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    Furet Terror

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    Ioproprioio

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    Events FURTHER READING Braesch, Frédéric, La commune dd anit 1792: Etude er hire de Pari 20 juin om 2 dicemine 1722. Pars, 191 Lefebvre, Georges. Quatre singt ney’: Pais, 1980 Mathiez, Albert. "Etude cique sur ks journées des 5 et 6 octobre" Reo historique, 1396. Le dic aot Pars, 1981. Pita, Louis-Gullaume. La jowrde du 14 jul 1789: Fragment des mde nds de Loui-Gorge Pit, decir de Paris n 1789, wth an introduction and notes by Jules Flammertont Paris, 1892 Ruse, George. The Cros inthe French Revolution. Oxford, 1959, Soboul, Alber. Las sacultes prises en Fa I: Histoire plgu esi des ecto “de Por, 2 juin 1793-9 thermidor an II. La Roche-wr Yon, 1958. Reprinted Paris 1958, and 1962 with the subtle Mowurmen opulsite gauversoment alton, Tonneton, Kare D. La diate des sults: Mowzement opulaie oration Bourgerse ‘olan if, Oslo and Pars, 1958. RELATED TOPICS Barnave Lafayete Robesperre (Cub and Popular Sociedee Louie XVI Sanectlotes Danton Marat Sovereignty Enrages Montagnards Stal Federation Necker ‘Terror Girondins Prvis Commune Varennes Hebersite ‘TERROR O aseiembcs 51798: the Convention mae “the Teor the oder of the day. By this action i signaled its intention to organize, systematize, and accelerate repression of the Republics domestic adversaries and to en sure quick punishment of “all raitors.” But this blunt and candid declaration, this inaugural vote of the Terror, came in unusual circumstances. That morn. ing, the sans-culotes had invaded the Assembly demanding both bread and the guillotine—the guillotine in order to have bread. What they wanted, and ‘what they would obtain a few days later, was a “revolutionary army” of the interior intended to strike terror in the hearts of hoarders and enemies of the Republic with the aid of a terrifying machine that would be part of its standard equipment, “the fatal instrument that with one blow cuts short both conspiracies and the lives oftheir authors” Shortly thereafter, a delegation of. Jacobins offered a version of the same thetoric ess directly concerned with bread: those to be gullotined were “traitors.” It was in order to give offical satisfaction to the Paris militants that the Coramittee of Pubic Safety declared the Terror tobe the order of the day ‘The circumstances surrounding this celebrated vote indicate that be fore becoming a set of repressive institutions used by the Republic to liquidate its adversaries and establish its domination on a basis of fear, the Terror was | «demand based on political convictions or beliefs, a characteristic feature of| the mentality of revolutionary activism, ‘As such, it predated the dictatorship of Year Il, the Republi, and the war with Europe. It had existed since the early summer of 1789, along with the related idea that the Revolution was threatened by an aristocratic pl that only prompt measures could thwart. The popullar violence that engulfed Paris on July 14 was an early consequence of the partly economic, partly po- litical logic that characterized the actions of the Paris crowd; the murder of the minister Foullon de Dou on July 22, followed by the murder of his som- in-law Bertier de Sauvigny, the intendant of Pars, was a summary punish: ‘ment that temporarily quieted the obsession with grain hoarding and the Ver- sales plot In September the terrorist idea found in L’ami de peuple and its publisher Marat its newspaper and its champion. The man whom the people (of Paris led back to their city on October 6 was less a king chan a hostage: in the return of “the baker, the bakers wife, and the baker's boy” the people ew 4 guarantee that Paris would henceforth be supplied with food as well as an assurance that they would at last be able to monitor the king’ activites and the maneuvers of the queen and the royal entourage. ‘This general, systematic suspicion was inextricably associated with a 137 Events persistent overestimation of the degree to which the enemy’ strategy was deliberate and his resources were limtiss. The plot drew substance from the idea of the enemy's omnipotence, which only the people could thwart. I its crudest forma this image existed among the lower orders of the urban popu: lation, but it was also present in the minds of many deputies, since was rooted in the new political culture: just a the Revolution was the reversal ‘whereby the people reappropriated 2 power previously alienated tothe king, and to God, the political universe that inaugurated was populated solely by will, s0 that henceforth nothing remained outside human control. The new realm of power was occupied entirely by the people, which through its actions had reclaimed inalienable rights. Yet che people continued to be menaced by fan anti-power, which like the nation was abstract, omnipresent, and all enveloping, but which was hidden where the nation was public individual where the nation was universal, and harmful where the nation was good. This Anti-power