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The fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794) ended the Terror but opened a period of political instability that lasted five years. The Thermidorian Convention and its successor, the Directory, struggled to find a stable middle ground between royalist restoration and Jacobin radicalism. The Directory's failure to achieve political legitimacy ultimately created the conditions for Napoleon Bonaparte's seizure of power.
Key Definition: Thermidor refers to the coup against Robespierre (27 July 1794) and the subsequent conservative reaction. The word became a political metaphor for the moment when a revolution turns against its own radicals.
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