Lawyer, statesman, and leader of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre, was executed by guillotine on July 28, 1794, in Paris.
Robespierre had been one of the principal architects of post-monarchical France, including authoring its famed motto “Liberte, egalite, fraternite”.
However, he was also the driving force of the period of arrests, executions, and purges known as the Reign of Terror. He was among several revolutionary leaders arrested on July 27 when the governing Convention came to fear another purge was in the works.
