Committee of Public Safety

The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comité de salut public)—created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793—formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror (1793–94), a stage of the French Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous Committee of General Defence (established in January 1793) and assumed its role of protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion. As a wartime measure, the Committee—composed at first of nine, and later of twelve, members—was given broad supervisory powers over military, judicial, and legislative efforts. It was formed as an administrative body to supervise and expedite the work of the executive bodies of the Convention and of the government ministers appointed by the Convention. As the Committee tried to meet the dangers of a coalition of European nations and counter-revolutionary forces within the country, it became more and more powerful.

In July 1793, following the defeat at the Convention of the moderate Republicans (or "Girondists"), the prominent leaders of the radical Jacobins—Maximilien Robespierre and Saint-Just —were added to the Committee. The power of the Committee peaked between August 1793 and July 1794, under the leadership of Robespierre. In December 1793, the Convention formally conferred executive power upon the Committee, and Robespierre established a virtual dictatorship.

The execution of Robespierre in July 1794 represented a reactionary period against the Committee of Public Safety. This is known as the Thermidorian Reaction, as Robespierre's fall from power occurred during the Revolutionary month of Thermidor. The Committee's influence diminished, and it was disestablished in 1795.

On 5 April 1793, the French military commander and former minister of war General Charles François Dumouriez defected to Austria, following the publication of an incendiary letter in which he threatened to march his army on the city of Paris if the National Convention did not accede to his leadership. News of his defection caused alarm in Paris, where imminent defeat by the Austrians and their allies was feared. A widespread belief held that revolutionary France was in immediate peril, threatened not only by foreign armies and by recent anti-revolutionary revolts in the Vendée, but also by foreign agents who plotted the destruction of the nation from within.

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