By July 1794, the National Convention finally reasserted its legitimacy as a governing institution, with the active manoeuvring of the members of the Plain.

On 27 July 1794, it declared Robespierre and 21 others such as Couthon and Saint-Just, most of who had been members of the Committee of Public Safety to be outlaws, as they had been attacked by National Guards loyal to the Convention and had subsequently retreated into the Hotel de Ville.

Robespierre and the others were all executed without any due judicial process, a clear and continued infringement of the legal ideals ingrained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, on 29 July 1794, symbolically ending the Reign of Terror. It marked the beginning of the Thermidorean reaction and a return to moderate France.

See Also

Robespierre

Reign of Terror