Revolutionary Tribunal
[10] Along with other Jacobins, he urged in the fifth issue of his magazine the creation of an "armée révolutionnaire" in Paris, consisting of at least 20 or 23,000 men,[11][12] to defend the city, "liberty" (the revolution), maintain order in the sections and educate the members in democratic principles; an idea promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
[13] The provisional Revolutionary Tribunal was established on 17 August 1792 in response to the Storming of the Tuileries, to ensure that there was some appropriate legal process for dealing with suspects accused of political crimes and treason, rather than arbitrary killing by local committees.
The provisional Tribunal was abolished in November 1792 at the start of the trial of Louis XVI, and during this time had sentenced twenty-eight people to death.
A bench of five judges would be responsible for running the court itself, but the Convention would control the caseload through deputies elected to a commission de six.
[17] On the evening of 9 March, a crowd gathered outside the Convention, shouting threats and calling for the removal of all "traitorous" deputies who had failed to vote for the execution of the king.
On 12 March 1793, a provisional Revolutionary Tribunal was established; three days later the Convention appointed Fouquier-Tinville as the "accusateur public" and Fleuriot-Lescot as his assistant.
On 10 March, responding to serious disorder in the streets of Paris, Georges Danton, with Robespierre's support, proposed its revival, but the majority of deputés were not in favour.
After a long debate, towards midnight, Danton was able to persuade a majority to vote for it only by raising the spectre of further uncontrolled massacres, as had taken place the previous September.
This was an innovation in French justice, borrowed from English law (although for the Revolutionary Tribunal the jury was carefully selected from politically reliable activists).
[26] On 5 September 1793, the Convention split the Revolutionary Tribunal into four concurrent chambers so that the number of cases it dealt with could be greatly increased.
This case was dismissed, but the principle that Convention members could be tried by the Tribunal was an important one, and ultimately led to the Girondin leaders being tried and executed in October 1793.
Royalists, émigrés and federalists were clearly opposed to the Tribunal and its workings, but since public criticism in support of the monarchy in Paris or in the press would be regarded as treasonable, it barely existed.
"It was just a year ago that I was the means of instituting the Revolutionary Tribunal; may God and man forgive me for what I did then; but it was not that it might become the scourge of humanity.
In the five days after the Thermidorian Reaction, the Convention freed 478 political prisoners, but 8,000 still remained incarcerated, despite popular demands for a general amnesty.
[22]: 441 On 1 August 1794 (14 Thermidor Year II) the Prairial Laws were revoked, meaning that the burden of proof against suspects was once again with the prosecution.
Soon afterwards, all of the judges on the Revolutionary Tribunal were replaced, and the local surveillance committees were curtailed, so that there were henceforth to be only twelve in Paris and one per district outside the capital.
The Revolutionary Tribunal was used by the Thermidorian Convention as an instrument to destroy the political leaders who had taken an active part in what was eventually called the Reign of Terror.
In 1795, the First White Terror broke out in parts of the country, particularly in the South East, as anti-Jacobin mobs attacked and murdered people who had been associated with revolutionary tribunals in their area.
[22]: 484 From the beginning of 1793 to the Thermidorian Reaction, around 17,000 people were sentenced and beheaded by some form of revolutionary court in France (in Paris or in the provinces), in addition to some 25,000 others who were summarily executed in the September Massacres, retributions in the War in the Vendée and elsewhere.
[22]: 437 Of all those accused by the Revolutionary Tribunal, about half were acquitted (the number dropped to a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial Year II) (10 June 1794).
