The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine: France 1792--1794

By Graeme Fife

Book Overview

For the audience that made a major bestseller of Simon Schama's "Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution" comes this exhaustively researched, character-driven chronicle of revolutionary terror, its victims, and the young men---energetic, idealistic, and sincere---who turned the French Republic into a slaughterhouse. 1792 found the newborn Republic threatened from all sides: the British blockaded the coasts, Continental armies poured over the frontiers, and the provinces verged on open revolt. Paranoia simmering in the capital, the Revolution slipped under control of a powerful clique and its fanatical political organization, the Jacobin Club. For two years, this faction, obsessed with patriotism and purity---self-appointed to define both---inflicted on their countrymen a reign of terror unsurpassed until Stalin's Russia. It was the time dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton, Jean-Paul Marat and Louis-Antoine Saint-Just (called "The Angel of Death"), when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette met their ends, when any hint of dissent was ruthlessly quashed by the State. It was the time of the guillotine, neighborhood informants, and mob justice. This extraordinary, bloodthirsty period comes vividly to life in Graeme Fife's new book. Drawing on contemporary police files, eyewitness accounts, directives from the sinister Committee for Public Safety, and heart-wrenching last letters from prisoners awaiting execution, the author brilliantly re-creates the psychotic atmosphere of that time.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312352247
• ISBN13: 9780312352240
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Thrilling "terror"

I started reading this book before Christmas and before I knew it I was totally engrossed. Fife does an excellent job of describing the madness of the Terror, and he skillfully weaves the actual voices (through letters etc) of the victims into the text. Its an amazing story, and I found the book impossible to put down. Also, Fife's prose made me turn purple with laughter in some places.. I think he is a very good writer... highly recommend it.

A Lesson in History

A Lesson in History In this Postmodern Age of "enlightenment and progress" one needs to reflect on the lessons taught by history. So many recent scourges of populations of helpless human beings who have found themselves at the center of political and ethnic conflict might convince oneself to ponder its meaning. To me, the horrors of Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and many others, remain beyond understanding. So, in the midst of our modern-day national political scene, in the freest of all countries in the world, one can see the shadows of the ills that arise in those other outcomes. The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine: France 1792--1794 This is the second newly published and fully researched book I have read on that subject. The short-lived effort and ultimate failure of a people to obtain freedom from tyranny and unjust governance is one of horror and saturated with intrigue and betrayal. It is completely astounding to me to think that the victory of the American Colonies over Great Britain in 1776 had only just been won less than two decades earlier! Because by 1815, France had again reverted to a monarchy and who could have imagined the lives that would be fruitlessly sacrificed in that struggle for freedom? The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France by David Andress (Hardcover - Jan 10, 2006) This was the first book I read, and it was also a detailed and scholarly work. Both books added to my understanding of the human condition. By a careful study of the story of that struggle for freedom and their hope to live in a free society, these two books will open the eyes of the thoughtful reader to our present day world. I highly recommend them both.

Good Popular History

Graeme Fife's "The Terror" is a popularization of this horrific but fascinating subject. I mean that in a good way. This book lacks a traditional scholarly apparatus (i.e. footnotes) and is stronger on storytelling than analysis. Simon Schama's majestic Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is still the book to beat about the French Revolution. But if you perversely enjoy blood-chilling tales of political warfare and madness, as I do, you will like this book. Fife rolls out all the fearsome tales: the September massacres, the war against the Vendee, the political infighting that lead to the revolution devouring almost all its children. But Fife never loses sight of the dreadful human cost of the time: the shattered families, ruined lives and blasted populations and economy. When I finish a book like this I always thank heaven I live where I do, when I do. And hope we can learn the appropriate lessons about political humility, compromise, and, yes, charity.

A Good Time to Not have Been in France

One of the crazy periods in history was the time of 'The Terror' in France. From June 1793 to July 1794, it seems that the inmates were running the asylum. After a successful revolution where the king (Louis XVI) and queen (Marie Antoinette) were overthrown. Under the guise of security, a harsh, fanatical political organization assumed power under the name, the Committee for Public Safety. Quick to condemn almost anyone, it was enough for a neighbor to make an accusation and the accused was off to the Guillotine. During those thirteen months at least 15,000 and perhaps as many as 40,000 people were killed. Finally they had gone to far. And the remaining leaders of the Committee had their own meeting with the Guillotine on July 28, 1794. This book does an excellent job of recording the Committee's descent into its own insanity. The book ends with the execution of Robespiere, Saint-Just and the others. After this came Napoleon. It was a good time to not be in France. Note though that the age of the Guillotine was not over. It continued in use as the official form of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981. Perhaps its widest use was by the Nazi's during their own reign of terror in which it has been estimated that some 40,000 people to have guillotined; possibly more than were beheaded during the French Revolution.