The Reign of TerrorSummer 1793 – Summer 1794

Opposition to the Revolution• March 1793: A draft

of 300,000 is called for and The Vendee Rebellion erupts.

The Committee of Public Safety

• In April 1793 France is at war with most of Europe

• France institutes a draft. In response, the West rebels and the economy suffers.

• The Mountain creates the Committee of Public Safety, 12 deputies that have executive power.

Summer 1793May: Founding of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women

June: Sans-culottes invade the Convention and force the arrest of the Girondins. Federalist revolts follow.

July: Jean-Paul Marat assassinated by Charlotte Corday

August: levee en masse instituted

The Death of Marat

Maximilian RobespierreAdmired Rousseau’s ideas

Worked as a lawyer and helped the poor.

Known as the incorruptible

If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country ... The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny

Fall 1793Sept

the CoPS takes complete control

The Beginning of the Terror

Law of Suspects passed

price controls enacted

October:Dechristianization

executions of Marie Antoinette, de Gouges,

and the Girondists

closure of women’s clubs

peak of the executions, military and economic improvement

moderates begin calls for relaxing the terror

Winter ’93 - ’94

Spring ‘94March: execution of the CordeliersApril: execution of Danton and DesmoulinsMay: the Cult of the Supreme Being is established

Summer ‘94June: Law of 22 Prairial

July: 71 Girondin deputies reinstated

26th: Robespierre threatens unnamed deputies in a speech and is shouted down

27th: Robespierre is arrested

28th: He is executed

The Thermidorean Reaction(1794-1795)

• The Thermidorian Reaction was a moderation of the revolution

• Reprisal violence was common and the Jacobin club was closed

• The new constitution created a bi-cameral legislature with the five-person Directory as the executive. Favored the bourgeoisie.