User:Crookandcharlatan/Sandbox2
| This article is about the event. You may be looking for the memory. |
- "This is what happens when you give command of the government to half-starved lunatics, and command of the army to bloodthirsty savages."
- ―Napoleon on the September Massacres, 1792.[src]
The September Massacres were a wave of killings that occurred across France, though principally in Paris, during the French Revolution.
With the threat of foreign armies advancing upon them, the revolutionaries grew fearful that Paris' prison population could form a dangerous counter-revolutionary force if freed. Rallied by radicalists like Jean-Paul Marat, they set out to pre-emptively eliminate any prisoner that showed even the slighest evidence of being against the revolution; ultimately, over a thousand people lost their lives in the massacres.
Background
Following the storming of the Tuileries Palace on the 10th of August and King Louis XVI's arrest and imprisonment, France found itself in a state of uncertainty.
Adding to France's problems was the threat of invasion by foreign armies, who sought to put an end to the revolution and restore the monarchy.
From 2 to 7 September 1792, the Jacobins took part in a series of murders of prisoners and priests, killing nearly 1500 people. The guard captain Frédéric Rouille led a group of guardsmen to the Grand Châtelet and began to massacre its guards and prisoners, but he was assassinated on the top of the prison by Arno Dorian, who was informed of Rouille's location by his superior, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Prison massacres
Aftermath
References