‘the prisons are full of conspirators’ and urged people to murder imprisoned traitors such as refractory priests and Swiss guards

2 – 6 September

-Marat, the self-styled friend of the people, and some of the sections had earlier called for massacre as a solution to the crisis – as the 17 August tribunal was so slow...

• in response as intended according to Danton to ‘replace the supreme tribunal of the people’s vengeance’

•The ideology behind the Terror was summarised by Danton ‘Let us [the Convention] be terrible, in order that the people are not so’

•“They threaten you with kings” roared Danton. “You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.”

•Danton ‘Let us [the Convention] be terrible, in order that the people are not so’

•“They threaten you with kings” roared Danton. “You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.”

¡Danton said “If we are bold, bolder still, and forever bold, then France is saved!”

Served as US major General

However arrested when he came back for participating in the war

Member of NA

commander and cheif of national gaurd

Hands louis revolutionary rose

Regarded as a “Man of action”

"Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country."

"I die innocent"

"Is it a revolt?"

"The constitution gave me the power to veto"

BEcause I will it

The Assembly of Notables was convened in 1787 by Louis XVI to come up with a solution for the many financial problems that France was facing.

His dismissal of Necker in early July 1789 set off popular demonstrations culminating in the storming of the Bastille,

he had to endorse its "destruction" of the feudal regime and its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August.

Radical financial reforms by Turgot and Malesherbes

calls for arrets of magistrates

says National assembly is Unconsstituail illegal null un void

then gives in after bastille

Better locksmith than king

Alfred Cobban

weak leadership

A contemporary cartoon ridiculing Louis – he is hog-tied by a member of the third estate

-ital

-Belgium

-netherlands

As trying to take the teriotirtes

Regarded as Madme Defict, selfish and fridolous

Scandal of diamond necklace as accused of immoral relations wutg tge cardianal

Inability to consumante marriage

Let them eat cake

Tried on Treason and defication to enemies of French nation

Reagrded as ambitious and desptopic

Disappointed of marie for lack of sucess

“Louis cannot be judged, he has already been judged. He has been condemned, or else the Republic is not blameless. To suggest putting Louis on trial, in whatever way, is a step back towards royal and constitutional despotism; it is a counter-revolutionary idea; because it puts the Revolution itself in the dock. After all, if Louis can still be put on trial, Louis can be acquitted; he might be innocent. Or rather, he is presumed to be until he is found guilty. But if Louis is acquitted, if Louis can be presumed innocent, what becomes of the revolution?”

e

¡The ‘blistering malcontent’ (Maza) Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple accused the royal Court of sabotaging the war

used ¡Le Pere Duchesne (Old Man Duchesne)  to call on sans culottes:

“To your pikes good sans culottes! Use them to exterminate aristocrats!

It is a revolt

No Sir, replied a minister standing by, this is a revolution.

Written by Jean-Paul Marat

He promoted violence and revolt, becoming a popular leader and agitator

 His presses were at times confiscated and he had to go into hiding.

 After the fall of the Monarchy in 1793 he was given the royal presses for his paper

Written by Jean-Paul Marat

He promoted violence and revolt, becoming a popular leader and agitator

 His presses were at times confiscated and he had to go into hiding.

 After the fall of the Monarchy in 1793 he was given the royal presses for his paper

Written by Jean-Paul Marat

He promoted violence and revolt, becoming a popular leader and agitator

 His presses were at times confiscated and he had to go into hiding.

 After the fall of the Monarchy in 1793 he was given the royal presses for his paper

used ¡Le Pere Duchesne (Old Man Duchesne)  to call on sans culottes:

“To your pikes good sans culottes! Use them to exterminate aristocrats!

¡On the 18th June, Lafayette demanded the revolutionary clubs be restrained and revolutionary clubs suppressed

§He vetoed the Legislative Assembly’s order for 20,000 National Guardsmen from the provinces to safeguard the revolution

§13 June, in response to Roland’s criticism of the King’s vetoes, Louis dismissed the radical Brissotin ministry.

¡8000 working people and radicalised National Guards marched first on the Legislative Assembly where they sang Ca Ira

}They demanded the end of Louis’ veto, the recall of the Brissotin ministers and his adherence to revolutionary laws

}Louis remained calm and steadfast; he refused to be intimidated and proclaimed his loyalty to the Constitution.

