The Law of Suspects and the Machinery of Terror

In September 1793, under pressure from Parisian crowds, the Convention declared that terror was 'the order of the day'. The Law of Suspects of 17 September allowed the arrest of broad categories of people, including those whose conduct or words showed them to be 'partisans of tyranny' and relatives of émigrés who had not shown loyalty. The Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, created in March 1793, tried political cases with limited rights for the accused. Marie-Antoinette was executed in October 1793 and the Girondin leaders soon after.

About 17,000 people were officially sentenced to death across France, and many more died in prison or were killed without trial; total deaths are often estimated at 35,000 to 40,000. Most victims were not nobles or priests but ordinary people, and the killing was concentrated in regions of revolt. Historians continue to debate whether the Terror was mainly a response to circumstances or rooted in revolutionary ideology.