François-Noël Babeuf trial before the Aisne tribunal, which acquitted him on 18 July 1794, only days before the Thermidorian Reaction. Babeuf returned to Paris, and on 3 September 1794 published the first issue of his "Journal de la Liberté de la Presse", whose title was changed on 5 October 1794 to "Le Tribun du Peuple". The execution of Maximilien Robespierre on 28 July 1794 had ended the Reign of Terror and begun the White Terror. Babeuf – now self-styled "Gracchus" Babeuf – defended the fallen Terror politicians with the stated goal of achieving equality "in fact" and not only "by proclamation". However
France in the long nineteenth century exclude the sans-culottes and other members of the lower classes from political life. By 1795, the French had once again conquered the Austrian Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, annexing them directly into France. The Dutch Republic and Spain were both defeated and made into French satellites. At sea however, the French navy proved no match for the British, and was badly beaten off the coast of Ireland in June 1794. In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte was given command of an army that was to invade Italy. The Austrian and Sardinian forces were defeated by the young general, they