The Reign of Terror: France's darkest chapter during the Revolution

The French Revolution had begun in 1789 due to the common people's growing discontent with the monarchy and the social inequalities that had long plagued the nation.

For centuries, the king of France held absolute power, which meant that he gained all the benefits of being the monarch, but also was responsible to ensure the country was running well.

Unfortunately, by the late 18th century, economic hardship caused by years of poor harvests, soaring food prices, and a crippling national debt caused by France's involvement in the American Revolution, fueled widespread public anger across France directed at the king himself.

There was a growing movement of leaders who believed that the cause of all of the country's problems could be solved by reducing the number of powers the monarchy had and sharing it among a wider group of people.

So, the representatives of the people came together on the 9th of July 1789, to form a group called the National Assembly.

They decided to create a set of rules for how a country should be run. These rules were called a 'constitution'.

The first constitution still included the king as the leader of the country, but it said that a government should also be formed to keep a limit on what decisions the king could make.

Today, a system where a king rules in conjunction with a parliament is called a 'constitutional monarchy'.

Then, on October 6, 1789, the angry French people forced their king, Louis XVI, to leave his lavish royal palace at Versailles and moved him back to Paris, where they kept him under guard.

While there, Louis learnt of the new constitution and how his rule would change once it came into effect.

However, the changes to the French government didn't stop there.

On the 30th of September 1791, the beginning of a new French revolutionary government occurred, when the National Assembly was officially replaced by the brand-new government, known as the Legislative Assembly.

In the two years since the revolution had first broken out until the launch of the Legislative Assembly, France's situation had not improved.

It had inherited the same severe financial crisis, which had been the major cause of the French Revolution and remained unresolved.

However, by early-1792, the new government hadn't significantly improved the lives of the common people.

Grain shortages meant that poor people were still starving, and the general public were growing discontent with the disappointing results of the revolution.

As the new government tried to follow the constitutional rules to fix the issue, they kept running into problems.

The King Louis XVI had been allowed to retain some powers, such as appointing particular government ministers, but he also had 'a suspensive veto', which gave him the ability to simply block any law he didn't like.

So, whenever the Assembly created a new piece of legislation, the king quickly vetoed it, which meant that nothing changed.

What made things worse was that the Assembly was divided between political factions like the Girondins and Jacobins.

While both were revolutionary groups, the Jacobins deeply hated the king, while the Girondins were more willing to work with him.

In early 1792, the Girondins had far more influence. However, they were more focused on warfare than on the economic problems.

This is because, ever since the French people had seized their king, France had faced growing military threats from foreign powers like Prussia and Austria, who demanded that Louis XVI be restored to full power or they would attack.

So, the Girondins argued in April 1792 that France needed to be more proactive in the war against their enemies, as they believed that success on the battlefield would help unify the country and reduce the discontent among the people.

As a result, the Legislative Assembly officially declared war on Austria on April 10, 1792, and marched its soldiers off to war.

Unfortunately, the war with Austria was disastrous for the French. Due to the unresolved economic problems, the revolutionary government faced severe challenges in keeping its forces organized and supplied.

When the French army invaded the Austrian Netherlands in July, they suffered several defeats in battle and the surviving soldiers began deserting. They even murdered their own leader, General Théobald Dillon.

Then, the counterattack by the Prussian army, who was allied with Austria, occurred. They successfully invaded France in August and captured key fortresses like Longwy and Verdun.

Panic soon broke out in Paris, as people feared that the Prussians would soon arrive and place Louis XVI back in full control.

Rumours also began to spread that many French people secretly wanted this to happen, as they were angry with the failures of the Legislative Assembly.

As the paranoia spread, the most radical of the Parisians decided to take matters into their own hands in an attempt to save their revolution from failing.

On August 10, 1792, the revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace and placed the king under permanent arrest.

A month later, from September 2 to 6, 1792, a series of brutal killings then took place in Paris, where wealthy individuals that were rumoured to be in favor of the king were hunted down and killed.

Approximately 1,100 to 1,600 prisoners were killed, including common criminals and political prisoners like the nobility and priests.

This became known as the September Massacres and were a sign that the people and the government were afraid that not everyone in the country fully supported the revolution.

