Terreur

The Reign of Terror or The Terror (French: la Terreur) is the label given by some historians to a period during the French Revolution. Many historians believe it began in 1793, placing the starting date at either 5 September, June or March (birth of the Revolutionary Tribunal), while some believe it began in September 1792 (September Massacres), or even July 1789 (when the first decapitations took place), but there is a general consensus that it ended in July 1794.

Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris. However, the total number of deaths in France was much higher, owing to death in imprisonment, suicide and casualties in foreign and civil war.

Those in power believed that terror was an unfortunate, but necessary and temporary, reaction to the pressures of foreign and civil war. They were also determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government.

This doctrine was, famously and notoriously, put into words by Robespierre in February 1794:

If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie.

Some historians argue that the Terror was a necessary reaction to the circumstances. Others suggest there were also other causes, including ideological and emotional.

On 10 March 1793 the National Convention created the Revolutionary Tribunal. Among those charged by the tribunal, about a half were acquitted (though the number dropped to about a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial). Among people who were condemned, about 8% were aristocrats, 6% clergy, 14% middle class, and 72% were workers or peasants. In March rebellion broke out in Vendée in response to mass conscription, which developed into a civil war that lasted until after the Terror.

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