The French Revolution deeply marked the Western world, to the point that it is considered the inaugural event of the Contemporary Age. Political practices carried out during the Revolution, such as legislative actions, and the revolutionary terror. But what was the revolutionary terror?
The origin of the name refers to the actions carried out by the government commanded by the Jacobins between September 1793 and July 1794. The name terror was given by the opponents of the Jacobins, as they were usually the targets of actions, which consisted mainly of execution on the guillotine, where the condemned lost their heads, literally.
The death of journalist, doctor and writer Jean-Paul Marat – the Friend of the People, close to the sans-culottes – in July 1793, by Charlote Corday, linked to the Girondins, was what triggered the actions of the terror phase of the Revolution French.
On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI had already been guillotined. But the rise of Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre in place of Georges Danton, in September 1793, turned the execution of opponents into a common practice after the accusations of actions counterrevolutionaries. It was almost always enough that there was an accusation of actions against the revolutionary government for the sentence of execution to be handed down.
Marie Antoinette, the former queen, was the symbol of the executions on Robespierre's right, which still focused on members of the aristocracy and clergy. It is estimated that approximately 35 thousand people were executed in the period, 15% of which were aristocrats and members of the clergy, and the rest would be members of the bourgeoisie, peasantry and urban workers.
Persecution and arrests were common with revolutionary terror in France
This latest information indicates that Robespierre began to condemn even his former supporters. Hébert and Danton, prominent Jacobin leaders, were guillotined in early 1794. Terror against opponents ended up isolating Robespierre, who lost popular support.
On July 27, 1794 (9 terminator, according to the revolutionary calendar), the bourgeoisie regained power in the Convention. The Jacobins were deprived of power, being persecuted and executed, as were the sans-culottes. Robespierre was guillotined in April.
The Thermidorian Convention, as the period later became known, was marked by another terror, the white terror. Right-wing youths began to roam the streets of Paris to intimidate and execute sans-culotte leaders, in addition to assaulting republican clubs. These situations showed that political persecution was not a monopoly of either the right or the left.
By Tales PINto
Master in History
