The Reign of Terror
History is said to be written by the winners, but is it possible to
rewrite history? In a way, the French, like many who have preceded them, and
many who will proceed them have done the impossible, rewriting history. From
trivial folklore, such as George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, to the
incredibly wrong, the African slave trade; people's views of history can be
shaped and molded. The French have done a superb job of instilling all of us
with the concept that their Revolution was a fight for liberty, justice and the
good of all Frenchmen everywhere. Their glorification of the Bastille with it's
depictions in painting and sculpture and how the Revolution was the beginning of
a new age pales to some of the events during this period. In fact, the storming
of the Bastille was merely a hole in the dike, and more would follow. The
National Guard, the Paris Commune, the September Massacre, are all words that
the French would prefer us not to hear. These events were a subtle dénouementto
an climax that was filled with both blood and pain. The Reign of Terror, or the
Great Terror, was a massive culmination to the horror of the French Revolution,
the gutters flowing with blood as the people of Paris watched with an
entertained eye. No matter what the French may claim, if one chooses to open
his eyes and read about this tragedy, they are most certainly welcome.
The revolution begins quietly in the fiscal crisis of Louis XVI's reign.
The government was running deeply into bankruptcy, and at the urging of his
financial advisors, he called the Estates General. The governing body had not
been called for almost two centuries, and now it's workings seemed outdated. A
small number of people said that the Third Estate, that which was drawn from the
towns, should have power to equal the other Estates. Clubs of the bourgeoisie,
the middle class, were formed, proclaiming, "Salus populi lex est." It was a
simple cry meaning "the welfare of the people is law." To these people, the
Estates General was like a pair of shoes that no longer fit. Reformed seemed
iminent, the phrase, "The Third Estate is not an order, it is the nation itself"
began to circulate.1
With much fanfare and circumstance, the three estates were called
together. However, on trying to meet, the Third Estate found the doors to t...
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depiction of man at his worst. The sad truth is that events of this nature have
occurred with amazing regularity. Perhaps if the Reign of Terror was just one
appalling moment of human cruelty, the world would be a different place. With
such things as the Gulag, the Holocaust, the African Slave Trade, and even
returning back to ancient times of the Assyrians and the Crusades, man has been
known to slaughter his brethren wholesale. We are a race, bred with violence
coursing through our veins, and we can do little about it. Perhaps my
speculations are wrong, but if such tragedies have occurred over and over, can
we truly ever change. The Reign of Terror is just the culmination to the
bloodiness and the atrocities of the French Revolution. It is quite ironic that
a Revolution based on the ideals of Reason and the fight for the people, would
kill over thirty thousand of their countrymen. In conclusion, the Reign of
Terror was the climax of this terrible Revolution. The violence and paranoia of
the sans culottes, the lust for political power in the convention, and the petty
differences of one person to another finally reached a head, exploding into a
mass execution.
Under the rule of Louis XVI, the people of France were divided into three main social classes or estates as they are called. The First Estate featured wealthy members of the Church such as Bishops and Priests who held great political power due to their influence on government affairs. The Second Estate was a class comprised of the wealthy nobles and political officials who held all power in government affairs.
Sieyes also identifies the reality that if as a society if we were to remove the nobility that The Third Estate could in fact run on its own, if not “something less but something more”. In fact, society as a whole might actually go better without the two others but would cease to exists without The Third Estate. Sieyes actually goes as far to say that the nobility are a “burden for the nation and it cannot be a part of it.” Sieyes speaks to not only the social inequality between the classes but the lack of political representation of more than what is ninety percent of the population. Then nobility itself possess their own representation that was not appointed by the majority, who does not owe any powers to the people due to divinity, and finally it is foreign for the fact that it’s interests lie with private concern rather than public. In chapter two of What is the Third Estate Sieyes proclaims that up until now The Third Estate has been nothing and reform is coming. He says “Freedom does not derive from
Beginning in mid-1789, and lasting until late-1799, the French Revolution vastly changed the nation of France throughout its ten years. From the storming of the Bastille, the ousting of the royal family, the Reign of Terror, and all the way to the Napoleonic period, France changed vastly during this time. But, for the better part of the last 200 years, the effects that the French Revolution had on the nation, have been vigorously debated by historian and other experts. Aspects of debate have focused around how much change the revolution really caused, and the type of change, as well as whether the changes that it brought about should be looked at as positive or negative. Furthermore, many debate whether the Revolutions excesses and shortcomings can be justified by the gains that the revolution brought throughout the country. Over time, historians’ views on these questions have changed continually, leading many to question the different interpretations and theories behind the Revolutions effectiveness at shaping France and the rest of the world.
Even though, the French Revolution saw the Terror as a sign to create peace and restore a new France, it was not justified because the extremities of the internal and external threats spun out of control and the methods of the period were over the top. As the Reign of Terror in France grew and invoked fear, the internal threats became more radical and deadly. The French Revolution began in 1789 as an attempt to create a new and fair government. (Doc A) As year four of freedom lurched, the thirst for power in Maximilien Robespierre stirred and the hunger for more blood provoked him, urging him to create the Reign of Terror.
To a moderate extent the Reign of Terror (1792 – 1795) was essential to achieve social reform in France because despite the gruesome number of deaths of both the guilty and innocent, it was a necessary evil that had preserved the fruits of the revolution through the unity the reign of terror brought. The radical men that led France into Terror, though their intentions might not have been pure, the call for the Reign of Terror was the right one as it was constructive and therapeutic. If there had not been a Reign of Terror during the Revolution (1789 – 1795), then a more violent and much worse uprising of the san-culottes would have occurred instead. Keith Michael Baker (1990) declared that political choices made in 1789 meant that revolutionaries
The Abbe Sieyes, "What Is the Third Estate?"(1789), in Perry Rogers, ed., Aspects of Western Civilization: Problemsand Sources in History, vol. II (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000), 108-110.
