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- Title
A Second Terror: The Purges of French Revolutionary Legislators after Thermidor.
- Authors
Harder, Mette
- Abstract
French revolutionary legislators faced assassins, violent insurrections, and the risk of being injured or killed while on mission. Statistically, however, the most dangerous place for them was their own legislative assembly. As full-scale parliamentary warfare erupted between different political "factions" in the founding year of the republic, the safeguards of parliamentary immunity were removed and hundreds of legislators were purged. Much research has been done on the famous parliamentary purges of the Terror. The practice continued, however, long after Robespierre's fall as the Thermidorian Reaction experienced a second Terror in the legislature. Little is known about these later purges, and few comparisons have been made to the higher-profile cases of Year II. This article investigates why the Thermidorians failed to halt the cycle of parliamentary violence in the post-Terror era, arguing that the purging of legislators had by then become a destructive, long-term political habit with dangerous consequences for French representative democracy.
- Subjects
FRANCE; FRENCH Revolution, 1789-1799; THERMIDORIAN Reaction, France, 1794; FRANCE. Convention nationale; REPRESENTATIVE government; POLITICAL violence; CRIMES against legislators; POLITICAL purges; MONTAGNARDS; HISTORY
- Publication
French Historical Studies, 2015, Vol 38, Issue 1, p33
- ISSN
0016-1071
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1215/00161071-2822685