Thermidor: the End of the Revolution

Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety became widely feared, even by their closest allies, as likely to use charges of treason against anyone. Their brief period of rule came to an end in July 1794, when a coup (staged in the month of Thermidor according to the new, revolutionary calendar) led to Robespierre's death and the end of the Committee.

It also amounted to the end, for many historians, of the French Revolution.

On the one hand, this "revolutionary government" might be seen as the most democratic government that had ever existed in Europe: it abolished slavery, imposed a maximum price for essential goods like bread, assured a right to subsistence for the poor, and encouraged everyone to participate as much as possible in the revolutionary effort by attending political club meetings, by serving in the army, by making patriotic contributions of money, food, clothing or livestock. In short, it promoted "virtue" rather than self-interest as the basis for citizenship. This represents the optimistic view of the Revolution as the first great attempt for a large country to rule itself without a king and according to principles of liberty, equality and fraternity