reign of terror

The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to the Federalist revolts, revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. While terror was never formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention, it was more often employed as a concept.

Historians disagree when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun in 1793, often giving the date as 5 September or 10 March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others cite the earlier September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789 when the first killing of the revolution occurred. Will Durant stated that "strictly, it should be dated from the Law of Suspects, September 17, 1793, to the execution of Maximilien Robespierre, July 28, 1794."

The Terror concluded with the fall of Robespierre and his alleged allies in July 1794, in what is known as the Thermidorian Reaction. By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone. An additional 10,000 to 12,000 people had been executed without trial, and 10,000 had died in prison.

Background

Enlightenment thought

Enlightenment thought emphasized the importance of rational thinking and began challenging legal and moral foundations of society, providing the leaders of the Reign of Terror with new ideas about the role and structure of government. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ''Social Contract'' argues that each person was born with rights, and they would come together in forming a government that would then protect those rights. Under the social contract, the government was required to act for the general will, which represented the interests of everyone rather than a few factions. Drawing from the idea of a general will, Robespierre felt that the French Revolution could result in a republic built for the general will but only once those who fought against this ideal were expelled.Halsall, Paul. 9972020.
Maximilien Robespierre: Justification of the Use of Terror
." Internet Modern History Sourcebook. US: Fordham University, Retrieved 25 June 2020. Those who resisted the government were deemed "tyrants" fighting against the virtue and honor of the general will. The leaders felt that their ideal version of government was threatened from the inside and outside of France, and terror was the only way to preserve the dignity of the republic created from French Revolution.

The writings of Baron de Montesquieu, another Enlightenment thinker of the time, also greatly influenced Robespierre. Montesquieu's ''The Spirit of Law'' defines a core principle of a democratic government: virtue—described as "the love of laws and of our country." In Robespierre's speech to the National Convention on 5 February 1794, he regards virtue as being the "fundamental principle of popular or democratic government." This was, in fact, the same virtue defined by Montesquieu almost 50 years prior. Robespierre believed the virtue needed for any democratic government was extremely lacking in the French people. As a result, he decided to weed out those he believed could never possess this virtue. The result was a continual push towards Terror. The Convention used this as justification for the course of action to "crush the enemies of the revolution…let the laws be executed…and let liberty be saved."

Threats of foreign invasion

At the beginning of the French Revolution, the surrounding monarchies did not show great hostility towards the rebellion. Though mostly ignored, Louis XVI was later able to find support in Leopold II of Austria (brother of Marie Antoinette) and Frederick William II of Prussia. On 27 August 1791, these foreign leaders made the Pillnitz Declaration, saying they would restore the French monarch if other European rulers joined. In response to what they viewed to be the meddling of foreign powers, France declared war on 20 April 1792. However, at this point, the war was only Prussia and Austria against France.

Massive reforms of military institutions, while very effective in the long run, presented the initial problems of inexperienced forces and leaders of questionable political loyalty. In the time it took for officers of merit to use their new freedoms to climb the chain of command, France suffered. Many of the early battles were definitive losses for the French. There was the constant threat of the Austro-Prussian forces which were advancing easily toward the capital, threatening to destroy Paris if the monarch was harmed. This series of defeats, coupled with militant uprisings and protests within the borders of France, pushed the government to resort to drastic measures to ensure the loyalty of every citizen, not only to France but more importantly to the revolution.

While this series of losses was eventually broken, the reality of what might have happened if they persisted hung over France. In September 1792 the French won a critical victory at Valmy, preventing an Austro-Prussian invasion. While the French military had stabilized and was producing victories by the time the Reign of Terror officially began, the pressure to succeed in this international struggle acted as justification for the government to pursue its actions. It was not until after the execution of Louis XVI and the annexation of the Rhineland that the other monarchies began to feel threatened enough to form the First Coalition. The coalition, consisting of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Holland, and Sardinia began attacking France from all directions, besieging and capturing ports and retaking ground lost to France. With so many similarities to the first days of the Revolutionary Wars for the French government, with threats on all sides, unification of the country became a top priority. As the war continued and the Reign of Terror began, leaders saw a correlation between using terror and achieving victory. Well phrased by Albert Soboul, "terror, at first an improvised response to defeat, once organized became an instrument of victory." The threat of defeat and foreign invasion may have helped spur the origins of the Terror, but the timely coincidence of the Terror with French victories added justification to its growth.

