Early Life
Maximilien de Robespierre was born in Arras, in the old province of Artois, France. His family has been traced back to the 12th century in Picardy; some of his direct ancestors in the male line were notaries in the village of Carvin near Arras from the beginning of the 17th century. He is sometimes rumoured to have been of Irish descent, and it has been suggested that his surname could be a corruption of 'Robert Speirs'. George Henry Lewes, Ernest Hamel, Jules Michelet, Alphonse de Lamartine and Hilaire Belloc have all cited this theory although there appears to be little supporting evidence.
His paternal grandfather, Maximilien de Robespierre, established himself in Arras as a lawyer. His father, Maximilien Barthélémy François de Robespierre, also a lawyer at the Conseil d'Artois, married Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, the daughter of a brewer, in 1758. Maximilien was the oldest of four children and was conceived out of wedlock; his siblings were Charlotte, Henriette and Augustin. In 1764, Madame de Robespierre died in childbirth. Her husband subsequently left Arras and traveled throughout Europe, only occasionally living in Arras, until his death in Munich in 1777; the children were brought up by their maternal grandfather and aunts.
Maximilien attended the collège (middle school) of Arras when he was eight years old, already knowing how to read and write. In October 1769, on the recommendation of the bishop, he obtained a scholarship at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Robespierre studied at Louis-le-Grand until age twenty-three, where he also received his training as a lawyer. Upon his graduation he received a 600 livre special prize for twelve years of exemplary academic success and personal good conduct.
Here he learned to admire the idealised Roman Republic and the rhetoric of Cicero, Cato and other classic figures. His fellow pupils included Camille Desmoulins and Stanislas Fréron. He also was exposed to Rousseau during this time and adopted many of the same principles. Robespierre became more intrigued by the idea of a virtuous self, a man who stands alone accompanied only by his conscience.
Shortly after his coronation, King Louis XVI visited Louis-le-Grand. Robespierre, then 17 years old, had been chosen out of five hundred pupils to deliver a speech to welcome the king; as a prize-winning student, he had been the clear choice. On the day of the speech, Robespierre and the crowd waited for the king and queen for several hours in the rain. The king and queen remained in their coach throughout the ceremony and left immediately afterward.
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