The Escalation
of Violence during the Reign of Terror
Courtney Sullivan, Class of
2008
Summary of Research Project for History 327
Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Thomas J. Schaeper
Summary of Research Project for History 327
Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Thomas J. Schaeper
Why was there a dramatic
escalation of violence during
the French Revolution’s period of the Reign of Terror (June, 1793 – July, 1794)?
Maximilien Robespierre
“If the mainspring of popular
government in time of peace is virtue,
the mainspring of popular government in time of revolution is both virtue and terror: virtue,
without which terror
is evil; terror, without which virtue is helpless. Terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, and inflexible;
it is therefore an
emanation of virtue” – Robespierre, 1793
Statistics
• 40,000
victims of the Reign of Terror
o 17,000
condemned by Revolutionary Tribunal
o 12,000 killed
after surrendering on the
battlefield
o 11,000 die in
prison awaiting trial
§ Victims include Queen Marie Antoinette, French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, and Maximilien Robespierre
“Terror
is the Order of the Day”
June 2, 1793: Beginning of the Reign of Terror
• 80,000 Parisian troops and members of the Montagnard political
party surround the Convention (French government of the day)
and demand the expulsion of the Girondin party
Committee of Public
Safety
• Body of 12 individuals that essentially ran
the French government from the winter of 1793 through the end of the Reign of
Terror
Goals
1.Return to traditional
economic regulation
2.Mobilize massive
military resources
3.Reabsorb into the
state the powers of punitive violence
4.Replace spontaneous
politics with a program of official ideology
Practices/Punishments
•Death penalty to hoarders
•Mobile guillotines for provincial
France
•Extensive home searches
•Mass executions by firing squad
•Vertical deportations/Republican
baptisms
•Destruction of 1/3 of the population of
the Vendée (Royalist counter-revolutionaries)
•Propaganda techniques
oPainting: Death of Marat by David
oPlay: “Au Retour” written during Lévée en Masse
oCalendar change
Laws Implemented during the Reign of Terror
• Law of
Suspects: September, 1793
o Anyone
suspected of disloyalty could be arrested
o 300,000
people arrested total
o Traditional
prisons were full. Convents and schools were converted into temporary prisons
§ Law of 22 Prairial: June 10, 1794 à “The Great Terror”
o All prisoners
must be tried in Paris
o Accused not
entitled to any legal defense
o Enemies
defined in very vague terms
o Only verdicts
were acquittal or death
o Enacted after
a series of assassination attempts on Maximilien Robespierre
“Incorruptible”
• Dubbed the
“Incorruptible” because of the purity of his principles: chastity, humble manner of living,
refusal to accept
financial awards or bribes
• Member of the
3rd Estate, President of the Jacobin Club, member of the Committee of Public Safety
• “Single-Will”
Government: authoritarian-style government
instituted during the Reign of Terror
Thermidor
• Eleventh
month in the French Revolutionary calendar or late July, 1794
• Period of
increasing panic within the revolutionary government
• Robespierre’s
absences from the Committee of Public Safety rise and cause suspicion
o Robespierre
attempts to avoid arrest by seeking refuge at City Hall
o July 28,
1794: Robespierre and twenty-one Robespierrists
sent to the guillotine, essentially ending the Reign of Terror