The Law of Suspects

The Law of Suspects was passed on 17th September 1793.  It codified what was already becoming apparent anyone deemed suspicious would be arrested.  This ranged from the nobles who still live in France to relatives of émigrés in the country to those who do not show appropriate support to the government.  Already citizens had begun to carry Certificates of Civisim which soon became a document which could become a matter of life and death.

It gave the Surveillance Committees which had been assembled in March 1793 the power to draw up lists of who should be arrested. Soon hundreds of thousands would be arrested and with the addition of the Law of 22 Prairial would be tried and executed within three days.  The Law would not last much longer than many of its architects as it was removed from the books with the coming of the Directory.

Barère on proposal of the Law of Suspects.  Taken from Memoirs of Bertrand Barère Volume 2, H. S. Nichols, London (1896) p94

Unfortunately the Committee of Legislation caused Merlin to propose the terrible law of suspects, which made so many malcontents and victims, and which led to so much vexation and injustice. The prisons began to fill, war was waged against opinions, political consciences were vexed, all passions were appealed to ; a crowd of interests were injured. The sad autumn of 1793 became still more melancholy owing to the numerous imprisonments, against which it seemed that public opinion should have shielded us, for it censured the authors of the law, and still more those who executed it with so much passion and so little discernment. I informed the Committee of Public Safety of what I had perceived of the mournful and dangerous symptoms in public opinion and in the very heart of the most energetic republicans.