Reign of Terror
Uncover how France’s revolution turned into anarchy and bloodshed
Inside the violence and bloodshed that ravaged France
REIGN of TERROR he evening sun hangs high over the courtyard of the Palais de Justice as the little cart makes its way through the vast crowds. Its passengers, three dirty and haggard men, look bleakly towards the ground, ignoring the heckling of the onlookers. One is badly beaten, his skin a pale colour and a bandage wrapped around his head. The dirty, tattered cloth is the only thing holding his jaw together. Across the square, the silhouette of the guillotine stands tall against the sky. Suddenly a woman pushes her way through the crowd, reaching the cart. “Monster spewed from Hell!” she cries. “The thought of your punishment intoxicates me with joy.” It is 28 July 1794 in Paris and Maximilien Robespierre is about to be executed. But just what is it that caused France to react so violently? Who was Robespierre, the man who now faced death at the hands of madame guillotine? From 5 September 1793 to 28 July 1794, France found itself in the grip of the ‘Terror’ – a brutal period of state-sanctioned violence, which divides historians to this day. Historian Ian Davidson says, “it came without any defined aims or policy and was carried out without any detectable rules,” whereas others believe it was an honest attempt to save the revolution.
The French Revolution had begun in 1789 and by 1792 the monarchy had been abolished and the Republic declared. However, by the beginning of 1793 the revolutionary government ruled over a country in turmoil. In March, the relatively conservative and highly religious department of the Vendée, in the lower western region, began to revolt against the conscription acts introduced in February. Soon discontent spread and other areas such as Lyon and Normandy similarly became openly dissatisfied. By May, rebel factions had taken key towns in the Vendée. At the same time, the French Revolutionary Army had just lost the major
Battle of Neerwinden, against the superior Austrian forces. With dangers mounting both inside and out, the French Revolutionary Government took brutal steps to cement its authority. “Once Louis XVI was executed in January 1793
the new Republic was soon at war with the whole of Europe, and anti-revolutionary anger in some regions erupted into a particularly bloody civil war,” explains Professor Peter Mcphee, author of numerous books on the French Revolution. “By mid-1793 the nation was in danger of falling apart. In response to the crisis, the elected parliament (the National Convention) vested draconian powers in a war-time executive government to take emergency measures to mobilise national resources to win the war and crush the counter-revolution. The Convention did not proclaim the rule of ‘terror’ but on 10 October 1793 issued a Declaration of Revolutionary Government whereby the government would be ‘revolutionary until the peace’.”
The architects of the Terror were (somewhat ironically) the Committee for Public Safety, a group that had originated following the overthrow of Louis XVI on 10 August 1792 and the proclamation of the French Republic on 22 September.
By this point in the Revolution, the dominating force in the Convention were the Jacobins. This group believed in extreme egalitarianism and were the most influential political club.
“The new regime had to devise a new executive form to replace the monarchy,” explains Mcphee. “The critical military and political situation was felt to require an emergency executive. In April 1793 the National Convention created a 12-man Committee of Public Safety with a mission to take the emergency measures necessary to save the Revolution. Members of the Committee could order arrests, but not executions, which were a matter for revolutionary tribunals. There were no formal cabinet roles, although individual members concentrated on particular functions, such as Carnot on military strategy and Lindet on army supplies. Its key figure, Robespierre, had no formal role but made the major speeches in the National Convention, to which the Committee reported monthly.”
Robespierre would become the most prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety and the name most commonly associated with the Reign of Terror. But who was this young man who many deemed responsible for pushing the Revolution to its darkest extreme yet? “Maximilien Robespierre (1758–94) was a small-town lawyer from north-eastern France,” says Mcphee. “Like so many of his peers he saw in the political upheaval of 1788-89 the opportunity to rectify the glaring injustices of absolutism and aristocratic privilege. He became one of the most prominent Jacobins along with Danton and Desmoulins. Only in July 1793, at the time of the Revolution’s greatest crisis, did he enter government as an elected member of the Committee of Public Safety, and was widely seen as its key spokesman.
“The Committee was prepared to use violence against citizens in a desperate attempt to bring stability”