Revolutionary Tribunal

The Revolutionary Tribunal was a court set up by the National Convention during the French Revolution to try political offences. A provisional version was created in August 1792 after the storming of the Tuileries and abolished that November, and an extraordinary criminal tribunal was established in Paris in March 1793, taking the name Revolutionary Tribunal by decree of 29 October 1793. It heard cases of alleged counter-revolutionary offences from across France before a bench of five judges, a jury of twelve and a public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, all nominated by the Convention, and its judgements allowed no appeal. In the autumn of 1793 it became one of the principal instruments of the period known as the Reign of Terror. Once most of those tied to the earlier radical government had been eliminated, its own president and prosecutor were convicted and guillotined in May 1795, and the tribunal was discontinued on 31 May 1795.