When advocates of the revolution felt threatened by the enemies of the revolution, who were in actuality just common people living their lives, terror and gory violence were used to silence these people who didn't comply with the new stipulations of the revolution. Led by Maximilien Robespierre, the Jacobins subjected these people to execution and imprisonment for even the slightest infraction. Civil liberties of the day were taken away. These were the days of the guillotine and this was the way many people were executed at the time. A new republic had just come about in France and the revolutionaries didn't want people to speak out against this new government and the revolution. It was also greatly focused on acting against the Nobility and people of the Roman Catholic Church, since these were pre-revolutionary ways of life. Anyone who's views were different from that of the Jacobins and Robespierre was executed or imprisoned. It is said that anywhere from 14,000 to 50,000 people lost their lives to the Reign of Terror.
I think that the ways of Robespierre and the Jacobins are very similar to the ways of the French Religious wars, except that this time it was the "enlightened" people attacking the people who were stuck in their roots and wanted to be a part of the Church and maintain the class system from before the revolution. I think it is very ignorant of the revolutionaries to attack people because of their opposing viewpoints. I think that in the beginning they had good intentions of breaking people away from the Church in order to op people's minds to a new way of living. But I think things got out of hand rapidly when they decided that the way of the Jacobins was the only way. When they started killing people because of their beliefs, they regressed to the same state of mind people were in before the Enlightenment.
Things escalated quickly and many innocent people lost their lives for simply expressing themselves. Right before this happened, the Enlightenment opened people's eyes and let them know that they could think for themselves and didn't have to conform to the ways of the time, but when Robespierre decided it was his way or the highway(or in this case the guillotine) he just showed people it wasn't acceptable to have a mind of your own. I think Robespierre postponed advancement in the country for the ten or so months that the Reign of Terror occurred. Eventually he would be overthrown and subjected to the guillotine himself for his harsh actions, but while he was alive he drastically damaged the French Republic.
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I think you are correct in comparing Robespierre's reign of terror to pre-Revolution religious wars. Fear and terror were used in order to maintain conrol, and free thinking was quashed for the sake of centralized power. It is ironic that a man who came to power due to enlightenment ideas inverted those ideas in order to cement his own power. If the French Republic had not been tarnished by Robespierre's actions, it is interesting to consider whether France could have become a paradigm of Republican government for the world.
ReplyDeleteYour blog makes an interesting comparison between the Terror and earlier wars of religion. In both cases there is a seemingly fanatical desire for conformity and the view that opposing ideas threatened the safety and stability of the community and cannot be tolerated. Yet, while the methods of the Terror arguably tarnished the Revolution, Robespierre's government also sought to expand popular participation in the government and to encourage people to see the new republic as a government that belonged to them and offered them new rights and opportunities.
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