Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution.(Brief article)(Book review)

Contemporary Review | March 22, 2007 | Copyright

Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. Ruth Scurr. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 388 pages. ISBN 0-701-17600-8. Robespierre (like Lenin, he is always known merely by his surname) was the intellectual father of the French Terror yet he was 'meticulously unflamboyant' with weak eyes and a colourless life. He was the intellectual in revolutionary politics who used his intellect to justify unimaginable horrors. This biography describes what he did, how he justified it, and how the unknown lawyer from Arras grew to pre-eminence. It succeeds in ...

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