drafting for the National Guard. Attacking government offices and forcing the
National Guard to retreat. The force of some ten thousand peasant’s were
quickly move to Rochefort to open the port for a British Invasion fleet. The
Vendee was not the only spot of counter revolution, as troops were sent to Lyons,
Nantes, Bordeaux and Marseille to crush anti-revolutionary support.
They dealt with the enemies of the people by setting up a Revolutionary
Tribunal, with which to try those who would otherwise have been killed by the
sans culottes. Despite the objections of Vergniaud, a member of the Convention
who shouted “Septembre” as they deliberated, the Tribunal began it’s operations.
The Convention decided to form the Committee of Public Safety, as foreign
invasion became a more real threat. This cabinet would soon become the most
powerful governing body, and Danton held one of the nine positions.
Yet the Girondins had no support from the people of Paris, making the
mistake of bringing Marat, a prominent Jacobin, before the Revolutionary
Tribunal. Marat was easily acquitted, but they summoned him again. The
argument was over corn prices, and the Jacobin stand of lowering them only won
them more favor with the sans culottes. On Sunday June 2nd, a few days after a
protest by the sans culottes, the Convention arrested the leading Girondins in
the Convention, as the Tuilleries was surrounded by an angry mob of tens of
thousands of sans culottes.
The Committee seemed unfit to deal with the new problems that quickly
became evident. The Austrians were quickly advancing into French territory, and
counter revolutionaries in Lyons had seized control, executing Republican
leaders. Toulon, the royalists were handing over twenty six of France’s sixty
one frigates over the Lord Hood, commander of the British navy. However,
Maximilien Robespierre joined the Committee and would soon become the dominant
revolutionary force. A man known for his virtue and upright moral standing, his
rise to through the Jacobin club and the Assembly was that his ideas were
supported by the Assembly and the people.
In Paris, the Enrage, a group of those who wanted death to all who
opposed the revolution and had guided the now abolished Insurectionary Commune,
still troubled the government. Varlet still cried out for the needs of the poor
and spurred them to riot against the price of food. The Committee was forced to
deal with these problems when a supporter of the Girondin, Charlotte Corday,
assasinated Marat as he lay in his therapeutic bath on July 13th. His death
caused him to become a martyr to the radicals, much to Ropespierre’s envy, and
the Committee was forced by the prodding of the Enrages to institute warehouses
to store the grain in Paris and give the death penalty to those that hoarded.
The Committee also had to worry about it’s critics that followed Danton,
who was now President of the Convention after losing his seat to Robespierre.
The Hebertists followed the freed journalist, who accused the Jacobins of
ignoring him after he helped them overthrow the Girondin. With so much pressure,
the Committee authorized the destruction of all federalists, royalists, and
other counter revolutionaries. Those rebelling in the provinces were quickly
dealt with. Still, the opposers wanted more, and a revolution on the Hotel de
Ville, forced the Convention to allow the Hebertists, Varenne and Herbois into
the Committee, and they declared that “Terror be the order of the day.”
Along with the Queen, the twenty two Girondin leaders that had been
arrested were also brought to the guillotine in the same month. The former
president of the Convention, and converted noble, the Duc d’Orleans, more
commonly known as Philippe Egalite’ was sentenced to death by the Tribunal also.
The once mayor of Paris, Jean Bailly was also executed.
The purpose of these killings that lasted in and out through the fall
and winter of 1793 was the Committee’s ruthless drive to destroy any and all
enemies of the people, royalists and federalists alike. All in a effort to gain
support from the sans culottes to continue their one handed control of France.
The guillotine had struck over seventeen thousand necks in the Terror, and three
thousand of those belonged to Parisians. Those who survived lived through the
Terror fearing a knock on the door that would be their arrest. Robespierre
himself said, “We must rule by iron those who cannot be ruled by justice?You
must punish not merely traitors but the indifferent as well.” Yet, those who
were brought before the Tribunal were not just the enemies of the people, they
were women, children, families, the elderly, and every social class was
represented. Those who shed tears for the loss of their family were executed
also, those who dared make the smallest misstep were dealt with harshly, the
penalty death. The innocent lost their lives through clerical error, and some
were killed being falsely accused by neighbors or enemies who wanted vengeance.
In the Provinces, the guillotine could not work fast enough for some,
and Joseph Fouche’, a Jacobin representative, killed over three hundred with
cannon fire. At Toulon, they were shot, at Nantes, thousands died in the
disease ridden prisons, and thousands more were sunk in barges, causing ships
that anchored to pull out corpses. To the sans culottes of Paris, it was a
lively entertainment. They drank and ate, some placed bets, while others
knitted. They eagerly anticipated the sounds of the execution, and death was a
trivial thing.