Now that the king was no longer in charge, and France was not a constitutional monarchy anymore, the politicians needed a new form of government.

As a result, the Legislative Assembly was replaced on September 20, 1792, by a new kind system called the National Convention.

This time, there was no power left to the king, and all decisions were made by the Convention.

During the transition to the new structure, the Girondin faction quickly lost a lot of their power to the more radical Jacobins faction.

The rapid rise of the Jacobins was due to the overwhelming support they had from the Parisian working-class revolutionaries (known as the sans-culottes).

This shift in power triggered a period of radicalization where more extremist revolutionary leaders tried to find ways to ensure that the monarchy would never be able to overturn the revolution.

This eventually led to the execution of Louis XVI, who was publicly beheaded by guillotine in January 1793.

In response to the shocking news of the murder of royalty, European monarchies across the continent feared that similar revolutionary ideas could spread in their own countries.

As a result, they formed a military coalition to invade France to somehow restore the old order.

Two of the most powerful of these countries were Austria and Prussia. As their armies marched on France, it placed immense pressure on the revolutionary government to maintain internal stability.

There was also news that large sections of France had been equally as outraged by the death of their king.

The most dramatic uprising occurred in the French region of the Vendée, where royalist forces launched a rebellion against the new government.

As this was a vital agricultural region, any loss of control of this area by the revolutionary government would only make the economic and food crisis deepen.

The new National Convention knew that they had to act swiftly and decisively to both quell the uprising and fend off foreign invasions.

In the face of these crises, the new regime aimed to remove any threats from among their own people as a way to consolidate its power. 

So, the National Convention began to implement a series of measures designed to crush opposition.

The first step in the process was to set up the Revolutionary Tribunals in March 1793, which were special courts designed to bring to trial those accused of being enemies of the Revolution.

These were specifically designed to neutralize threats from royalist sympathizers and counter-revolutionary forces.

Then, in April 1793, the National Convention took the extraordinary step of establishing a new government organization, called the Committee of Public Safety.

This group was granted a broad range of powers to hunt down and deal with any internal or external threat to the safety of the revolutionary government.

The National Convention was then told that the city of Lyon had openly revolted against the revolutionary government in May 1793.

This was part of the larger Federalist Revolts against the centralizing power of the Jacobins in Paris.

The insurrection saw the arrest and execution of key Jacobin leaders in Lyon, which terrified those in charge in Paris.

As a sign of the growing power of the extremist Jacobin faction in the Convention, in June 1793, the more moderate Girondins were officially expelled from the National Convention altogether.

With full power of the Convention in their hands, the Jacobins gave free reign to the Committee of Public Safety.

This triggered the Reign of Terror in September 1793, which would last for eleven months.

It all began on the 17th of September, when the Revolutionary Government passed the Law of Suspects, which allowed for the arrest of anyone who was suspected of being an 'enemy of the state'.

It was believed that if the French people were sufficiently afraid of being found out as a secret monarchist, then they would have to become more loyal to the government.

Therefore, the swifter and more brutal the enforcement of this law was, it was thought that the quicker the problems could be resolved.

As a result, the Law of Suspects led to the arrest and execution of thousands of other people.

It was at this time that a man called Maximilien Robespierre first rose in importance but would later become very important.

Robespierre was a key member of the Committee of Public Safety and was a particularly fervent believer in the need for terror to keep the common people in line.

He famously said that, “terror is nothing more than justice, prompt, severe and inflexible”.

During the rapid spread of accusations, arrests, and public executions during the period of time known as the Reign of Terror, the use of the guillotine increased dramatically.

This machine was originally designed to be the 'most humane and quickest' form of execution by cutting off peoples' heads in one quick motion.

In addition, the killings were often done in public as a way of warning everyone else of the risks of not being 'sufficiently supportive' of the revolution.

The most famous location of these executions was the Place de la Révolution in Paris (later renamed Place de la Concorde).

On the day of their deaths, the victims were marched to the guillotine in groups, and then placed under the blade one by one.

An estimated 16,000 people were killed by guillotine over the next nine months of the Terror.

The most famous victim was Queen Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, who was executed on the 16th of October 1793.

But the bloodshed did not just occur in the capital city of Paris. Other large cities across France were also targeted.

