Reign Of Terror In France example essay topic

The French Revolution was one of the most traumatic events in human history. Over seven million people may have died as a result. The immediate reason was the financial crisis caused by French support for the American Revolution. France invested 2 billion pieces of silver to win the war.

Her tax system could only support the government during peace. A war called for extraordinary measures. This was the beginning of the first phase of the revolution, which is referred to as the Aristocratic Revolution. The aristocrats saw this crisis as an opportunity to reassert their power. The French Finance Minister, Necker (1776-1781) didn't use new taxation to finance the war, he borrowed the money. In 1781, he published the Compte Rendu - which was the first budget the people of France had ever seen.

It showed a budget surplus of ten million pieces of silver and Necker was hailed as a hero of the Enlightenment throughout Europe. His budget, however, was a fabrication. France was actually 80,000,000 pieces of silver in debt. When Calonne became finance minister in 1783, he found over half of France's income went to pay the interest on the debt and the debt was increasing at the rate of 100,000,000 a year. Soon France would not be able to borrow any more money. She had to either repudiate the debt or find new taxes.

Repudiating the debt was out of the question because governments have to be able to borrow money. They need to borrow to bridge the gap between the yearly arrival of tax revenues. The only course open was to find new taxation. The problem was who to tax? The peasants and artisans were already taxed to the limit. New taxes would have to be put on the aristocracy and the clergy.

The Parlement registered new edicts and the nobility controlled it. The problem would be getting the taxes through the Parlement. Calonne called together an assembly of notables in 1787, hoping to gain momentum for reform. The notables refused to back the new taxes, because they didn't believe there was a deficit. The notables believed Necker's Compte Rendu. Calonne and Necker traded charges and insults and King Louis XVI fired Calonne.

Louise XVI hired the head of the notables - Brienne - to be his new finance minister in 1787. Brienne reviewed the budget and realized that Calonne had been telling the truth, but when he presented his case to the notables, they no longer trusted him. Brienne went to the Parlement on June 23, 1787. The Parlement refused to register the new tax edicts and said only the Estates General could enact new taxation. The Estates General was the legislative body of France and had not been called together in a hundred years. Louis XVI ordered the Parlement to register his new taxation edicts.

At this point, Louis XIV would have sent in troops to shoot down the members of the Parlement - but Louis XVI was not as tough as Louis XIV and he only banned the Parlement. Protests against the King's action broke out all over France. Louis XVI backed down on November 19, 1787 and called the Parlement back. On May 3, 1788, Parlement issued the Fundamental Laws. These stated, among other things, that new taxes have to come from the Estates General. Louis XVI's reaction was to exile Parlement and to set up a new Parlement.

However, riots started throughout France. These were so severe that the French government ceased functioning. Louis XIV would have sent in the army, but Louis XVI backed down. Brienne called for opinions as to how the Estates General should be set up on July 5, 1788. Unfortunately, for the French government his statement ended censorship, since all you had to do was relate what you were talking about to choosing an Estates General. As a result, political discussions ran rampant and all of France became stirred-up by the political rhetoric.

Brienne resigned on August 25, 1788 and the King brought Necker back. Necker was able to secure an 80,000,000 pieces of silver loan to keep France from bankruptcy. The King called back the Parlement on September 25 and it called for the Estates General. At this point, the Aristocratic Revolution ended. They had achieved their goal. They believed they would control the Estates General and through the Estates General they would rule France.

The next phase of the French Revolution is known as the Bourgeois Revolution. This is when, unexpectedly, the middle class came to dominate the Revolution. On October 5, 1788 the Assembly of Notables met and set up the Estates General. There were three estates: the Aristocracy, the Clergy and everyone else. The normal procedure was to vote by order.

The Aristocrats also controlled the Clergy and they thus had two votes and controlled the Estates General. However, members of the Third Estate argued for doubling the number of representatives in the Third Estate since they made up 99% of the population, and voting by head instead of by order. With the addition of Liberal Noble and Clergy votes, the Third Estate would control the Estates General. The Aristocrats were shocked and went to the King on December 12, 1788 and declared that the "state was in peril!" The Nobles wanted to stop the Revolution. The King rejected their concern and was in favor of doubling the Third Estate and voting by head, because he believed the Third Estate would grant his request for taxing the Nobility and Clergy.

