![]() ![]() The members of the convention 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. According to French historian Jean-Clément Martin there was no "system of terror" instated by the Convention between 17, despite the pressure from some of its members and the sans-culottes. ![]() Under the pressure of the radical sans-culottes, the Convention agreed to institute a revolutionary army, but refused to make terror the order of the day. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!" This quote has frequently been interpreted as the beginning of a supposed "system of Terror", an interpretation no longer retained by historians today. There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone and an additional 10,000 died in prison, without trial, or under both of these circumstances. Today there is consensus amongst historians that the exceptional revolutionary measures continued after the death of Robespierre, and this subsequent period is now called the " White Terror". The term "Terror" being used to describe the period was introduced by the Thermidorian Reaction who took power after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, to discredit Robespierre and justify their actions. Others, however, cite the earlier time of the September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789, when the first killing of the revolution occurred. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the date as either 5 September, June or March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. Nine émigrés are executed by guillotine, 1793 ![]()
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