Come salvare la Rivoluzione: dal Machiavelli di Robespierre a quello dei termidoriani

This paper focuses on the various uses of Machiavelli’s figure and thought during the French Revolution, precisely from the Terror to the Directory. Although Jacobins declare themselves anti-machiavellian, in Robespierre’s speech- es at the National Convention and at the Jacobin Club some argumentations are drawn from Machiavelli’s Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Robespierre finds in Machiavelli’s political thought not only a strong reference to found a new and well working Republic, but also a theoretical justification and inspiration for the political practice of the Terror. After the coup of 9 Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre, the members of the new regime, called the Thermidorians, propose a very different use of Machiavelli: opposing Jacobin and Rousseauian abstrac- tionism, they consider the Florentine thinker as a champion of political realism and they use his name to justify a moderate approach to politics and a stronger executive power. But, among the apologists of the Thermidorian regime, we can find also the Machiavelli considered a symbol of a politics ruthless. Pierre-Louis Roederer, for example, use the ‘black legend’ of Machiavelli to delegitimize po- litical enemies and to legitimate Bonaparte’s rise to power. In short, through the analysis of these various uses of Machiavelli thought the paper try to reconstruct some political dynamics during this turbulent period of French History.