In the speech of 8 Thermidor, Robespierre spoke of the existence of internal enemies, conspirators, and calumniators, within the Convention and the governing Committees.

He refused to name them, which alarmed the deputies who feared Robespierre was preparing another purge of the Convention, similar to previous ones during the Reign of Terror.

[6][7] During this time, two different factions rose in opposition to the restructured Revolutionary Government: the left-wing ultra-revolutionaries and the moderate right-wing citra-revolutionaries.

[16] Two days after the Festival, Robespierre pushed the National Convention to pass the Law of 22 Prairial drafted by him and Georges Couthon, which accelerated the trial process and extended the death penalty to include a new set of "enemies of the people"; this included those seeking to reestablish the monarchy, interfering with food provisions, discrediting the National Convention, and communicating with foreigners, among others.

[21] As payment, they presented a report on the ties between the English enemy and the self-proclaimed "Mother of God", Catherine Théot, who had prophesied that Robespierre was a new Messiah.

[23] The following day, in a joint meeting of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security, Lazare Carnot allegedly shouted at Saint-Just that both he and Robespierre were "ridiculous dictators".

[24] Having abandoned both the Committee and the National Convention, which he stopped frequenting after his presidency ended on 18 June (30 Prairial),[25] Robespierre's absence allowed the breach between him and other members of the revolutionary government to widen.

He did not reappear until 23 July (5 Thermidor), when he sat for another joint convention of the two Committees put forward in a failed attempt to resolve their mutual differences.

[27] In it, he attempted both to defend himself from the rumors and attacks on his person that had been spreading since the start of the Reign of Terror; and to bring light to an anti-revolutionary conspiracy that he believed reached into the Convention and the Governing Committees.

[28] Although he only accused three deputies by name (Pierre-Joseph Cambon, François René Mallarmé, and Dominique-Vincent Ramel-Nogaret), his speech seemed to also incriminate several others.

[1] Moreover, it was precisely because he failed to name the condemned that terror spread through the Convention as the deputies started thinking that Robespierre was planning yet another purge like that of the Dantonists and Hébertists.

[29] Both Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne and Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, who opposed the printing of the speech, were driven out of the Jacobin Club.

[37] The Convention then voted to arrest five deputies – Robespierre, his brother, Couthon, Saint-Just and Le Bas – as well as François Hanriot, and other Robespierrist officials.

[41] Robespierre was taken out of the Hôtel de Ville with a broken jaw and spent the remainder of the night at the antechamber of the Committee of General Security.

[43] When clearing Robespierre's neck, executioner Charles-Henri Sanson tore off the bandage that was holding his shattered jaw in place, causing him to produce an agonised scream until his death.