Jacobin Club
Encyclopedia
The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution
, so-named because of the Dominican
convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques (Latin: Jacobus), Paris
. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton
deputies attending the Estates General of 1789
. , there were thousands of chapters throughout France, with a membership estimated at 420,000. After the fall of Robespierre
the club was closed.
Initially moderate, the club later became notorious for its implementation of the Reign of Terror
. To this day, the terms Jacobin
and Jacobinism are used as pejoratives for radical
, left-wing
revolutionary politics. It should not be confused with Jacobitism
.
was convened at Versailles
, the club was initially composed exclusively of deputies from Brittany
. However, they were soon joined by deputies from other regions throughout France. Among early members were the dominating comte de Mirabeau
, Parisian deputy Abbé Sieyès
, Dauphiné
deputy Antoine Barnave, Jérôme Pétion
, the Abbé Grégoire
, Charles Lameth
, Alexandre Lameth
, Robespierre
, the duc d'Aiguillon
, and La Revellière-Lépeaux
. It also counted Indian ruler Tipu Sultan
among its ranks. At this time, meetings occurred in secret, and few traces remain concerning what took place or where the meetings were convened.
in October 1789, the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the National Constituent Assembly
to Paris, where it rented the refectory of the monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue Saint-Honoré
, adjacent to the seat of the Assembly. The name "Jacobins", given in France to the Dominican
s (because their first house in Paris was in the Rue St Jacques), was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. The title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was Société des amis de la constitution séants aux Jacobins à Paris, which was changed on 21 September 1792, after the fall of the monarchy
, to Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité (Society of Jacobins, friends of liberty and equality). It occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the monastery.
At the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president
, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the "purification" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate elements. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By 10 August 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralised organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power.
al men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do bourgeois, like the brewer Santerre
. From the first, however, other elements were present. Besides the teenage son of the Duc d'Orléans
, Louis Philippe
, a future king of France, liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte de Noailles, and the bourgeoisie
who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as "Père" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion. The club ostensibly supported the monarchy up until the very eve of the republic; it took no part in the petition of 17 July 1791 for the king's dethronement, nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of 10 June and 10 August 1792.
The club was radicalized by the departure of its conservative members to form their own Feuillants Club in July 1791. This club saw far less success than the Jacobins, surviving barely a year before its members were arrested and tried for treason.
Robespierre became a central figure in the Jacobin Club, and his faction in the National Convention
, assembled in the fall of 1792, became known as Jacobins. They were at first a minority group, also called "The Mountain
" (French: La Montagne), and its members Montagnards, because they sat together in the higher seats in the Convention's hall; they were dubious about the war with Austria which had begun that spring, but supported more revolutionary measures at home.
The Jacobins assumed more and more power during the spring of 1793, with the support of the Parisian mob, which overawed the Convention, culminating in a coup at the end of May. They were to hold power until the summer of 1794, and they repeatedly purged the Convention of those they held disloyal to the Republic, ending with a widespread program of execution, the Reign of Terror
in their last months. Robespierre, generally the spokesman for the successful faction, had great esteem for his reputation as "the sea-green incorruptible", and set up the slogan of the Republic of Virtue
, until the Jacobins' last purge, 9 Thermidor, July 27,
1794. Although some eye-witnesses said Robespierre was shot by a soldier, some historians state he attempted suicide; in any event, his lower jaw was shattered. He was executed the next day on Thermidor 10, July 28, 1794.
The Jacobin club, its leadership having been decimated with Robespierre's execution, was disbanded November
12, 1794. The Jacobins' overwhelming power rested on a very slender material basis. Some compared the club's autocracy to that of the Inquisition, with its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to escape. The power of the Jacobins was frequently felt through their influence with the Parisian underclass—the sans-culottes
-- who the Jacobins could reliably count on to support them, and to mass ominously in the streets and at the National Convention
when a display of force was considered desirable. Yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins themselves could not command a force of more than 3000 men in Paris. A primary reason for their influence, or strength, was that, in the midst of the general disorganization in revolutionary Paris and in the provinces, they alone were organised. The police agent Dutard, in a report to the minister Garat (30 April 1793), describing an episode in the Palais Egalité (Royal), adds: "Why did a dozen Jacobins strike terror into two or three hundred aristocrats? It is that the former have a rallying-point and that the latter have none".