As such, despite their overwhelming majority, both in the meeting halls of the Estates General and throughout the country, the commons had little power. Historians Mora Ozouf and Keith Baker have both discussed the significance of the emergence of the public sphere during this period which gave rise to hundreds of political satires, pamphlets and cartoons which were used to devastating effect to decry the lack of influence the Third Estate was able to exert. Through these mediums, the commons began to question the legitimacy of a strictly hierarchical society and, even more troublingly as far as the upper estates were concerned, started to suggest that the Third Estate, by virtue of their labours, were the only true citizens of the French Nation, as articulated in Father Sieyes pamphlet ‘What is the Third Estate.’ It seems that instead of engaging with these issues, the king ‘surrendered to reactionary elements at court’, most noticeably the Princes of the Blood who, in December of 1788 had issued a Third Estate in anticipation of the Estate General. On June 17 the representatives of the Third Estate broke from the wider Estates General and declared that they now made up a new National Assembly, a single representative body in which deputies from all three estates would debate in common.
On July 14, 1789, several starving working people of Paris and sixty soldiers seized control of the Bastille, forever changing the course of French history. The seizing of the Bastille wasn’t caused by one event, but several underlying causes such as the Old
The French Revolution, known for the political intrigue present during its course, specifically contained the highest quantity and quality of political intrigue within the Reign of Terror. This aptly named “Reign of Terror” lasted for around eleven months from September 1793 to July 1794, during which a handful a men belonging to a Committee of Public Safety, hereinafter referred to as the “CPS”, ruled as the executive branch of French Government, supplemented by a larger National Convention. Elected to serve by their peers in the National Convention, nine men were selected to lead the French Government, one of them being Georges Danton. Soon after, however, more radical individuals replaced the moderates led by Georges Danton in the CPS. One
The Reign of Terror did the opposite of what was intended. The goal was to eliminate the people who were either indifferent or against the revolution, but in turn also executed a large amount of those who were in favor of it. Along with the intense amount of annihilation, there was also a vast amount of property that was damaged or stolen. Edifices such prisons and castles were decimated by the carelessness of the revolutionaries (E. 2011). With major financial instability, the unstable political climate proved to be trivial for the commoners. With a rising inflation and unemployment rate, if they did not change something the financial status of the country would prove to me lethal (Llewellyn & Thompson, 2015). The new coalition combined with the urge to expand the revolutionary ideas helped bring France to war with its neighboring countries. This adds to the financial instability and violence that had already engulfed the country (Linton,
When they were advancing toward the Bastille, “five to six thousand armed bourgeois penetrated the Bastille’s outer courtyards”. Seeing their advancements the enemy began firing at the bourgeois, while their “cannon fired on the town, and the people took fright; a large number of individuals were killed or wounded”. Yet this did not stop the riled up bourgeois who proceeded in taking over the Bastille. As they went further inside, women and children of the town began to help in ways they could. The children would “after the discharge of fire from the fortress, run here and there picking up the bullets and shot”, showing that they were willing to do anything they could to help win the revolution.
The French Revolution was a time were people started to want different things. The French people wanted popular sovereignty and inalienable rights. The French Revolution basically missed its mark and caused thousands of pointless deaths. The Revolution ultimately caused more bad than good. But it helped shaped nations by showing how the will of the people contributed to reformation. The Revolution was started in 1789. The Reign of Terror started in 1793. The government of the Revolution decided that all of the aristocrats and nobles were enemies of the Revolution. The Reign of Terror started in The executions started in Paris. The first person to be executed by the guillotine was Marie Antoinette. The guillotine was used for over 17,000 executions
Sieyès argued that the “third estate”, the commoners of France, was a nation within itself and did not need to rely on the first and second estates which consisted of clergy and aristocracy. He encouraged the people that they needed honest representatives of the Estates-General which would be equal representation of the people by the people and not by order. Sieyès also points out that the first and second estates look down upon the third estate which results in them being treated unfairly. He proclaims that since the third estate makes up for most of France’s population, it should replace the other two states
It motivated the Third Estate to want change. France was divided into three estates. The First Estate consisted of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Estate consisted of rich nobles. The Third Estate consisted of the middle and lower class. France was the center of Enlightenment, as a matter of fact the Enlightenment reached its peak in the mid 1700s in France. The Third Estate supported the Enlightenment ideas of equality and freedom. Using Enlightenment ideas the Third Estate began to demand equality and freedom.Their views consisted of Enlightenment ideas and thus they wanted to make changes to the government. Enlightenment ideas such as natural rights were expressed in the French Revolution by the National Assembly. The National Assembly wanted to make commoners have equal rights as the clergy and nobles. Revolutionary individuals had the expression “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” as their slogan. This reflects major ideas of the Enlightenment. It reflects ideas of Voltaire, his idea of natural rights was the foundation for the “Declaration of the Rights of man” which was a document of the French Revolution. A Legislative Assembly was created that was able to create laws; however, the king still had executive power. This is similar to the separation of powers, an idea raised in the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, many philosophers hoped for a democratic style of government. They wanted to change the government. Influenced by that France transformed the monarch to a Republic. This also represents Rousseau’s ideas of individual freedom because a republic government represents individual freedom. Conclusively, the French Revolution was affected by Enlightenment
In conclusion, revolution is an important reform tool that should be used only when needed. Making revolutions’ decisions should be taken carefully to avoid any harmful consequences. In addition, when things go wrong, there should be a higher organization to protect people.