Maximilien Robespierre championed the Cult of the Supreme Being not purely from religious sentiment, but because he believed citizens must feel watched at all times to remain virtuous. Without an all-seeing deity to guarantee cosmic justice and an afterlife, he feared the populace would collapse into cynicism, despair, and aristocratic libertarianism. By instituting an internalized surveillance mechanism, Robespierre hoped divine vigilance would eventually replace state terror as the guarantor of the revolution.
Although Robespierre viewed revolutionary dictatorship as a temporary measure until the hyper-democratic 1793 Constitution could take effect, he could never declare the emergency over. He trapped himself in an ideological bind where terror was required to enforce virtue. Because he suspected that those displaying outward virtue were likely the most insidious counter-revolutionaries, no standard of civic purity could ever be achieved to justify releasing executive control.
Radical Parisian deputies violently attacked Catholic institutions and replaced the traditional calendar with secular names and 10-day cycles. However, ordinary French citizens derived their community life and identity from the traditional Christian week, saint days, and local rituals. Robespierre recognized that attacking the religious calendar alienated the common people who believed in God, turning necessary popular support against the republic and breeding unnecessary counter-revolutionary insurgency.
The Law of 22 Prairial stripped defendants of defense counsel and eliminated the need for tangible evidence, leaving convictions solely to whether jurors felt guilt in their hearts. By introducing the broad, nebulous category of 'enemy of the people' covering trivial or undefined offenses, it left every official and citizen vulnerable. Instead of securing the republic, this arbitrary threshold induced terror among deputies who realized anyone could be next.
When Joseph Fouché was summoned to Paris under grave suspicion for horrific atrocities in Lyon, he did not wait passively for an interrogation. Instead, he boldly went straight to the National Convention floor to justify his record on revolutionary terms, confronted Robespierre directly, and successfully ran for president of the Jacobin Club. By taking immediate initiative and maneuvering in the open, Fouché disrupted Robespierre's plans and secured political leverage.
Maximilien Robespierre was disgusted by provincial deputies like Jean-Baptiste Carrier and Joseph Fouché, who devised mass drownings and grapeshot executions with mockery and blasphemy. To Robespierre, terror had to remain austere, centralized, and strictly bound to revolutionary law. He regarded decentralized, theatrical cruelty not as revolutionary zeal, but as immoral, undisciplined self-indulgence that disgraced the republic's cause.
By repeatedly threatening an unspecified cabal of conspirators in the Jacobin Club and the Convention without naming individuals, Robespierre made every deputy feel directly endangered. Politicians who previously shared little common ground—corrupt deputies, ultra-left de-Christianizers, and moderates—became convinced they were marked men. This collective terror incentivized them to coalesce around operators like Fouché to strike preemptively against Robespierre before he struck them.