The reason for the actions of the Jacobins proffered by republican writers of later times and some modern scholars is quite different: that is that France was menaced by civil war within and by a coalition of hostile powers without, requiring the discipline of the Terror to mold France into a united Republic capable of resisting this double peril.
An attempt was made to re-open the Jacobin Club, which was joined by many of the enemies of the Thermidorians, but on 21 Brumaire, year III (11 November 1794), it was definitively closed. Its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafés, where a ruthless war of sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young "aristocrats" known as the jeunesse dorée. Nevertheless the Jacobins survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the Panthéon, founded on 25 November 1795, and suppressed in the following February (see Babeuf
).
The last attempt to reorganize Jacobin adherents was the foundation of the Réunion d'amis de l'égalité et de la liberté, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the Salle du Manège
of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the Club du Manège. It was patronized by Barras
, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf
, and attacked the Directory
as a royauté pentarchique. But public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets. The suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after barely a month's existence. Its members revenged themselves on the Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte
, located the effectiveness of the revolutionary movement not "in the force and bayonets of soldiers, guns, cannons and shells but by the marks of political power" (Schama; 1989; 279). Ultimately, the Jacobins were to control several key political bodies, in particular the Committee of Public Safety
and, through it, the National Convention
, which was not only a legislature
but also took upon itself executive
and judicial
functions. The Jacobins as a political force were seen as "less selfish, more patriotic, and more sympathetic to the Paris Populace" (Bosher; 1989; 186). This gave them a position of charismatic authority that was effective in generating and harnessing public pressure, generating and satisfying sans-culotte pleas for personal freedom and social progress.
The Jacobin Club developed into a bureau for French Republicanism
and revolutionary purity, and abandoned its original laissez faire economic views in favor of interventionism
. In power, they completed the abolition of feudalism that had been formally decided 4 August 1789, but had been held in check by a clause requiring compensation for the abrogation of the feudal
privileges.
Maximilien Robespierre entered the political arena at the very beginning of the Revolution, having been elected to represent Artois
at the Estates General
. Robespierre was viewed as the quintessential political force of the Jacobin Movement, thrusting ever deeper the dagger of liberty within the despotism of the Monarchy. As a disciple of Rousseau, Robespierre's political views were rooted in Rousseau's notion of the social contract
, which promoted "the rights of man" (Schama; 1989; 475). Robespierre particularly favored the rights of the broader population to eat, for example, over the rights of individual merchants. "I denounce the assassins of the people to you and you respond, 'let them act as they will.' In such a system, all is against society; all favors the grain merchants." Robespierre famously elaborated this conception in his speech on December 2nd, 1792: "What is the first goal of society? To maintain the imprescribable rights of man. What is the first of these rights? The right to exist."
The ultimate political vehicle for the Jacobin movement was the Reign of Terror overseen by the Committee of Public Safety, who were given executive powers to purify and unify the Republic. The Committee instituted requisitioning
, rationing
, and conscription
to consolidate new citizen armies. They instituted the Terror as a means of destroying those they perceived as enemies within: "Terror", said Robespierre, "is only justice that is prompt, severe and inflexible".
's 1762 book The Social Contract, "Citizenship is the expression of a sublime reciprocity between individual and General will" (Schama; 1989; 354). This view of citizenship and the General Will, once empowered, could simultaneously embrace the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
and adopt the liberal French Constitution of 1793
, then immediately suspend that constitution and all ordinary legality and institute Revolutionary Tribunal
s that did not grant a presumption of innocence
.
The Jacobins saw themselves as constitutionalists, dedicated to the Rights of Man, and, in particular, to the Declaration's principle of "preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression" (Article II of the Declaration). The constitution reassured the protection of personal freedom and social progress within French society. The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement was effective in reinforcing these rudiments, developing a milieu for revolution. The Constitution was admired by most Jacobins as the foundation of the emerging republic and of the rise of citizenship.
