The Reign of Terror (Explanation)

Between 1793 and 1794, the French Revolution entered its most dramatic
period, known as the Reign of Terror, which saw huge violence against those
considered to be enemies of the Revolution. Why did the revolutionary
government approve so many killings? What was their purpose, and what
were their effects?

Reign of terror: summary

Also known simply as 'The Terror', the Reign of Terror was incited by factors
such as political and religious upheaval. During 'The Terror' anyone
considered an enemy of the Revolution was executed. At this point, an
enemy was essentially anyone suspected of opposing revolutionary ideas.
The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with around 17,000 of those
being official executions.

Causes of the Reign of Terror

The main cause of the Terror was the perceived disunity of France at a time
of extreme political instability in the face of internal crisis and external
threats. This instability showed itself in religious and popular rebellions as
well as disagreements over the management of those threats.

Threats of foreign invasion

The monarchies of Europe were hostile to the French Revolution, fearing that
revolutionary ideas would spread to their own dominions if it was not
stopped. This led Leopold II of Austria (brother of Marie Antoinette)
and Frederick William II of Prussia to issue the Pillnitz Declaration on
27 August 1791. The Declaration stated that they would invade France if the
French King Louis XVI was threatened, and called on other European powers
to join them.

The Declaration created a real fear of invasion and a sense that outside
forces were meddling in French affairs. This not only made the
revolutionaries more hostile to the King who was thought to be conspiring
with other monarchs but led the Jacobins and Girondins to declare war
against Austria and Prussia on 20 April 1792. This started the War of the
First Coalition.

Jacobins: originally founded as the Club Breton, the Jacobin Club was led by
Maximilien Robespierre from 31 March 1790. Jacobins were radicals
concerned that the aristocracy and other counter-revolutionaries would do
anything to reverse the gains of the Revolution.
Girondins: the Girondins were never a formal club but an informal alliance,
centred around deputies from the southwestern Gironde region (of which
Bourdeaux is still the capital). The Girondins supported the Revolution but
opposed its increasing violence and favoured a decentralised, constitutional
solution.

France suffered devastating defeats in the war until September 1792 when
they stopped the Austro-Prussian forces from invading France at the Battle
of Valmy.

Their prolonged defeats created paranoia around the continued threat of

invasion. This served as a justification for the violence of the Terror,
necessary to unify France in the face of foreign threats. Indeed, Louis Antoine
de Saint-Just, the president of the National Convention, who would become
known as the Archangel of the Terror, defended the use of violence:
That which produces the general good is always terrible, or it seems utterly
strange when it is begun too early.

National Convention: a unicameral (one house only) parliament that

governed France from August 1792 to October 1795.

The First Coalition consisted of the Austrian and Russian empires, the
Dutch Republic, and the kingdoms of Prussia, Spain, Naples, Portugal,
Sardinia, and Great Britain. These countries were committed to defeating
France and undoing the Revolution.

The War of the First Coalition started when France declared war on
Austria on 20 April 1792, following the Pillnitz Declaration, rapidly
bringing Austria's ally, Prussia, into the war against France. Several other
European states joined and formed the First Coalition. The war lasted more
than five years, ending in 1797, and took place mainly along the eastern
borders of France, with fighting in Flanders (now in Belgium), along the
Rhine, and Italy.

The war saw the creation of French client states, the first 'sister republics':
the Batavian Republic (the Netherlands) and the Cisalpine
Republic (northern Italy). Several future French leaders got their start during
this war, most notably a young Napoléon Bonaparte who helped retake the
southern city of Toulon from an alliance of French royalists and Coalition
forces in 1793.
Popular pressure

The need for Terror was increased by the constant pressure on the
Convention from ultra-revolutionary groups. On 10 March 1793,
the Revolutionary Tribunal was created in order to judge the actions of
perceived enemies of the Revolution. The tribunal's creation was a response
to several uprisings that sprung up all over France against the National
Convention, known as the Federalist Revolts. Like the Girondins,
Federalists favoured a decentralised France. Notable revolts took place in the
Vendée and Lyon in 1793.

An uprising by a radical revolutionary sect known as the Enragés took place

on the same day as the Tribunal's creation. The sect was known for extremist
views and constantly instigated uprisings to force the Convention to take
more radical revolutionary actions. In response, on 18 March 1793, the
Convention issued the death penalty for anyone supporting the views of
the Enragés.

A key turning point in the course of the Terror was an armed insurrection by
the sans-culottes which took place between 31 May and 2 June 1793.
The sans-culottes stormed the Convention and demanded that its 29 Girondin
deputies be expelled because the sans-culottes viewed them as too
moderate.

