Final answer:
The laws passed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror were aimed at protecting the Revolution from its enemies and included repressive measures like imprisonment and execution by guillotine. However, these measures contradicted the revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality.
Step-by-step explanation:
During the Reign of Terror, the Committee of Public Safety passed the Laws of Suspects and the Law of 22 Prairial which aimed to protect the French Revolution from its enemies. The measures instituted by the Committee, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, included imprisonment, trials for suspected counterrevolutionaries, émigrés, aristocrats, and anyone perceived as an enemy to the state. The use of the guillotine was widespread, symbolizing this era of repression; approximately 50,000 people were executed, with public executions becoming a form of attraction. Although these laws and actions were effective in temporarily suppressing dissent, they also led to indiscriminate violence and ultimately were contradictory to the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity that the Revolution initially espoused.
The Reign of Terror was a complex period: on one hand, it protected the revolutionary government by silencing dissent through drastic and repressive measures, on the other hand, it deviated drastically from the democratic ideals