Was the beheading of 40,000 country men plus the King of France really needed to fuel this “Democratic” revolution? In 1789 new ideas such as life liberty and equality shook the government of France. With these new ideas came a new government with new taxes and rules. These rules enforced people to follow revolutionary ideas and if you did not want to follow these ideas you were beheaded. The King of France, King Louis XVI was beheaded in order to fuel this revolution. After his beheading in January 1793, the radical Maximilien Robespierre took over beginning the period of French Revolution called the Reign of Terror. The Reign of Terror was a 18 month period where the Catholic church, and monarchy were targeted. Over 40,000 countrymen were …show more content…
A quote from a letter written by a government official from the local government of the town Niort in Western France to the National Convention (Doc D) states, “It is with greatest of sorrow that we inform you that six patriots have already fallen victim to this rabble…” This quote from the letter in Doc D shows how the rabble or crowd of counterrevolutionaries were aggressive and becoming unruly. A quote from the book Triumph and Terror: The French Revolution written by Stecen Otfinoski in 1993 (Doc E) states, “ The purpose was to protect the public safety from enemies both in and outside of France…In the countryside, the slow tribunals were replaced with ruthless commissions that killed an estimated 35,000-40,000 people. Many of these people were guillotined.” The quote from Steven Otfinoski shows how the National Convention were implementing forces and ideas to protect the public and bring back the peace that the counterrevolutionaries destroyed. This new force or committee started to behead people for becoming aggressive and fighting the revolution and the ideas that came with it in order to bring back the peace that once emanated from the countryside of France. These two quotes show how the counterrevolutionaries started to fight back so the only way to bring back the peace was to eliminate or strike down on these