Reign of Terror June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris. There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the Convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!" They were determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government. Robespierre in February 1794 in a speech explained the necessity of
An Episode Under the Terror An Episode Under the Terror Un épisode sous la Terreur "(An Episode Under the Terror)" is a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac, published in 1842. Originally titled "Une messe en 1793" "(A Mass in 1793)", the text took its final title in the Chlendowski edition of 1845. The work appears in "Scènes de la vie politique" "(Scenes from Political Life)", which is a part of the series of works that make up "La Comédie humaine" "(The Human Comedy)", Balzac’s multi-volume collection of interlinked stories. The later edition is dedicated to Monsieur Guyonnet-Merville, under whom Balzac had done his