}His calm demeanour restored his prestige; across the country there was a wave of sympathy for the royal family.

¡In the days that followed, condemnation of the storming poured in from the provinces (20,000 signatures)

¡Royalist National Guards volunteered themselves for duty.

§Crystallised fears the King was involved in a conspiracy

§Provoked outrage and intensified calls for the King’s deposition

§Raised fears of what might happen should the invading armies reach Paris.

¡What is more, by early August, the enemy is now only 260 km from Paris

•When a year later a new revolutionary calendar was introduced, it was calculated from 22 September 1792, the first day of Year I of the Republic.

•The divisions that arose between deputies in the Convention over whether to try the king and later on his fate were to have longer-term repercussions.

•In November 1792, an iron cupboard – une armoire de fer – so like a safe, was found in the Tuileries including more incriminating papers.

As correspondence with Austria proving Treason from •Mirabeau, Dumouriez and Lafayette.

•Minister for Justice and a Girondin was attacked for not being there when it was opened and was accused by the Montagnards of removing documents.

•The Girondins were attracted by the idea of doing nothing – keep the king a hostage against future eventualities.

However

Left started to close off any future possible retorations

As •St-Just

 argued that the tyrant had already been tried, and found guilty, on 10 August by the people. All that was needed was to punish him – so no need for a trial.

•A guard picked up the head by its roughly cut hair and showed it to the people.

•They were silent for a moment, as if stunned. Then they began to cry “Vive la Nation!”, “Vive la République!”

•15 December 1792, generals were authorised in all occupied territories to introduce the full social programme of the French Republic

•It was the French who actually declared war on 1 February 1793 on Britain and the Netherlands and in March on Spain (The War of the First Coalition)

•“They threaten you with kings” roared Danton. “You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.”

•Turning north Dumouriez defeated the Austrian force at Jemappes on 3 November.

•Both won by sheer weight of numbers

•Patriotism had seen 180,000 patriotic recruits volunteer to defend the new order since 1789

•Vendée – began a counter revolutionary civil war.

Conscription into French army Causes Counter revolutionary civil war

•Extraordinary measures were to be taken to ensure ‘public safety’.

•It satisfied the sans-culottes, but throughout Europe, and probably France too, it made the Revolution far more enemies than friends.

-Divison in convention

-Girondins Attacked Jacobins as Stembriseurs (drinkers of blood)

•The Jacobins saw the Girondins as ‘soft’ (as they had proposed the appeal to the people to try to prevent Louis’ execution)

•Dumouriez offered to lead his army on Paris to release the Queen and proclaim the Dauphin Louis XVII – but his men refused to follow him...

So he defected to Austria as a General

Tainting the Girdinons as he had been a leader there

•The blade rushed down between the upright posts. Louis was heard to scream for “his head did not fall at the first stroke, his neck being so fat”.

•Established in response to the September Massacres – intended according to Danton to ‘replace the supreme tribunal of the people’s vengeance’

Ideology

•Danton ‘Let us [the Convention] be terrible, in order that the people are not so’

Practices

The CGS was to oversee the internal security of the Republic – it had police powers to deal with counter-revolutionaries and bring them to justice.

-•Fouché was the most important member – he ran a network of spies who informed on the people of France

Created to hasten the trial and execution of suspects – this necessarily limited the independence of judges and the rights of defendants

How did it run

•sixteen magistrates, a jury of sixty and a public prosecutor.

•In October 1793 trials were limited to 3 days

•After the Law of 22 Prairial in June 1794 – there was only one sentence for the guilty - death

•Members of the Convention sent to the provinces to ensure compliance with decrees.

Practices

•Initially 83 representatives were sent to raise troops and coordinate the war effort.

•They became local agents for the two ‘Great Committees’ enforcing the dictatorship of Paris.

Aims

•They were to oversee the suppression of the Civil War in the Vendée and the Federalist Revolt.

Historian Perspective

•Bosher “None played a bigger role in terrorising the nation”

•This enacted the trial and execution of armed rebels within twenty-four hours

Why was it made?

