FTE 6: The Terror

Question 1

The levee en masse was an important turning-point in the War of the First Coalition.

Answer 1

• Following the levée en masse there was reversal in the tide war, as the Army of the North lifted the siege of Maubeguen and defeated the Austrians at Wattignies in October 1793.
• France then pushed its enemies outside of its borders at the Battle of Fleurus in June 1794, expanding to reach its ‘natural frontiers’ of the Rhine in the north and the Alps in the south.

Question 2

The sans-culottes continued to force their wishes on the National Convention in September 1793.

Answer 2

• The introduction of the Law of Suspects, which allowed anyone accused of counter-revolutionary behaviour to be placed in custody, clearly demonstrates the influence of the sans culottes on the National Convention. This led to the arrest of 500,000 suspects.
• On 29 September 1793, a general maximum was introduced, something that sans culottes had demanded since June 1793.
• The National Convention were also forced to agree the armées revolutionnaires, armed groups of sans-culottes¬ who sought to arrest hoarders and counter-revolutionaries, and often enforced the unofficial policy of dechristianisation.

Question 3

The armées révolutionnaires were a destabilising force

Answer 3

• Grain hoarding was not a particularly common phenomenon, so the actions of the armées revolutionnaires only served to anger peasant farmers and undermine agricultural productivity.
• Dechristianisation deepened the divide within French society over religion and alienated many devout Catholics from the revolution.
• The armées revolutionnaires were effectively disbanded by the Law of Frimaire in December 1793, indicating that they were considered a destabilising force.

Question 4

The Committee of Public Safety became much more powerful following the Law of Frimaire.

Answer 4

• The law gave the CPS control over the Revolutionary Tribunal and the watch committees.
• All local officials, including representatives on mission and would have to practice their duties under the eye of a representative of central government, ensuring that they were loyal to the committee and not the people who had directly elected them
• All armées revolutionnaires, except that in Paris, were disbanded.

Question 5

Robespierre was an important defender of the Committee’s power during this period.

Answer 5

• Robespierre resisted calls from his friends Danton and Desmoulins and the Indulgents to scale down the Terror, making two major speeches in the Convention in December 1793 and February 1794.
• Robespierre defended the Terror in the Jacobin club, and had his former friends expelled. He agreed to the arrest and trial of the ‘Indulgents’, which led to their execution.
• Robespierre was also opposed to the excesses of dechristianisation, and engineered the downfall of Hébert when he criticised the CPS.

Question 6

Representatives-on-mission oversaw savage reprisals against suspected counter-revolutionary rebels in the provinces.

Answer 6

• Collot d’Herbois, representative for Lyon, ordered the execution of over 1,900 people following the defeat of the federalist uprising, as well as renaming the town ‘Ville Affranché.
• In the Vendée, the representative Carrier oversaw the drowning of hundreds of priests (noyades) in the Loire. Troops also employed a scorched earth policy, burning food and killing innocent civilians.

Question 7

The Revolutionary Tribunal usually made a genuine attempt to separate the innocent from the guilty.

Answer 7

• The Revolutionary Tribunal acquitted roughly 50% of the cases brought before it between March 1793 and May 1794; there was usually a genuine attempt to distinguish the innocent from the guilty.
• The ‘show trials’ of political figures such as Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, the Indulgents and the Hébertists were the exception.

Question 8

Robespierre’s personal authority was strengthened following the fall of the Hébertists in March 1794.

Answer 8

• Following the purge of the Hébertists, all political clubs except the Jacobin club were banned.
• The Parisian armée revolutionnaire, long opposed by Robespierre, was disbanded.
• The Commune was purged and filled with supporters of Robespierre.
• Robespierre become the head of an internal police bureau from May 1794.

Question 9

Danton was seen as a dangerous spokesman for ‘indulgence’ in early 1794.

Answer 9

• Danton was an experienced revolutionary who had been involved in the uprisings of 14 July 1789 and 10 August 1792. He was a powerful orator who could have effectively rallied opposition to the Terror in the National Convention if he attempted to do so.
• Many leading Montagnards and members of the CPS genuinely feared that abandoning the war and the Terror would have enabled the counter-revolutionary forces to regroup and attack France once again.
• Danton was expelled from the Jacobin Club and arrested on 30 March, the next day a series of charges were concocted, and he was tried and executed within a week

Question 10

June-July 1794 was the height of the ‘Great Terror’ in Paris.

Answer 10

• Under the Law of Prairal (10 June 1794), no witnesses could be called before the revolutionary Tribunal, defendants did not have the right to legal counsel, and the only verdicts possible were acquittal or death.
• The Tribunal sent over 1,594 people to their deaths in this period, more than in the previous 14 months.