What law passed on 22 Prairial Year II greatly accelerated the Reign of Terror?

The Law of 22 Prairial was the law that greatly accelerated the Reign of Terror.

Proposed by Georges Couthon and enacted by the National Convention on 22 Prairial, Year II—10 June 1794—the measure transformed the Revolutionary Tribunal. It sharply restricted defendants’ ability to call witnesses or present a full defence and simplified the tribunal’s procedures.

The law defined broad categories of “enemies of the people,” making it easier for political opponents and suspected counter-revolutionaries to be prosecuted. Acquittal or execution became the tribunal’s principal outcomes, and the new process helped produce a dramatic rise in death sentences.

The period that followed is often called the Great Terror. In Paris, 1,366 people were executed between 10 June and 27 July 1794. The law is sometimes confused with the Law of Suspects, passed in September 1793, which broadened the machinery of arrest. The Law of 22 Prairial specifically intensified revolutionary trials and executions.