ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the characteristics of the Revolution’s most radical period, including the democracy and the policy of terror. It explains the reasons for the victory of the radical Jacobins and the importance of the Committee of Public Safety. The chapter analyzes the features of the period’s revolutionary culture and its relationship to the Montagnards’ political and social goals. It describes the period’s consequences for the rights of women and the struggle against slavery. Women’s participation in revolutionary politics reached its peak in the spring and summer of 1793. Although the Montagnard-dominated Convention was able to overcome the federalist revolts by the fall of 1793, its control of the streets of the capital was still not secure. The sans-culotte movement that had helped the Montagnards defeat the Girondins continued to demand ever more radical measures to ensure that the Revolution benefited the common people.
