Law of 22 Prairial

Overview

The Law of 22 Prairial was a June 1794 measure that compressed Revolutionary Tribunal procedure, greatly broadened political offences, and made death the only guilty sentence.

Current Profile

Introduced by Georges Couthon on 10 June and presented by the episode as largely written by Robespierre, the law removed defence counsel and ordinary evidentiary testimony. Jurors could convict through inner conviction, while the category “enemies of the people” absorbed criticism, false news, moral insult, official abuse, interference with food supply, and broadly hostile conduct. Because acquittal or death became the available outcomes, the law accelerated both executions and anticipatory fear among deputies.

Key Characteristics

• It removed defence counsel for accused persons.
• It displaced testimony and ordinary evidence with jurors’ inner conviction.
• It broadened enemy categories across speech, morality, office, supply, and conduct.
• It made death the only sentence after conviction.
• Its combination of vague liability and Robespierre’s unnamed warnings made insiders unable to infer safety.

Evidence

Procedural compression

• 711. The Terror: Killing God (Part 5) records the removal of counsel and evidentiary testimony and the substitution of juror conviction.

Broad liability and political effect

• 711. The Terror: Killing God (Part 5) lists the expanded offence categories, death-only sentencing, accelerating executions, and shared fear among threatened deputies.

Qualifications

• The episode’s account of drafting responsibility is source-scoped and does not substitute for a full legislative history.
• A broad law does not prove that every listed category was enforced identically or that every later execution followed the same factual pattern.
• Fear around the law contributed to coalition formation but was not the only cause of Robespierre’s fall.

What Changed

• A canonical page now records the law’s procedural design and its role in converting legal escalation into insider coalition pressure.

Relationships

• Maximilien Robespierre / 罗伯斯庇尔 - principal author in the episode’s account and political beneficiary exposed by the law’s backlash.
• Georges Couthon - committee ally who formally introduced the measure.
• Revolutionary Tribunal - court whose procedure and sentencing options the law transformed.
• Emergency Institutions to Terror - institutional pathway culminating in extreme procedural compression.
• Revolutionary Purge Security Dilemma - political mechanism intensified by uncertain and potentially universal exposure.
• Law of Suspects - earlier widening of arrest categories that the Prairial law extended into trial and capital judgment.