The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine

"From late 1792 to the summer of 1794, the young French Republic was subject to a reign of institionalised terror - in many ways the prcursor of Stalin's Great Terror of the 1930s. The Republic founded on liberty, equality and fraternity degenerated into a nightmare of paralysing fear nad panic, of suspicion and betrayal. Personified by Robespierre and Saint-Just, the Terror convulsed and very nearly ruined France - until they too met their fate under Dr Guillotin's new invention. That extraordinary, blood thirsty period comes vividly to life in this book; by mining the original French sources - contemporary documents, eye-witness accounts, reports from the dreaded Committee for public safety. The author brilliantly recreates the deadly, paranoid atmosphere of the time. He shows that the Terror was not just confined to Paris - the Terror cut a swathe across France. In Nantes, thousands of prisoners were dragged from their cells and drowned in the Loire. In Lyon, hundreds of rebels were mown down into mass graves by grapeshot. And yet amidst the horror there are also stories of great dignity and heroism, audacious escapes, and the pathos of heart-wrenching last letters written by men and women prisoners in the grim Conciergerie, awaiting the final ride in the tumbrels through the streets of Paris to the guillotine" -- Provided by publisher.