11.2 The Radical Phase, 1792 - 1794

The summer of 1792 found France in revolutionary turmoil. The constitutional system established in 1791 had collapsed. The radicals, demanding a republic and led by the Paris Jacobins, seized control of the capital through a bloody coup d'état. In the stormy confusion of its final session, the Legislative Assembly had suspended the monarchy and called for the election of a new constitutional convention. King Louis and his family had been arrested and imprisoned. The armies of Austria and Prussia had invaded France from the east and were marching on Paris.

It was on this background that the Revolution entered its radical phase. Over the next two years, a radical-dominated National Convention would take extraordinary measures to save the new French republic from its enemies, domestic and foreign. There would be a revolutionary government empowered to "wage the war of liberty against tyranny," through which over 30,000 would be victims of the "Reign of Terror." The radical phase saw revolution in its most brutal form: systematic violence in defense of nation and justice.

With the coup of August 1792, France became familiar with the three personalities that would dominate the next phase of the Revolution. All were highly educated professionals of bourgeois background. All were idealistic and intellectual men instilled with the rational thinking of a Voltaire on one hand and the emotional enthusiasm of a Rousseau on the other. All were uncompromisingly committed to the fulfillment of the Revolution. All would be victims of the forces they unleashed. They were Georges Danton, Jean Paul Marat, and Maximilian Robespierre.

Georges Danton (1759 - 1794), a lawyer from the provinces, was committed to the republican cause. A brilliant orator and Machiavellian politician, Danton had distinguished himself among the Paris radicals and came to dominate the executive council set up to administer France following the August coup. From 1792 until his fall from favor in the spring of 1794, Danton was probably the most popular of the radical leaders.

Severely afflicted with a painful skin disease, Jean Paul Marat (1743 - 1793) was a physician who turned journalist in support of the republican cause. Along with Danton, he had been a founder of a radical republican club called the Cordeliers in 1790. Editor of a radical newspaper called Friend of the People, Marat agitated strongly for extremist measures against all counterrevolutionaries (those opposed to the revolution). It was Marat who called for the "September Massacre" of Parisian prisoners as suspected counterrevolutionaries and was himself assassinated in 1793.

Maximilian Robespierre (1758 - 1794), the soft-spoken lawyer who dressed as an aristocrat, was committed to the view of Rousseau that a society based on virtue would best reflect the sovereignty of the general will. Known as "the Incorruptible," Robespierre emerged as prominent in the Jacobin leadership on the eve of the August coup. It has been Robespierre's name that has been most commonly associated with the brutality of the Reign of Terror. Close to Robespierre was the youthful Louis Saint-Just (1767 - 1794), whose name would become as associated with the extremism of the Revolution as the other leading Jacobins.

In August 1792, the new Jacobin-dominated executive council called for elections to a National Convention to act as a temporary legislature and draw up a new constitution (as had done the earlier National Assembly). The franchise was extended to some six million voters - all male citizens 21 and older. The 750 delegates elected would meet in Paris at the end of September.

While the elections were taking place, France experienced its first taste of directed revolutionary violence. The Austrian and Prussian armies were advancing on Paris, and the city seethed with fear and anxiety. Word arrived that revolts against the Revolution had broken out in Brittany and the Vendee, both well-populated agricultural regions in the west. Through his newspaper, Marat called for the justice of the people against the enemies of the Revolution. He pointed out that the Parisian prisons were full of such enemies who would be released to wreak their vengeance should Paris be captured. The city's police authority, known as the Vigilance Committee, was besieged by an armed mob demanding the execution of these enemies. At Marat's urging, the mob rioted. For four days (September 2 - 6) anarchy ruled the streets of Paris. The prisons were attacked and some 1100 prisoners were dragged from their cells and murdered by the frenzied mob. Some of the prisoners were royalists and aristocrats opposed to the Revolution, but most were common criminals whose imprisonment had nothing to do with politics. At one point, the mob attacked a reformatory for juvenile offenders and over 160 boys and girls were slaughtered. The city authorities did nothing to prevent these "September Massacres." The Jacobin leadership had neatly unleashed and allowed to exhaust itself the pent-up hostilities of the sansculottes. The mob, its energies now spent, could not be used against the new government. For the radicals it was time to get on with the revolutionary reconstruction of France.

