Reign of Terror During the French Revolution

                In addition, the monarchy ended in France because of the people’s desires to limit the power of the king, which was the government at the time. They did not want one person to rule their lives by promoting and enforcing laws that only beneficiate the king and a selected few. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was the first step towards the writing of a constitution for the new government, and a fundamental document for the Revolution that defined the individual and collective rights of all social estates to be universal. One of the articles expressed in the document was that “law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society.” (Lualdi, pp. 114). This means that laws were supposed to be established for the good of the people and not for the personal advantage of others. The Terror, however, promoted and enforced laws that went against the ideals of liberty and equality. Rights such as freedom of religion and speech were long forgotten when trying to end with opposition. The Terror gave rise to laws against Christianity by closing churches and making clergymen vow to the Republic instead of the church. Such laws did not belong in the category as preventing actions “hurtful to society” and therefore they should not have been implemented in the first place. In conclusion, the Terror was a distortion to people’s desires to limit the government’s power because it created laws that allowed a small part of society to control people’s lives, and beneficiate the people higher up in the social status.

                Furthermore, the violence created by the revolutionaries during the Terror was not necessary because it perpetuated more violence and made people suffer. Power and violence should not be confused by being the same thing because power appears when power is in danger. If left to its own course, violence leads to power’s disappearance of a particular regime or government. This was the case of Robespierre who ended up without any power to govern people’s lives. He believed that “virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is impotent.” (Lualdi, pp. 118). This might make logical sense but the reality was that the Terror only led to more division in society and even more violence. Robespierre went along saying that “terror is nothing but prompt, severe inflexible justice,” but in reality his terror was enforced due to the frustration against the upper class division and desire to control people. Here, justice is not the best definition of terror since fairness was far from the minds of revolutionaries executing commoners. The Reign of Terror only allowed violence, hatred and terror to proliferate in France making the social classes to separate even more.

                In conclusion, the French Revolution grew out of aspirations for freedom that inspired many other countries, and permanently altered the political atmosphere in France by removing an old form of government. But, the Revolution also had its darker side: the Reign of Terror. In this time, revolutionaries forgot or ignored those ideals of liberty and terrorized people as they pleased. Violence might appear to do good at first, but the good is only temporary, and creates an evil that could be temporary. The divisions created in France endured for many years and it was due to the violence and horrible acts committed by revolutionaries during the Terror. The revolutionaries proclaimed human rights and democratic government, but they excluded women and others which lead to beliefs that everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.