Terror (French revolution)

The Terreur is the name by which one indicates two periods of the French revolution during which France is controlled by a capacity of exception resting on the force, the illegality and repression. Its dating and its definition remain very floating. However, one distinguishes two phases from Terror:

the first goes from the forfeiture of Louis XVI, on August 10th, 1792 1, with the proclamation of the Republic, on September 21st, 1792 1. She sees the creation of the institutions which will implement the policy of Terror: a extraordinary criminal court is instituted on August 17th, 1792 1, but its lack of heat to punish the royalists, who exasperates the people, conduit with the Massacres of September in the prisons.
the second period goes from the elimination of the deputies Girondins on June 2nd, 1793 1. to the arrest of Robespierre on July 27th 1794. Between the summer 1793 and spring 1794, the weakening of the State, started in 1789-90, reached its paroxysm, authorizing all violences and all the higher bids. The Committee of public hello, associated with the person of Robespierre, is confronted with the competition of the Comité of general security which directs the police force of the Commune of Paris, which has, since the August 10th, 1792, the military capacity; this committee is also related to the Sans-culottes, which control in fact the ministry for the war. It is only in March 1794 that one witnesses a reinforcement of the State between the hands of the Comité of public hello. Terror is founded by the revolutionary Gouvernement, under the pressure of the most radical revolutionists; several freedoms are suspended and a policy to fight against the interior and external dangers threatening the Republic is application. The law of the 22 meadow (June 10th, 1794) still simplifies the procedures of committal for trial and removes straight to defense almost, founding one period of massive executions called Grande Terror . It is considered that Terror achêve the Thermidor 9 year II (July 27th, 1794) with the Chute of Robespierre and his partisans and their execution the following day. The major actors of the period are in particular Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Collot d' Herbois, Fouché, or Billaud-Game preserve. The famous victims are Marie-Antoinette, Danton, Camille Desmoulins or Antoine Lavoisier. Terror is also marked by attempts at economic reforms, social and cultural.

The Convention however put Terror at the day order only the September 5th 1793, under the pressure of the Sans-culottes. Robespierre defined the objectives of Terror in a remained speech celebrates, marked with the national Convention, on December 25th, 1793 (extracted):

The goal of the constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of the revolutionary Gouvernement is to found it. The revolutionary Gouvernement owes to the good citizen all national protection; it owes to the Enemies of the People only death. These concepts are enough to explain the origin and the nature of the laws which we call revolutionists. If the revolutionary Gouvernement must be more active in its walk and freer in its movements than the ordinary government, is it less right and less legitimate? Not; it is supported on holiest of all the laws: the safety of the People.

Context and installation of Terror

Origins of Terror

revolutionary Terror is founded on in particular definite concepts in the work of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Of the social contract .
Whereas the first Terror does not have a preestablished and organized plan, that of 1793-1794 is well a concept used by the capacity to save the Republic.
the principle of the revolutionary Gouvernement is inherited the Roman République (see the article Roman Dictateur).

The Fatherland in danger and the first Terror

Since April 1792, France is in war against European monarchies interdependent of the French royal family, the Austria and the Prussia. The Proclamation of Brunswick (July 25th, 1792) threat population of Paris of reprisals in the event of violence against the king and his family. July 11th, one proclaims the “fatherland in danger”. The August 10th, the Sans-culottes and the Fédéré S take by storm the Palais of Tileries where Louis XVI resides. This one is thrown in prison whereas the foreign armies penetrate on the French soil. For this period known as of the “First Terror” (be 1792), France is directed by the common of Paris and by a executive council of six members. The legislative Parliament is not removed; she sends representatives on mission near the armies in order to purge the high command and to fight against the monopolizers. The commune of Paris makes pressure to quickly judge the enemies of the Revolution and the suspects: 3 000 people are stopped in a few days. The defenders of the palate of Tileries at the time of the insurrection of August 10th are carried out summarily. A emergency court is organized on August 17th, 1792, in which take part of the members of the Parisian sections. The advertisement of the fall of Verdun to the hands of the Prussian and the rumors of plot start the Massacres of September 1792 in the prisons, which make between 1 000 and 1 400 dead.

The first military operations are French defeats. The Battle of Valmy (September 20th 1792) mark the first military success and starts enthusiasm in Paris. The First Republic is proclaimed the following day and the national Convention replaces the legislative Parliament.

Beginnings of national Convention (September 1792 - June 1793)

The new assembly of Convention is elected by the vote for all. She must write a news Constitution for the country. The deputies sit according to their political affiliation: in top and on the left the Montagnards are; the Girondins take the practice to sit down on the right. The gap between the two “parties” increases during the first months of 1793. The Mountain dwellers show the Of Gironde ones to betray the nation, to divide the country by the federalism and to be too moderate. The Of Gironde ones reproach to the Mountain dwellers their support for the Parisian sans-culottes and suspectent Robespierre, Danton and Marat to want to found a dictatorship. The Mountain dwellers make confidence with the people and think that violence is inevitable.

