• representatives en mission such as Fouche, Tallein, Carrier and Barras, recalled from their missions for excessive cruelty or corruption, knew that their own lives were at stake if Robespierre continued to live.
• surviving Dantonists such as Bourdon, Legendre, Merlin de Thoinville and Thuriot wanted reveange for the death of their friends.
• a substantial business interest within the Convention was sick of the price controls and Robespierre's extreme emphasis Jacobin morality that hampered investment
• the Right of the Convention had never been terribly fond of the extreme measures of the Terror imposed by the Committees, of which Robespierre was the chief spokesman
• the Left of the Convention was irritated by Robespierre's declaration of the deistic Supreme Being
• the Committee of General Security felt that its power was being usurped by the Police Bureau run by Robespierre, Couthon and Saint-Just, Vadier was trying to make up for his botched-up attack on Robespierre in the Catherine Theot scandal
• the Committee of Public Safety was plain getting sick of Robespierre and the "gens de haut main" telling them what to do-Carnot was personally threatened by Robespierre's preference for Saint-Just over himself as a war organizer, Lindet, who had not signed Danton's arrest, knew that Robespierre and Saint-Just held this against him, Collot was threatened by Robespierre' s attacks on Fouché, his colleague in Lyons,

Furthermore, the victory at Fleurus on June 26th had made the war an offensive, rather than defensive affair, which no longer warranted a war-time dictatorship as the Committees had been. The Parisian populace was as sick of seeing beheadings as they were of the Maximum, which seemed to be working better for wages than for prices. (At Robespierre's execution, they supposed chanted "La bas a le Maximum!" repeatedly) And another very important factor to consider....the heat. It was 104 degrees on 9 Thermidor, most of the men involved hadn't slept for over 48 hours and were living on caffeine, paranoia and adrenaline. This doesn't usually make for a pleasant mix.

8 Thermidor:
Robespierre, whose health was becoming increasingly erratic, had been gone for several weeks before 8 Thermidor, having stormed out of the Green Room on the 3rd of July saying "Save the fatherland without me!" The only person known to have visited him from the Committees during this time was Saint-Just, who made nocturnal visits to the house probably to discuss the Police Bureau which must have just made everybody else's day a little brighter. Dissent and anxiety grew in the Committee. Robespierre visited the Green Room on 5 Thermidor and Saint-Just and Barere started ad been trying to work on a compromise between the two Committees. But Robespierre was still suspicious. He didn't like either of the Committees. Then on 8 Thermidor, presumably without telling even his closest colleagues, Robespierre returned to the Convention and gave a speech in which he, as R.R. Palmer says, "sounded what the eighteenth century conceived a dictator to be. He gave the impression that no one was his friend, that no one could be trusted; that virtue, the people and the Convention, when considered abstractly, were on his side, but he obtained only calumny, persecution, and matyrdom from the actual persons with whom he worked." Furthermore, thought pressed repeatedly for the names of those he accused, Robespierre stubbornly refused to name those whom he attacked. The entire Convention felt itself under threat. Still, at the time, the speech was met with applause.
That night, it seems very few people got a decent amount of sleep. Fouché and several of his associates had forged a list which supposedly contained the list of those to be executed by Robespierre. They showed this "black book" to deputies, trying to convince them to join against Robespierre. Meanwhile, at the Jacobins Club, under Robespierre's direction, expelled Collot and Billaud...this was generally the first step to the guillotine and therefore Collot and Billaud were pretty angry when they stormed into the Green Room late that night. There they found Saint-Just writing, watched by a hostile Lindet and Carnot. "What's going on at the Jacobins?" Saint-Just supposedly asked, which triggered Collot to grab the young man by his cravat and scream "You know better than we do!" and then continue into a lengthy tirade in which he accused Saint-Just of writing his death warrant. At two in the morning, Saint-Just finished with the speech---which was not a death warrant at all, but was a rather conciliatory and quite wise piece which merely called on everyone to explain themselves better.