•A measure in response to the counter-revolution in the Vendée

How did it work?

•These would also be overseen by representatives-on-mission.

•To be established in every commune and in cities in every section,  these ‘police committees’ consisted of 12 elected members.

•Their job 

•watch foreigners

•identify and arrest suspects

•to issue certificates of ‘vertu’ (loyal and patriotic citizenship)

•An executive body to coordinate the work of other agencies, members elected by the Convention.

Power 

•The CPS held executive power to control the conduct of the war inside and outside France and to maintain supplies to the army and civilian population.

Practices

•From July 1793 it had 12 members; it worked in secret and maintained no records of its meetings.

What were they able to do

•The CPS issued orders to reps-on-mission

What happened within it 

•Robespierre joined CPS on 27 July 1793

•Law of Frimaire 4 Dec 1793 it was granted full executive powers.

eld

◦The tithe

◦Pluralism (the holding of more than 1 clerical office)

◦Could no longer decide how much tax it would pay

biens nationaux gave their land used for revenue to state which was solved for debts

Monastic vows were forbidden and all religious orders and congregations were dissolved.

•All other church property was transferred to the state.

The state assumed responsibility for paying clerical salaries 

However these changes were deemed ‘civil’ because it dealt with the secular administration within the churches systems

Deatiling

• ◦Return to their parishes within a fortnight

  ◦Swear an oath “to be faithful to the nation, the law and to the King, to maintain the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the King.”

• ALL opposing would be forced to retire on a pension or be punished

  Oath had to be taken by

Who did take it 4th Jan 1791

◦The majority clerical deputies refused – only 109 took the oath.

◦7 bishops and 55% of clergy took the oath.

◦In Paris few refused as they were targets for intimidation

Refusal varied across regions.

-The King held the executive power, with the right to name diplomats and ministers, to declare war and peace and to block temporarily the passing of legislation

This is called suspensive veto.

- The courts would determine and apply the law

Excluding those who paid less than 3 days labour in direct taxes, were under 25, domestic servants or women,

And less than a quarter did vote

Only those who paid a silver mark in tax could stand for office.

Additonally Robespierre's self-denying ordinance passed in May 1791

=no deputy in the NCA could stand for election to the Legislative Assembly

[The date] marks the moment when a judicial and social order, forged over centuries, composed of a hierarchy of separate orders, corps, and communities, and defined by privileges, somehow evaporated, leaving in its place a social world conceived in a new way as a collection of free and equal individuals subject to the universal authority of the law. The debate of August 4, 1789, held at night, was in fact associated with a very powerful feeling in all the deputies that they were witnessing a twilight and a dawn. But even this classical simile cannot do full justice to the emotions of the participants in this celebrated session, who for a few hours felt as though they were divine mechanics helping to bring about this incredible spectacle. This twilight and this dawn were their work.

“It is quite true that the abolition of ‘the general effects of the feudal system’… along with the various judicial and administrative reforms, entailed the destruction of seigneurial power and laid the foundations of a unified national state. But the terms of redemption turned the abolition into a compromise heavily weighted in favour of the aristocracy. In the end, the real cost was to be borne by the tenant-farmers and share-croppers. For although the peasants had been freed from the feudal system, they did not all benefit equally from their new liberty.”
Alfred Soboul, historian

§The trial of the king

§The establishment of a republic

-They laid siege to the house and factory of Réveillon in April 1789.

-attacked the Bastille,

- marched on Versailles,

- massed on the Champ de Mars in July 1791 to sign Republican petitions, dozens dying National Guard.

In August 1792, Parisian sans-culottes invaded the Tuileries palace , they surrounded the Legislative Assembly and coerced it into suspending the monarchy. 

(September 1792), sans-culottes raided the prisons of Paris and ‘cleansed’ them of counter-revolutionaries and traitors

They were not anti-capitalist, Williams contends, nor were they opposed to wealth or private property, only its concentration in the hands of a privileged few.

In contrast, the socialist historian Albert Soboul sees the sans-culottes as class warriors. They were ‘Marxists before Marx’ who sought to destroy the aristocracy and remake the world along socialist lines.