After the Procès of Louis XVI, the national Convention vote the execution of the king (January 21st 1793), which causes the formation of a European coalition: the British attack the Mediterranean coasts and of the North-West, the Spaniards try to pass the the Pyrenees, the Sardes cross the the Alps; the borders of north and the east yield in front of the armies austro-Prussians. Certain generals like Dumouriez or certain units betray.

The revolutionary armed move back (demolished Neerwinden, on March 18th, 1793), because of the weaknesses of the command and manpower. The French emigrants were often of former officers: even if their forces are actually very weak, they feed the idea of the aristocratic plot.

To mitigate the lack of soldiers, Convention issues in March 1793 the levy in masse of 300 000 men, on the principle of voluntariate. In front of the lack of volunteers, one decides to carry out a drawing lot. The departments of the West refuse to leave to the war and denounce the privileges granted to the notable ones. With the War of the Vendée, the unit of the Republic is put in danger. Convention reacts initially by sending quotas armed in the Vendée and takes radical measures: any insurrectionist is condemned to died and of the lists of residents are posted on the doors of the buildings of the capital.

During spring 1793 take place of plunderings of stores and bakeries in Paris. In the street and the Parisian sections, the sans-culottes claim the arrest of the deputies of Gironde, shown treason and to be as regards speculator and has a presentiment of the government to take radical measures: the sans-culottes require the tax on the “egoistic rich person”. In front of the popular pressure and to avoid new massacres, the Mountain dwellers decide to take radical and exceptional measures. Danton affirms: “Let us be terrible to avoid with the people being it”. A revolutionary Tribunal charged to consider the “suspect” according to a procedure of exception is founded by the decree of March 10th. The inspection committees and the revolutionary committees are instituted the March 21st: they must supervise and denounce the “enemies of the Republic”. The March 28th, the laws against the emigrants are hardened (Loi of the witnesses). The Comité of Public Hello is set up by decree the April 6th, to replace the general defense committee: revolutionary body of government, it is in theory subordinate to the assembly and must make it possible to concentrate the capacity. But the national Convention generally ratifies its decisions. Composed of nine then of twelve members, the Committee of Public Hello is one of the bodies of execution of Terror. The May 4th is fixed a maximum of the prices for the grains and the flours, in order to stop the increase in the food products. The June 2nd 1793, 80 000 men encircle Convention and claim the arrest of 29 deputies and two ministers of Gironde. The purification of Convention is carried out and the Parliament is from now on with the hands of the Mountain dwellers. The Of Gironde ones proscribed take the control of several provincial towns (Lyon, Toulon) and several areas (Normandy) inaugurating the qualified insurrections of “Fédéralistes”. In September 1793, terrorist measurements are accentuated under the pressure of the events. Terror is put at the day order the September 5th 1793. The 4 Frimaire year II (November 24th 1793) is presented the relative order to the organization of the revolutionary Gouvernement, which reinforces the centralization of the government.

Measurements of Terror (June 1793 - June 1794)

The war against united

Purification of the staff

Several measurements are taken to restore the military situation of the Republic and to avoid a coup d'etat: representatives on mission are sent to inspect the armies and to supervise the generals. This monitoring leads to executions of generals considered to be too tepid or treacherous: in 1793,11 of them are carried out like Adam Philippe de Custine or Jean Nicolas Houchard, 31 in 1794 (see also Liste of the generals of the Revolution and the First Empire having been carried out). These generals are replaced by young officers left the row and faithful to the Republic. They into practice put the offensive strategy decided by the Committee of public hello. Then, the foreigners are banished army because they are regarded as suspects.

Reorganization of the armies

The republican armies are reorganized, in particular by Lazare Carnot, called the Organisateur of the victory : manpower increase thanks to the levy in masse (August 23rd 1793), which temporarily carries manpower of the army to 750 000 men at the end of 1794 (against 270 000 at the end of 1792 and 550 000 at the end of 1793). All the unmarried men from 18 to 25 years are mobilized of force. The established budget with the effort of war is increased.

The regiments are transformed into Half-brigade S , by the amalgamates royal army and volunteers: each battalion of soldiers of the army of Old Mode receives two battalions of volunteers; the latter, young people and generally more enthusiastic towards the Revolution, profit from the experiment of the first, involve them at the time of the engagements and supervise them, which avoids treasons of whole units. The amalgam is completed in 1796.

The mobilization of all for the effort of war

To make up the deficit of weapons and ammunition, the Committee of public hello creates, in 1793, the commission of the weapons and the powders, which multiplies the munitions factories and reorganizes the collection of the raw materials, and entrusts to the military committee, reduced to a technical and advisory role, the organization of the liftings of men and their framing, the development of the cavalry and the requisition of cartages, the monitoring of the military hospitals and troops confined in Paris.