Sans-culottes: literally 'without breeches', this is a term used to describe

working-class revolutionaries, so-called because they were stereotyped as
wearing more practical trousers rather than knee-breeches. Originally an
insult, it was adopted as a term of pride. The sans-culottes would be the
backbone of the Revolution in its early years.

The Jacobins took this opportunity to arrest the Girondins and take over the
Convention. As a result, increasingly terroristic methods were used to
maintain the unity of the country.

Religious upheaval

The French Revolution was characterised by a dramatic rejection of religion.

The conflict between those who rejected the concept of God entirely in favour
of atheism and those who still remained devoted to Catholic Christianity
created extreme religious upheaval all around France. This became another
cause that urged the use of terror to maintain order.

The first tangible rejection of Catholicism came with the Civil Constitution
of the Clergy, issued on 12 July 1790. This involved the reorganisation of the
Catholic Church, effectively making priests into civil servants, with wages
paid by the State, and a system of elections.
On 27 November 1790, the National Assembly commanded members of the
clergy to take an oath proclaiming their support for the French constitution
and reorganising the church. Only around 50% of French priests took the
oath, splitting the French church. As historian Noelle Plack put it:

While on paper asking clerics to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law,
the king, and the new Revolutionary constitution may have seemed relatively
benign, in reality it became a referendum on whether one’s first loyalties
were to Catholicism or to the Revolution.1
National Assembly: the National Constituent Assembly governed France
following the Storming of the Bastille in July 1789 and dissolved itself in
October 1791.

To maintain order, the National Convention tried various methods:

 It created the Law of Suspects in September 1793, arresting many

dissenting priests.
 On 5 October 1793, the Convention decided to abolish all religious
holidays and created a new non-religious calendar. The date of the
First French Republic's establishment in 1792 became Year I.
 To replace Catholicism Maximilien Robespierre attempted to create a
form of deism in the Cult of the Supreme Being. Robespierre
thought atheism would encourage anarchy and that the populace
needed a common faith, but his plan utterly failed. It only encouraged
a further divide in the country as many people refused to follow the
Cult and thus intensified the need for Terror.

Deism: belief in the existence of a supreme being/creator, who does not

intervene in the universe.
Cult of the Supreme Being: a religion of 'reason' created by Robespierre
based on Enlightenment values.

Events and purpose of the Reign of Terror

The Terror's purpose was to maintain the unity of France during a period
when multiple internal and external actors were threatening the Revolution.
So, what happened during the Terror?

The Committee of Public Safety

The Terror had its foundation in the Committee of Public Safety which was
brought into being in April 1793. The National Convention supported the
Committee's near-dictatorial power as they thought offering them
expansive powers would lead to efficiency of government.

Committee of Public Safety: the provisional government of France

between April 1793 and July 1794. Robespierre was elected to the Committee
of Public Safety in July 1793 and used it to eliminate his enemies.

The Committee's main role was to protect the Republic against foreign
attacks and internal division. It was given control over military, judicial, and
legislative efforts but this was only to be a wartime measure.

The Committee struggled to control the populace, and as the threat of

invasion by the First Coalition grew, along with internal strife, so did the
Committee's powers. This was because the Committee believed that the
more tightly they controlled the French people, the more unified the country
would stay.

Maximilien Robespierre and the Reign of Terror

In July 1793, following the expulsion of the Girondists from the National
Convention, the leaders of the Jacobin Club, Maximilien Robespierre and
Saint-Just, were elected to the Committee.

The power of the Committee of Public Safety increased following this unrest,
with the National Convention giving it executive powers. The Committee
attempted to use these powers to persecute the Federalists, Girondins,
monarchists, and others suspected of counter-revolutionary activity like the
clergy. This caused a falling-out between Robespierre and his former ally and
popular Jacobin leader, Georges Danton, who renounced the use of political
violence.

The Committee’s increasingly extreme stance did nothing to curb counter-

revolutionary sentiment around France. Many moderates believed that the
Terror went against the ideals of justice and equality upon which the
Revolution was founded. To make matters worse, popular unrest and violence
continued in the regions of Lyon, Marseille and Toulon.

Portrait of Maximilien Robespierre, commons.wikimedia.org

The Execution of Danton

Robespierre wanted to carry the Revolution with one single will, as he put it.
As a result, he conducted a fratricidal (brother-against-brother) campaign
against any fellow Jacobins he perceived as counter-revolutionary or a threat
to his position.

