28 Floréal
An CCXXXIV
Philippe Rühl
Philippe Rühl, a Frenchman of German origin from Strasbourg, was one of the last Montagnards. The few remaining revolutionaries tried, after the fall of Robespierre, to divert the French Revolution from its path into the age of the haute bourgeoisie. But the group was too small to change anything anymore. Until Thermidor, Rühl was a member of the Committee of General Security, which organized the Terror of Year II. Yet even there Rühl was marked by a certain restraint. He refused to sign the arrest warrant against Danton. Shortly before Danton’s arrest, Rühl is even said to have warned him. Rühl stabbed himself when he was due to appear before a military commission after the failed Prairial uprising. He knew he had no chance of escaping the revenge of the Thermidorians.
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1737 - 1795
- May 3, 1737 · Born in Strasbourg, the son of the preacher Philipp Jakob Rühl and Marie Elisabeth Krug.
- October 1791 · Deputy for the department of Bas-Rhin in the Legislative Assembly.
- September 1792 · Deputy for the department of Bas-Rhin in the National Convention.
- September 6, 1792 · In the Legislative Assembly, Rühl proposes that Friedrich Schiller be declared an honorary citizen of France.
- September 14, 1793 · Elected to the Committee of General Security.
- October 7, 1793 · As a representative on mission of the Convention, Rühl destroys the Holy Ampulla in Reims, which held the oil used to anoint the kings of France.
- March 30, 1794 · Together with Robert Lindet, Rühl refuses to sign the arrest warrant against Danton.
- August 31, 1794 · Rühl resigns from his post as a member of the Committee of General Security.
- May 20, 1795 · As a deputy, he supports the Prairial uprising. After it is crushed, he is placed only under house arrest out of consideration for his advanced age (he is 58).
- May 28, 1795 · Rühl receives a summons to be questioned before a military commission. He then takes his own life.
Quotes
Mr. Rühl requests that Mr. Giller, a German publicist, be included in the list of those to whom the Assembly has just granted the title of French citizen.
Minutes of the sitting of the Legislative Assembly of 6 September 1792 (Giller refers to Friedrich Schiller).
The Holy Ampulla exists no more; that sacred rattle of fools and that dangerous instrument in the hands of the satellites of despotism has disappeared.
Rühl after the destruction of the Holy Ampulla in Reims, October 7, 1793.
Bread and the Constitution of 1793!
Exclamation by Philippe Rühl when the sans-culottes stormed Parliament on 1 Prairial Year III.
Insurrection of 1 Prairial Year III (20 May 1795)
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