The economic situation in France in 1788 was very bad because of a poor harvest. Men who starve are not revolutionary, but they are rebellious. Rural rioting over food shortages took place throughout France. There was a break down of law and order.

The army became exhausted and cities formed their own militias. January 4, 1789 the rules for the election of the Estates General were issued. Any noble with a fief could be elected. If you were 25 and paid taxes you could be chosen to serve in the Third Estate.

Bishops and priests could be picked and order could send a representative. Conservatives dominated the Aristocracy, but radicals controlled the Clergy and Third Estate. On May 1, 1789 the Estates General opened and on May 5, 1789, speeches were made. The Crown made the mistake of not presenting a plan for reform. Without leadership from the King, the Estates drifted to the left. While the nobles and Third Estate were able to organize themselves, the Clergy could not and asked for a conference.

On June 10th, the Third Estate invited the Aristocracy and Clergy to join them. A large number of Clergy did just that and they changed their name to the National Assembly on June 15th. On June 20th, they found themselves locked out and went to a nearby indoor tennis court and swore not to disband until a constitution had been written. The Nobles joined them on June 23rd.

The King ordered them to separate into orders, but they refused. The King sent in troops. The Nobles convinced the troops to leave! The King backed down on June 27th and ordered the Estates to meet together.

The King also ordered his mercenary troops to march on Paris. The Assembly asked the King to withdraw his troops - he refused. Was the King preparing for a coup d'etat or was he just providing extra security? We do not know.

Necker and the cabinet were dismissed by the King on July 11th. People felt the King was going to try a coup. On July 12th crowds gathered to hear radical speeches. The crowd started to riot and mercenary troops opened fire and called on the regular army for help.

The regular troops arrived and fired on the mercenaries, who retreated. Early on July 13th, the regular army joined the mob. The crowd set up a government of Paris with a 48,000-man militia. The new militia needed arms and gunpowder. They seized arms, but the powder was in the Bastille. The Bastille was a prison fortress guarded by mercenary troops.

The mob was fired upon and driven back by the mercenary troops at the Bastille. The Bastille's commandant sent for help from the regular army. The regular army arrived and opened fire on the Bastille. The mercenary troops surrendered and were promptly massacred by the mob. A foretaste of the horror to come. Lafayette was made the head of the National Guard and invented the tricolor flag of France.

Louis XVI went to Paris and said he accepted the Revolution. Meanwhile, a peasant revolt covered the rest of France. Local governments were overturned and new militias were created. On August 4, the National Assembly destroyed the feudal order.

The Aristocracy ceased to exist and the serfs were freed. At this point, a political, economic and social revolution had taken place in France. The National Assembly took charge of naming clergy in 1790, which was condemned by the Pope and led to a counter-revolution. The Assembly passed a constitution in 1791. Louis didn't trust the new government and tried to escape, but was caught on June 21, 1791, at Varennes. The government announced the King had been kidnapped and rescued!

The revolutionaries of France declared war on Austria and Prussia in 1792 and on England and Spain in 1793. They saw this as preventive war to protect the revolution. The wars would last till 1815. The French government elected in 1791, was overthrown in a coup by the leftist Jacobins in September 1792. They called the new government the Convention and declared a republic on September 22nd. They started writing a new constitution and put the King on trial.

Louis was found guilty of treason on January 14, 1793 and was executed January 21st. Later, his wife and children were executed or murdered. Mass executions of anyone suspected of treason began as soon as the new government took over. Extreme radicals - called the Mountain - seized power on September 5, 1793, and created the Committee of Public Safety.

The new government started writing another constitution and accelerated executions. So many were being killed that it seemed no one would be left alive except the members of the committee. A counter-revolution called the Thermidor Reaction overthrew the Committee on July 27, 1794. They wrote the Constitution of 1795, which created the Directory. The new government began mass executions of radicals. With the war not going well and with Catholics still fighting for their religion inside France, the people were looking for a savior.

Maximillian Robespierre The death of Maximillian Robespierre. 2-42 Cock, dogs and cats will be satiated with blood And from the wound of the tyrant found dead In the bed of another, legs and arms broken He who was not afraid, will die a cruel death. The Cock is the emblem of France, and the dogs and cats are the rabble, or the French mob. When they are satiated with death, then the tyrant who directed it all, will suffer an even worse fate and cruel death.

