MESSIDOR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Messidor

... the daily shedding of blood. The older assumption used to be that he left Paris, and ceased to be cognisant of the Committee's deliberations. The minutes, however, prove that this was not the case. Robespierre signed papers nearly every day of Messidor—(June 19 to July 18) the blood-stained month between Prairial and Thermidor—and was thoroughly aware of the doings of the Committee. His partisans have now fallen back on the singular theory of what they style moral absence. He was present in the flesh, but standing aloof ...

— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley