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
Militant feminism in the French Revolution "not one of holding opinions from the wrong side of the political spectrum, but rather of articulating political opinions at all." De Gouges' execution in 1793, one of only three women to be executed in the Reign of Terror, solidified her appraisal of men within the Revolution as "pretend[ing] to enjoy the Revolution and reclaim his rights to equality only to say nothing more about it." The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women which was founded by Léon and her colleague Claire Lacombe on May 10, 1793. The goal of the club