September Massacres

September 2, 1792

With Prussian armies advancing on Paris and rumors of counter-revolution in the prisons, mobs broke into the jails and killed over 1,100 prisoners - priests, nobles, common criminals. Marat approved; Danton shrugged; Robespierre kept his distance. The Revolution had discovered its capacity for terror. The massacres horrified European opinion and gave Burke's warnings about revolutionary violence a bloody vindication that his opponents could no longer dismiss.