The Reign of Terror: Authentic Narratives (1898 edition)

What it is

This is the first volume of a 1898 English edition, The Reign of Terror, a collection of narratives written by eyewitnesses to the scenes and translated from the French. It gathers accounts of the horrors committed by the revolutionary government under Marat and Robespierre, along with biographical notices and anecdotes. The copy here is a scanned PDF from the Internet Archive.

Why it matters

The book is a later compilation, so its texts were gathered and arranged in 1898 rather than written in one moment. Still, the accounts it preserves come from people who lived through the period from 31 May 1792 to 27 July 1794. Its preface says that virtue and nobility were certain titles to proscription or the guillotine, which shows how contemporaries saw Robespierre's rule.

Look closer

• Who wrote each narrative, and how close were they to the events they describe?
• Why did the 1898 editors choose these horror stories, and what might they leave out?
• How does the title's choice of the phrase Reign of Terror shape the way you judge Robespierre?