The production of weapons increases. To improve quality of metals used and the techniques of manufacture, the chemist Gaspard Monge and the mining engineer Hassenfratz are charged with the organization of the munitions factory of Paris, the Carny chemist to facilitate the extraction of salpetre, Berthollet and Choderlos de Laclos to work on the composition of the powder and to try out new projectiles. The 14 Frimaire year II (December 4th, 1793), all the citizens, including the children, is invited to collect the Salpêtre on the walls of their cellars.

Convention decides on July 26th, 1793 the construction of relay for the telegraph by Sémaphore of Claude Chappe; the first line is installed between Lille and Paris during the summer 1794. Fall 1793, the army uses tethered balloons, of which the general Jourdan is used himself in particular for Fleurus.

Camps of drive for the new recruits are arranged.

November 15th, 1793, Convention issues that the provisioning of the armies must take precedence over that of the civilians. In December 1792, the Minister for the war Jean Nicolas Pache replaced the intendants of the armies, system which supports corruption, by the direct control, practices abandoned by his successor Beurnonville in February 1793. Finally, a decree of July 27th, 1793 cancels all the last markets and the control substitutes to them, and the provisioning becomes one of the fields of predilection of the envoys on mission.

Results

After the summer 1793, the military situation seems to be rectified: September 2nd, Toulon is taken again by the republican armies after a length seat. These last gain several victories in north and is: Honschoote (September 8th 1793), Wattignies (October 16th 1793), Tourcoing (May 18th 1794) and finally Fleurus (June 26th 1794). By these victories, the Republic is reinforced and exported its revolutionary ideals apart from France.

Release or of conquest?

The original intention of the war is, for Convention, to destroy the forces counter-revolutionaries and to release the European people which are submitted to them. The first Republic-sisters are made up in 1793 (République rauracian, in the Canton of the Jura, and République of Mainz). However, the initial objectives are quickly canted and make place with a policy of occupation of the conquered territories. The army must requisition material and food.

Against the enemies of the interior

The law of the suspects and repression

In July 1793, the assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday reinforces the feelings anti-royalists. The federalistic insurrectionists of Normandy walk on Paris but are finally stopped with Pacy-sur-Eure. It is necessary to wait October so that Bordeaux and Lyon are taken again by the government. In August, the British subjects residing in France are threatened to be stopped and in October is instituted the Loi against the English. August 12th, 1793, Robespierre declares with Convention: How the sword of the law, planing with a terrible speed on the head of the conspirators, strikes terror their accomplices! How these great examples destroy seditions by the terror which they will inspire with all the enemies of the fatherland! The Loi of the suspects is adopted on September 17th, 1793. Are considered to be “suspect” according to article 2: Those which, either by their control, or by their relations, or by their remarks or their writings, were in favor of tyranny or the federalism and enemies of freedom. Those with which it was refused certificates of good citizenship. Civils servant suspended or relieved of their functions by national Convention or its representatives. The noble ones, the husbands, women, fathers, mothers, wire or girls, brothers or sisters, who constantly did not express their attachment with the Revolution. Those which emigrated from July 1st, 1789 to April 8th, 1792, although they returned in France Revolutionary justice is charged to judge the suspects: it is exclusively Parisian after the creation of the revolutionary Tribunal of Paris in March 1793, then it is wide with the province by several representatives on mission, with the creation of revolutionary or military commissions in the zones of civil war. October 10th, 1793 is proclaimed the revolutionary Gouvernement: the Constitution of 1793 is not applied and freedoms are suspended while waiting for the return to the order and peace. The capacity is concentrated and centralized in a preoccupation with an effectiveness. Thanks to the creation of the Bulletin of the laws of the Republic , the decisions of Convention are known and applicable immediately. It is starting from this date that Robespierre takes more and more the ascending one on the various political actors in Paris. The general committee of safety as well as the local committees are charged to apply the laws and to find the suspects. They submit their weekly report before the Committee of public hello. In province, the local institutions are purged. Finally the national agents supervise the districts.

In spite of the victories against the federalists (Lyon fall on October 9th, 1793), Terror continues in province as in Paris. The Loi of ventôse year II (February-March 1794) allows the redistribution of the goods of the opponents towards the allies of the political directors of the moment. Obtaining a Certificat of good citizenship becomes a vital need for the many people susceptes.

The Vendean ones

The decree of destruction of the Vendée (August 1st, 1793) testifies to the aggravation of Convention in front of the Vendean victories (Vihiers in July 1793). In spite of the victories of the republican armies with Cholet (October 17th, 1793) or Savenay (December 23rd, 1793), a guerilla warfare and knacks continue, leading to the organization of columns flamers by the general Turreau. Some spoke about “genocidary will” in the repression carried out by several individuals.

