What was this Terror? Who was it aimed at? Who was behind it? Robespierre believed that France's government and indeed all of France needed to be cleansed of all the filthy people who littere

However, with the fall of Robespierre, so came the fall of the Committee of Public Safetey and that of the Reign of Terror. Slowly people were released from prison and the nation began its slow recovery from the terror. The Directory was formed and it ws comprised of five members, none of whom had more power than any other member. It was under this form of government that France would attempt to recover from the economic, moral, and mental depression that it had slipped into during the reign of Robespierre.

Thus far, the only examples of Terror victims ahve been French born citizens of that particular nation. However, the Terror was not reserved only for citizens of France who disagreed with the Committe of Public Safetey but also for any foreigners who happened to be inside the borders of France past an unpublicized date. In fact, these foreigners were among the very first victims of the Terror. Despite their being victims of the Terror, the majority of them were not executed, but simply imprisioned until a later date.

So, it was in fear, which the nation of France lived from July of 1793 to August of 1794. Everyone from the lowliest peasant to the highest noble lived his or her life in a shadow of doubt, wonder, and deathly fear. Every sound in the darkness of the night was the soldiers coming to take you to be interrogated or tried for something that you never did. The situation was similar to one in which Big Brother could tell what you were thinking, because the only crimes that were being punished so severely were crimes of the mind and soul. It was a crime to have been born in a foreign land and currently live in the nation of France. It was a crime to think that so much death was necessary for the survival of the nation. It was illegal to voice any kind of opposition to the Committee of Public Safety and their policy of national cleansing, the likes of which would not be seen again until the Nazi party took over Germany in 1933. The fear in Nazi Germany that has been shown so vividly through many books and movies can easily be compared to the feeling of everyone in the nation of France. However, in Nazi Germany, it was not the entire nation that had fear running through their veins, but only those people deemed unworthy of living in the perfect state that Germany was to become. This was not the case in Robespierre's France. In France, everyone's blood ran thick with fear due to the fact that no one knew if they would be the next victims, if it would be their neighbors, or if it would be their parents.

This entire case was contingent on the word of several spies that the Committee of Public Safety had positioned inside of this enemy faction. This being the case, it is not known whether or not all of the accusations were in fact true. This was not uncommon in France during the Reign of Terror. Many people were arrested and convicted of crimes based solely on the testimony of other people as to their behavior. It was simply one man's word against another, and the judges were much more likely to believe the upstanding citizen who was the accuser, because that was the order of the day. So, even though the courts condemned these people, one must question what the truth really was.

The majority of the people who were persecuted by the Terror were people of moderate social standing and each of them had some power in the government of France during this time. It was the fear that these individuals would use this power to go against the goals of the Committee of Public Safety and it leader, Maximilian Robespierre. So, it is no wonder that the Revolutionary Tribunals were quick to react and extremely harsh with their punishments. Had they shown mercy or even hesitance, they felt that it would weaken their grasp of power. It is for this reason that they arrested, tried and executed “enemies of the state” so quickly. Had there been more time, these enemies would have surely been ab

Some topics in this essay:
Reign Terror, Public Safety, Rouerie Plot, Thanks Williams, Public Safetey, Jean Baptiste-Georges, Revolutionary Tribunal, Terror Slowly, Maria Williams, France Based, nation france, committee public, reign terror, committee public safety, public safety, revolutionary tribunal, public safetey, loved ones, people arrested, committee public safetey, sentenced death, death people, la rouerie plot, brought revolutionary tribunal, methods keeping prisoners,