France > French History > Reign of terror after the revolution

The Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror started around 15 months after the beginning of the French Revolution, when struggles between rival factions led to the people involved wanting to sort everything out. This led to violence and mass executions of enemies of the revolution.

The official start date of the Reign of Terror was 5th September 1793. The Reign of Terror was at it’s largest during June and July of 1794 when several members of the Reign of Terror were themselves executed. The Terror took the lives of about 40,000 French men and woman.

During the “Reign of Terror”, everyone was afraid that that day would be their last day to live, because anyone reported to be dubious of being a traitor to the new government would be taken in account and the persons would be taken captive and later beheaded at the guillotine.

In summer of 1794, France was threatened by both inside enemies as well as conspirators, and by foreign European monarchies fearing that it would spread. Almost all European governments in that period were based on monarchy rather than the popular independence declared by the revolutionary French.

Foreign powers wanted to restrain the democratic and republican ideas, which they feared would pose a threat to their own particular government solidity. Their armies were pressing on the border of France, leading the new Republic into a series of wars against its monarchist neighbours. Foreign powers had already threatened the French population with retaliation if they did not free King Louis XVI and reinstate him as a monarch. The Prussian Duke of Brunswick threatened to filch Paris if the Parisians dared to touch the royal family, which only enraged Paris.

Louis XVI himself was suspected of conspiring with foreign powers who wished to invade France and restore absolute monarchy. The former French nobility, having lost its inherited privileges, had a stake in the failure of the Revolution. The Roman Catholic Church as well was generally against the Revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state and had required that they take an oath of loyalty to the nation. About half of the clergy, mainly in western France, refused the oath, making them known as disobedient priests.

Members of the Catholic clergy and the former nobility entered into conspiracies, often calling upon foreign military involvement. In the western region known as the Vendée, priests and former nobles led a small revolution, which began in spring 1793 and was supported by Great Britain. The reconciliation of the region was so brutal that some historians claim the actions of the revolutionaries constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.

Finally on the 27th June 1794 the Reign of Terror was at an end due to the decisive military victory over Austria at the Battle of Fleurus, Robespierre was overthrown by a conspiracy of certain members of the Convention.