The infernal Colonnes directed January in May 1794 make between 20.000 and 40.000 dead. The massacres made on this occasion are qualified by certain historians of Vendean “genocide”. Others recall that the destruction of the Vendée corresponds to a practice specific to the wars of the modern time and with the destruction Palatinat by the armies of Louis XIV in 1689 compares it. Jean-Clement Martin points out that the speech of Barère of August 1st, 1793, which was used for to justify the idea of a “genocide” made by the revolutionists, precise that should be protected the women, the children, the old men, and even men without weapons. A fortiori , all the “Vendean ones” (makes some is the Vendée, the south of the Loire-Atlantique, the west of the Département of Maine-et-Loire and the north of the Two-Sevres) was not royalist; it is besides, for a good portion, the local national guards which saved Nantes in 1793, before the arrival of military reinforcements, and they are the patriots of the West who were the first and the main victims of the chouans. In addition, of many catholics belong, in these areas as in the remainder of France, with the republican camp, as testify some many the Ex-voto manufactured to protect from the chouans or the martyrs and the republican saints (not recognized by Rome) venerated by the villagers, in the absence of the priest or of the bishop. The representative on mission Carrier incarnates the abuses the policy of Terror against the Vendean ones: at the end of December 1793 at the end of February 1794, it makes shoot 2 600 prisoners, then it organizes the drownings in the Loire which make several hundreds of victims.

Chouannery

Economic measures

Terror was also economic. The main aim was to ensure the supply of the armies and Paris. During spring and the summer 1793, the situation is dramatic: the value of the Assignat S was strongly depreciated and the shortage threatens the population. Plunderings multiply and the sans-culottes claim energetic measurements. To face, Convention decides to limit certain prices as of on May 4th, 1793. In July, the municipalities can use the capital punishment against the monopolizers (Loi on the monopolization). As from August, it is interdict to send capital abroad. The joint stock companies, the Stock Exchange and the case of discount are closed. The September 29th 1793 passed the Loi of the general maximum, (extracted): The objects that national Convention judged of first need and of which she believed to have to fix the maximum are: bread, meat, wine, grains, flours, vegetables, fruits, butter, vinegar, cider, the brandy, coal, oil, soap, salt, meats and fish, honey, sugar, paper, hemp, wools, leathers, iron and steel, copper, cloths, fabrics and all fabrics, silk trade excluded. The maximum of the price of the food products and the goods will be the price that each one of them had in 1790. The general maximum encourages the black-market and puts in difficulty industries of the textile.

Price control of the grains.
Loans compulsory on the rich person, confiscation of the grounds of the “enemies of the people” and the suspects (decree of February 26th, 1794), searchings in the bankers.
Réquisitions framed by a revolutionary Army and the national guards, which appears effective at least until the beginning of 1794.
Emission of assignats, foreign loans
“Terror financial” is committed to avoid hyperinflation, as of on June 2nd, 1793.
economic State intervention.

Social measures

Décret of abolition of the slavery of August 29th, 1793
November 1793 Décret on the obligatory use of the tu
Convention decreases the necessary delay between the divorce and the remarriage by the vote of the decree of the 8 nivôse year II (December 28th, 1793).
Law of the division of June 5th, 1793 on the successions
Decree of June 10th, 1793 on the division of communal, hardly applied in the facts, because of local blockings
Abrogation, at the request of the Commune of Paris, on June 23rd, 1793, of the martial law voted by the constituent Assembly in October 1789, to repress the riots frumentaires
the poor ones is listed, following the decrees of ventôse, and receives allowances taken on the confiscated goods. The care of the poor in residence is organized.
Project of Civil code, ever succeeded

Religious and cultural measurements

Removal of all the congregations on August 18th, 1792.
Removal of the universities on September 15th, 1793.
Creation of a republican Calendar.
Creation of a calendar of republican festivals, of which the festival of the Reason and the festival To be it supreme, fixed by decree of the 18 floréal year II (May 7th, 1794).
a wave of Déchristianisation develops in the capital under the direction of the Commune, and in several departments of province, where she is encouraged by representatives on mission like Fouché. 3 000 communes change name: for example, Versailles becomes Cradle-of-the-Freedom. In Nievre, the bells of the churches are molten and of the masquerades anticlericals are organized: one forces the priests to parade on an ass. Fouché makes give a civic festival in the cathedral of Nevers. But in November 1793, Robespierre makes a speech with the Jacobins in whom he condemns atheism. In 1794, whereas it controls all the republican institutions, the Incorruptible one imposes the supreme worship Être and proclaims the immortality of the heart.
the archbishop of Paris, Mgr Gobel, and of many priests resign, of many churches are closed down or transformed into temples of the reason.
Confusion between refractory priests and constitutional priests, who all seem suspect.
Censure of the Parisian theaters: the Committee of Public Hello proposes that are played “of the parts to recognized patriotism”.
Worship of the Reason

In the new administrative organization (cutting in department S), the representatives on mission furrow France to apply the instructions of the Revolution.