The newly elected National Convention met for its first session on September 22, 1792. As the Convention was elected at the height of the massacres, its makeup reflected the country's swing to the left. Not a single royalist was elected.

Those 165 delegates taking the "Girondin" position now sat on the right. These conservative republicans largely represented the provinces and favored a franchise based on property qualifications. They hoped the new constitution would create a federal system of government in which power would be shared by the national government with departmental and local authorities.

In the center sat the moderate republicans. Numbering some 435 delegates, they were the largest group in the Convention. Uncommitted to any set position, they would vote as they saw fit on each issue as it came up. Because their large numbers made them key to the outcome of any issue, their support was actively sought by both the left and the right. Because they sat in the lower seats in the front of the hall, they were referred to as the delegates of the "Plain" or "Marsh."

On the left were the 150 radical republicans. Again they were known as the "Mountain" because they sat up in the higher tiers of the hall. Largely Jacobin, the radicals favored a strongly centralized state based on a democratic franchise. Their leading spokesmen were the delegates from Paris who included Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. While only a small minority of the delegates, the Jacobins would exercise great influence over the Convention through their control of the Paris Commune and ability to use the mob.

While the nervous delegates were assembling in Paris, events at the small town of Valmy (some 100 miles east of Paris) would have a profound impact on the future of the Revolution. There the French and Prussian armies confronted each other. If the French failed to hold at Valmy, the road to Paris would be open. In the fog on the morning of September 20, both sides began a day-long artillery duel. When the fog cleared, the French were amazed to see the Prussians withdrawing from the field. The Prussian retreat has been explained as the result of several factors. The Prussian supply lines had been poorly organized and the invasion force was not adequately equipped. Bad weather and illness had demoralized the Prussian army. And, as war in the eighteenth century was a seasonal affair, it was time to go home and bring in the harvest. Whatever the reason, the "Miracle of Valmy" saved the Revolution.

On receiving the news of the French victory at Valmy, the jubilant National Convention, in its opening session on September 22, passed a unanimous decree abolishing the monarchy and formally establishing France as a republic. Later when a new revolutionary calendar was initiated, September 22 was decreed the first day of year one of the Republic.

Now that France was a republic, it became necessary to settle the matter of the former royal family. Since the August coup Louis and his family had been imprisoned in the medieval prison known as the Temple. The Jacobins had been demanding trial of the king as a traitor to the people of France. Through long debates the Convention argued the legality of trying the king and the legitimacy of the Convention's being a court should it agree to do so. The discovery of the "Iron Chest," a box filled with copies of Louis' secret correspondence with the émigrés and other incriminating papers, sealed the king's fate. The papers unequivocally showed the king to be opposed to the Revolution. The Convention voted to try "Citizen Louis Capet" for treason.

Louis' trial began in December 1792 and lasted almost five weeks. At first the king was not permitted legal counsel nor was he informed of the charges upon which the 33 counts of indictment were drawn. Later, however, he was permitted counsel for his defense. His lawyers were given ten days in which to prepare a defense, an impossible task when one considers before whom he was being tried. Louis was found guilty on all counts.

The issue was not so much the king's guilt as it was his punishment. The Girondins wanted the question of punishment to be put before the nation in a referendum. They hoped the conservative sentiments in the provinces would spare Louis' life. The Jacobins demanded the death penalty in order to secure Girondin and moderate identity with the radical position. The Jacobins knew that the mob would see those who voted to spare the king's life as enemies of the Revolution.