was thus the negative, the inverse the anti-principle of the nation, ‘Such was the fantastic nature of revolutionary society’ discourse on power, and it ade the aristocratic plot one of the central figures of the revolutionary ‘mentality. Ie was almost infinitely malleable, apt at interpreting every circum- stance, and sustained most of all by ambiguities inthe royal atitude. “Traces of the obsession with a plot can also be found, in less caricatural form than with Marat or the Cordeliers in the words of deputies of the Con- situent Assembly, where even at cis early date the Assembly encouraged the notion that incase of public emergency it might be necessary to limit human Fights. Consider, for example, the February 1790 debate on the Fight to emi- {grate: Mesdames, the aunts of Louis XVI, had been arrested on their way t0 ‘Rome by local authorities in Burgundy: This led to a debate in the Assembly, ‘ultimately resolved in favor of Mesdames by invoking the rights of man, but {ested by 2 strong contrary case that invoked the national emergency. In the following year, the king’ Hight to Varennes and retsira to Paris publicly dem- ‘onstrated the royal family’ true sentiments; this minor plot—il conceived and il executed—was construed by revolutionary opinion as proof of the ‘great plot, universal, omnipresent, and omnipotent. The Revolution had really aready ceased to have a true constitutional king, despite the temporary fiction of an “abduction” Yet it made of this vanquished, captive, but rein- stated monarch a formidable enemy, soon supported by all the kings of Eu rope. "The war raised both the stakes and the fears. It erased the line between ‘opposition and treason once and for all. It turned nobles and refractory priests into enemies of the fatherland. Tt quickly dissolved what was left of the royal fiction after the Varennes episode, bur not even the fll of the king ‘on August 10 diminished the perceived threat to the Revolution from the conspiracy of external enemies and domestic traitors. On the contrary, the six ‘weeks that separated the fall of the Tuileries from the meeting ofthe Conven- tion on September 20 marked the entry of the Terror into revolutionary pol [But the Terror was not yet the policy of the Revolution. For the Legis: lative Assembly was now only a caretaker regime, and real power had passed 138 Terror to the viciors of August 10: the Paris Commune, composed of the former Insurrectional Committee, rounded out through carefully contrived elections toa complement of nearly three hundred members representing the cream ‘of Parisian militancy. Under pressure from the Commune the Legislative As sembly voted on August 17 to establish a special tribunal and declared refrac tory priests to be criminals. Under the Commune’ direct authority the Paris sections organized themselves as surveillance commitees, conducting searches and making arrests. The punishment of the “guilty” was the order ‘of the day. By the end of August the bad news from the frontiers heightened the siege mentality and the obsession with punishment, which were respon- sible for the massacres of prisoners by mobs in Pars between September 2 and September 6. This baleful episode illustrates the psychological and politcal mecha: nism of the Terror. The victims were mostly common law prisoners (nearly three-quarters of the more than a thousand killed), while the murderers were the victors of August 10: shopkeepers, artisans, national guards, fdérs, mo- tivated by their obsession with treason. No orders, no identifiable instruc- tions, came from above. The press poured oil on the fire, and the idea of liquidating traitors was of course an old refrain of Marats, but the erowd rnceded no visible leader to conduct a slaughter arranged to look like a rough parody of justice. Danton, the minister of justice, did not intervene, and even the Girondin Roland wrote on September 3: “Yesterday was a day over whose events a veil should probably be thrown.” A few weeks later, the September massacres would became a theme in the political baule between Girondins dnd Montagnards. Ar the me, hewever, the politicians of dhe Revolution exe lured the event as one aecepts the inevitable, In fact, the Terror was gradually established as a repressive system or ‘ganized from above and instivutionalized during the year 1798, as the Mon- tagnards turned to activists in the Paris sections for support in aking control fof the Revolution. ‘The question whether the king’ trial and execution formed the prelude to or even the first act ofthe Terror is not easy to answer ‘One may agree with Kant that the answer should be “yes” if one sees the death of Louis XVI as an illegal violation ofthe constitutional contract by the ‘Convention. Or one may answer “no; along with Michelet, if one views the ‘tial as the solemn affirmation of the new sovereignty of the people, incom patible with the old sovereignty of the king, The fact remains thatthe judg: tment and execution of Louis XVI were extensively and minutely debated and

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