At Lyon, the city that had revolted in May, a Republican army marched on it and placed it under siege from August 9 to October 9, 1793.

To end the siege, Lyon eventually surrendered to the Revolutionary Government.

However, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the destruction of the city walls and decreed that Lyon would be renamed Ville-Affranchie (Liberated City).

The repression included the demolition of any buildings that were owned by the wealthy pro-royalist members of the city.

Then, a special court, which was officially considered to be a 'military commission', was established to punish counter-revolutionaries in Lyon.

This result in horrific violence which sentenced almost 1500 people to death in a matter of weeks.

Once more, these executions were carried out in public to inspire terror in the rest of the population, and the bodies of the victims were displayed on the broken city walls as a warning to others.

On some occasions, rather than using the guillotine, the army even used cannons to kill their victims.

In a similar way, the French city of Toulon had revolted against the Jacobin-led government.

The pro-royalist rebels had invited English and Spanish navy ships into their port to help them fight back against the Convention.

Just like at Lyon, French Republican forces were sent against Toulon and besieged the city in August of 1793.

The Siege of Toulon would last for almost four months and only came to an end on the 19th of December when a young Napoleon Bonaparte, an artillery captain at the time, helped capture the city.

Once more, the French Republican Army used mass executions to terrorize the population into submission. 

Approximately 700-800 royalist prisoners were put to death without trial under the supervision of Jacobin representatives like Paul Barras.

However, many citizens of Toulon, fled with the departing British fleet; about 14,877 people were evacuated. 

Perhaps the most brutal chapter outside of Paris during the Reign of Terror took place in the Vendée region.

From 1793 to 1796, the royalist rebellion in western France that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, both in battle and through brutal reprisals by the Republican forces.

The Vendée was a stronghold of royalist sentiment. So, in response, the government sent more troops to quell the uprising.

These troops were often ruthless and indiscriminate in their actions, leading to widespread civilian casualties.

For example, at Savenay, the Republican troops massacred surrendered soldiers and civilians alike.

In Cholet, they killed over 2000 people, including women and children.

At Nantes, the Revolutionary Government instituted a horrific system of mass drownings of the rebels, known as noyades.

Under the orders of Jean-Baptiste Carrier in late 1793, many priests, women, and children were tied up and thrown into the River Loire, where they drowned.

It is estimated that over 4000 people were killed in this manner. 

Ultimately, the Vendée uprising was largely crushed by 1794, even though sporadic resistance continued until 1796.

One of the most controversial aspects of the Reign of Terror was the dechristianization campaign.

This was a series of measures instituted by the Convention designed to eradicate Christianity from France.

As part of this, churches were closed, religious symbols were destroyed, and priests were forced to flee the country.

This campaign was deeply unpopular with many people. Regardless, the government made dechristianization compulsory in the city of Paris.

Surprisingly, Robespierre spoke out against dechristianization, since he thought that it was counter productive.

Instead, he believed that religion could be used to control the people, and that dechristianization would only serve to alienate them.

However, his views were not shared by the majority of the Committee of Public Safety, and the campaign continued. 

In defiance of the other members of the Committe, Robespierre organized an alternate semi-religious event called the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, 1794.

It was a civic festival intended to promote his vision of a deistic state religion that was controlled by the government, not the church.

However, this began to alienate Robespierre from many of his more extremist colleagues.

By the end of 1793, the mass killings in Paris and across France had done little to calm the ongoing fears of unrest among the people.

The Convention struggled to sell their message about the benefits of fully supporting the revolution.

So, in December 1793, the Revolutionary Government passed the Law of 14 Frimaire.

This placed severe restrictions on the press and allowed the government to censor any publication that was deemed “contrary to the principles of liberty”.

What was particularly dangerous, is that this law also made it a crime to criticize the government or its officials.

In-fighting broke out in Paris following this law, as different politicians began to be accused of criticizing each other and were potentially breaking the new law.

It was at this point that the Jacobins began to fragment, as different people tried to lead the group in different directions.

As these men saw power slowly slipping away, they resorted to murdering their rivals to try and remove any potential challengers.

In particular, the leading figure among the radical sans-culottes, Jacques Hébert, and his followers were arrested and executed in March 1794. This was done at the orders of Robespierre. 

