NDA (II) 2023 General Ability Test · Question 74 of 146

Correct — C, Trial and beheading persons considered enemies of the republic by the revolutionary tribunal. The Terror was state repression carried out through the republic's own institutions between September 1793 and July 1794. The Committee of Public Safety had become the effective wartime government, and the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris tried those denounced as enemies of the republic — nobles, clergy, Girondins, hoarders, and eventually revolutionaries themselves. Those convicted went to the guillotine. It was official, legal and organised, which is precisely what separates option (c) from the three alternatives.

• (a)Bands of revolutionaries moving around to terrorise people who did not participate in the revolution — Roving mobs were not what the term names. The Terror worked through a committee of government and a court sitting in Paris, applying laws passed by the Convention, not through free-ranging bands punishing non-participants.
• (b)The royal forces punishing people who participated in the revolution — There were no royal forces left to do this. The monarchy had been abolished and Louis XVI executed in January 1793, months before the Terror began; the violence of this period came from the republican government, not from the crown.
• (d)The general atmosphere of insecurity perceived by people after the beheading of the king — Fear was certainly widespread, but the Reign of Terror is the name of a specific policy and period with named institutions and dates, not of a mood. Defining it as a general feeling misses the tribunal, the committee and the executions that give the term its meaning.

After the fall of the monarchy France faced foreign invasion and internal revolt at once, and the Convention responded by concentrating power. The Committee of Public Safety, created in April 1793, became the de facto wartime government. The Revolutionary Tribunal, set up in March 1793, tried people accused of being enemies of the republic. From September 1793 the two together produced the period known as the Reign of Terror, in which suspicion was enough to bring a citizen before the court and conviction meant the guillotine.

Three of the four options describe fear or violence in a general way; only one names a mechanism. Ask who was doing it and through what — the answer has to be the republic acting through its own tribunal, because the king was already dead and there was no royal power left to punish anyone. The temptation in option (d) is real, since the Terror did produce an atmosphere of insecurity, but an atmosphere is a consequence, and the question asks what the term referred to.

• The Reign of Terror is dated from 5 September 1793 to 27 July 1794.
• The Committee of Public Safety, created in April 1793, became the de facto wartime government of France and oversaw the Terror.
• The Law of 22 Prairial, passed on 10 June 1794, stripped procedural safeguards from the Revolutionary Tribunal and sharply raised the rate of executions.
• Roughly 16,594 official death sentences were recorded from June 1793, with an estimated ten to twenty thousand more people executed without trial or dying in custody.
• The Terror ended with the Thermidorian Reaction — Robespierre fell on 27 July 1794 and was guillotined the following day.

• Reading the Terror as mob violence rather than as violence organised by the state.
• Placing the execution of Louis XVI inside the Terror; it came earlier, in January 1793.
• Defining the term by the fear it produced instead of by the institutions that produced it.

Asked as a definition item like this one, and NDA has also set it in statement form as a 'which statement is not correct about the Reign of Terror' item in the 2019 second session.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Reign of Terror in France came to an end with the fall and execution of

  • (a)Louis XVI
  • (b)Maximilien Robespierre
  • (c)Jacques Necker
  • (d)Napoleon Bonaparte

  Answer(b) Maximilien Robespierre — he fell on 27 July 1794 and was guillotined the next day, ending the Terror.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which body functioned as the effective wartime government of France during the Reign of Terror?

  • (a)The Estates General
  • (b)The Directory
  • (c)The Committee of Public Safety
  • (d)The National Assembly

  Answer(c) The Committee of Public Safety — created in April 1793, it became the de facto government and oversaw the Terror.