The tyrant he is speaking of was Maximillian Robespierre, who was elected the first Deputy of Paris to the National Convention in the year 1792. He began the reign of terror in France, but by July of 1794, his power was gone. He was later himself imprisoned by the Council and sentenced to be guillotined. He tried to escape by climbing out of the window, but he only fell to the street below and seriously injured himself. Next, he tried to commit suicide, and aimed a pistol at his head - he only succeeded in smashing his jaw. He was taken unconscious to the antechamber of the Committee of Public Safety, where he spent the night.

The next day, he was carried to his execution by guillotine on July 29, 1794, to die a cruel death, as the prophet promises. 8-65 The old one disappointed in his principal hope He will attain to the head of his empire Twenty months he will hold the realm with great power Tyrant, cruel, giving way to one worse. On September 21, 1792 Robespierre was elected to the Commune of Paris. He went on after this, to rise to almost supreme power, and ruled for 20 months as the prophet says here, from September 21 1792 until July 27 1794 at which time he himself was executed.

9-47 The undersigned to an infamous deliverance And having contrary advice from the multitude The monarch changed, they will be put in danger over thought Shut up in a cage they will see each other face to face. This quatrain tells us in the first line, that the undersigned, that is those who signed their signatures to the King's death warrant, will be themselves, later cast in prison and executed, as indeed happened. Note that in the numbering of this quatrain 9-47, we are given three digits of the date July 29, 1794 when Robespierre was executed. Citizens, Representatives of the People: Some time since we laid before you the principles of our exterior political system, we now come to develop the principles of political morality which are to govern the interior. After having long pursued the path which chance pointed out, carried away in a manner by the efforts of contending factions, the Representatives of the People at length acquired a character and produced a form of government. A sudden change in the success of the nation announced to Europe the regeneration which was operated in the national representation.

But to this point of time, even now that I address you, it must be allowed that we have been impelled thro' the tempest of a revolution, rather by a love of right and a feeling of the wants of our country, than by an exact theory, and precise rules of conduct, which we had not even leisure to sketch. It is time to designate clearly the purposes of the revolution and the point which we wish to attain: It is time we should examine ourselves the obstacles which yet are between us and our wishes, and the means most proper to realize them: A consideration simple and important which appears not yet to have been contemplated. Indeed, how could a base and corrupt government have dared to view themselves in the mirror of political rectitude? A king, a proud senate, a Caesar, a Cromwell; of these the first care was to cover their dark designs under the cloak of religion, to covenant with every vice, caress every party, destroy men of probity, oppress and deceive the people in order to attain the end of their perfidious ambition. If we had not had a task of the first magnitude to accomplish; if all our concern had been to raise a party or create a new aristocracy, we might have believed, as certain writers more ignorant than wicked asserted, that the plan of the French revolution was to be found written in the works of Tacitus and of Machiavel; we might have sought the duties of the representatives of the people in the history of Augustus, of Tiberius, or of Vespasian, or even in that of certain French legislators; for tyrants are substantially alike and only differ by trifling shades of perfidy and cruelty. For our part we now come to make the whole world partake in your political secrets, in order that all friends of their country may rally at the voice of reason and public interest, and that the French nation and her representatives be respected in all countries which may attain a knowledge of their true principles; and that intriguers who always seek to supplant other intriguers may be judged by public opinion upon settled and plain principles.

Every precaution must early be used to place the interests of freedom in the hands of truth, which is eternal, rather than in those of men who change; so that if the government forgets the interests of the people or falls into the hands of men corrupted, according to the natural course of things, the light of acknowledged principles should unmask their treasons, and that every new faction may read its death in the very thought of a crime. Happy the people that attains this end; for, whatever new machinations are plotted against their liberty, what resources does not public reason present when guaranteeing freedom! What is the end of our revolution? The tranquil enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice, the laws of which are graven, not on marble or stone, but in the hearts of men, even in the heart of the slave who has forgotten them, and in that of the tyrant who disowns them.

