Robespierre was sincerely attached to the conception of an ideal democracy; he was incorruptible in the pursuit of it--and to be a politician and incorruptible amounts to something like what the Church calls heroic virtue in a man. He _did_ enter the Committee of Public Safety; he _did_ support the Terror, and when he was overthrown the Terror _did_ come to an end. Where, then, does the legend differ from the truth? In these capital points, which change it altogether: that Robespierre was not the chief influence in the Committee of Public Safety, _i.e._ the all powerful executive of the Republic; that he did not desire the Terror, that he did not use it, that he even grew disgusted with it, and that, in general, he was never the man who governed France. It need hardly be pointed out how such a truth destroys such a legend. The whole nature of the twelve months between the summer of 1793 and the summer of 1794 must vary according as we regard them as Robespierrean or no: and they were not Robespierrean. What were they then, and why has the error that Robespierre was then master, arisen? Those months, which may be roughly called the months of the Terror, were, as we shall see later in this book, months of martial law; and the Terror was simply martial law in action--a method of enforcing the military defence of the country and of punishing all those who interfered with it or were supposed by the Committee to interfere with it. No one man in the Committee was the author of this system, but the one most determined to use it and the one who had most occasion to use it, was undoubtedly the military organiser, Carnot. Side by side with him one man, such as Barrère, supported it because it kept up the Committee of Public Safety which gave him all his political position. Another, such as Saint-Just, supported it because he believed that the winning of the war (in which he took an active part) would secure democracy everywhere and for ever. Another, such as Jean Bon, supported it from the old sectarian bitterness of the Huguenot. But of all men in the Committee, Robespierre supported the Terror least, and was most suspected by his colleagues--and increasingly suspected as time went on--of desiring to interfere with the martial system of the Terror and to modify it. Why, then, was Robespierre popularly identified with the Terror, and why, when he was executed, did the Terror cease? Robespierre was identified with the Terror because he was identified with the popular clamour of the time, with the extreme democratic feeling of the time, and its extreme fear of a reaction. Robespierre being the popular idol, had become also the symbol of a popular frenzy which was supposed to be ruling the country. But that frenzy was not ruling the country. What was ruling the country was the Committee of Public Safety, in which Carnot’s was the chief brain. Robespierre was indeed the idol of the populace; he was in no way the agent of their power or of any power.