Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror, period (1793–94) during the French Revolution when fanatical Jacobin reformers, including Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Jacques Danton, and Jacques René Hébert, seized control from the Girondists. They guillotined over 2,600 “counterrevolutionaries” (including Danton and Hebert, eventually) in Paris and sanctioned “Terrors” elsewhere, notably in Nantes. The Terror ended with the guillotining of Robespierre himself in 1794.

See also: French Revolution.