We wish that order of things where all the low and cruel passions are enchained, all the beneficent and generous passions awakened by the laws; where ambition subsists in a desire to deserve glory and serve the country: where distinctions grow out of the system of equality, where the citizen submits to the authority of the magistrate, the magistrate obeys that of the people, and the people are governed by a love of justice; where the country secures the comfort of each individual, and where each individual prides himself on the prosperity and glory of his country; where every soul expands by a free communication of republican sentiments, and by the necessity of deserving the esteem of a great people: where the arts serve to embellish that liberty which gives them value and support, and commerce is a source of public wealth and not merely of immense riches to a few individuals. We wish in our country that morality may be substituted for egotism, probity for false honour, principles for usages, duties for gold manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, a contempt of vice for a contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence, magnanimity for vanity, the love of glory for the love of money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for tinsel show, the attractions of happiness for the ennui of sensuality, the grandeur of man for the littleness of the great, a people magnanimous, powerful, happy, for a people amiable, frivolous and miserable; in a word, all the virtues and miracles of a Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities of a Monarchy. We wish, in a word, to fulfill the intentions of nature and the destiny of man, realize the promises of philosophy, and acquit providence of a long reign of crime and tyranny. That France, once illustrious among enslaved nations, may, by eclipsing the glory of all free countries that ever existed, become a model to nations, a terror to oppressors, a consolation to the oppressed, an ornament of the universe and that, by sealing the work with our blood, we may at least witness the dawn of the bright day of universal happiness. This is our ambition, - this is the end of our efforts... Since virtue and equality are the soul of the republic, and that your aim is to found, to consolidate the republic, it follows, that the first rule of your political conduct should be, to let all your measures tend to maintain equality and encourage virtue, for the first care of the legislator should be to strengthen the principles on which the government rests.

Hence all that tends to excite a love of country, to purify manners, to exalt the mind, to direct the passions of the human heart towards the public good, you should adopt and establish. All that tends to concenter and debase them into selfish egotism, to awaken an infatuation for little nesses, and a disregard for greatness, you should reject or repress. In the system of the French revolution that which is immoral is impolitic, and what tends to corrupt is counter-revolutionary. Weaknesses, vices, prejudices are the road to monarchy.

Carried away, too often perhaps, by the force of ancient habits, as well as by the innate imperfection of human nature, to false ideas and pusillanimous sentiments, we have more to fear from the excesses of weakness, than from excesses of energy. The warmth of zeal is not perhaps the most dangerous rock that we have to avoid; but rather that languor which ease produces and a distrust of our own courage. Therefore continually wind up the sacred spring of republican government, instead of letting it run down. I need not say that I am not here justifying any excess. Principles the most sacred may be abused: the wisdom of government should guide its operations according to circumstances, it should time its measures, choose its means; for the manner of bringing about great things is an essential part of the talent of producing them, just as wisdom is an essential attribute of virtue...

It is not necessary to detail the natural consequences of the principle of democracy, it is the principle itself, simple yet copious, which deserves to be developed. Republican virtue may be considered as it respects the people and as it respects the government. It is necessary in both. When however, the government alone want it, there exists a resource in that of the people; but when the people themselves are corrupted liberty is already lost. Happily virtue is natural in the people, [despite] aristocratical prejudices. A nation is truly corrupt, when, after having, by degrees lost its character and liberty, it slides from democracy into aristocracy or monarchy; this is the death of the political body by decrepitude...

But, when, by prodigious effects of courage and of reason, a whole people break asunder the fetters of despotism to make of the fragments trophies to liberty; when, by their innate vigor, they rise in a manner from the arms of death, to resume all the strength of youth when, in turns forgiving and inexorable, intrepid and docile, they can neither be checked by impregnable ramparts, nor by innumerable armies of tyrants leagued against them, and yet of themselves stop at the voice of the law; if then they do not reach the heights of their destiny it can only be the fault of those who govern. Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves... If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country. It has been said that terror is the spring of despotic government. Does yours then resemble despotism?

Yes, as the steel that glistens in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles the sword with which the satellites of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his debased subjects; he is right as a despot: conquer by terror the enemies of liberty and you will be right as founders of the republic. The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Is force only intended to protect crime?

Is not the lightning of heaven made to blast vice exalted? The law of self-preservation, with every being whether physical or moral, is the first law of nature. Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime. If tyranny reigned one single day not a patriot would survive it.

How long yet will the madness of despots be called justice, and the justice of the people barbarity or rebellion? - How tenderly oppressors and how severely the oppressed are treated! Nothing more natural: whoever does not abhor crime cannot love virtue. Yet one or the other must be crushed. Let mercy be shown the royalists exclaim some men. Pardon the villains!

