In April, 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris condemned a handful of prisoners to death for crimes against the French Republic-and judges, jury, and spectators wept as sentence was passed.
In July, 1794, the Tribunal sent thirty to fifty people a day to the guillotine.
What, in fifteen months, turned the Tribunal into an instrument of mass murder? What collective madness or terror seized its personnel, some of them callous psychopaths, others decent men trapped in nightmarish circumstances? How could they casually condemn hundreds to death, from peasants to duchesses, from...
In April, 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris condemned a handful of prisoners to death for crimes against the French Republic-and judges, jury,...
