French Revolution
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Robespierre
Jacobins Take Control
The Jacobins were the most involved in the governmental changes in September 1792 and a prominent member was Jean-Paul Marat. He edited a newspaper called L'Ami du Peuple or Friend of the People and called for the death of all thoses who continued to support the king. The National Convention reduced Louis XVI to a common citizen and prisoner and tried Louis for treason. The Convention found him guilty and sentenced him to death, on January 21, 1973 the former king was beheaded by the guillotine. The war with Prussia and Austria was still happening and in early 1973 Great Britain, Holland, and Spain joined the war against France. The Convention urged a draft and by 1974 the army had grown to 800,000 and included women. Enemies of the republic were both foreign and within France. One Jacobin leader slowly gained power and tried to get rid of all of the enemies, Maximilien Robespierre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine
Reign of Terror
Robespierre and his supporters set out to build a "republic of virtue." He wanted to wipe out every trace of France's past, so they changed the calendar, dividing the the year into 12 months of 30 days, and renamed every month. This calendar also had no Sundays because the radicals considered religion old-fashioned and dangerous. They even closed all churches in Paris and later all over France. July 1793 Robespierre became leader of the Committee of Public Safety and governed France virtually as a dictator and the period became known as the Reign of Terror. He often had enemies tried in the morning and guillotined in the afternoon justifying it by saying it enabled French citizens to remain true to the ideals of the Revolution. The "enemies of the Revolution" that caused trouble were fellow radicals who challenged his leadership, many of those who had led the Revolution received death sentences. Their crime was that they were less radical than Robespierre. Many famous people were killed during the Reign of Terror including Marie Antoinette and George Danton as well as 40,000 other people. 85% executed were peasants or members of the urban poor or middle class the same people that the Revolution was supposed to benefit. July 1794 members of the National Convention turned on Robespierre fearing their own safety. The radical phase ended on July 28, 1794 when Robespierre was executed by the guillotine. In 1795 another plan of government, the third since 1789, placed power in the hands of the upper middle class and called for a two house legislature and an executive body of five men, known as the Directory. Some of the men were corrupt but it gave the country a period of order and Napoleon Bonaparte became general of France's armies.