The Committee of General Security () was a

parliamentary committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

of the French National Convention which acted as police agency during the French Revolution. Established as a committee of the Convention in October 1792, it was designed to protect the Revolutionary Republic from internal enemies. Along with the Committee of Public Safety it oversaw the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...

. The Committee of General Security supervised the local police committees in charge of investigating reports of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

, and was one of the agencies with authority to refer suspects to the Revolutionary Tribunal for trial and possible execution by

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

. In 1794 the committee was involved in the arrest and execution of

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre ferv ...

and several of his political allies on

9 Thermidor Maximilien Robespierre addressed the National Convention on 26 July 1794, was arrested the next day, and executed on 28 July. In his speech on 26 July, Robespierre spoke of the existence of internal enemies, conspirators, and calumniators, with ...

. On 4 November 1795, along with the end of the National Convention, the Committee of General Security dissolved. Among its prominent members, there were Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier, Jean-Pierre-André Amar, Jean-Paul Marat or

Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...

Origins and evolution

On 2 October 1792, the National Convention created the Committee of General Security from its predecessors: the Search Committee (Comité des recherches) and the Committee of Surveillance (Comité de Surveillance). The committee was not large and never exceeded 16 members. The committee's main responsibility was the internal security of France and to protect the Republic from both external and internal enemies. One way of ensuring the security of France was through the passport system. Through this system the members of the committee had the knowledge of who was entering France and where they were going. The committee had the authority to decide who was sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal for judgment during the Reign of Terror. Once the evidence was fully considered in an individual case the members of the committee made the decision on the likelihood of the innocence or guilt of the suspect, which determined if that person would be released or sent to the Tribunal. Throughout the existence of the committee, it contributed to a large number of people being sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, many of whom ended up at the guillotine. On March 29, 1794, the committee ordered twenty-four former members of the parlements of Paris and

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

to be sent to the Tribunal, where they were subsequently executed. Shortly after, another twenty-eight people that were a part of the Farmers-General, were investigated by the committee and sent to the Tribunal for trial. After the trial the men were found guilty and executed. A proposal of Danton on 13 September 1793 marked a turning point in the composition of the committee: from then on its members were appointed directly by the Committee of Public Safety and were no more than twelve in number. The regulation of 19 October 1793 stated that the committee should sit every day from eight o'clock until eleven o'clock in the evening, later if circumstances required that. The Law of 14 Frimaire (4 December 1793), voted on the report of Billaud-Varenne, restored a degree of equality between the two committees. On 16 April 1794 the Committee of Public Safety received the power to search and to bring the accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal, in the same way as the Committee of General Security. The Committee of General Security and the Committee of Public Safety worked alongside one another. Their responsibilities became overlapping which caused tensions between the two groups. The Law of 22 Prairial year II (10 June 1794) deepened this rivalry as it enabled the two committees to send the accused directly before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The law was introduced to the public without consultation from the Committee of General Security, which, in turn, doubled the number of executions permitted by the Committee of Public Safety. On 22 and 23 July the two committees met in a plenary session. Saint-Just declared in negotiations with Barère to be prepared to make concessions on the subordinate position of the Committee of General Security. Couthon agreed with more cooperation between the two committees. For Robespierre, the Committee of General Security had to remain subordinate to the Committee of Public Safety. Both committees were responsible for suppressing counterrevolution, but sometimes ended up targeting each other. The tensions grew and contributed to the downfall of Robespierre and many of the Montagnards. Two members of the Committee of General Security, Jean-Pierre-André Amar and Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier, participated in the 9 Thermidor coup against Robespierre. At the National Convention, Vadier also used false accusations implementing Catherine Théot in a plot to overthrow the Republic, which was also connected to Robespierre and the Cult of the Supreme Being. The Committee of General Security had more than 160 employees on the eve of the

. The Committee of General Security dissolved with the end of the National Convention in November 1795.

Prominent members

The Committee of General Security had a significant number of members over its three-year history from 2 October 1792-November 4, 1795. However, it numbered only twelve at the start of the

. * Jean-Paul Marat * Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier *

* Jean-Pierre-André Amar * Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas * Jean-Henri Voulland * Pierre Joseph Duhem * Élie Lacoste * Joseph-Nicolas Barbeau du Barran

References

Sources

Le Comité de sûreté générale (1792–1795) par Emilia Cadio
{{Authority control 1791 events of the French Revolution 1792 events of the French Revolution 1793 events of the French Revolution 1794 events of the French Revolution 1795 events of the French Revolution 1791 establishments in France 1795 disestablishments French National Convention