September Massacres

in French history, September, 1792, is noted for a series of murders perpetrated by the frantic mobs of Paris. Danton, fearing, it is said, that the opposition of the royal forces might result in the liberation of many royalists confined in prison, turned the places of confinement over to self-constituted committees or mobs of extreme revolutionists. These tribunals summoned great numbers of prisoners into their presence, held a brief mock inquiry, then dispatched them into the courtyard to be shot, sabred, and disposed of by infuriated executioners. Hundreds of helpless prisoners were butchered in the massacres of September. See Danton; French Revolution