Revisionists like Alfred Cobban reject the suggestion that the sans-culottes were themselves a social class or even a homogenous group. There was too much diversity in their ranks, their motives were often unclear, and they usually responded to events rather than leading or creating them.

“A sans-culotte, you rogues? He is someone who always goes about on foot. [He] has not got the millions you would all like to have… [He] has no chateaux, no valets to wait on him… He is useful because he knows how to till a field, to forge iron, to use a saw… and to spill his blood to the last drop for the safety of the Republic… In the evening he goes to the assembly of his Section, not powdered and perfumed and nattily booted, in the hope of being noticed by the female citizens in the galleries, but ready to support sound proposals with all his might, and ready to pulverise those which come from the despised faction of politicians.   Finally, a sans-culotte always has his sabre well-sharpened, ready to cut off the ears of all opponents of the Revolution.”

it forced priests to choose and in doing so to accept or reject the revolution

NCA had created a second group of counter-revolutionaries

Divided individual communities+ peoples as decision between

Church- People

Pope handed down the Papal Encyclical ‘Charitas’ Decree,

•Up to 300 in number

•Jacobins: Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon

•Cordeliers: Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, Hébert

•All but one of the 24 Paris deputies were Jacobins

•Republicans and supporters of the Paris Commune

Backed the clubs and sections of paris

Their power as found within the aliance within the San-Culottes and urban poor

Poised paris as the center of the revolution and center of power

They were regarded as Bourgeois, Anti-clerical, Favoured Liberal Econmic policy as free trade in econmics but later supported poor introduced price controls

THeir aims were to represent the common man and "the genral will"

Supported Paris COmmune

Veiwed the san-culottes as a form of direct democracy

•About 180 in number

•Leaders: Brissot, Roland, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Louvet

•Main source of support: the provinces, regional centres

•Included Brissotins, Rolandists

•

•Opposition to the journée of 10 August had lost them support in Paris

•Supported federalism: the rights of provinces to run their own affairs without interference from Paris

Republican, free-trade, anti-clerical

•They wanted a stable, federalist system of government in which power was shared by all the provinces of France and saw themselves as protecting the liberties of outlying regions against the more radical policies of the capital.

Beliefs

They oppsed the San-cullotes violence the "Blood drinkers"

making them responsible September Massacres, for which they blamed Marat, Danton and Robespierre

•Represented the more conservative and wealthy land owners and factory owners from the provinces

•The provincial bourgeoisie were suffering an economic downturn from the war and were antagonised by the way Paris was determining the policies for all of France.

•About 250 deputies

•Held the balance of power

•Bourgeois, believed in economic liberalism

•Deeply distrusted the popular movement

•Voted on an issue-by-issue basis

•Supported the war with Austria and Prussia, the execution of the King and, later, the emergency measures proposed under the Terror.

•The power of both the Montagnards and the Girondins depended on their ability to convince the Plain.

• Abbe Sieyes 

Supported liberal political reforms, such as voting by head, the adoption of a constitution and the formation of a National Assembly. In July of 1789, the numbers of Club Breton had dwindled; this could have been caused by the group moving to paris.

Political Position: centralised, with a slight lean to the left.

Georges-Jacques Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, Camille

Desmoulins.

Several thousands of members. 

Supported: local autonomy, direct democracy

The Cordeliers had campaigned for a referendum and for universal male suffrage, which was a form of voting rights that allowed all adult male citizens within a political system to vote. 

Political Position: Left-wing to far left

Associated colours: Red and Black

Ideology: Jacobinism, Populism, Radicalism, Direct democracy

-Eustachius a S. Paulo

-Jacobins

-Lead by Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave

Worried about the instability of the revolution that had occurred

Petitioned for a constitutional monarchy 

Political Position- Conservative 

Pro monarchy 

1789

condemn those inciting the mob (in his mind being Mirabeau and the Duc d'Orléans)

In this speech to the Convention, delivered on 5 February 1794, Robespierre offered a justification of the Terror.

Mirabeau's secretly been in the pay of King Louis XVI of France (r. 1774-1792)

When asked about the letters and his own handwriting, Louis would always respond along the lines of, “I don’t remember that”, “I do not recognize that”, “I didn’t sign this”.

