Gwynne Lewis

The radical Jacobin government has often been blamed for the eventual failure of the French Revolution to form a lasting republic, in large part because of the thousands of executions (known collectively as the Terror) that occurred between 1793 and 1794 under the leadership of Jacobins such as Maximilien Robespierre and Georges-Jacques Danton. In the following viewpoint Gwynne Lewis defends the actions of these men and other Jacobin leaders. She argues that the moderate Girondin government that led France in 1792 and 1793, when the nation was at war, set the stage for the Terror by establishing the Revolutionary Tribunal (a court that held trials for accused political offenders) and the Committee of Public Safety (the chief executive body). Lewis also contends that most of the Jacobin leadership was uncomfortable with the more extreme...