About the book: 2006 / 9 Thermidor was the beginning of a turbulent historical era. The Convention, largely composed of former “terrorists,” was faced with a new political problem: how to get out of the Terror that this same Convention had unleashed sixteen months earlier? Can the Revolution condemn the Terror without thereby passing judgment on itself? The fifteen months after the overthrow of Robespierre, known in history as the “Thermidorian period,” became not just a radical turn in the history of the French Revolution, but also a nightmare for all subsequent revolutions. Thermidor began to be perceived as the time when the revolution had to admit that it could not keep its previous promises and come to terms with the collapse of its hopes. In the era of Thermidor, tired and prematurely aged revolutionaries refuse to continue the Revolution and dream only of ending it.