Reign of Terror

Main article: Reign of Terror

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793-1794). At least 18,000 people met their deaths under the guillotine or otherwise, after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. The slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and the trials did not proceed scrupulously.

On 2 June, Paris sections — encouraged by the enragés (“enraged ones”) Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert — took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to “sans-culottes” alone. With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to convince the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the revolutionary dictatorship. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat—a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric—by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, having the image of a man who enjoyed luxuries, was removed from the Committee and on 27 July, Robespierre, “the Incorruptible”, made his entrance, quickly becoming the most influential member of the Committee as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution’s domestic and foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was ratified by public referendum, but never applied, because normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.

Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the levée en masse, which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort. On 5 September, the Convention, pressured by the people of Paris, institutionalized The Terror: systematic and lethal repression of perceived enemies within the country.

The result was a policy through which the state used violent repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention established sans-culottes paramilitary forces, the revolutionary armies, to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from grain and bread to other essential goods, and also fixed wages.

The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions: Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others lost their lives under its blade. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). Loaded onto these carts, the victims would proceed through throngs of jeering men and women.

Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Revolutionary Calendar on 24 October. Against Robespierre’s concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert’s (and Chaumette’s) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign in order to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the Goddess “Reason” in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November.

The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability and patriotism. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.

Because dissent was now regarded as counterrevolutionary, extremist enragés such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard indulgents such as Danton were guillotined in the spring of 1794. On June 7 Robespierre, who had previously condemned the Cult of Reason, advocated a new state religion and recommended that the Convention acknowledge the existence of God. On the next day, the worship of the deistic Supreme Being was inaugurated as an official aspect of the Revolution. Compared with Hébert’s popular festivals, this austere new religion of Virtue was received with signs of hostility by an amazed Parisian public.

In 1794, Robespierre had ultra-radicals and moderate Jacobins executed; in consequence, however, his own popular support eroded markedly. On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre and Saint-Just. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.

The Convention approved the new “Constitution of the Year III” on 17 August 1795; a plebiscite ratified it in September; and it took effect on 26 September 1795.”

You want to go to your encyclopedia for dates and names.The reign of terror is most famously ruled over by Robespierre – kangaroo trials of the aristocracy (almost anyone with “de” as part of their name – ie Marquis de whatever”) could be accused, brought before the tribunal, condemned (a certainty) and beheaded by “Madame Guilotin!” There are accounts suggesting as many as nearly 300 beheadings in a single day – thousands, including the king and his wife, died during this period. Ultimately Robespierre himself fell to the blade as did its inventor Msr. Guillotin for whom this gruesome machine was name (although his intent with the device was to be more humane than the ax which often failed on the first stroke.) Sometimes victims were given narcotics beforehand and didn’t know it was coming — more often during this period it was utterly cold blooded as you lay on your stomach bound to a table which moved you forward by gears until your head was in the right position. You would hear the 300 pound steel blade being raised until the tongs holding it hit the release where it would then descend with terrible swiftness severing your head at the neck — followed by the roar of the crowd. A tale is told of a noble cleric who was reciting the Lord’s prayer as the blade was lifted and just finished as the blade fell and the last breath uttered the word “amen” in the basket.

The far left among the revolutionaries, building the hatred of the people for the aristocrats, are responsible for the excesses of the time. See the excellent movie version of Dumas’ “Tale of Two Cities” starring Ronald Colman – this tale immortalizes Madame de Farge as one of the cruellest of the “citizens”. Again, details and names are readily available in any good encyclopedia.

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