Because voting in the Convention was oral and public, delegates could not hide behind secrecy when they voted on the king's fate. All voted that Louis was guilty. A Girondin-sponsored ballot to refer the matter to the nation was defeated. The final ballot on the king's punishment sentenced "Citizen Louis Capet" to death. The count was 361 for execution, 360 for exile or imprisonment. His fate determined by a single vote, Louis XVI was taken to the Place de la Revolution (today Place de la Concorde) and executed by beheading on the guillotine. The date was January 20, 1793.

Inspired by their victory at Valmy, French armies took the offensive on several fronts. Along the border with Italy, Savoy and Nice, the French-speaking provinces of the Kingdom of Sardinia, were occupied by French forces. In September 1792 French armies crossed the Rhine and occupied several German cities. In November 1792 a French army invaded the Austrian Netherlands and defeated a sizeable Austrian force. In all occupied territories the French confiscated the properties of the nobility and church and annexed the territories to France.

In November 1792 the Convention undertook to export the Revolution. Through a decree it declared that France would grant "fraternity and assistance" to all peoples desiring "to recover their liberty." The enlightened principles that underlay the revolution in France were universal, applying to all oppressed peoples of all countries. The Convention urged people everywhere to rise in revolution against the Old Regime of inequality, injustice, and privilege wherever it existed. Revolution in other countries would, after all, take pressure off France as foreign rulers would have to deal with their own insurrections. Earlier the Convention had extended French citizenship to outstanding revolutionary figures in other countries. French citizenship was bestowed on such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine. (Paine, in fact, had come to France and had been elected a member of the Convention.) The execution of the king and the revolutionaries' stated intent to spread the Revolution, caused an international reaction, the First Coalition.

The government of Great Britain was first to act. When it appeared that France was going to take control of the Austrian Netherlands, Britain saw its commerce and security threatened. Ever since the war of the Spanish Armada, British policy had been based on preventing a powerful state from exercising sovereignty over the Low Countries. British diplomats had been active throughout Europe urging resistance to French expansionism. The result was the formation of a military alliance opposed to France. The War of the First Coalition began when the Convention declared war on Britain and the Netherlands in February 1793. The Coalition already included the countries with which France had been at war (Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia) and was soon joined by Spain, Portugal, the Papacy, and a number of lesser German and Italian states.

The Coalition on paper was extremely powerful and should have been easily able to defeat the French. It lacked, however, unity of purpose. While concerned with France, Austria and Prussia were at the same time more concerned about the expansion of Russia and the future of Poland. The allies each acted on their own, and the Coalition lacked any unity of command or resources. Nonetheless, the opposition to the French was formidable, and French armies began to suffer defeats. The Austrians were able to retake the southern Netherlands and the British navy kept the French fleet and maritime commerce effectively blockaded in port.

With the execution of the king, the Revolution had moved further to the left. Because of the crisis arising from the war with the First Coalition and the growing counterrevolution in the provinces to the west and south, the Convention assumed control of the executive council and voted to create a revolutionary government. In April 1793 the Convention authorized establishing a Committee of Public Safety and a Revolutionary Tribunal to serve as extraordinary means of meeting the national emergency. Of this revolutionary government more will be said later.

The Girondins, afraid that the crisis of war and counterrevolution might drive the nation into the hands of the Jacobins, attempted to discredit the radical leadership. They accused Danton of complicity with the defection of a major French general to the Austrians. (General Dumouriez, the victor at Valmy and leader of the French forces in the Austrian Netherlands, had become disillusioned with the Revolution and gone over to the enemy.) The Girondins accused Marat of treason, but he was acquitted. The result of these measures was to widen the gap between themselves and the Jacobins and open themselves to renewed Jacobin accusation of counterrevolution. When the Girondins attempted to secure the arrest of the leaders of the Paris Commune, the Jacobins called the mob to the streets in defense of the Revolution.

In early June 1793, the Jacobins purged the Girondins from the Convention. The Paris Commune ordered its units of the National Guard to surround the Convention and demanded the arrest of the Girondin leadership as counterrevolutionaries. The mob invaded the galleries and the terrified delegates, unable to flee the building, voted on a Jacobin motion to suspend and arrest some 29 Girondin leaders. With this second Jacobin coup, the radicals now controlled the Revolution.

