page_title: Reign of Terror
section_title: Major events during the Terror
hierarchical_section_title: Reign of Terror / Major events during the Terror
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Exécution des Girondins, estampe.
context_page_description: The Reign of Terror, commonly The Terror, was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and spurious accusations of treason by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.
  There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the date as either 5 September, June or March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others, however, cite the earlier time of the September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789, when the first killing of the revolution occurred. There is a consensus that it ended with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794 and resulting Thermidorian Reaction. By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone; and an additional 10,000 died in prison, without trial, or under both of these circumstances.
context_section_description: On 10 March 1793 the National Convention set up the Revolutionary Tribunal. Among those charged by the tribunal, about half were acquitted (though the number dropped to about a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial on 10 June 1794). In March rebellion broke out in the Vendée in response to mass conscription, which developed into a civil war. Discontent in the Vendée lasted – according to some accounts—until after the Terror.
  On 6 April 1793 the National Convention established the Committee of Public Safety, which gradually became the de facto war-time government of France. The Committee oversaw the Reign of Terror. "During the Reign of Terror, at least 300,000 suspects were arrested; 17,000 were officially executed, and perhaps 10,000 died in prison or without trial."
  On 2 June 1793 the Parisian sans-culottes surrounded the National Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed-price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone. With the backing of the national guard, they persuaded the Convention to arrest 29 Girondist leaders. In reaction to the imprisonment of the Girondin deputies, some thirteen departments started the Federalist revolts against the National Convention in Paris, which were ultimately crushed.
  On 24 June 1793 the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, the French Constitution of 1793. It was ratified by public referendum, but never put into force.
  On 13 July 1793 the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat—a Jacobin leader and journalist—resulted in a further increase in Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king, was removed from the Committee of Public Safety on 10 July 1793. On 27 July 1793 Robespierre became part of the Committee of Public Safety.
  On 23 August 1793 the National Convention decreed the levée en masse:
  On 9 September the Convention established paramilitary forces, the "revolutionary armies", to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the imprisonment of vaguely defined "suspects". This created a mass overflow in the prison systems. On 29 September, the Convention extended price fixing from grain and bread to other essential goods, and also fixed wages.
  On 10 October the Convention decreed that "the provisional government shall be revolutionary until peace." On 24 October the French Republican Calendar was enacted. The trial of the Girondins started on the same day, they were executed on 31 October.
  Anti-clerical sentiments increased during 1793 and a campaign of dechristianization occurred. On 10 November (20 Brumaire Year II of the French Republican Calendar), the Hébertists organized a Festival of Reason.
  On 14 Frimaire (5 December 1793) the National Convention passed the Law of Frimaire, which gave the central government more control over the actions of the representatives on mission.
  On 16 Pluviôse (4 February 1794), the National Convention decreed the abolition of slavery in all of France and in French colonies.
  On 8 and 13 Ventôse (26 February and 3 March 1794), Saint-Just proposed decrees to confiscate the property of exiles and opponents of the revolution, known as the Ventôse Decrees.
  By the end of 1793, two major factions had emerged, both threatening the Revolutionary Government: the Hébertists, who called for an intensification of the Terror and threatened insurrection, and the Dantonists, led by Georges Danton, who demanded moderation and clemency. The Committee of Public Safety took actions against both. The major Hébertists were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed on 24 March. The Dantonists were arrested on 30 March, tried on 3 to 5 April and executed on 5 April.
  On 20 Prairial (8 June 1794) the Festival of the Supreme Being was celebrated across the country; this was part of the Cult of the Supreme Being, a deist national religion. On 22 Prairial (10 June), the National Convention passed a law proposed by Georges Cou
caption: The execution of the Girondins
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