No: be merciful to innocence, pardon the unfortunate, show compassion for human weakness. The protection of government is only due to peaceable citizens; and all citizens in the republic are republicans. The royalists, the conspirators, are strangers, or rather enemies. Is not this dreadful contest, which liberty maintains against tyranny, indivisible?

Are not the internal enemies the allies of those in the exterior? The assassins who lay waste the interior; the intriguers who purchase the consciences of the delegates of the people: the traitors who sell them; the mercenary libel lists paid to dishonor the cause of the people, to smother public virtue, to fan the flame of civil discord, and bring about a political counter revolution by means of a moral one; all these men, are they less culpable or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve? ... To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty. The severity of tyrants has barbarity for its principle; that of a republican government is founded on beneficence. Therefore let him beware who should dare to influence the people by that terror which is made only for their enemies!

Let him beware, who, regarding the inevitable errors of civism in the same light, with the premeditated crimes of perfidiousness, or the attempts of conspirators, suffers the dangerous intriguer to escape and pursues the peaceable citizen! Death to the villain who dares abuse the sacred name of liberty or the powerful arms intended for her defence, to carry mourning or death to the patriotic heart... From M. Robespierre, Report upon the Principles of Political Morality Which Are to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Interior Concerns of the Republic (Philadelphia, 1794). Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) was one of the leaders of the Committee of Public Safety, the effective governing body of France during the most radical phase of the revolution. Although this period - from mid 1793 to mid 1694 is usually known as the reign of terror, it was also a period of very effective government. Many of the changes which later enable Napoleon to dominate Europe for a generation were begun by the Committee.

The leaders of this revolution attempted, perhaps more than any other revolutionary leaders before or since, to totally transform human society in every way. For instance the Revolution abolished the traditional calendar with its Christian associations. Some were anti-religion, but Robespierre was interested in religion, and promoted a state cult, first of Supreme Reason and then later of the Supreme Being. This a case of Deism being made a state religion.

The failure of the revolution to transform society totally had provided matter for political thinkers ever since. The day forever fortunate has arrived, which the French people have consecrated to the Supreme Being. Never has the world which He created offered to Him a spectacle so worthy of His notice. He has seen reigning on the earth tyranny, crime, and imposture.

He sees at this moment a whole nation, grappling with all the oppressions of the human race, suspend the course of its heroic labors to elevate its thoughts and vows toward the great Being who has given it the mission it has undertaken and the strength to accomplish it. Is it not He whose immortal hand, engraving on the heart of man the code of justice and equality, has written there the death sentence of tyrants? Is it not He who, from the beginning of time, decreed for all the ages and for all peoples liberty, good faith, and justice? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery, and falsehood.

He created the universe to proclaim His power. He created men to help each other, to love each other mutually, and to attain to happiness by the way of virtue. It is He who implanted in the breast of the triumphant oppressor remorse and terror, and in the heart of the oppressed and innocent calmness and fortitude. It is He who impels the just man to hate the evil one, and the evil man to respect the just one.

It is He who adorns with modesty the brow of beauty, to make it yet more beautiful. It is He who makes the mother's heart beat with tenderness and joy. It is He who bathes with delicious tears the eyes of the son pressed to the bosom of his mother. It is He who silences the most imperious and tender passions before the sublime love of the fatherland. It is He who has covered nature with charms, riches, and majesty. All that is good is His work, or is Himself.

Evil belongs to the depraved man who oppresses his fellow man or suffers him to be oppressed. The Author of Nature has bound all mortals by a boundless chain of love and happiness. Perish the tyrants who have dared to break it! Republican Frenchmen, it is yours to purify the earth which they have soiled, and to recall to it the justice that they have banished!

Liberty and virtue together came from the breast of Divinity. Neither can abide with mankind without the other. O generous People, would you triumph over all your enemies? Practice justice, and render the Divinity the only worship worthy of Him. O People, let us deliver ourselves today, under His auspices, to the just transports of a pure festivity.

Tomorrow we shall return to the combat with vice and tyrants. We shall give to the world the example of republican virtues. And that will be to honor Him still. The monster which the genius of kings had vomited over France has gone back into nothingness. May all the crimes and all the misfortunes of the world disappear with it! Armed in turn with the daggers of fanaticism and the poisons of atheism, kings have always conspired to assassinate humanity.

