The Thermidorian Reaction

After Robespierre's fall the Terror was dismantled. The Law of 22 Prairial was repealed, prisoners were released, and the Jacobin Club was closed in November 1794. Gangs of well-dressed young men, the jeunesse dorée or 'gilded youth', attacked Jacobins in the streets. The Maximum was abolished in December 1794, and with the assignat collapsing, prices soared in a harsh winter.

Hungry Parisians rose in the Germinal and Prairial insurrections of spring 1795, demanding 'bread and the Constitution of 1793', but the army suppressed them, ending the sans-culottes as a political force. In the south a 'White Terror' saw royalists and others kill former Jacobins. Peace treaties with Prussia and Spain in 1795 eased the war. Historians debate whether Thermidor restored liberty and the rule of law or represented a turn toward property, privilege and reaction.