The French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror in 1593.
French Revolution . The dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror , from 1793 until 1794 , established price controls on food and other items , abolished slavery in French colonies abroad , dechristianised society through the creation of a new calendar and the expulsion of religious figures , and secured the borders of the new republic from its enemies . The Reign of Terror or The Terror ( la Terreur ) is the label given by some historians to a period during the French Revolution , in an apparent attempt to retorically discredit or ` curse ' the politics and events especially during the dominating presence ( July 1793 -- July 1794 ) of Maximilien Robespierre on the Committee of Public Safety -- the de facto executive government of Revolutionary France . Several historians consider ` reign of terror ' to have begun in 1793 , placing the starting date at either 5 September , June or March ( birth of the Revolutionary Tribunal ) , while some consider it to have begun in September 1792 ( September Massacres ) , or even July 1789 ( when the first decapitations took place ) , but there is a general consensus that it ended with the fall of Robespierre in July 1794 . Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794 , there were 16,594 official death sentences in France , of which 2,639 were in Paris .