With the popular image of the Reign of Terror being guillotines beheading people by the dozens in Paris, I was curious what effect the movement would have on people who are further away from the metro centers of revolutionary France
Would I have to be careful of who I was associating with? Would it be harder for me to get goods? Or is my life relatively unbothered by this, with the dust having settled somewhat after the passage of the new constituion?
Want to clear up a few things first:
with the dust having settled somewhat after the passage of the new constituion?
I'm not sure which constitution you're referring to here, as there were two of the revolutionary period: the Constitution of 1791 and the Constitution of 1793. While the former was put into effect in 1791, as the National Assembly stepped down and the Legislative Assembly was elected. This Constitution ended with the Insurrection of August 10th (1792) and the forced abdication of Louis XVI. The National Convention was convened in September 1792 to be a constitutional convention, to draw up a new constitution to replace the now disgraced Constitution of 1791. One of their first acts was to declare a Republic, so this would be France's first Republican Constitution. While the so-named Consitution of 1793 was finished (finally) in July of 1793, and a national referrendum overwhelmingly approved of it (the 'overwhelming' bit is a bit suspicious, but it was popular nonetheless), the Constitution of 1793 never went into effect. This was actually a key aspect of the eventual overthrow of the Robespierre-ists. Robespierre and his supporters plausibly argued in July of 1793 that they could not disband the National Convention and usher in a new government while they were barely holding the nation together under immense internal and external pressure. However as the pressure started to be releived as 1793 turned to 1794 the question became... "Um okay then, so can we do this thing yet? Let's get the Constitution going". However Robespierre still strenuously objected, saying they still needed the extra-legal powers of a revolutionary government to prevent the destruction of the whole revolution. Bottom line, the Constitution never went into effect. It wasn't until the Directory over a year after the end of the Terror that the Constitution of Year III was put into effect.
Second, with regards to:
Would it be harder for me to get goods? Or is my life relatively unbothered by this
The War of the First Coalition touched virtually every part of France. There were several huge troop levees, first the levée of 300,000 and then the monumental levée en masse, and massive requisition projects where food and other materials were moved all over the territory to wherever needed, with the army's needs taking precedence. This war effort was a mass mobilization of the entire nation, and every man woman and child was asked to help some way in the war effort.
Now as to the actual revolution, it's crucial to know that France was NOT uniform. While the central government in Paris tried to standardize the Terror, it was NOT carried out uniformly throughout the departments-- much to Robespierre's eternal annoyance. One of the keys to understanding this uneven application of justice was the fact that the men who carried out the Terror as representatives of the central government, "Representatives on Mission", had full power. Wherever they showed up, they were the supreme authority. While some Reps went too far in their Terror, others were seen as suspiciously lenient. Interestingly, these Reps on both sides were key Thermidorians-- the men responsible for Robespierre's overthrow. They were afraid that Robespierre was going to move against them. Two examples of such men were Collot DuBois, whose crimes at Lyons were seen as counter-productively cruel by the Robespierre-itsts, and Tallien, whose stint in Bordeaux started out normal... and then became suspiciously lenient after he took up with a young woman whose husband was an emigre.
So it was entirely dependent on where you were in France. If you lived in a town that had come under the thumb of a brutal Rep, then you likely experienced the Terror just as much, if not more than, in Paris. Many other towns and cities were ruled by local leaders, many of whom were just the same group of dudes who had been leaders under the ancien regime and just took off their king's insignia and popped on a revolutionary cockade.
I actually have answered a few similar questions to this one, so I'm going to post those answers here. I believe I answered anything specific to your question, but please let me know if there is more you'd like to ask!
Was the French Revolution a net positive for the peasantry?
How did life change for the sans culottes under the Jacobins and subsequently after Thermidor?