The French Revolution: Impact of the Reign of Terror - Essay Example

?The French Revolution: Impact of the Reign of Terror Background and Events The French revolution is perhaps one of the most significant events whichrevolutionized the modern world today. Although the French revolution did to some extend enlighten, signify freedom of speech and equality but it was not without its share of issues. The revolution, among other things, also highlights the result of the ignorance of the nobles and clergy of France; It all begins with Louis XVI, was one of those nobles, who was during that point in time facing a financial crisis and decreasing popularity among the people. In order to salvage some of the support of the masses he gave representation to the people of France and called upon the Estates General for the first time in two hundred years, but regardless of the fact that it was a step forward in a positive direction, the Third estate (consisting of more than ninety percent of the population) had less representation than what would have been fair. The Third Estate was not given proper power in the assembly and the few next series of events saw the masses get fed up with the oppression and claimed that the only ones representing France would be them with complete power. These events which occurred have great significance to the revolution as it was when the Third Estate that was locked outside the assembly when the revolution took a different direction. The Courtyard Oath was taken that day and the National Assembly was formed. The King did not approve of the formation of the National assembly and this was what leads to serious consequences for him. A vote of four hundred ninety three to ninety four decided that serious action was to be taken against the King and it was hard to undermine the power that the National Assembly possessed as it had won over a significant portion of the population. With such a resounding opposition, on June 27th, 1789, Louis XVI gave into their demands (Jean & Edgeworth, 1961). This decision proved to be slightly too late for the King as a young twenty six year old educated in Paris laid down the seeds of revolution in people. People were looking for a leader and quickly embraced this new soul as their own voice. Soon riots erupted and the military quickly acted to stop this movement but then again France only had six thousand soldiers to defend them from internal problems; An insignificant amount as seen in the Place Vendome, where the cavalry attempted to control the riot, only to find their horses surrounded and unmovable through the dense crowd. It was this event which saw the formation of the Paris Commune, drawing from the electoral populace of each section; four thousand and eight hundred men were given the task of protecting Paris. Unfortunately for the King and the nobles the riots just increased in intensity and the Bastille was the next to fall. The Bastille was the prison where political prisoners were kept, though rumors were that it was a torture cell where prisoners sent were never seen again and was reserved for the worst prisoners in France. The people laid siege to the Bastille and the prison just holding enough food for two days had to surrender quickly. The morning of July 14th eight hundred people grew more and more impatient and when talks broke down between both sides resulting in the Bastille being attacked. Shots were fired from both sides and the guards eventually surrendered. The violence that followed was so intense that it could not have been predicted. The guards were rounded up and their heads were cut off, decapitated, and then paraded on pikes like the wax busts of French heroes. De Lunay who was hosting the talks for the Bastille was shot, rolled into a gutter and his head was kept as a trophy. The King was losing control and even the church was slowly refusing to support the King as they did not endorse the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1791 simply because it was not in their best interests and furthermore the revolution itself was frowned upon by the Church. This left the King with very few options. One of these was to seek asylum in another country but that task was a difficult feat mainly because ever since the King was moved to the Tuilleries by the people he was kept under constant watch with more than six hundred soldiers blocking all possible escape routes for the King. An extremely generous young cavalier Count von Fersen was one of the few people who aided the King and on June 20, 1791, the King initiated his escape route in a disguised form and made it as far as the town of Varennes in the north east where he was captured. He was sent back to Paris where he was greeted by angry people. He was kept under house arrest which was perhaps the most shame a king had to undertake since a long time. Jacque Hebert and Jean-Paul Marat, they wrote the journals, Le pere Duchesne, and L"Ami du Peuple, respectively poisoned people's views and spread hatred among all the people and encouraged violence. Marat was a huge supporter of violence he was quoted as saying "Let the blood of the traitor’s flow. That is the only way to save the country." In June of 1791 the National Assembly declared that Paris would become the Insurrectionary Commune which saw all the nobles and even the King replaced from all sort of power that they previously had. The King and Queen at this time were trying to save their lives and the throne took second priority, however they were imprisoned and the King replaced by six ministers. People who hoped this would lead to peace were sadly mistaken as the next chain of events caused mass panic among people. The nobles struggled to gain power, people struggled to escape power and all those who were suspected of being enemies of the state were given harsh punishments. Internal tensions and a reported defeat of the once invisible French army did