Unlike other revolutions, which tended to replace …show more content…
Because of his rise to power, Napoleon eventually set about conquest of Western Europe, and plunged Europe into war as part of Napoleons conquest. The French revolution also led to the establishment of a democratic society in France, including a freedom of religion, decriminalisation of same-sex relationships, civil rights for Jewish and Black people as well as the legalisation of …show more content…
“The Terror” or the “Reign of Terror”, as it is sometimes known, was an event that started on the 6th of September 1793 and lasted until the 28th July, 1794. It can be considered to be the first example of modern industrialised killing through the wide spread use of the guillotine. The guillotine had existed in various different forms before the French revolution, but it was slightly prior to the revolution, that the design was improved upon significantly. It was a French physician called Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who while on a committee, with the intended purpose of researching and producing a device that would merely end the life of a convicted person, rather than inflict pain. With this in mind, he fitted an axe head that used a crescent blade as well as a lunette (which immobilised the persons neck). The device could now cleanly cut the victims head off in one blow, rather than the dubious process of hanging, which not only took time to set-up, but also took minutes rather than the seconds it took for the guillotine to end someone’s life.
With a new device that could end a persons life so quickly, the revolution now had a tool with which they used to almost wipe out the ruling class that had been the aristocracy. This led to what is now known as “The reign of terror” or simply “The Terror”. From the 6th of September 1793 to the 28th of July 1794, somewhere between 16,000