Napoleon's Metamorphosis: The Law Of Suspects

While France was under control of the dictator-like Maximilian Robespierre in the early months of 1793, he and the Committee of Public Safety claimed that their goal was to “protect the Revolution from its enemies.” The actions that they took approaching the middle and end of the year did not appear to have this same goal in mind though.
In September of 1793, Robespierre and the Jacobins released a new law: The Law of Suspects. This law gave cause for the imprisonment and executions of thousands, as well as impede freedoms of speech. Any one “who, by their conduct , associations, comments, or writings...{had} shown themselves partisans of tyranny or federalism and enemies of liberty”(Law of Suspects) would be “deemed a suspect” and “placed

in custody”(Law of Suspects). Although it may seem, at a glance, that this law would have protected the Revolution from moles, spies, and traitors; it made everyone fearful of being accused of being such, in turn causing them to blame or accuse others of this crime.
This fear of being suspected and accused of tyrannus crime contributes to the time’s name: The Reign of Terror. The goal of The Committee of Public Safety was most definitely to control the people by fear, not to protect the revolution. A goal of the Revolution was to abolish dictator- or monarch-like rule, and when the Committee of Public Safety and the Jacobins became in charge, their acts and laws did not follow this line of thought, making them enemies of the Revolution, enemies of peace, enemies of human rights.