Soon after the purge of the Girondins, France was rocked by the assassination of Marat. In July 1793, Charlotte Corday, a young woman from Normandy, gained entrance to Marat's house and stabbed him to death in his bath. She made no attempt to escape, and in her trial testified that she had been motivated by her Girondin sentiments. Her beauty and her dignity during the trial won her great sympathy throughout France. Found guilty, she was executed. The Jacobins reacted to the murder of Marat with expected fury and accused as enemies of the people all persons of Girondin sympathies. Girondins throughout the provinces called on the people to resist the Jacobin control of the Revolution and were instrumental in fomenting and leading opposition to the radicals in Paris. The counterrevolution was spreading.

Firmly in control of the Convention, the Jacobins completed work on the new constitution. Authored by Saint-Just and reflecting the enlightened principles of the Revolution, the Constitution of 1793 was based on the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. It extended without property or wealth qualifications the franchise to all adult male citizens. Thus, it made France a democracy. The legislature was to be elected annually by direct vote. An executive council would be chosen by the legislature from lists of candidates chosen by popular vote in the departments. The constitution included statements professing the right to public education and public welfare for the unemployed. Presented to the nation for popular ratification in the summer of 1793, the Constitution was overwhelmingly approved. It would not become law, however, because the Convention ruled that the revolutionary government would remain in place until France was at peace. To secure that peace the Jacobins would now "wage the war of liberty" against the enemies of the Revolution.

Revolutionary Government and the Reign of Terror

Earlier (April 1793), the Convention had determined that the executive council set up in August 1792 was not able to meet the crisis facing the nation. The nature of the national emergency was two-fold: war with the First Coalition and the growing counterrevolution. To meet the crisis it was necessary to have revolutionary government. The revolutionary government established by the Convention was based on the two extraordinary bodies - the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal. Of these, the Committee of Public Safety would be the most influential.

The Committee of Public Safety consisted of 12 men chosen by the Convention for one-month terms. It would meet in secret and report daily to the Convention from which it would receive its instructions. Its function was threefold: to conduct the executive function of government; to direct the national defense; and to crush counterrevolution through the exercise of revolutionary justice. Because the leading Jacobins were appointed to the Committee and because the Jacobins dominated the Convention, the Committee of Public Safety virtually held dictatorial authority over France.

To save the Revolution from its enemies it was ruled necessary to use revolutionary justice. The actions taken to exercise revolutionary justice were known collectively as the "Reign of Terror."

In September 1793, the Convention identified those suspect of counterrevolution by passing the Law of Suspects. This sweeping piece of legislation indicted and called for the immediate arrest of all "who by their conduct, associations, talk, or writings have shown themselves partisans of tyranny." Under this law thousands were arrested and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

The Revolutionary Tribunal was a special court established in Paris to try all suspects. Its 16 judges and 60 jurors were divided into several courts and, through a system of shifts, worked continuously 24 hours a day. Between March 1793 and July 1794 the Revolutionary Tribunal convicted and condemned to death over 2600 people including the Girondin leadership and the former queen, Marie Antoinette.

Since August 1792 the royal family had been detained in the prison called the Temple. There, under close guard, they had several rooms and were allowed a staff of servants. Following the execution of the King, Marie Antoinette was separated from her children, Marie Therese and Louis. Later she was removed from the Temple and held in a small cell at the Conciergerie, the main revolutionary prison, on the Île de la Cité. The Revolutionary Tribunal condemned her to death in October 1793. As with her husband, she was made the object of public scorn and outrage when paraded to the guillotine.[1]

In order to insure conformity to the revolutionary government throughout the country and in the army, the Convention appointed "Deputies on Mission." Authorized to use whatever means were necessary to defend the Revolution, the deputies on mission held tremendous power. Often Parisian Jacobins, the deputies on mission had little respect for local authorities and subjected them to abuse and intimidation. Always the authority of the deputy on mission superseded that of the local authority. Thus, Jacobin policies made in Paris were imposed throughout the nation through a highly centralized system of authority.

