#Reign Of Terror French Revolutionary Calendar Series Of Violence#

Reign Of Terror French Revolutionary Calendar Series Of Violence

The guillotine was a painless and effective way of executing those opposed to the revolution.Frequently, both on this forum, and elsewhere, I have seen allusions to a supposed 'reign of terror' during the French Revolution which would have been intentionally implemented as a system of government. The Reign of Terror began on September of 1793 and was marked by a series of violence outbreaks and mass executions of people considered the enemies of the revolution. The Revolution - Reign Of Terror French Revolution.

In 1793, Maximilien Robespierre slowly began rising to power. Jacobin: a revolutionary far-left political movement. The height of this myth is probably reached when the events are compared to Stalinism.The Reign of Terror. In the worst of descriptions the 'reign of terror' is supposed to have coincided with a personal dictatorship of Robespierre, who would have personally have had tyrannical control over the Committee of Public Safety, an organ described as having quasi-absolute power. It goes without saying that it is the modern sense of the word which is used, despite the sources being from the end of the 18th century.

As shown by French historian Jean-Clément Martin, the belief that you should inspire 'terror' is rooted in Antiquity, and that was the sense used by Robespierre when he spoke about inspiring terror to the ennemies of the Republic. The revolutionaries refused to instate 'terror on the order of the day', but in the rhetoric spoke about 'inspiring terror' upon the 'ennemies to justice'. Throwing it around as if it were some 'objective' description of the period and policies implemented is to ignore its origin, which is politically situated and served the agenda of the Thermidorians.As for the word 'terror' having been employed by the actors of the time, a few words as well to give more details. Therefore when you use this name, you have to always keep that in mind.

What you had was a period of revolutionnary government, with exceptional policies, including in courts. With this in mind there was no system of terror, claiming that is both anachronistic and partisan. For political reasons Tallien, rival to Robespierre, after his death, stated that the past period had been 'The Terror' and was the fault of Robespierre. There had been acts of considerable violence, like the Massacres of September or the war in Vendée, but up until the death of Robespierre he himself and the National Convention explicitly refused to say France had entered a 'regime of terror'.The violence we see during the 1788-1794 period happens without clear directives from the state or determined policy, but the aims of controlling the popular movement to avoid them doing their own justice is central in the 1792-1794 phase. The invention of this term gave a name to a period which did not have any.

Furthermore, you have to relativise. In fact, some of the représentants en mission who had been the most brutal and repressive and feared facing justice because of that, such as Tallien, were those who pushed for the execution of Robespierre and supposedly ending the 'reign of terror' as they were to describe it. I do not agree.Click to expand.The problem is that the supposed 'reign of terror' intensified or at least continued when Robespierre and his allies died, under the supervision of the Thermidorians who coined the term to discredit Robespierre. This 'placate the mob with unwarranted executions for entertainment' did last for years - so my question to you is, exactly how long did it have to last for you to consider it 'permanent', and has ANY government or governing system ever lasted long enough to justify the word 'permanent'?Your reasoning seems to follow the line that, if my Aunt Dora were to put on roller skates, we could split hairs and call her a self-propelled vehicle. I won't split hairs over the meaning of the word 'terror' the people living under that rule were certainly held in check by their terror of being next.You say it was not a 'permanent system of government' - presumably because it did not last for all eternity. Vérités et légendes , Perrin, 2017, 238 pages.It was basically a way for a ruling cabal to stay in power by throwing victims to the mob without regard for actual guilt, innocence or truth of allegation, merely for entertainment value and distraction.It was official policy in that the men who were actually running the French government did it, over an over and over.

The National Convention wasn't temporary, even if it ultimately only lasted three years, it was meant to be permanent institutions accompanied by a constitution, which was suspended during revolutionnary government. When talking about the revolutionnary government, that was definitely temporary, in the sense that it declared itself that. It is rather, 'have exceptional revolutionnary courts to ennemies' to avoid a literal bloodbath. From reading you one could think there were random executions by coin toss for fun, so I think that description should be nuanced.Click to expand.Again, there were zero executions 'for entertainment', that is false. So claiming that 'the people living under that rule were certainly held in check by their terror of being next' is false if you spoke of the general population, but true if you speak for the major political figures. But that citizen, if masculine, would still have considerably more to say than during the years to come and than in neighbouring countries.

Therefore we have to separate the revolutionnary government as a temporary institution in emergency from popular violence in general.Click to expand.People could have risen to prominence at the yearly elections, but those were suspended just as the constitutional order war. And within France, should we ignore for example the Day of the Tiles, because it happens before the storming of the Bastille? I don't think so. Singling out France here and specifically the revolutionnary government is inappropriate. Or violence in Europe in general, in Ireland, Belgium etc. As early as in 1788 we see it, and earlier look at events in Corsica etc. As for a high degree of political violence, keep in mind that this was already the case during the Ancien Régime in France.

The fisherman Danton refers to would not have become a central actor. We have new actors of the bourgeoisie who can play a more central role than during the Ancien Régime (although they could still locally be influential prior to the Revolution), but even the smaller bourgeoisie of Paris, like shopkeepers or the working class areas like the Faubourg Saint-Antoine do not compare to some peasant living at the countryside. Note by the way if you look at the social classes of the political leaders at the time, it is a specific category of the population.

To be a suspect was thus not necessarily to die. Amongst the 300 000 to 500 000 suspects as a consequence of the law of suspects, we have 17 000 persons who died as a consequence of being judged by a revolutionnary tribunal, whether in military, temporary or popular commission. After that legislation allows for a broader spectre of persons to be accused, although naturally the members of the National Convention had the most visibility (12% died, 86 of a total of 749).