Popular pressure

During the Reign of Terror, the ''sans-culottes—the urban workers of France—''and the Hébertists put pressure on the National Convention delegates and contributed to the overall instability of France. The National Convention was bitterly split between the Montagnards and the Girondins. The Girondins were more conservative leaders of the National Convention, while the Montagnards supported radical violence and pressures of the lower classes. Once the Montagnards gained control of the National Convention, they began demanding radical measures.

Moreover, the ''sans-culottes'' agitated leaders to inflict punishments on those who opposed the interests of the poor. The ''sans-culottes'' violently demonstrated, pushing their demands and creating constant pressure for the Montagnards to enact reform. They fed the frenzy of instability and chaos by utilizing popular pressure during the Revolution. For example, they sent letters and petitions to the Committee of Public Safety urging them to protect their interests and rights with measures such as taxation of foodstuffs that favored workers over the rich. They advocated for arrests of those deemed to oppose reforms against those with privilege, and the more militant members would advocate pillage in order to achieve the desired equality. The resulting instability caused problems that made forming the new republic and achieving full political support critical.

Religious upheaval

The Reign of Terror was characterized by a dramatic rejection of long-held religious authority, its hierarchical structure, and the corrupt and intolerant influence of the aristocracy and clergy. Religious elements that long stood as symbols of stability for the French people, were replaced by views on reason and scientific thought. The radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural revolution that would rid the French state of all Christian influence. This process began with the fall of the monarchy, an event that effectively defrocked the state of its sanctification by the clergy via the doctrine of Divine Right and ushered in an era of reason.

Many long-held rights and powers were stripped from the Catholic Church and given to the state. In 1789, church lands were expropriated and priests killed or forced to leave France. Later in 1792, "refractory priests" were targeted and replaced with their secular counterpart from the Jacobin club. Not all religions experienced equal aggression; the Jewish community, on the contrary, received admittance into French citizenship in 1791. A Festival of Reason was held in the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was renamed "The Temple of Reason", and the traditional calendar was replaced with a new revolutionary one. The leaders of the Terror tried to address the call for these radical, revolutionary aspirations, while at the same time trying to maintain tight control on the de-Christianization movement that was threatening to the clear majority of the still devoted Catholic population of France. Robespierre used the event as a means to combat the "moral counterrevolution" taking place among his rivals. Additionally, he hoped to stem "the monster atheism" that was a result of the radical secularization in philosophical and social circles. The tension sparked by these conflicting objectives laid a foundation for the "justified" use of terror to achieve revolutionary ideals and rid France of the religiosity that revolutionaries believed was standing in the way.

Terror of the day

In the summer of 1793, leading politicians in France felt a sense of emergency between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the National Convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!" This quote has frequently been interpreted as the beginning of a supposed "system of Terror", an interpretation no longer retained by historians today. Under the pressure of the radical ''sans-culottes'', the Convention agreed to institute a revolutionary army but refused to make terror the order of the day. According to French historian Jean-Clément Martin, there was no "system of terror" instated by the Convention between 1793 and 1794, despite the pressure from some of its members and the ''sans-culottes''. The members of the Convention were determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government. The monarchist Jacques Cazotte who predicted the Terror was guillotined at the end of the month.

What Maximilien Robespierre called "terror" was the fear that the "justice of exception" would inspire the enemies of the French First Republic. He opposed the idea of terror as the order of the day, defending instead "justice" as the order of the day. In February 1794 in a speech he explains why this "terror" was necessary as a form of exceptional justice in the context of the revolutionary government:

Marxist historian Albert Mathiez argues that such terror was a necessary reaction to the circumstances. Others suggest there were additional causes, including ideological and emotional.

Major events

On 10 March 1793 the National Convention set up the Revolutionary Tribunal. Among those charged by the tribunal, initially, about half of those arrested were acquitted, but the number dropped to about a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial on 10 June 1794. In March, rebellion broke out in the Vendée

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