Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School Name:
History French Revolution Formative Class:
Take a look at the sources below. Based on the knowledge you have learnt about the
French Revolution, respond to the essay question. [30 marks]
Source A: The Execution of Danton (1794)
The condemned went to their deaths in the midst of a huge crowd of republicans, who were
there to watch the original founders of their Republic lose their heads. Seeing the procession
pass, a woman in the Rue St-Honore looked at Danton and exclaimed: ‘How ugly he is!’ He
smiled at her and said: ‘There’s no point in telling me that now, I shan’t be ugly much longer’.
His face did in fact look like the head of a lion, while Robespierre’s is like that of a cat or a
tiger.
When they reached the place of execution, they were made to get out of the carts at the foot
of the scaffold. They climbed up one by one to be executed and watched as the others died
under the blade. Danton was the last. When he saw the executioner coming for him at the
foot of the scaffold, he cried out in a strong voice, ‘My turn now!’ and quickly climbed the
fatal ladder. As they were tying him to the block, he looked calmly at the blade dripping with
his friends’ blood, and bent his head saying: ‘It’s only a sabre cut’ (a phrase Desmoulins had
once used to describe the new method of execution).
Source B: Speech by Robespierre advocating for continued insurrection
There must be one will. It must be either republican or royalist. For it to be republican, there
must be republican ministers, republican newspapers, republican deputies, a republican
government.
Whilst the body politic suffers from revolutionary sickness and a divided will, the foreign war
is a mortal illness. The internal dangers come from the bourgeois. To defeat the bourgeois, it
is necessary to rally the people.
Everything was ready to place the people under the yoke of the bourgeoisie and send the
defenders of the republic to the scaffold. They have triumphed at Marseilles, at Bordeaux
and at Lyon. They would have triumphed at Paris but for the present insurrection.
The present insurrection must continue until the measures necessary to save the republic
have been taken. The people must make an alliance with the Convention and the
Convention must make use of the people. The insurrection must spread by degrees along
the same lines. The sans-culottes must be paid and remain in the towns, rather than being
sent to the front. They must be found arms, incited and enlightened.
Republican enthusiasm must be exalted by all means possible. If the deputies are merely
sent home, the republicans are lost. The deputies will continue to mislead the departments,
and their replacements will be no better.
Source C: Speech by Robespierre justifying the use of terror
To found and consolidate democracy, to achieve the peaceable reign of the constitutional
laws, we must end the war of liberty against tyranny and pass safely across the storms of
the revolution. Such is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have enacted. Your
conduct, then, ought also to be regulated by the stormy circumstances in which the republic
is placed. And the plan of your administration must result from the spirit of the revolutionary
government, combined with the general principles of democracy.
What is the fundamental principle of the democratic or popular government…? It is virtue…
Republican virtue can be considered in relation to the people and in relation to the
government; it is necessary in both. When only the government lacks virtue, there remains a
resource in the people’s virtue; but when the people themselves are corrupted, liberty is
already lost…
Based on the above sources, what do they tell us about Robespierre and the
Reign of Terror? (Remember to state according to source)