A young and eloquent opponent of the Girondins, Chaumette, led the
movement of de-Christianization. He pushed for the republican calendar,
likening it’s divisions to the divisions of the highest Reason. Religious
holidays and services were suspended, treasures of the church were seized,
images of Mary replaced with Marat, and any religious paraphernalia was strictly
prohibited. Festivals of Reason were celebrated, with prostitutes or others
such women playing the head of all Reason, the Goddess of Reason. Towns, streets,
squares all changed their names. Revolutionary names were much more popular
then saintly names in some districts. Yet, religion could not be easily undone,
and still it’s hold was seen on France as threatening “acts of God” would force
peasants back into the churches to ask for forgiveness.
The war of a political nature raged silently, as the different factions
of the Convention dared not fight openly. Upon returning to Paris, Danton
immediately took the side of Robespierre, condemning the Enrages’ and the
Hebertists. However, Robespierre would not be easily won over by Danton. He
believed that Danton wished to separate the Committee and the sans culottes to
protect himself and his friends. Ropespierre’s course of action was to crush
both factions by use of the Tribunal.
The Hebertists fell easily, many of their members being accused of a
foreign plot. When they planned a journee’ to revolt, this gave the Committee
it’s final nail, and drove it into the coffin of the Hebertists. Hebert and his
followers were put to the guillotine March 14th, 1794.
As for Danton, he had made many powerful enemies, all of which ardently
spoke out against him. In spite of this Danton had little fear from these men,
taunting and threatening them, believing that Robespierre would stick by him no
matter what. Soon, their friendship grew weak, and on March 30th, the
Committees of Public Safety and General Security met together. Saint-Just, a
cold and calculating follower of Robespierre, produced the document to arrest
Danton. At the trial was Camille Desmoulins, and many other accused. On April
3rd, they were sent to the guillotine, and eighteen men were put under the blade.
Following in their path was Chaumette and even the widow of Camille,
Lucille Desmoulins. The bloodshed only increased as the law of Prairial was
passed, and the Tribunal no longer needed to bother with a trial. Of the
fifteen hundred that died in the final eight weeks of the terror, only a small
portion of the beheaded were noblemen are clergy, the remaining eighty five
percent coming from the people, the peasants, and those who had begun the
revolution. Ropespierre was far to virtuous to watch the executions, but he
stated that, “At the point where we are now, if we stop too soon we will die.
We have not been too severe?Without the revolutionary Government the Republic
cannot be made stronger. If it is destroyed now, freedom will be extinguished
tomorrow.” As Danton had shouted at the Tribunal, “You will follow us,
Robespierre.”, the Revolution would soon be over.
By Autumn of the same year, the Revolution turned decidedly to the right
as the Robespierrists were sent from the Convention. He had gradually lost
control of both Committee and Convention, and by July 27th, in the month of
Thermidor, we was arrested. After being badly beaten, he was brought to the
guillotine, and a newspaper reported, “The tyrant is no more.” The government
changed hands throughout the next year as the Jacobins were disbanded, and the
Girondin returned to the Convention. It too was altogether disbanded as the
Directory was set up in a rather feeble attempt to retain control of the
republic. Even though Napoleon did not gain control until one year before the
next century, the people of France no longer wanted their revolution.
For my conclusion, I would like to step back and deliver my own opinion.
In my brief time on this planet, I have never come across a more brutal
depiction of man at his worst. The sad truth is that events of this nature have
occurred with amazing regularity. Perhaps if the Reign of Terror was just one
appalling moment of human cruelty, the world would be a different place. With
such things as the Gulag, the Holocaust, the African Slave Trade, and even
returning back to ancient times of the Assyrians and the Crusades, man has been
known to slaughter his brethren wholesale. We are a race, bred with violence
coursing through our veins, and we can do little about it. Perhaps my
speculations are wrong, but if such tragedies have occurred over and over, can
we truly ever change. The Reign of Terror is just the culmination to the
bloodiness and the atrocities of the French Revolution. It is quite ironic that
a Revolution based on the ideals of Reason and the fight for the people, would
kill over thirty thousand of their countrymen. In conclusion, the Reign of
Terror was the climax of this terrible Revolution. The violence and paranoia of
the sans culottes, the lust for political power in the convention, and the petty
differences of one person to another finally reached a head, exploding into a
mass execution.
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