What happened after Louis XVI was executed and the radicals took over in France? What led to the rise of Napoleon? Read on and see.

1. RADICALS AND THE REIGN OF
TERROR

2. Radicals
• Don’t think there should be any king at
all and France should become a republic
where all people have a say in the
government.
• Want to see major changes happen to
France.
• Usually bourgeoisie and/or members of
the Third Estate.

3. Moderates
• Would like to see some changes to France.
• Think Louis XVI can still be king, but it needs to
be a limited monarchy, where the king follows
the rules of the constitution and gives people
rights and freedoms.
• Are a members of the bourgeoisie meaning
you are an educated member of the third
estate.

4. Conservatives
• Think Louis XVI should be allowed to
remain king and rule France as an
absolute monarch.
• Don’t want the government to
change.
• Are members of the first or second
estate.

5. 1791
• The king and his family
are caught trying to
leave France and taken
prisoner.
• Radical groups win
power in the Legislative
Assembly and decide
the best way to gain
more power is through
violence.

6. 1792
• The Legislative
Assembly is now
controlled by radicals
and rename themselves
the National
Convention. They
declare France to be a
republic and abolish the
monarchy.

7. 1793
• The National
Convention puts
Louis XVI and his
family on trial and
find them guilty to
treason.
• Louis and Marie
Antoinette are
executed by
guillotine.

8. 1793
• The National Convention is
worried about threats to
their power. They create
the Committee of Public
Safety to deal with the
threats to them and handle
some of the public’s
problems (such as food
shortages).
• An extreme radical named
Maximilien Robespierre
becomes the leader of the
committee.

9. 1793 - 1794
• This time period when
Robespierre ruled over
the Committee of Public
Safety is known as the
Reign of Terror.
• During this time anyone
who was suspected of
being loyal to the king
or trying to stop the
revolution from
happening was put on
trial and killed.

10. What were people executed for?
• Robespierre said in order to
keep France safe for
democracy he had to get rid
of anyone who was loyal to
the king in any way.
• People were executed for
simple offenses such as
owning a deck of cards with
a king in it.
• You were put on trial in the
morning and executed in
the afternoon.

11. 1794
• Even the radicals
think Robespierre
has gone too far.
Robespierre is put
on trial and
executed.
• Moderates now take
over the
government.

12. Results
• Approximately 3000 people were
executed.
• Some historians think that as
many as 40,000 were killed as a
result of the revolution. The
majority of them were peasants,
people whom the revolution was
supposed to be helping the most.
• After Robespierre’s death people
were tired of the revolution and
terror and just wanted things to
settle down.
• They were also still dealing with
high prices of food. One of the
things the revolution promised to
fix.
• In 1795 moderate leaders of the
National Convention met and
wrote the third constitution since
1789.
• The new constitution placed
power firmly in the hands of the
upper middle class and called for
a two house legislature and an
executive body made up of five
men known as the Directory.
• They were corrupt, but they did
provide some stability to France.