Measurements of Déchristianisation start to be felt, like the worship of the Reason, as from 1792-1793. The diaries were the principal channel of information of the campaigns, slightly taught reading and writing. It was thus necessary to remove the Gregorian Calendrier, and to replace it by a new calendar.

Retaliatory measures are taken with respect to the refractory priests.

Assessment of the dechristianization: 20.000 priests gave up their ministries and 5.000 married.

Administration

The prisons multiply through France. See the List of the prisons of Paris at the time of the Revolution.

Great Terror (June-July 1794)

The policy of inaugurated Terror in June 1793 seems to bear its fruits: the federalistic demonstrations are subdued, the Vendean ones are crushed, the attacks of the coalition are pushed back. However, the Comité of public hello wishes to sit the Republic. With this intention, it is necessary for him to exterminate its enemies, according to the word of Couthon, in his report/ratio of the law of meadow, and to develop a new class of small holders. The decrees of ventôse decide the confiscation of the goods of these enemies of the Republic, who must be distributed to the poor patriots; they envisage the constitution of lists the poor ones by the local authorities and the creation of revolutionary commissions to make the share between enemy truths of the Republic and the wrongfully imprisoned people (the revolutionary tribunal should consider only defendants sorted, in contradiction with the decree of March 19th, 1793); a part, only, will be born. Moreover, the 27 Germinal (April 17th, 1794), a decree orders the removal of the popular courts in province; all the suspects must pass in front of the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, except in North and the Vaucluse, where the revolutionary commissions of Orange and Cambrai are maintained.

Lastly, the law of the 22 meadow An II (June 10th, 1794) simplifies the procedures and removes lawyer, founding what one called the Grande Terror . The sentence is delivered according to moral inward conviction of the judges and of sworn. From now on, there exist only two exits with the lawsuits: the payment or the capital punishment.

These decisions lead to an acceleration of the procedures of judgment and an increase in the judgments to the revolutionary Tribunal, in June and July 1794. For the only month of June 1794, one proceeds to 2 000 executions in Paris and the guillotine functions up to six hours per day. The 29 Meadow year II (June 17th, 1794), 54 people are condemned to died in the lawsuit of red shirts. At the beginning of Thermidor, one counts 8000 suspects in the Parisian prisons. The prisoners hanovriens and English are massacred and the guerilla against the chouans continues with violence.

However, the law of Meadow represents also a means of attenuating revolutionary violence, by limiting the causes of political exclusion: it makes it possible to exonerate all those which were involved in the Counter-revolutionary because of their ignorance, it calls into question the systematicity of repression in connection with the reproached fault. In the same way, it offers a more precise definition of the reasons for charge (article 6), which reduces the arbitrary one. Already, in April, Robespierre had obtained that one does not continue the noble ones which had bought their nobility. In the same way, articles 10,11 and 18 stipulate that the committees of public hello and general security must be able to control the legal actions in front of the revolutionary tribunal.

For Jean-Clement Martin, like formerly for Albert Mathiez, the law of meadow was sabotaged by the adversaries of Robespierre to discredit it, thus on June 17th when Fouquier-Tinville sends a heteroclite group of 54 condemned (of which Admirat and Renault) with the scaffold, covered red shirts of “parricides” (thus letting imply that Robespierre would be “king de France”).

Since spring 1794, indeed, dissensions are born within the revolutionary government. The Comité of general security is ulcerated by the creation of the office of general police force, by the Committee of public hello, which encroaches on its functions. In the same way, when Robespierre takes again the file of the business Catherine Théot, through which Vadier made fun the supreme worship Être and tried to compromise the Incorruptible one, Billaud-Game preserve and Collot d' Herbois shows it to behave as a tyrant and a dictator. Lastly, Carnot sees of an evil eye the continuation of Terror, after the victory of Fleurus, the 8 messidor (June 26th, 1794), and the social measures. The more so as in July, it Malayan economic worsens (on Thermidor 9, of the workmen the maximum strictly wages express against the decision of the Commune of Paris to apply). In addition, within the national Convention, an opposition develops between the corrupted representatives on mission and corrupt officials or suspects of moderantism, recalled to Paris in spring 1794, and the former friends of Danton, who plot against Robespierre. On his return of the armies, after Fleurus, Saint-Just tries, with Barère, to restore the unit among the two committees; together, they organize the reconciliation of Thermidor the 4 and 5. Saint-Just is charged to write a report/ratio expressing the found unit of the government, and the popular creation of one second commission (on the four envisaged in the beginning) is decided.

