Le Comité de salut public (6 avril 1793 - 4 brumaire an IV)
Résumé
The Committee of public safety is an exceptional, extraordinary and temporary institution which gives rise to a lot of questions. It appears like the National Convention’s commission which, from 6th April 1793 to 4th Brumaire An IV, has assumed the responsibility for supervision, control and leadership of governing, and which has organised too a concentration of power, leading to an ideological, political and administrative dictatorship, supported by the Reign of Terror. The Committee is a political and administrative authority, organised like an administration, which main function is to defend the French Revolution and the Republic, in an extraordinary context, a state of emergency. This present research is mainly based upon a work on the archives of the Committee, which are gathered and available for consultation at the Archives nationales. Through the study of original and unpublished documents, we aim to demonstrate how the Committee has progressively developed a specific way of governing, which has led to the submission of the Convention and a confusion of legislative, executive and administrative powers. Using this work on archives, we also aim to show, on one side, the Committee moving over a kind of “un-legality” state and, on the other side, a process of change, emancipation and gradual construction of an autonomous power, during which the purpose of a system – the Revolutionary Government – has become its « driving force ».
Institution d’exception, extraordinaire et provisoire, le Comité de salut public a pris en charge, du 6 avril 1793 au 4 brumaire an IV, la surveillance, le contrôle et la direction des fonctions gouvernementales et administratives et a organisé à son profit une concentration des pouvoirs et une dictature idéologique, politique et administrative soutenue par la Terreur. Par sa nature, son organisation et son activité, le Comité se présente comme une autorité politico-administrative organisée bureaucratiquement dont la principale fonction est de répondre, dans le contexte extraordinaire qui est celui d’un état d’exception, à des missions de défense générale de la Révolution et de fondation de la République. Le Comité a su instaurer une centralisation politique et administrative pour, in fine, embrasser la quasi-totalité de l’intervention étatique et devenir, au terme d’un processus de construction d’un pouvoir autonome, le principal sujet actif du Gouvernement révolutionnaire.
