A very interesting subject but very complicated to imagine, as the very person of Robespierre is still the subject of enormous historical debates but above all as a controversial figure, and either hated or revered in public opinion (I am speaking here from the point of French view). I will take as a reference the work of the historian Jean-Clément Martin, the "best" current specialist in the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution - I specify that I have read only one of his works and I have mainly listened his web conferences.
In his book,
La Terreur. Vérités et légendes, the historian indulges in the game of uchronia with a chapter entitled: "If Robespierre is the winner of Thermidor" - in this, Martin outlines a possible counter-attack by Robespierre, who enjoyed the support of the half of Paris, sans-culottes and the revolutionary courts of the capital faced with a paradoxical but real opposition from revolutionary radicals and moderates who have in common to be targeted by the Incoruptible in his speech made on 8 Thermidor, against " the terror system" and its promoters.
All the purpose of the author before in the previous chapters is to demonstrate that the general conception of the Terror is false (I will not go back on it, read the book or listen to the author if you are French-speaking) and he brings to light the image of a Terror constructed after the fall of Robespierre and against Robespierre by Tallien.
Martin in the chapter on Robespierre's seizure of power names those who would have passed on the scaffold: there is
Tallien,
Fouché,
Carrier,
Bourdon, then
Billaud-Varenne and
Collot, and certainly
Cambon and
Carnot. Then, the author continues by imagining that the sans-culottes left, designated as "terrotist", would have been designated responsible for the exactions that the executions of March 1794, in particular that of Jacques-René Hebert, had already sanctioned. The denunciation made by Grégoire against the "vandals" could have been used. And an formal adhesion of the provinces to the counter-coup of Robespierre, then Martin continues by doing a little foresight speaking of a loss of confidence of the big financiers in the regime, the same for the military because they would lose the profits of a war of conquest, which Robespierre was against. And announces a greater control of the state between a muzzled revolutionary left and a right unable to rise; in short, an openly assumed dictatorship of Robespierre. Finally Martin ends the chapter by returning precisely to the subject of his book, and maintains that Robespierre would have accused his enemies - as they accused MR of having led the "Terror" - of having led the "Vendalisation" of France.
The author is doing an exercise here that serves the purpose of his book on the Terror, and does not seek to go further into the uchronia but the leads given seem interesting to me because a situation and a trajectory taken by the revolution at this time can to be continued - Jean-Clément Martin at the very beginning of this chapter says that the victory of the Robespierrists would not fundamentally change the line taken by the Thermidorians; that of a reduction in violence within the general framework of a French victory in the war, because this geo-political context is crucial for understanding the political choices and alliances within the National Assembly.
I will here propose an extension of the possible victory of Robespierre; instead of post-Thermidorian anarchy and then the corruption of the Directory, France would be a revolutionary dictatorship around a government tightened around the Incorruptible and his supporters (Saint-Just, Hanriot, etc.), a kind of revolutionary Consulate. Surely, the conclusion of an external peace would be one of his priorities (although we must not forget the lack of confidence among the military, therefore the renewal of certain generals with Saint-Just as Minister of War and the advent of a Bonaparte thanks to his opinions as his relations with the brother of Robespierre). Then, an element will come into account and surely put aside Robespierre quickly aside, his state of health (some countenporains make the state of a rather sick Incorruptible), so he could not reach the year 1800. So eventually, a new power struggle would be brought about for the succession of the Incorruptible.
amp.theguardian.com
