Reign of Terror
1793-94
(Sept ‘93 – July 94’)
Outline
I. Causes
II. Politics
III. Executions
IV. Fall of Robespierre
V. The Directory
Key Terms
• Reign of Terror
• Committee of Public Safety
• Revolutionary Tribunals
• Georges Danton
• Robespierre
• Orator
• French Revolution Calendar
• Guillotine
• Execution of
o Louis XVI
o Marie Antoinette
o Robespierre
• Festival of the Supreme Being
• Charlotte Corday
• The Great Terror
• Death of Marat
• Thermidorian Reaction
• Martyr
• The Directory
I. Causes
Why use Terror?
o Civil War
o Foreign War
o Political Factions (Parties)
• All led to the idea that the Revolution was
fragile and must be protected.
II. Politics
Girondins vs. Jacobins
• Two main political parties in
the Legislative Assembly
o Who were moderates?
o Who were radicals?
• The Jacobins took power,
with the support of the
sans-culottes
o Girondins out, Jacobins in…
Committee of Public Safety
• The Legislative Assembly voted to give a
group of 9 people dictatorial powers
o Needed to protect the revolution
o Not democratic
o Originally Led by Robespierre & Georges Danton
• Revolutionary Tribunals
o Quick “court case” which almost always ended in
execution
Robespierre vs. Danton
• Georges Danton
o Charismatic leader
o Led the sans-culottes on attack of Tuileries
o Called for all to join military
• Robespierre forced Danton out of the CPS, and
eventually had him executed
• Note: People often executed for political purposes, not just
to protect the revolution  Corruption.
Robespierre
• Known as the “incorruptible”
o Seen as very strong in his ideals
o Against capital punishment for most of life
o Master Orator
o Called for the death of all that were seen as “enemies of
the revolution”
Death of Marat
• Charlotte Corday
o From small town in Northern France
o Sympathized with the Girondins
o After Girondins were forced out
(and many executed), she
blamed Marat (Jacobin)
o Murdered Marat while he was
soaking in a bathtub.
• Marat became a martyr of the
French Revolution.
o Martyr – a person who suffers or
dies for a cause
o Worshipped as a saint. Statues and
pictures.
Calendar
• French Revolution Calendar
o Months renamed
o 3 ten-day weeks
• Time
o 1 day = 10 hours
o 1 hour = 100 minutes
o 1 minute = 100 seconds
• Why change the calendar?
• Significance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
French_Republican_Calendar
III. Executions
Guillotine
• Preferred method
of execution
during the FR
• Why?
o Egalitarian
o Swift
Who was executed?
•
•
•
•
•
Louis XVI ***first
Girondins
Geogres Danton
Marie Antoinette
Counter-Revolutionaries
Who?
%
Nobles
8%
Clergy
6%
“Rebels”
86%
o Rebellions in the Vendee & Lyon
• Thousands more…
o In 9 months, 30,000 “Enemies of the Revolution”
were executed
• How many per day?
• On average, one person was executed every _____ minutes
Execution of Louis XVI
“For the Revolution
to live, the King
must die”
Execution of Marie Antoinette
“Treason and Bankrupting the country”
IV. Fall of
Robespierre
Festival of the Supreme Being
• Robespierre wanted to start a
new religion based on logic
and reason
o Cult of of Supreme Being
• Festival of the Supreme Being
o June, 1794
o Robespierre led the ceremony,
acted like a god
o Other members of the CPS saw
this as dangerous
Fall of Robespierre
• The Great Terror
o By June-July of 1794, the
executions were at an all
time high
o People executed for
almost no reason
• In general, people
were tired of the
“Terror”
o Saw only one way to
stop it…
Thermidorian Reaction
• Ended the most radical time of the FR
o Named for the month in which occurred (July 27, 1794)
• People had turned against Robespierre
because:
o Festival of the Supreme Being
o Tired of all the killing
• Worried they would be next
• Legislative Assembly tried and executed all
leaders of the Reign of Terror, starting with
Robespierre himself
o Poetic Justice
V. The Directory
The Directory
1795-1799
• New Government after the Terror
o Less violent than the “Reign of Terror”
• Five people elected to lead government
o Corruption Rampant
o War with Europe Continues
o Economic Problems, Bread shortages persist
• People generally unhappy with the result of the
Revolution
o People were still hungry
o War seemed to have no end in sight
The End of the Revolution
1799
•
The Directory failed to
restore order and calm
France
• A young general named
Napoleon Bonaparte
took power
o Then it got awesome…