Reign of Terror: French Revolution Devolves into Lawless Blood-letting 

Michael Streich

 The September Massacres of 1792 changed the direction of the French Revolution. Within the next two years, a Reign of Terror would engulf France as thousands of royalists, political moderates, revolutionaries, and members of the bourgeoisie were beheaded. The excesses of the Revolution at the hands of Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety gave impetus to counterrevolutionary forces in France as well as the prospect of foreign intervention.

 

The Terror Begins in 1793

 

King Louis XVI was beheaded January 21, 1793. Over the next months, radical Jacobins began to target the Girondists, moderate leaders that opposed the program of the Jacobin leadership. Toward that end, the Jacobins used crowd action, the violence of the sans-culottes, average French workers. Many of these Parisian workers had been effectively used during the September Massacres.

 

At the same time, revolts broke out in the countryside, most notably in the Vendee region where Girondist support was strong. Rural areas loyal to Catholicism also saw an increase in opposition to what historian Simon Schama called the “dictatorship of Paris.”

 

France was already at war with Great Britain, Holland, and Spain. The threat of foreign intervention as well as the realities of internal opposition led to mass conscription and a concerted effort to root out counterrevolution. These measures were particularly brutal in Vendee. At Nantes, hundreds of men, women, and children were chained to barges in the Loire and drowned when the vessels were sunk.

 

On October 16^th, Marie Antoinette was beheaded, following a shameless trial that accused her, among other things, of incest and participating in orgies with Swiss Guards. Above all, however, the former queen represented monarchy, a hated institution incompatible with the new revolutionary order. It was this general mentality that, when applied to all former royalists, enabled mass executions of all associated with the Old Regime.

 

The Final Year of Terror

 

As 1794 progressed, the Committee of Public Safety had turned on its own. Jacques Danton, the force behind the September Massacres, was denounced and, along with his friends, beheaded. Fear gripped members of the Committee itself, each deputy afraid to make eye contact with Robespierre, the messianic force behind the “republic of virtue” and the Cult of the Supreme Being, for fear of being the next victim.

 

Everyday workers could be denounced for any careless criticism or for invoking the royalist past. The Reign of Terror, contrary to perception, resulted in the deaths of more non-aristocrats than those with blue blood. Some scholars estimate that only 30% of those sent to the guillotine were aristocrats.

 

Even the leaders of the sans-culottes had been executed earlier in the year. Historians speculate that Robespierre’s greatest weakness was his lack of a base of support. He had no lieutenants and many of his former radical colleagues had been denounced and executed. This made it possible for the Committee to band together in July and send Robespierre to the guillotine, ending the Terror.

 

The Lessons of the Reign of Terror

 

Within a two year period, a relatively small handful of revolutionary leaders commandeered the Revolution. They did so by eliminating opposition groups, often using mob violence while appealing to the ideal that the Revolution demanded the sacrifice of individualism for the good of society. Once the mob had served its purpose, its leaders too were executed.

 

Finally, the strongest radicals to emerge turned on their colleagues, eliminating further opposition and branding it as counterrevolutionary. Similar patterns would be seen in the 20^th Century after the 1917 Russian Revolution as well as the Spanish Civil War. In Nazi Germany, Hitler also employed similar tactics to consolidate power. In many ways, the Reign of Terror is a case study in obtaining and maintaining absolute power.

 

Sources:

 

Olivier Bernier, Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood: The Mob, the Monarchy, and the French Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989)

Albert Goodwin, The French Revolution (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962)

Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)

[First published in Suite101; copyright owned by Michael Streich. Republishing requires written permission]