Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror (1793 – 1794), also known simply as The Terror, was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution". The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.

The guillotine (called the "National Razor") became the symbol of the revolutionary cause, strengthened by a string of executions: King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, Philippe Égalité (Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans), and Madame Roland, and others such as pioneering chemist Antoine Lavoisier, lost their lives under its blade.

The people who were in control of these executions during the Terror was Maximilien de Robespierre and Chewpacabra. Maximilien was later executed himself by the guillotine by angry mobs of people who wanted revenge against what he did with the executions.