Reign of Terror Helpful or Harmful

The Reign of Terror was one of the most bloodiest and violent periods in the history of France. The Terror lasted thirteen months and with it saw the law of Maximum, which in theory was supposed to help with the food storages France had dealt with since 1788. But in practice, caused insufficient amounts of food getting into the cities and caused the food shortage to worsen. The Terror also brought the de-Christianisation of France, which led to the loss of approximately ten percent of all constitutional priests and resulted in the French citizens having to practice their religion in clandestine from the government. Finally, with the Terror came the rule of Maxilmilien de Robespierre, he was the cause of the Terror starting in the beginning. The rule of Robespierre was one of mass execution, as he believed that anyone who didn’t agree with his ideas of equality and rights for all were deserved to be sent to the guillotine. Through these points it is needless to say the Reign of Terror was unquestionably harmful to the French citizens.

The introduction of the law of Maximum was damaging to the citizens of France, as it caused the food shortages that started in the winter of 1788 to worsen. On September 29 1793, the law of Maximum was brought on to control the prices of essential items and services. The peasants detested this because the price these goods and services were being sold at was generally less than the cost of production. As peasant farmers were in control of most of the harvest, they would simply stop sowing their crops or start hoarding them if they were not making any profit. This affected the citizens as fewer amounts of food made their way into the cities and worsened the food shortages that had already been going fo...

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...d Citizen, which states that ‘as all are innocent until they shall have been declared guilty’ (No. 9 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen) yet he was arresting and executing possibly innocent people all because they had their own views that were different to his. This reinstates the idea that the Reign of Terror was harmful to the citizens of France because with the Terror came the leadership of Robespierre who accused and executed citizens of France without a fair trial.

The Reign of Terror, a period in time in which many were left to starve due to unproductive laws, Christianity was abolished and became an offense to practice and approximately 400,000 citizens were accused and killed by the guillotine without a fair trial. Through identifying these facts it is essentially to say that the Reign of Terror was undeniably detrimental to the citizens of France.