At the end of March 1794, Georges Danton, a vocal critic of the Committee of
Public Safety, was arrested on charges of financial corruption and conspiracy.
Robespierre insisted that Danton was in the pay of a foreign power, likely
Great Britain. Danton and Camille Desmoulins, another prominent Jacobin
and Montagnard, were executed along with thirteen others on 5 April 1794.
The death of Danton would come back to haunt Robespierre.

The Law of 22 Prairal

Robespierre's manic wish to purify the Republic led to tyranny and he

essentially killed anyone who disagreed with him. Thousands were arrested,
and, on 10 June 1794, the National Convention passed the Law of 22
Prairial Year II (the corresponding date on the French revolutionary
calendar), which suspended the rights to a public trial and to legal
assistance.

Juries could only acquit or sentence the accused to death. Subsequently, the
rate of executions increased sharply and at least 1300 people were executed
in June 1794 alone. Executions increased to such an extent after the Law of
22 Prairial that the month following its enactment became known as
the Great Terror, only ending with July's Thermidorian Reaction.

The Battle of Fleurus

On 26 June 1794, a French army under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan won

the Battle of Fleurus (in the Austrian Netherlands) against the First
Coalition, marking a turning point in France’s military fortunes. With the First
Coalition now on the backfoot, this lowered the likelihood that France itself
would be invaded. It undermined the necessity of strict wartime measures
and the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government, which had justified
extreme measures as necessary to resist foreign powers. Jourdan himself had
been temporarily dismissed by Robespierre in early 1794.

Jean-Baptiste Jourdan in 1792, Wikimedia Commons.

The Thermidorian Reaction

The Thermidorian Reaction on 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor Year II in the
revolutionary calendar) was a parliamentary revolt against Maximilien
Robespierre, who had been the leader of the National Convention since June
1794.

As the paranoia of the Great Terror gripped France everyone was suspecting
everyone of treason. Robespierre addressed the National Convention on 26
July 1794 suggesting that he was aware of a number of people who had
committed treason but he would not name them. This caused a frenzy
amongst the members of the Committee as they feared that any of them
could be convicted and executed.

To prevent this, the next day the members of the National Convention
shouted him down and decreed his arrest. Robespierre along with his
supporters barricaded at the Hôtel de Ville (the centre of the Parisian civic
government) but he was arrested on 28 July 1794. On the same day, he was
executed, along with 21 of his closest associates.

Over the next few days, around 100 supporters of Robespierre were
executed. Although the Reign of Terror was ending, the White Terror had
just begun: moderates now started terrorising the Jacobins and other
radicals.

Consequences of the Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror had the opposite results to those intended. Arbitrary
executions and lack of accountability created a sense of paranoia across
France. Many became completely disillusioned with the Revolution and
helped fuel the counter-revolution calling for a return to the monarchy.
Eventually, even Robespierre's former allies turned against him during the
Thermidorian Reaction as he himself turned against his fellow Jacobins and
Montagnards.

Montagnards: named for the highest benches of the National Assembly (La
Montagne: 'The Mountain'), this was a loosely-defined inner circle of Jacobins
that gathered around Robespierre from 1792 onwards.

When Robespierre was arrested on 9 Thermidor, he was rendered

momentarily speechless. At this, a fellow deputy reputedly cried out:
2
The blood of Danton chokes him!

Robespierre, shocked at this, simply remarked that if the execution of Danton

had bothered the members of the National Convention so much, then they
should have done something to save him.
 The Reign of Terror and the resulting White Terror permanently damaged the
position of the Jacobin Club. They never again held the power that they did
between 1792 and 94 and their membership dropped massively following the
executions of Robespierre and his supporters. On 12 November 1794, the
National Convention unanimously passed a decree permanently closing the
Jacobin Club.

The Reign of Terror - Key takeaways

 The Reign of Terror (1793–94) was a period of violence during the French
Revolution incited by several factors such as political and religious
upheaval.
 The main causes of the Terror were the perceived threats of the
Revolution within and outside of France. Notable examples were the
threat of invasion by foreign monarchies and pressure inflicted on the
Convention by radical French sects.
 The purpose of the Terror was to maintain French unity. The country was
fracturing due to religious, social, and political pressures. The Convention
thought that they could force everyone to comply with their vision of
revolutionary government through terroristic methods.
 The effects of the Terror were devastating to France. Many became utterly
disillusioned with the Revolution and even called for a return to the
monarchy. Ultimately, the Thermidorian reaction and the fall of
Robespierre brought an end to the Terror and the beginning of the White
Terror.

1. Noelle Plack, 'Challenges in the Countryside, 1790–2', in David

Andress (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the French
Revolution (Oxford, 2015), p. 356.
3. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French
Revolution (New York, 1999), p. 844.