Georges Danton, a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and a member of the Committee of Public Safety, fell out of favor with Robespierre as well.

He was accused of leniency towards enemies of the Revolution, was arrested, and executed on April 5, 1794.

Robespierre was becoming the most powerful leader in the government, who used the powers of the Committee of Public Safety to silence others.

However, many people held him in high esteem, as he seemed to be acting in the 'best interests of the revolution'.

As the death toll at Robespierre's hand increased, he publicly defended himself by claiming to be creating a much better society.

He called his vision the 'Republic of Virtue'. It was based on the belief that the country should be founded on virtuous people.

Robespierre argued that 'virtue' could be measured by the amount of love a person had for their nation and its laws.

He argued that this kind of virtue was so essential for a successful government that during at times of danger, terror was necessary to defend the nation from its own people.

This is why Robespierre killed his own enemies: he saw terror as a form of justice, necessary to combat the enemies of the Republic.

Robespierre was so successful in convincing the members of the government that he was acting in the interests of France, that he became known as the 'Incorruptible': he was the only person who could be trusted not to act in self-interest.

To achieve this dream of a virtuous nation, Georges Couthon proposed to Robespierre that they should streamline the judicial process by simplifying trials at the Revolutionary Tribunal.

To speed up trails, the tribunals could only hand out two sentences: either acquittal (and set the prisoner free) or guilt (in which case they were sentenced to death).

In addition, the tribunals would now no longer need a lawyer to defend the accused person, and witnesses were no longer required.

As such, when someone was accused of speaking against the government, they would be brought to the Revolutionary Tribunal, told that they were found guilty, and sent to the guillotine.

The new process was brought into effect in the Law of 22 Prairial on June 10, 1794.

This became one of the bloodiest stages of the Great Terror in Paris, with an estimated 1500 people found guilty as 'enemies of the state' and sent directly for execution during June and July 1794.

The unchecked power of Robespierre and the constant stream of public beheadings taking place on a daily basis on the streets of Paris was finally a breaking point for the government in Paris.

The people had had enough of the Reign of Terror and a new series of uprisings broke out against the Revolutionary Government.

This reaction against the dominance of the Jacobins was known as the Thermidorian Reaction.

It began in the provinces and quickly spread to Paris. With frightening speed, the leaders of the Convention like Vicomte de Barras lost confidence in Robespierre.

They turned against him and declared Robespierre to be a dangerous dictator and an 'enemy of the state' himself.

On the night of July 27, 1794, Robespierre was attacked and arrested in his home.

When he was brought before the Convention, he was given a chance to speak in his own defense, but he had been too badly beaten to speak effectively.

As a result, he was unable to persuade the government of his innocence and was sent to the guillotine the following day.

A few days after the death of Robespierre, on the 1st of August 1, 1794, the Law of 22 Prairial was revoked, and the Great Terror was brought to an end.

After the Thermidorian Reaction and the removal of the Jacobins from power, the National Convention was dominated by more moderate and conservative factions, often referred to as the Thermidorians.

They were individuals who opposed the radical Jacobin policies and sought to dismantle the mechanisms of the Reign of Terror.

The Thermidorians included important figures included Paul Barras, Jean-Lambert Tallien, and Joseph Fouché.

During the Thermidorian Reaction, the powers of the Committee of Public Safety were severely curtailed and were limited to areas like diplomacy and war.

The Committee continued to exist in a diminished capacity until the adoption of the Constitution of Year III on August 22, 1795, which established the Directory and abolished the Committee along with other revolutionary institutions on October 25, 1795.

However, the bloodshed was not totally finished. During the following twelve months, across 1794 and 1795, a final period known as the White Terror occurred.

This involved reprisal attacks on those individuals who had been associated with the Jacobins.

The White Terror was carried out by royalists and former Girondins who wanted revenge for all of the suffering that the Convention had handed out during the Reign of Terror.

Just like the executions beforehand, the White Terror saw thousands of people arrested and killed, including the massacre of imprisoned Jacobins in cities like Lyon and Marseille.

As the reprisal killings of the Thermidorian Reaction came to an end, the more moderate leaders of the National Convention took charge of a country that was still struggling with the same problems it had started with.

Despite all of the death and fear, France was still a nation in crisis.