Revolutionary justice was also exercised through a system of revolutionary watch committees. These were groups made up of "good, patriotic citizens" whose function it was to watch for any signs of counterrevolution within the immediate neighborhood. Citizens were encouraged to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the authorities. Abuse of this system was widespread. Most often the suspected counterrevolutionaries reported by these committees were politically innocent people who had aroused the animosity of a committee member.

The means of exercising revolutionary justice that had the greatest impact, however, was psychological. Robespierre and the other Jacobin zealots called for a "Reign of Terror" against the enemies of the Revolution. As long as the nation was threatened by internal and foreign enemies, any means, regardless of how brutal, were justified. This was, Robespierre reported to the Convention in a celebrated speech in February 1794, the "war of liberty against tyranny," in which Terror was "justice flowing from virtue." The revolutionary government was a reflection of the general will, he stated: to use extremist measures against the enemies of the general will was not a vice. Those who did not approve of the methods used to save the nation were enemies of the nation. Those who did not steadfastly show in their actions, associations, talk, and writing their support for the revolutionary government were enemies of the nation. Those who dared to question or criticize were enemies of the nation. Robespierre’s friend and fellow Committee member Louis Saint-Just, echoed these sentiments as follows, “Since the French people has manifested its will, everything opposed to it is outside the sovereign. Whatever is outside the sovereign is an enemy.” Revolutionary justice would destroy all enemies of the nation.

The counterrevolution against which the Terror was directed very ably demonstrated that not all French citizens were sympathetic to the Jacobin view of the Revolution. The Jacobin "war of liberty against tyranny" was aimed against numerous enemies. There were widespread popular uprisings in Normandy, the Vendee, and the south. Inspired by those Girondins who escaped the June 1793, purge, the rebellions were collectively known as the "Federalist Revolt." In addition to the rebellious regions, several important cities rejected Jacobin rule. Revolts in Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Toulon -all major economic centers- threatened to tear the nation to pieces. They were eventually suppressed by loyal army units led by new, young, and talented officers committed to the Revolution (notable among them was Napoleon Bonaparte). The "federalists" failed. They lacked unity of purpose, strategy, and command. But mostly they failed because the majority of the French people saw the real threat to be the foreign powers at war with France and invading French soil.

The Reign of Terror lasted from July 1793 through July 1794. Hundreds of thousands were arrested. Some 30,000 to 40,000 were executed. In Paris alone over 3000 were beheaded at the guillotine, 30 a day in the Terror's last weeks. Most of the victims of the Terror were innocent of counterrevolution or other political crimes. Instead they were merely people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or those falsely accused by their personal enemies. When the rebellious cities were retaken, thousands of their citizens were arrested and executed. (When a revolt in Nantes was crushed, the radicals punished the city by putting hundreds of men, women, and children adrift in boats on the Loire and blasting them with cannons from the shore.) The Terror was accepted only as long as the people of France could see that there existed a real emergency and was used against genuine enemies of the Revolution. By the spring of 1794, conditions were changing.

In addition to exercising revolutionary justice, the Committee of Public Safety was responsible for directing the war effort against France's foreign enemies. To this end it won the Convention's approval to the Law of Universal Conscription in September 1793. This law mobilized the entire French population in the war effort. All single men between the ages of 18 and 25 were drafted into active military service. Women, children, and the aged would assist with gathering materials and making uniforms and bandages. Outdoor foundries were established in parks and squares for the forging of cannons and firearms. Peasants were to contribute surplus foodstuffs, wagons, and draught animals. The response was overwhelming. Even with the excesses of the Terror going on around them, the French people rallied in defense of their nation.

The result of the universal conscription law was to create a citizen army of 400,000 troops. The new armies were trained and led by a new breed of officers. The Revolution had opened the door for equality of opportunity and nowhere was this more evident than in the army. Officers were appointed and promoted on the basis of their demonstrated abilities rather than on their social status and family as was the case in the Old Regime. A young artillery officer who distinguished himself in the retaking of Toulon was promoted to the rank of general. He was 24 years old: his name was Napoleon Bonaparte.

