Maximilien Robespierre

The constitution was adopted on 3 September 1791, with the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen serving as its preamble, shortly before the king's acceptance.

The National Convention created the Committee of Public Safety on 6 April 1793 after Barère's proposal, to defend the republic.

Danton led the committee through the Girondin expulsion and the Vendée war, but was excluded when it was recomposed on 10 July 1793.

On 27 July 1793 Maximilien Robespierre was elected to the committee, replacing Gasparin.

In late 1793 Robespierre denounced the Cult of Reason and its proponents, presenting his own vision of proper Revolutionary religion.

On 6 May 1794 Robespierre announced the Committee of Public Safety's recognition of the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul.

On 7 May 1794 the National Convention authorized the Cult of the Supreme Being, devised by Robespierre, as the civic religion of France.

Robespierre declared 20 Prairial Year II (8 June 1794, Pentecost) the first national day of celebration, with future holidays on décadi.

In 1793 the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris was converted into a Temple of Reason, and later rededicated to the Cult of the Supreme Being.

By late 1793 the Convention might have attended the Paris festival en masse, but Robespierre's unshakeable opposition prevented it from becoming an official affair.

The official nationwide Festival of Reason, supervised by Hébert and Momoro, was held on 10 November 1793 and epitomized the new republican religion.

On 4 February 1794 the Convention, under Robespierre's leadership, abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies.

The French constitution passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.

Saint-Just directed a Convention speech against Danton, claiming the Dantonists sought to slow the Terror and the Revolution.

At the end of March 1794 Danton made a triumphant speech announcing the end of the Terror.

Danton was beheaded on 5 April 1794 at sunset, together with fifteen others including Hérault de Séchelles, Westermann, and Philippeaux.

Conspirators attacked Robespierre and allied deputies in the National Convention on 27 July 1794, leading to their arrest.

The Thermidorian Reaction ended the Terror, decentralized executive power, and abandoned radical Jacobin policies for moderation.

On 24 December 1794 the Thermidorian regime abolished the Maximum, the controls on prices and wages.

In 1795 the White Terror brought imprisonments and several hundred executions, targeting the political left and former Jacobins.

The Constitution of the Year III was adopted on 22 August 1795, and the Convention dissolved itself, replaced by the Directory on 2 November 1795.