Despite everything, the attacks against Robespierre continue. Not believing in the sincerity of its adversaries, the Incorruptible one decides to call some with Convention: it is the speech of Thermidor 8, which, although applauded initially, does not convince the Parliament. He asks for the punishment of the traitors (in the various interventions, which it is of Robespierre or Couthon, they are estimated at five or six), the renewal of the offices of the Committee of general security, the purification of this Committee itself, subordinated to the Committee of public hello, the purification of the Committee of public hello itself, the establishment of real “a unit of the government under the supreme authority of the national Convention, which is the center and the judge”, and the end of the factions within Convention. The evening, Robespierre reads again its speech with the Jacobins, where he is highly applauded, while Collot d' Herbois and Billaud-Game preserve are decried; the painter David then promises with his friend to drink the conium with him.

Of return in buildings of Committee of hello public, Collot of Herbois and Billaud-Game preserve see Saint-Just, which is occupied writing the report/ratio on the events within the revolutionary government, with which it was charged, following the meetings of Thermidor the 4 and 5. Convinced that it writes their bill of indictment, they are thrown on him of insulting it and by showing it to prepare their decree of charge. Shocked, Saint-Just leaves the room; it will not be re-examined any more but the following day, with Convention where, contrary to its promises, it starts to read its speech without to have made of it a reading preliminary to his colleagues of the committee. In front of what they wrongly take for the decisive attack of the “robespierrists”, the members of the Committee of public hello unite then in the plot, which was tied, during the night, with the alliance of the dantonists, the former representatives on mission recalled and the Marais, which claims the end of Terror in exchange of the head of Robespierre. The Thermidor 9, this coalition heteroclite obtains the Chute of Robespierre, then its execution, after the insurrection of the Commune. August 1st, Great Terror is removed and the 24, the revolutionary committees are replaced by inspection committees.

Assessment of Terror

Successes

Creation of many administrations
With the victory of Fleurus, the spectrum of an invasion is pushed back until in 1814

Dechristianization

The Dechristianization, already started with the worship of the Reason, intensifies.

In the report/ratio of the 18 floréal, Robespierre presents, in the name of the Comité of public hello a calendar of republican festivals having to replace the catholic festivals, through which are marked the republican values and respected the religious feeling of the majority of the French of the time. Convention affirms the belief of French people in the immortality of the heart and the supreme Être. The first festival To be it supreme, the 20 meadow year II (June 8th, 1794), is orchestrated by the painter David.

The revolutionists tackle the symbols of the absolute monarchy: the necropolis royal of Saint-Denis is delivered to plundering and several royal tombs are devastated. The Holy Bulb, used for the royal sacring, is destroyed. Many churches undergo mutilations or destruction.

The catholic Culte is prohibited. The Parisian churches are closed on November 23rd 1793, to reopen only on May 31st 1795. They are transformed into temples of the Reason, or in Entrepôt S. the Concordat of 1802 ratifies the return to the free access to the Culte.

The Agenda S are removed in the campaigns, following the introduction of the republican Calendrier. The Gregorian Calendrier is restored only in 1806.

The human account

the executions

During this period, approximately 16 with 17 000 people were guillotinées, 25 000 were summary victims of executions and approximately 500 000 imprisoned at one time or another, since the beginning of 1793. Approximately 2 500 people were guillotinées only in Paris. The revolutionary Tribunal of Paris pronounced only 16% of the sentences of death, in spite of the law of April 16th which ordered that all the suspects from now on are submitted in front of him. Geographically, it is the West, because of the Guerre of the Vendée, and the Valley of the Rhone, because of the federalistic activism, which were touched, as well as the frontier provinces, where military operations proceeded. Nearly four judgments out of five were returned due to rebellion or treason, against only 1% for economic motives, monopolization or false assignats, and 9% for offense of opinion.

the War of the Vendée: according to the estimates of the historian Jean-Clement Martin, in 1802, a lack of 200 000 people is detectable, compared to 1790, if the increase in population had not been shaken by the war, in the four departments concerned. This lack is due for a share to the direct and indirect losses of the civil war (rise of mortality), for another with the deficit of the births (lowers birthrate) and with the shifts in population (negative migratory balance), exacerbated by violences.
massacres in province

With Nantes: between 1793 and 1794, Jean-Baptiste Carrier, representing Convention on mission in Nantes, orders a great number of summary executions, some by drowning in the the Loire since boats provided with trap doors: condemned, attached both by two (a man, a woman), drown mutually; Jean-Baptiste Carrier had baptized these executions the “deportation vertical”, they remained famous under the name of “republican marriages”. He is recalled to Paris to be judged, following the report/ratio of the agent of the Committee of hello public, Julien of Paris, wire of the deputy Julien of Drome and close to Robespierre.
With Lyon: during the French revolution, Lyon took in 1793 the party of the Girondins and was raised against Convention. The city undergoes a seat of more than two months before going on October 9th, 1793. The repression of the Convention was wild. Approximately 2 000 Lyoneses were shot or guillotines, and several rich person private mansions around the Place Bellecour destroyed. Joseph Fouché, one of the representatives on mission in load of repression, was called the “machine gunner of Lyon”. Lyon was famous City-freed . The October 12th 1793, appeared a stipulating decree:

