Louis Antoine de Saint-Just - Constitution of 1793

Constitution of 1793

Because the first French Constitution had included a role for the king, it was long since invalid and needed to be updated for the Republic. A large number of drafts had been circulating within the Convention since the king's execution, and Saint-Just submitted his own lengthy proposal on 24 April 1793. His draft incorporated the most common assertions of the others: the right to vote, the right to petition, and equal eligibility for employment were among the basic principles that made his draft tenable. Where he stood apart from the rest was on the issue of elections. Saint-Just dismissed all complex systems of voting and eligibility and supported only the classical style of a simple majority of citizens in a nationwide vote. His inflexible "one man one vote" plan was no more successful than any other, but its fashionable reverence for the traditions of antiquity helped enhance his political cachet. When a compromise was made to elect a small body of deputies as constitutional draftsmen, Saint-Just was among the chosen five. In recognition of the importance of their mission, the draftsmen were all added to the powerful new Committee of Public Safety.

The Convention had given the Committee extraordinary authority to provide for state security ever since the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in early 1793. Committee members were originally intended to serve for periods of only thirty days before replacements were elected, so they needed to work quickly. Saint-Just took charge of the issue and led the development of the French Constitution of 1793. Before the end of his first term, the new document was completed, submitted to the Convention, and ratified as law on 24 June 1793.

The new constitution remained a showpiece for Saint-Just but little more. However much he may have wanted to see it implemented, emergency measures for wartime were in effect. The war had called for (or provided cover for) a moratorium on constitutional democracy. It gave supreme power to the sitting Convention, with the Committee of Public Safety at the top of its administrative pyramid. Robespierre, with Saint-Just's assistance, fought vigorously to ensure that the government would remain under emergency measures – "revolutionary" – until victory.