By the summer of 1794, the French armies had taken the offensive against the First Coalition. By the end of 1795 French armies had reoccupied Savoy and Nice and conquered and occupied the Austrian Netherlands and the German Rhineland. All of these territories would be annexed to France. Prussia and Spain both made peace and withdrew from the war in 1795. Austria and Britain remained the only powers at war with France. The crisis had passed.

The Republic of Virtue

While the Jacobins were taking action against the enemies of the Revolution, they also sought to fulfill the Revolution through an impressive body of reform. In an effort to alleviate the severity of economic hardship on the urban poor, the Convention passed the Law of the Maximum (September 1793). This law was intended to check inflation by setting maximum prices for all purchases and maximum wages for all forms of labor. Because this law restricted the making of profit, it proved unpopular and unsuccessful. Nonetheless, it remained somewhat operative as it was enforced through the Law of Suspects.

Beyond the Law of the Maximum, the Convention undertook reforms that had a more lasting – and revolutionary – effect. Slavery was abolished in France and all of France's colonial territories. Women for the first time in French history were granted the right to own and inherit property. A commission was authorized to begin the codification of French law. Plans were undertaken to establish a system of free public education. The French system of weights and measures was standardized in today's metric system. Government offices for social services and public information were established. A national library and national museum (the Louvre) were established in Paris.

The cultural impact of the radical revolution was also profound. In his speeches to the Convention Robespierre lauded the emerging "republic of virtue" that France was becoming. All aspects of the Old Regime were to be purged from French life. The new model for society was to be ancient Rome – not the imperial Rome of the Caesars, but the virtuous Rome of the republic. Parents named their children after ancient Roman heroes such as Gracchus, Brutus, and Cato. The arts looked to ancient Rome for models, styles, and content.

The traditional forms of salutation, monsieur and mademoiselle, gave way to a more egalitarian citoyen and citoyenne (citizen). Protesting the aristocratic styles of dress, bourgeois men adopted the long, baggy trousers of the workers and peasants. Bourgeois women's fashions were modeled on the classic styles of the Romans.

To symbolize the separation of France from traditional society -and thinking- a new revolutionary calendar was implemented. Roman numerals would designate the years beginning with day one of year I of the Republic (September 22, 1792). There would be twelve months of three ten day weeks. Months would be known by new "natural" names (Brumaire, Ventose, Prairial, Thermidor, etc.). The tenth day of each week would be a day of rest and the celebrating of virtues. The five remaining days would be holidays for the celebration of the virtues of Genius, Labor, Noble Action, Awards, and Opinion. The revolutionary calendar antagonized workers who resented a nine-day work week. In 1803 Napoleon restored the traditional calendar.

The more extreme radicals thought that traditional religion prevented full realization of enlightened virtues and sought to replace Christianity with a new civil religion based on the Deist concept of an impersonal Supreme Being. In Paris the extremists had ordered the churches converted into "temples of reason." A Paris showgirl was even established in Nôtre Dame Cathedral as a "goddess of reason." In other cities churches were likewise desecrated and looted.

Robespierre cautioned against these excesses, fearing widespread alienation of the people. He attempted a less radical approach. In June 1794, Robespierre presided at a "Celebration of the Supreme Being" staged in Paris. At a huge open-air ceremony he set fire to wooden figures representing Atheism, Folly, and Vice. Because of a malfunction the white figure of Wisdom, mechanically contrived to emerge from the ashes, rose blackened and tilting. This was to have been Robespierre's great triumph. The crowd laughed: a disturbing portent of the future. Radicalism was losing its impetus.

The Thermidorean Reaction

The radicals would lose control of the Revolution by the end of July, 1794. The almost totalitarian system they had established in the name of liberty and virtue was dependent upon unity within their ranks. As long as there were enemies against whom to direct their energies the radicals remained unified. As the threat of counterrevolution and foreign invasion passed, the differences among them began to surface. By the spring of 1794, control of the Revolution was the prize in a power struggle within the radical leadership.

