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
Reign of Terror "A Short History of the French Revolution". 6th ed. London: Routledge, 2016. “Robespierre, "On Political Morality",” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, accessed October 19, 2018, http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/413. Rothenberg, Gunther E. "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon." "The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18 ", no. 4 (1988): 771-93. doi:10.2307/204824. https://www.jstor.org/stable/204824. “"Terror Is the Order of the Day",” "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", accessed October 26, 2018, http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/416. Voltaire. "Voltaire, Selections from the Philosophical Dictionary." Omeka RSS. Accessed October 23, 2018. http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/273/. Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror, or The Terror (), is the label given by most