Reasons for breakdown of law and order in France 1793 French Revolution

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Reasons for Lawlessness during the 1973 French Reign of Terror
A time during the French Revolution, there came the Reign of terror, a one year period that saw countless scores of innocent citizens being guillotined. What exactly made a country that was running successful war crusades abroad degenerate into social terror, mass incarceration, and blatant executions unprecedented before?
The economy was destitute, and the taxes were inflated. The poor do not have much liking for the rich, and in the French case, where the nobility was oppressive, an insurrection was therefore inevitable (Hunt, 33). Believing that the monarchy was tyrannical and that equality could not co-exist with the nobility, the peasant fought for democracy and food security (Hunt, 21). It is the execution of King Louis XVI on January 1793 that marked the beginning of the terror reign, but it was not until September when lawlessness was instituted.
One famous Jacobin by the name Bertrand Barère declared the need for a reign of terror to counter the anti-revolutionary efforts of the royalists and the conspirators. The Jacobins were violent and militant, the most radical faction in the National Assembly compared to the Girondins who preferred a monarchical leadership. The firebrand Jacobins had their way and Maximilien Robespierre took over the leadership. He would later be executed for the murder of 15,000 people. Any dissident voice was considered a confession to anti-revolt and therefore a candidate for execution.

‘Virtue without terror,’ Robespierre recorded, is ‘fatal’ (Robespierre, n.p). Without the Jacobins, lawlessness would have resulted.
Even though the revolution was a popular concept, not all regions supported it. Vendee was one of those regions. Democracy rather than monarchy was the real threat to them. The Jacobins viewed this stubbornness as open defiance. Jacobins reacted to this resistance by escalating the policy of terror, and many were imprisoned and others massacred.
The rift in the National Convention was palpable. The Girondins against the Jacobins, moderate versus radical. Girondins preferred a federalized government in lieu of the central government that the Jacobins had instituted. This lead to the federalist revolt which saw the eviction of the Girondin deputies from the convention and this made them rebels to the eyes of the government. Law and order had to be maintained through disorderly means.
The reign of terror threatened other European monarchies, specifically Austria and Prussia. These countries took the side of the overthrown government and therefore the Jacobin government declared war on them in defense of their domestic political repression.
Extreme despotism and zealous bigotry were at the center of the reign of terror, but lawlessness was not a consequence of one single factor (Sattar, 2 ). Some reasons were valid, but others unjustified, as many lives got lost in the process.
 
 

Works Cited
Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution: With a New Preface. Vol. 1. Univ of California Press, 2004.Robespierre, Maximilien. “Reign of Terror.”Sattar, Babar. “Reign of terror.” (2017).