JUSTICE AND MURDER: MASSACRES IN THE PROVINCES, VERSAILLES, MEAUX AND REIMS IN 1792

Sutherland tests Pierre Caron's version of the thesis of circumstances against the provincial massacres in Versailles, Meaux, and Reims in September 1792. He questions whether fears of conspiracy and the desire to pre-empt motivated the killers. He argues that these three massacres and, by extension, others in the provinces occurred in a context particular to the summer of 1792: revolutionary enthusiasm, iconoclasm and the desire to construct a post-royal order; a circumstance of enfeebled authority, an atmosphere where ordinary rules no longer applied; and a desire to cleanse the home front before marching to meet the foreign invader.