Vigilante, Brigand, Terrorist: Staging Popular Justice in Revolutionary Times

This article examines the many rewritings of a single story: the adventures of a brigand vigilante, first told in Schiller's Die Raüber, adapted by Lamartelière into the 1792 hit Robert, chef de brigands, and updated over the next decade through new endings and sequels. The evolving nature of this vigilante – from noble brigand to popular insurrectionist to merciful judge to Terrorist – reflects the anxieties produced by the shift from a conception of justice as a transcendental force, originating in God's will and flowing through the king and his courts, to an immanent model resting on the notion that all humans possess an innate sense of right and wrong and thus the ability to judge. The manifold revisions of Schiller's story open a window onto the shifting sands of Revolutionary justice, revealing the impact of such events as the September Massacres, Louis XVI's trial, and the institution of the Revolutionary Tribunal.