympathetic to Robespierre, Palmer nevertheless presents a fair account of those opposed to him, those whom he opposed, and those who were not entirely in agreement with him. He is not afraid to criticize the Incorruptible, yet is capable of differentiating between the man's policies and his ideals. Robespierre's historical importance, though great, is not exaggerated, nor does he overshadow the others of the Committee of Public Safety as is the tendency of many works. The other eleven are given their respective, and considerable, dues. Each has his own flaws, merits, talents, and political views.
As much of a discussion of the Revolution itself as of the Revolutionaries, the book does make some use of comparison to the Russian Revolution, but even more so (and in an unusually non-violent manner for books on the Terror) to the Nazi state. Inviting the reader to interpret Nazi Germany as a German Revolution, Palmer creates many fascinating points. He also refers to later French Revolutions, looking at them both as separate and as continuations of 1789 (Or of 1792). Similarly to his treatment of Nazi Germany, he writes of France as having a revolution in 1940. It would have been interesting to see if his interpretation of the Vichy government would have changed had the book been written later in, or after, the war.

I have only three small points of criticism, mainly on a linguistic basis. Palmer refuses to use many French words, substituting "Mountaineers" for Montagnards and "virtue" for vertu, to mention just a few examples. Although from a francophone (though not native speaker) perspective this is rather aesthetically jarring, it is not of much significance except in giving Anglicized (perhaps from my background "Americanized" is a culturally more appropriate term) connotations to the words, thereby leaving out the Revolutionary significance that these terms, particularly vertu would have had in French. Palmer also appears to use the term Revolutionist interchangeably with Revolutionary. It seems to me that the two imply different political roles. He also briefly mentions Charlotte Corday as an assassin sent directly by the Girondistes. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only inaccuracy that he directly presents as fact, though I think the extreme brevity of his discussion of Lafayette leaves unfortunate negative misconceptions. He shows Lafayette as a betrayer of the Revolution, which although he became an émigré is most certainly not the case.

Despite these small issues, I found the book to be an extremely worthy study. Many general history books lean towards either an audience who is quite new to the subject, making the author appear condescending to a more knowledgeable reader. Others presume more knowledge than the casual reader actually has, thus making them less informative than intended. Twelve Who Ruled does rather favour a more versed reader, but those new to the subject will also be able to follow and understand as well as appreciate. I definitely recommend it, especially to those tired of reading modern judgments of the past. While he does discuss its place within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Palmer places the French Revolution in its eighteenth century context, where it belongs.

This is a terrific book: full of passion for its subject, endlessly interesting, and beautifully written.

It's rare--perhaps increasingly so--that a work of history is written with so much care. Palmer brings the reader into the world of the Terror, into the minds (as far as he can) of the Twelve, and into the turbulence of the era. Passages from this book periodically made me put it down to think, so vividly had he engaged my imagination.

If you have even the slightest interest in the French Revolution and have been wanting to read about it in a clear way, the only two English-language books that I've encountered that will satisfy your need are this and Simon Schama's "Citizens." Schama's is a very different book--it's huge and full of illustrations and covers the whole Revolution. Palmer's is a precise gem of a book, one that works hard to bring you into the mindset of some of the most colorful, idealistic, and flawed revolutionaries in Western history.