Why were so many people killed during the Reign of Terror?

Answer 1

A small committee of 12 unqualified people called The Committee of Public Safety gained control of the government of France teaching the gospel according to Rousseau. They took control during an era with a spaghetti tax code. Tax collectors could appear from nowhere. They would steal whatever they could. There was spaghetti law enforcement. A person could be fined and imprisoned at any moment and no one knew why. And there was a spaghetti legal system. They feared external invasion to restore monarchy so they beheaded the king and queen. They beheaded anyone even suspected of helping a foreign power invade. They feared the Pope and beheaded a number of religious people who might give power to the Pope. They feared the old order and beheaded any of the old nobility who suggested it be reestablished.

The Committee of Public Safety. tried to establish a state based on the philosophy of Rousseau. Touchy-feely is no way to run a government. The people wanted stable government.

Then the people rebelled, beheaded Robespierre, and lost the republic to Napoleon.

Answer 2

The causes of the French Revolution are many and complex and ocurred over a great many years during which time French citizens became more and more frustrated but, at the same time, equally more emboldened, especially by the success of the United States at defeating the British in their own revolutionary war, the War of Independence culminating in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris.

But if any one event triggered the beginning of that horrible and bloody revolution, it was certainly the Brunswick Manifesto, an enormous miscalculation on the part of the Duke of Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, warning the popular movement that any harm to the royal family would be met with severe and memorable consequences.

The popular movement (revolutionaries) took this as a challenge, not a threat, and imprisoned Louis XVI and his family within three weeks. All were beheaded six months later, as were hundreds of other aristocrats over the course of time.

"The Scarlett Pimpernell" is a fictional story of one person's clandestine successes at saving a number of French aristocrats by spiriting them away to Great Britain in ingenious schemes and guiles.

Answer 3

They were all accused of being traitors to the French Revolution.

Answer 4

In the related links box below, I posted the wikipedia article on the cause of the reign of terror.

Answer 5

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