Lyon made the war with freedom, Lyon is not more.

imprisonments: approximately a half-million people were imprisoned during Terror and 300 000 were assigned with residence.

the historians tried to establish the social profile of the victims of Terror: the studies reveal that 31% of condemned to death are craftsmen or companions, 28% are peasants. On the whole, 80% of the victims belong to the State Third. The geographical distribution of the executions reveals that they are an instrument of repression in a context of civil war: 52% of the judgments were marked in the Vendean West or chouan.

famous victims: Marie-Antoinette (October 16th, 1793), Antoine Barnave (November 28th, 1793), Danton (April 5th, 1794), Camille Desmoulins (April 5th, 1794), Fabre d' Églantine (April 5th, 1794), Antoine Lavoisier (May 8th, 1794), etc

Judgments on Terror

Criticized Terror

The massacres in the Parisian prisons in September 1792, continued in province the following days, starts initially a revolutionary wave of enthusiasm. With Marseilles, around the of Gironde Charles Barbaroux, the patriots congratulate the gesture on the Parisian ones. However, several partisans of the Revolution, in Europe, are deeply shocked. The European liberals, who had placed their hopes in revolutionary France, disapprove the violent and arbitrary methods of Robespierre. The Holy See condemns the settings to dead and the attacks on the clergy. The catholics compare the Vendean ones and the refractory priests to martyrs. The foreign monarchs as well as the royalists reject the Exécution of Louis XVI and the noble ones.

As of period revolutionary, French revolution and its period terrorist, make object of many lampoons and of many studies, among royalists, that it acts of novel Emigrant (1797), where Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan develops an intelligent and balanced analysis, Test on revolutions (1797) of Chateaubriant, which is fascinated by the Revolution and is upset by its excesses, of the tests of Joseph de Maistre, which sees in the civil war which ensanglante France under the Revolution a metaphysical catastrophe of order, or Mémoires to be used forhistory of the Jacobinism of the abbot Augustin Baruel, who sees in the Revolution a plot of the freemasons. In the same way, among the liberal republicans, one witnesses a criticism of the egalitarianism of year II, with a denunciation of the agrarian law, which would have been allegedly defended by the Jacobins.

Several philosophers reflected on the range and the direction of Terror as of the XIXe century: Madam de Staël, Benjamin Constant. Louis-Gabriel de Bonald estimates that it is the prelude necessary of a regeneration. Under the Restoration, one teaches with the pupils who the French revolution was only one series of massacres and which one period of generalized anarchy. The French writers Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac or Alfred de Vigny “see in revolutionary violence the expression of the radical crisis of the values which France crossed…”. The historian Hippolyte Taine is clearly hostile with Terror.

Terror accepted, defended or explained

Certain authors accept Terror: it is for example the case of the writer and revolutionary German Georg Forster (1754-1794).

After an overall hostile reading with Terror, in the first decades of the XIXe century, a movement develops among the French historians to explain the crimes committed during this period and to see Terror like an inevitable episode of the Revolution, with very different readings, opposing historians moderated like Edgar Quinet to historians socializing like Louis Blanc.

Under IIIe Republic, the opposition between 1789 and 1793 which prevailed up to that point among the moderate republicans tends to grow blurred (according to the word of Georges Clémenceau: “the Revolution is a block”), and the authors insist on the responsibility for Robespierre and the Mad ones. However, conflict opposes, on this point, Alphonse Aulard, one of principal specialists in Revolution at that time, for which the great figure is Danton, with his former student, Albert Mathiez, admiror of Robespierre, which not only defends the role of the revolutionary government of the An II and Terror in the survival of the Republic, which escapes the invasion and surmounts the civil war, but claims to establish the sources of the Socialisme in the speech robespierrist. Mathiez had a decisive influence on several great names of the history, which it is about Lucien Febvre, of Georges Lefebvre or Albert Soboul, (which takes again the Marxist grid of reading of the history and offers a more pleasing glance on Hébert and the Mad ones). The schools of IIIe République justify Terror by made progress. The Lavisse handbooks approve the death of Louis XVI and present Terror like a response to the Vendean problem and the European attacks. The idea is essential that Terror was only one response to the violence of the absolute monarchy and the foreign aggressions; she is exerted only by one minority of individuals and does not have to make forget the sacrifices of the other French.

The historical research of after Second world war tries to analyze the revolutionary movement and Terror in its political structures and socio-economic, with the study of the reprimands, the organization of land, husbandries, the proto-industrial structures, etc

The current of the Nouvelle history launches out in great serial studies, privileging the long periods. Starting from the inter-war period, the current of the School of Annals, taken along by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, then Fernand Braudel, denounces the primacy of the event-driven political history and the method positivist of Langlois and Charles Seignobos, and bases its work on interrogations of economic order, social or cultural by multiplying the types of sources.