9 Thermidor:
At 9 am the next morning, the Committee found Saint-Just's note "I am going to reveal my heart to the Convention. Calumny had closed it" and left to hear Saint-Just's speech. In the words of Simon Schama, Saint-Just "had barely reached the first obligatory allusion to the Tarpaein Rock" when Tallein interrupted him on a trivial question as to whether he was speaking as an individual or for the Committee. After this, in the cliché, all Hell broke loose. Accusations against Robespierre began flying, Saint-Just struggled to speak "What language can I use that can reach you?" Then this young man, known for his bravery and restless energy, became eerily passive, standing aside while a succession of his enemies took the podium. The speeches they made against the Robespierrists were a jumbled and confused lot; Legendre condemned Robespierre for Danton's death, Vadier condemned him for protecting traitors such as Danton and Desmoulins so long. The reasons why people wanted Robespierre gone were diverse, but the aim was unified and enough of the loudest voices of the far Right and the far Left were heard to persuade the always hesitant Marsh to join against Robespierre. Percieving that events were not turning in his favor, Robespierre tried to speech but was drowned out by the ringing of the bell by Thuriot (the President of the Convention). "For the last time, will you let me speak, President of Assassins?" But Thuriot and the Convention did not relent and Robespierre was refused a seat in all parts of the Conventions. Supposedly, Deputy Gauthier yelled "You're stepping on the graves of the Girondins!" and another deputy, refusing Robespierre a different seat, yelled "Danton's blood is choking you!" (Robespierre, in turn, was supposed to have answered, "Danton? Is that why you're doing this? Cowards! Why didn't you defend him then?")

Finally, an obscure deputy asked for the arrest of Citizen Robespierre. He was approved. Pandemonium ensued about who was to be beheaded with him. Saint-Just and Couthon were arrested. Lebas, staring at Saint-Just, volunteered to join them, as did Robespierre the Younger. The five were arrested and taken to the Concergerie, which, under orders from the Robespierrist Paris Commune, refused to take them as prisoners. Therefore, they were sent as pseudo-prisoners to various buildings throughout the city and then, in pandemonium when the Commune came to the rescue, released. The Robespierrists and the sympathetic leaders of the Commune met at the Hotel de le Ville. Hanriot, commander of the National Guard, gathered the sections to fight against the Convention. However, a thunderstorm started around midnight and the troops began to disperse. Inside the Hotel de le Ville, little is known about what was going on. It is known that at 2 am, when the Convention troops led by Barras, broke in, Robespierre had signed "Rob" to the a call to arms for the Section de Piques. A legend persists that Robespierre stopped there, unable to sign anymore because he wanted to know "In whose name?" the people were to be called.

When the Convention's troops came in, massive firing took place. Most of the Robespierrists were injured. Couthon, who had tried to get down the stairs on the back of an officer, had been dropped. The younger Robespierre had jumped out the window only to land with his legs broken on a pile of manure. Lebas had blown out his brains at an impassive Saint-Just's feet. Robespierre himself had his jaw shot off...whether this was a botched suicide attempt or the work of a gendarme named Merda is still a matter of conjecture. Robespierre, and the Robespierrists, had officially lost.

10 Thermidor:
Taken first to the Committee, where his jaw was bandaged by a doctor on the Green Room table, and then merely identified before the Tribunal to be sentenced to death, Robespierre was placed in the tumbrel the afternoon of 10 Thermidor. Of the 21 Robespierrists executed that day, only Saint-Just could stand by himself. The tumbrel ride lasted three hours, making an unusually long trip around all the streets of Pairs. People lined the streets, singing, dancing, throwing flowers and behaving as if it were a carnival. Supposedly, a young child painted "MURDERER" with pigs' blood on the door of the Duplay house where Robespierre lived. Robespierre and his collegues were executed. Robespierre, the last of the lot, cried out in pain when the bandage that held his jaw on was ripped off.

Results:
Robespierre's death also marked the end of the Terror(which officially ended a month from then) , the end of the Commune (81 more Commune leaders were beheaded 11 Thermidor), the end of the Committee of Public Safety (which was dissolved under the Constitution of Year III).....and the end of the idealistic phase of the Revolution. Thermidor inaugurated another sort of world, where money, pleasure and corruption, took a higher place than virtue, liberty, and values. Many of the men who had helped bring down Robespierre, Barere, Collot, Billaud, were afterwards condemned to exile for being involved with him. Robespierre became a monster, the explanation of the Terror. Many years later, right before their deaths, it was hard to find one of the Thermidoreans who didn't, in a way, regret what they had done.