nothing to help matters and laid down the platform for Danton to be the next hero of the people Danton had become very powerful in the Insurrectionary Commune, becoming the minister of Justice. His power added to that of the Girondists, a party of lawyers and atheists, who were now the ruling party. Danton issued a cry to the people to arm themselves from the enemies of the state who were identified by Marat. Together they were responsible for few of the most horrendous events history witnessed. September 2nd as the prisoners were brought to the prison of L'Abbaye by numerous coaches. These prisoners were mostly priests and soon their leader leapt forward, thrusting and slicing with his rapier. His actions resulted in all those who were brought being brutally executed. It was at this point that these famous words "So, this frightens you, does it, you cowards? You must get used to the sight of death" were used; these words were quite prophetic, the even beginning the September Massacres. The way the September killings were carried out was one of the most horrendous events ever seen .and within the next twelve days twelve hundred people were brutally killed and the most shameful part of the killings was the way it was carried out. Most of the people were killed without a tribunal and those who asked for one were provided a fake tribunal and then sentenced to the same punishment only prolonging their miserable condition for a few days. Every prison except those which contained prostitutes and debtors were broken into and everyone slaughtered. They only stopped to eat or drink and that too sometimes on the naked corpses that lay on the ground. Some examples are required to highlight the way the killings were taken place. Princess de Lamballe was raped, her body mutilated and her breasts sliced off. Her legs were shot of cannon, and her genitals were cut off and paraded around Paris on a pike Brenton (1985). In the prison of Bicetre, prisoners were also revolting and also some children were kept in prisons with the consent of their parents. Forty three people were killed, all under the age of eighteen, of the one hundred and sixty two prisoners. In the two weeks preceding the deaths, members of the church and supporters of the king were executed. The killings were halted by the battle of Valmy which resulted in a victory to the French against the Prussians. On September 21st, 1792 the National Convention met to vote the next ruling party and some Girondin were prevented from voting in Paris allowing the more radical Jacobin to take power. The Jacobin started off with forming their own new calendar and they also abolished the monarchy. One of the most significant outcomes of this reform was that the king was put on trail, found guilty and was sentenced to be executed the next day. Though the Girondins tried to prevent it from happening very soon the Kings head was also another trophy for the blood thirsty people to keep. Consequences The revolution did not stay an internal matter for long. The new of reign of terror had reached other countries and the other countries strongly condemned such actions especially the way King Louis XVI was killed. Strong opposition had been established and the value of their money had lessened, food was becoming more and more scarce, and the cost of living rose. The problems that were the cause of the revolution had never really been solved, the only thing that people had on their hands was the blood of numerous people. Counter revolution took place in various places in France and the National Guard had to be sent time and time again to get rid of the existing problems. The most significant perhaps was the peasant rebellion. The peasant’s were loyal to the King, and anti-republican, not wishing to participate in the drafting for the National Guard. A force of ten thousand peasants was to be taken care of by the National Guard as well. The Convention formed the Committee of Public Safety as the external threat increased in intensity. The Cabinet also became the body with the most power in France and Danton held one of the nine seats. Slowly the Girondin lost popularity among the people of Paris and even lost power in the ruling party. Another turning point for the revolution was when in July 13th Marat was assassinated in his bath tub. This chain of events brought about Robespierre, who helped the cause of the murders in the revolution. The Girondins who were claimed enemies of the state were slowly brought to the guillotine. Along with the Queen, the twenty two Girondin leaders that had been arrested were also brought to the guillotine in the same month. The guillotine had struck over seventeen thousand necks in the Terror, and three thousand of those belonged to Parisians. Children, women, men alike were all executed brutally. All those who spoke against the rule were executed even those who protected their loved ones suffered the same fate. Some of the leaders did not even use the guillotine but alternate quicker ways of killing people (Miguel, 2004). Chaumette, a young Jacobin leader started the process of De-Christianization. A new calendar was drafted, all religious titles were abolished, treasures of the church seized and images of Mary were replaced by images of Marat. In all this process a small war between Danton and Robesspierre kept on arising. Robespierre though took Danton's side on various matters but suspicion of his friendship was always kept into mind by him And as soon as their friendship grew weak on March 30th, the Committees of Public Safety and General Security met which resulted in nineteen of Robesspierres followers were put under the blade . At this point the General Assembly did not bother with a trail and in the last eight weeks of the Reign of terror fifteen hundred people died and ironically eighty five percent of the executed were from the people and only a small amount of clergy were