In the same orientation, Yearly histories of the French revolution , re-examined Company of the studies robespierrists (founded in 1907, and whose first president was Albert Mathiez) under the direction of Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul, ignores the bloody episodes of this period, sticking rather to the analysis of the role of the social classes. Holder of the history of the French revolution to the pulpit of the Sorbonne, Soboul studies the movement sans-culotte, the movement Jacobin, etc

Since the Years 1980, in a context of criticism with regard to the Soviet mode and of the ideology communist, the “school revisionist”, around François Pipe cleaner and of Denis Richet, revival the debate historiographic, integral of new problems and placing the Revolution in the long story.

In the Years 1990, Michel Vovelle, member of the company of the studies robespierrists, renews the great economic surveys social and, with a more direct approach of the individual, related on the Microphone-history and the cultural Histoire.

Terror after the Revolution

The period of Terror was used as driving bolt for all the liberal, preserving capacities or reactionaries and continues to justify, on the one hand, the rejection of the revolutionary heritage by the extreme-right-hand side, on the other hand, of any revolutionary ideology (qualified by certain philosophers of “utopians”, since the years 1980) by the liberals and the moderate left. On the other hand, it could be considered, with nuances, and in different directions, like a model among the republican movements, revolutionists and Socialists. By comparison, the white Terreur indicates two episodes of the French history during which repression is carried out by the royalists. After the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Communists, around Lénine found what they invite the Dictatorship of the proletariat which claims terrorist heritage of year II, to sit the Soviet mode, while, in the territories controlled by the white armies, favorable to the Tsar, develops another white terror, against the Communists

See too

White Terror
Companies of Jéhu and Companies of the Sun
Amalgam of the two armies under the Revolution
War of the Vendée
Head office of Lyon

External bonds

September 5th, 1793. Terror with the day order on Hérodote.net
June 10th, 1794. Great Terror on Hérodote.net
History of Terror on the internaute.com
Site on the Revolution
Summarized on Terror
the Policies of Terror

With reading

French works

Daniel Arasse, the Guillotine and the Imaginary one of Terror , Paris, Flammarion, 1987
Roger Dupuy, Nouvelle contemporary French history: Volume 2, the Republic jacobine: Terror, war and government revolutionist 1792-1794 , Paris, Threshold, 2005, ISBN 2020398184.
Patrice Gueniffey, the policy of Terror. Test on revolutionary violence (1789-1794) , Paris, Beech, 2000.
C. Kintzler, the Republic and terror , Paris, Kimé, 1998, ISBN 2841740234
Jean-Clement Martin, Violence and Révolution. Test on the birth of a national myth , the Threshold, 2006.
religious French history , under the direction of Jacques Le Goff and Rene Rémond, the Threshold, Volume 3, 18th century - 19th century (Indications on the worship To be it supreme and the Déchristianisation for the period).
German Sicard, Justice and policy: terror in the French revolution , Toulouse, Presses of the University of Social sciences of Toulouse, 1997, ISBN 2909628337
Michel Vovelle, 1793, the Revolution against the Church, of the Reason to the Supreme Being , editions Complexes, 1988.
Sophie Wahnich, Freedom or death. Test on terror and terrorism. Paris: The Factory Editions, 2003.
Memories on the Revolution of France and research on the causes which brought the Revolution of 1789 and those which followed it (4 volumes), of Vincent-Marie Viénot de Vaublanc Texte on line: . (especially volume 2, delivers IV, chapter II of pages 243 to 296), edition G-A Dentu, Paris, 1833.

Articles

Jean-Maurice de Montremy, “1789 and 1793: terror in question”, in the History , n°90, p 72-74
François Lebrun, “the logic of Terror”, in the History n°113
François Lebrun, Terror with the day order, in the collections of the History , n°25, p 74-79
Jean-Clement Martin, “the Revolution divided France in two”, in the History n°311, July-August 2006
Alain Texier, “institutionalized terror”, in Historia n°624, December 1998

Sources

These works were used to write this article:

Collective, To forget our crimes. National amnesia: a French specificity , Paris, Otherwise, Series Changes n°144, 1994, ISBN 2862604704
François Pipe cleaner, Mona Ozouf, Dictionnaire criticizes French revolution , Paris, Flammarion, 1988, ISBN 2082115372
Roger Dupuy, Nouvelle contemporary French history. Volume 2: The Republic jacobine , Paris, Threshold, 2005, ISBN 2020398184
Jean Tulard, J. - F. Beech, A. Fierro, History and dictionary of the French revolution, 1789-1799 , Paris, Robert Laffont, collection Books, 1987, ISBN 2221045882
Albert Soboul, historical Dictionary of the French revolution , Paris, PUF, Quadriga, 2005, ISBN 2130536050
François Pipe cleaner, Denis Richet, the French revolution , Paris, Hatchet Literatures, 1999, ISBN 2012789501

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