Reign of terror french revolution history channel

1793–94 killings during the French Revolution caused by Maximilian Robespierre

This article is about the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.

For other uses, see Reign of Terror (disambiguation).

"The Terror" redirects here. For other uses, see The Terror (disambiguation).

The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety.

While terror was never formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention, it was more often employed as a concept.^[3]

There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, often giving the date as 5 September or 10 March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence.^[4]