ARCHITECT OF TERROR

The French Revolution saw external and internal warfare on a massive scale – from war on France’s borders as the other major powers of western Europe attacked French territory, to what became a bloody civil war in the Vendée in western France, a region that witnessed the great majority of deaths during the revolution (see page 32). Set against this backdrop of brutality was the Terror, a particularly violent period when executions, legally sanctioned by the National Convention – desperate to stamp out even the faintest hint of opposition to the revolution – became commonplace; official executions numbered around 17,000, but many more thousands were killed.

There is disagreement among historians as to when the Terror actually started – whether it began with Louis XVI’s execution in January 1793 or during the political upheaval of the subsequent