Reign of Terror

On 27 July 1794, the National Convention that Maximilien Robespierre had dominated for a year finally turned on him and had him arrested within the hour. He was dead less than two days later, undone partly by a state religion he had invented two months before, with himself as its prophet.

On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was executed at the Place de la Révolution. The vote for his death passed by 361 to 319 - a margin of forty-two deputies. What followed made the king look like the easy part.