Within the Jacobins an extremist group led by Jacques Hébert wanted to speed up the Terror and raise its own army of revolutionary guards. The "Hébertists" were instrumental in the de-Christianization movement. Seeing them as dangerous, Robespierre sought to discredit the Hébertists in the Convention. The moderate delegates, afraid that Hébertist revolutionary enthusiasm might be aimed against them, sided with Robespierre. Hébert and other leading extremists were ordered arrested brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. In March 1794, they were guillotined and the threat from the extreme left was ended.

Robespierre, now undisputed head of the Committee of Public Safety, began to see a threat to his view of the Revolution in any who dared question his position on an issue. Immediately following the destruction of Hébert, Robespierre sought to consolidate his control by eliminating Danton. Danton, then in retirement from active government service, had been increasingly critical of the Terror. The extremes of revolutionary justice had gone too far and had seriously disrupted the life of the nation. Danton and his supporters, known as the "Indulgents," saw the purpose of the Terror as having been achieved and urged that it be stopped. In late March 1794 Robespierre’s confederate Saint-Just charged Danton and the Indulgents with treason. The Revolutionary Tribunal found them guilty and Danton was guillotined. “Show my head to the people,” Danton told the executioner, “it is worth it.”

In June 1794, the Convention passed the Law of 22 Prairial, which broadened the range of those who should be considered suspect of being counterrevolutionary. This measure revitalized the Terror by permitting conviction without evidence of guilt and requiring the death penalty for all convicted. By giving the Committee of Public Safety the power to indict public officials (including members of the Convention), the new law virtually made Robespierre undisputed dictator of France.

Fearing Robespierre, several leading Jacobins conspired to destroy him. The Terror, they felt, was out of control and had become Robespierre's personal instrument for ruling the country. On July 27, they struck. Earlier on the 26th Robespierre, hoping to win the support of the moderate majority, had addressed the Convention warning of a plot against him. In the Convention those involved in the conspiracy attempted to prevent him from speaking again, but he was able to force his way to the podium and appeal for support. In a confused debate, a motion calling for Robespierre's arrest was passed. Seeking the support of radical allies in the Commune, Robespierre fled to the city hall. When troops loyal to the Convention forced their way into the building, Robespierre attempted suicide. The gun misfired and the bullet shattered his jaw. Severely wounded, he was captured. Those members of the Commune who had attempted to help him were also arrested as were Saint-Just and others close to Robespierre. On July 28, the Revolutionary Tribunal, acting on the authority of the Law of 22 Prairial, found Robespierre and Saint-Just guilty. Later that day, both were guillotined. Seventy members of the Commune were executed the following day.

The fall of Robespierre and the end of the radical phase of the Revolution is known as the "Thermidorean Reaction," so-called because it began in the revolutionary month of Thermidor. Over the next few months the Convention acted to undo the abuses within the revolutionary government. The surviving Girondins and others who had been imprisoned were pardoned and allowed to return to the Convention. The Committee of Public Safety was reduced in power and staffed with moderates. The Law of 22 Prairial was revoked and the Revolutionary Tribunal was stripped of its extraordinary powers. The Paris Jacobin Club was closed. The Commune was abolished and Paris was put under the administration of committees appointed by the Convention. The Law of the Maximum was repealed. The radicals discredited and rebuked, the Convention moved increasingly to the right. The Revolution was about to enter its conservative phase.

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Illustrations are from Wikipedia sources.

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The list of sources for the French Revolution is at the end of the “Conservative Phase” section.

[1] What happened to the royal children? The victim of maltreatment and neglect, Prince Louis died in prison in 1795 at age ten. Marie Therese was rescued from prison by royalists in 1795 (she was 17) and taken to Austria where she was reunited with her uncles, Louis XVI’s brothers. She would return to France in 1815 and live until 1851.