beheaded .Finally Ropespierre had his falling out with the ruling party and it was with his death that the Reign of terror was to end. The same year in October Robespierrists were sent from the Convention and Robesspierre was beaten and finally executed. Now it was early next year that the Jacobins were disbanded and the Girondin took over control. Although Napoleon still had come into power one year earlier the next century people were fed up with the bloodshed and hence the reign of terror ended. A focus on the Reign of terror The Reign of Terror (September 1793- July 1794) was the bloody climax of the French Revolution which resulted in the mass execution of above 40,000 people at Robespierre’s guillotine. The ideals of ‘Liberte, egalite, fraternite’ lay forgotten among the bloody conflict between the Girondins and the Jacobins, with a body of both real and imagined conspiracies gripping the collective paranoia of the revolutionaries. Internal opponents included the disenfranchised nobility and clergy, while the First French Republic was occupied with foreign wars with external “enemies of the revolution”. The sans culottes resorted to violent and extreme solutions to protect the revolution, sparing only like-minded individuals to form the Constitution (Greer, 1935). However, the socio-economic aspects of the French Revolution were more important at this stage than just the ideological ones (Doyle, 1989, p.392). Three years of the revolution had witnessed a further decline in the living standards of the lower classes, exacerbated by the food-price inflation and the ensuing mass starvation. The resentment among the support base of the revolution mixed with the external problems of the politically more moderate Girondins, on who Austria and Prussia had declared a war on them after being incited by Louis XVI (Thomson, 1990, p.34). As the reality of the invading armies dawned upon the economically deprived lower classes, they revolted. As per the ‘responsibility hypothesis’, the Girondins were blamed for the plight of France and the more radical Jacobins took power with the express aim of eliminating social hierarchy (Palmer, 1964, p.166), especially the monarchy. They found support in the sans-culottes. Louis XVI’s attempt to seek refuge with the Assembly and he was tried for treason along with his wife, Marie Antoinette, the ultimate embodiment of the luxury the lower classes resented the nobility for. This marked the onset of the September massacres and violence became a way of life (Doyle, 1989, p.397), with the National Convention becoming increasingly radicalized. A major source of intimidation was the ‘Law of Suspects’ enforced by the Revolutionary Army, under which any suspected “enemies of the revolution” could be imprisoned. (Sutherland, 1986, p.258) The continuing war resulted in the delay of the formation of a democratic government and the Committee of Public Safety was formed to protect the revolution from all threats. It enjoyed increasing amounts of power, notably under Robespierre’s ‘Law of 22 Prairial’, which allowed tribunals to execute suspects without the need for a trial (Bienvenu, 1968). While these tools were used to maintain superiority over rivals, political opposition also assumed a violent form, with the radicals being executed in July 1974. At the same time, political prisoners were freed and the Committee of Public Safety functionally demolished. The remaining moderates were left to draft the Constitution and declaring France as a democratic republic in 1975, with elections in 1797. The Revolution brought about some fundamental, lasting changes which are attributed to the perpetuation of the Revolution, something the Reign of Terror contributed to. By keeping the dissenting nobility and clergy in check, quelling any possibility of a counter-revolution and maintaining popular support for the war, it kept the Revolution alive in a sense, even if a brutal massacre had to take place to meet strategic aims. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity sustained in the collective psyche of the French, but it was the experience of the Terror that helped firmly entrench the pivotal importance of democratic institutions and recognition of political opposition as key tools for the establishment of a just and tolerant society. Of the 40,000 killed, 8% belonged to the nobility and the clergy was hit hardest proportionately, but in terms of absolute numbers, 84% of the victims were from lower/ middle classes. Significance The lasting effects of the Terror were felt for years to come. Beyond the sheer scope of the deaths, many of the leaders who established the foundation for the French Revolution were executed in the process. Marie Antoinette was one of the early victims of the Terror along with the Duke of Orleans, Philippe Egalite. The father of modern chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier, was also among those executed due to his prominence in the pre-Revolution French government. Ultimately, the very people who orchestrated the Terror, Louis de Saint-Just and Maximilien Robespierre, were executed. References Bienvenu.R, (1968). The ninth of Thermidor: the fall of Robespierre. New York, Oxford University Press, 1968. Doyle, William. (1989). The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Pg. 68. Faria, Miguel (14 July 2004). "Bastille Day and the French Revolution, Part II: Maximilien Robespierre --- The Incorruptible". La Nueva Cuba. Greer, D. (1935). The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution, a statistical interpretation. Harvard, 1935. Jean-Baptiste,C. & Edgeworth, H. (1961). Sidney Scott. ed. Journal of the Terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 3153946. Kerr, Wilfred Brenton (1985). Reign of Terror, 1793–1794. London: Porcupine Press. Sutherland, D. M. G. (1986). France 1789-1815: Revolution and Counterrevolution. Oxford, 1986. Pg. 258. Read More