Found in the letters were attempts to undermine the French Revolution and seek foreign assistance against it.

With them addresed to General Santerre, Lafayette, Antoine Rivarol, and Talleyrand.

And his cabient minssters

Regarded as the men of 1789

Wanted then revolution to end

As to “restrain equality, reduce liberty and settle opinion”

He would not even put forward the complete lack of freedom, which has made void all the steps he has undertaken since the month of October 1789,

People of France, and especially you Parisians… be wary of the suggestions and lies of your false friends. Come back to your king; he will always be your father, your best friend.

What pleasure he will have… to see himself once again in your midst, when a constitution that he has freely accepted ensures that our holy religion will be respected, that government will be established on a stable footing and will be useful through its actions, that each man’s goods and position will no longer be disturbed, that laws will no longer be infringed with impunity, and that liberty will be placed on a firm and unshakeable base.”

LOUIS LETTER

+supported by sans culotes and menu people

INFLUENCED LAWS SUCH AS

-26 july 1793 Death peantkly for hoarding

-5 Septemebr Armee revolutionanaire to secure food for paris

-29 Septemebr General MAximum on prices and wages

-26 Febuary 1794 Laws of Ventose- property of enemies confiscated and distrubted to needy patriots

-23 july 1794

The first of the specific laws to identify and condemn traitors

as placing anyone suspected to be placed in custody

Traitors being

-Partisans of tyranny and federalism – enemies of liberty

-Those refused certificates of patriotism – civisme (and all were now required to carry one)

-Former nobles who have not shown steady devotion to the revolution

-Emigrés

IT further was emplifed by

Watch committees to compile lists of suspects

Expenses shall be charged to the prisoners

2-. The Provisional Executive Council, minsters, generals and constituted bodies are placed under the surveillance of the Committee of Public Safety, which shall report on them to the Convention every week.

3-. Every measure of security is to be taken... under the authority of the Committee...

4- Revolutionary laws must be executed rapidly.

5-. Generals in chief shall be appointed ... on the recommendation of the Committee of Public Safety..

Brissot and the Girondins,

Philippe Egalité,

Madame Roland,

Barnave and

Bailly

created Extreme centralisation

4th December 1793

Gave the CGS and the CPS full executive powers.

Reps on Mission came under CPS control

Revolutionary armies (except that of Paris) disbanded.

Largely ended de-Christianisation

End of anarchy – broke the power of sans-culottes

Gave France strong government

Robespierre “organise the despotism of liberty to crush the despotism of kings”

Widened the definition of enemies

No defence lawyers

Guilt decided on the conscience of jurors

Penalty if found guilty, for all offences – death.

Girdons

herbilists

Datonists

Robspiherre

COncided with fall of lyons and defeat of Vendean army - Recived sympathetically by many

The people are sick to death of them... Perhaps the Terror once served a useful purpose, but it should not hurt innocent people. No one wants to see a person treated as a criminal, just because he happens not to have enough enthusiasm. 

You want to remove all your enemies by means of the guillotine... Can you make a single man perish on the scaffold without making ten enemies for yourself... I think quite differently from those who tell you that Terror must remain the order of the day.

Recongnizing the existence of a supreme being and the immortiality of the soul

“It’s not enough for him to be master, he has to be God” said one deputy of Robespierre.

During that time nearly 1400 men and women were executed – an average of nearly 200 a week.

Tired in revolutionary tirbunal in batchces of 50 as people from all levels of income and status

From the sans-culottes

Among Catholics

In the two great committees

Spoke at convention about threats to unamed deputies

THE VERY NEXT DAY 27 july 1794

9 Thermidor rose to speak greeted by shouts of

‘Down with the tyrant! To the guillotine!’

Datons blood chokes you

When the executioner  removed the bandage from the jaw of Robespierre, already half-dead from his wound, blood gushed out. Robespierre howled  in agony as he was put in place under the blade and decapitated.

They were taken to the Hôtel de Ville, where a shot rang out – it shattered Robespierre’s jaw (a soldier claimed to have fired it but it may have been a suicide attempt)

They were condemned to death before the Revolutionary Tribunal based on ‘a simple recognition of identity’