Federalist revolts in the context of "Jacobins"

The siege of Toulon (29 August – 19 December 1793) was a military engagement that took place during the Federalist revolts and the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. It was undertaken by forces of the French Republic against Royalist rebels supported by Anglo-Spanish forces in the southern French city of Toulon. It was during this siege that young Napoleon Bonaparte first won fame and promotion when his plan, involving the capture of fortifications above the harbour, was credited with forcing the city to capitulate and the Anglo-Spanish fleet to withdraw. The siege marked the first involvement of the British Royal Navy with the French Revolution.

The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (French: Société des amis de la Constitution), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality (Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité) after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins (/ˈdʒækəbɪnz/; French: [ʒakɔbɛ̃]), was the most influential political club during the French Revolution of 1789. The period of its political ascendancy includes the Reign of Terror, during which well over 10,000 people were put on trial and executed in France, many for "political crimes".

Initially founded in 1789 by anti-royalist deputies from Brittany, the club grew into a nationwide republican movement with a membership estimated at a half million or more. The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s: The Mountain and the Girondins. In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France when they declared war on Austria and on Prussia, overthrew King Louis XVI, and set up the French First Republic. In May 1793, the leaders of the Mountain faction, led by Maximilien Robespierre, succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government featured high levels of political violence, and for this reason the period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is identified as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were guillotined. The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide as a way to suppress the Vendée insurrection and the Federalist revolts, and to deter recurrences. In July 1794, the National Convention pushed the administration of Robespierre and his allies out of power and had Robespierre and 21 associates executed. In November 1794, the Jacobin Club closed.

The Reign of Terror (French: La Terreur, lit. 'The Terror') was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to the Federalist revolts, revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. While terror was never formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention, it was more often employed as a concept.

Historians disagree when exactly the "Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun in 1793, often giving the date as 5 September or 10 March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others cite the earlier September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789 when the first killing of the revolution occurred. Will Durant stated that "strictly, it should be dated from the Law of Suspects, September 17, 1793, to the execution of Maximilien Robespierre, July 28, 1794."