If they are able no longer to disfigure Divinity by superstition, to associate it with their crimes, they try to banish it from the earth, so that they may reign there alone with crime. O People, fear no more their sacrilegious plots! They can no more snatch the world from the breast of its Author than remorse from their own hearts. Unfortunate ones, uplift your eyes toward heaven!

Heroes of the fatherland, your generous devotion is not a brilliant madness. If the satellites of tyranny can assassinate you, it is not in their power entirely to destroy you. Man, whoever thou mayest be, thou canst still conceive high thoughts for thyself. Thou canst bind thy fleeting life to God, and to immortality. Let nature seize again all her splendor, and wisdom all her empire!

The Supreme Being has not been annihilated. It is wisdom above all that our guilty enemies would drive from the republic. To wisdom alone it is given to strengthen the prosperity of empires. It is for her to guarantee to us the rewards of our courage. Let us associate wisdom, then, with all our enterprises.

Let us be grave and discreet in all our deliberations, as men who are providing for the interests of the world. Let us be ardent and obstinate in our anger against conspiring tyrants, imperturbable in dangers, patient in labors, terrible in striking back, modest and vigilant in successes. Let us be generous toward the good, compassionate with the unfortunate, inexorable with the evil, just toward every one. Let us not count on an unmixed prosperity, and on triumphs without attacks, nor on all that depends on fortune or the perversity of others. Sole, but infallible guarantors of our independence, let us crush the impious league of kings by the grandeur of our character, even more than by the strength of our arms. Frenchmen, you war against kings; you are therefore worthy to honor Divinity.

Being of Beings, Author of Nature, the brutalized slave, the vile instrument of despotism, the perfidious and cruel aristocrat, outrages Thee by his very invocation of Thy name. But the defenders of liberty can give themselves up to Thee, and rest with confidence upon Thy paternal bosom. Being of Beings, we need not offer to Thee unjust prayers. Thou knowest Thy creatures, proceeding from Thy hands. Their needs do not escape Thy notice, more than their secret thoughts. Hatred of bad faith and tyranny burns in our hearts, with love of justice and the fatherland.

Our blood flows for the cause of humanity. Behold our prayer. Behold our sacrifices. Behold the worship we offer Thee.

WHAT IS THE THIRD ESTATE? : ROBESPIERRE AND THE REIGN OF TERROR On July 27, 1793 Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre was elected by the National Convention to the Committee of Public Safety (Comite de Salut Public). This Committee made ruthless use of its power for the summary arrest and execution of those suspected as adversaries to the Revolution. While Robespierre was not the inventor of the 'Reign of Terror' or the revolutionary tribunal, his personal eloquence and popularity attracted a fanatical following among the Jacobins.

Robespierre's praise of the system of revolution led people to believe that the Terror, instead of being monstrous, was laudable. Under Robespierre and the Jacobins, the number of executions rose every month (21 in September of 1793, 59 in October, 61 in November, 68 in December, 61 in January of 1794, 77 in February, and 121 in March); and the Paris prisons held 8,000 prospective victims. Opponents to the Terror held that the victims were no longer the clergy and the aristocrats, but rather ordinary citizens accused of hoarding, profiteering, or one of the various offenses included under the Law of Suspects. In 1794 the dictatorship of the Committee intensified, but from fear, not popular support.

Executions continued to increase (258 in April of 1794,345 in May, and 688 in June) and differences in the Committee became irreconcilable. On July 27, 1794 Robespierre was shouted down in the National Convention while giving a speech to answer attacks against his policies. Cries of 'Down with the tyrant' were raised and Robespierre's arrest was decreed. Robespierre and his followers escaped, but were later captured.

He and 19 of his followers were executed July 28, 1794. The frontispiece from this anti-Robespierre work, Almanac des Prisons, depicts the results of the Reign of Terror under Robespierre's leadership. The various stacks of heads are labeled as follows: 'Clergy,' 'Parlement,' 'Nobles,' 'Constitution' (supporters of the Constitution), 'Legislature,' 'Convention,' and 'People. ' Note that the largest stack is for the 'People' or general public, rather than for the clergy or aristocracy, emphasizing one of the claims against Robespierre's regime. The figure on the scaffold is Robespierre guillotining himself!