Foes of both the Church
and of atheism
, advocating deliberate government-organized terror as a substitute for both the rule of law and the more arbitrary terror of mob violence, inheritors of a war that, at the time of their rise to power, threatened the very existence of the Revolution, the Jacobins in power completed the overthrow of the Ancien Régime and successfully defended the Revolution from military defeat. However, to do so, they brought the Revolution to its bloodiest phase, and the one with least regard for just treatment of individuals. Although they doubtless consolidated republicanism in France and contributed greatly to the secularism
and the sense of nation
hood that have marked all French republican regimes to this day, their methods discredited the Revolution in the eyes of many who had previously supported it. Despite the fact that there were Jacobins among those who brought down Robespierre and the rest of The Mountain
, the resulting Thermidorian reaction
shuttered all of the Jacobin clubs, removed all Jacobins from power, and condemned many, well beyond the ranks of the Mountain, to death or deadly exile.
Pierre-Antoine Antonelle
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, so-named because of the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques (Latin: Jacobus), Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
deputies attending the Estates General of 1789
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...
. , there were thousands of chapters throughout France, with a membership estimated at 420,000. After the fall of Robespierre
Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Louis Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg and several other leading members of the Terror...
the club was closed.
Initially moderate, the club later became notorious for its implementation of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
. To this day, the terms Jacobin
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
and Jacobinism are used as pejoratives for radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
, left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
revolutionary politics. It should not be confused with Jacobitism
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
.
Foundation
When the Estates-General of 1789Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...
was convened at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
, the club was initially composed exclusively of deputies from Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
. However, they were soon joined by deputies from other regions throughout France. Among early members were the dominating comte de Mirabeau
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau was a French revolutionary, as well as a writer, diplomat, freemason, journalist and French politician at the same time. He was a popular orator and statesman. During the French Revolution, he was a moderate, favoring a constitutional monarchy built on...
, Parisian deputy Abbé Sieyès
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , commonly known as Abbé Sieyès, was a French Roman Catholic abbé and clergyman, one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution, French Consulate, and First French Empire...
, Dauphiné
Dauphiné
The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....
deputy Antoine Barnave, Jérôme Pétion
Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was a French writer and politician.Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was the son of a at Chartres. Though it is known that he was trained as a lawyer, very few specifics are known about Petion’s early life, as he was virtually unknown prior to the French Revolution...
, the Abbé Grégoire
Henri Grégoire
Henri Grégoire , often referred to as Abbé Grégoire, was a French Roman Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader...
, Charles Lameth
Charles Malo François Lameth
Charles Malo François Lameth was a French politician and soldier.Born in Paris, he was in the retinue of the comte d'Artois , and became an officer in a cuirassier regiment...
, Alexandre Lameth
Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth
Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth was a French soldier and politician.He was born in Paris. Having served in the American War of Independence under Rochambeau, he was sent in 1789 as deputy to the States-General by the nobles of the bailliage of Péronne...
, Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
, the duc d'Aiguillon
Armand, duc d'Aiguillon
Armand II de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu, duke of Aiguillon succeeded his father Emmanuel-Armand de Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon....
, and La Revellière-Lépeaux
Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux
Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux was a French politician, member of the French DirectoryHe was born at Montaigu , the son of J. B. de la Révellière. He adopted the name Lépeaux from a small property belonging to his family, and he was known locally as M. de Lépeaux. He studied law at Angers...
. It also counted Indian ruler Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...
among its ranks. At this time, meetings occurred in secret, and few traces remain concerning what took place or where the meetings were convened.
Transfer to Paris
After the March on VersaillesThe March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as The October March, The October Days, or simply The March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were...
in October 1789, the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the National Constituent Assembly
National Constituent Assembly
The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...
to Paris, where it rented the refectory of the monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue Saint-Honoré
Rue Saint-Honoré
The rue Saint-Honoré is an ancient street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.It is named after the collegial Saint-Honoré church situated in ancient times within the cloisters of Saint-Honoré....
, adjacent to the seat of the Assembly. The name "Jacobins", given in France to the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
s (because their first house in Paris was in the Rue St Jacques), was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. The title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was Société des amis de la constitution séants aux Jacobins à Paris, which was changed on 21 September 1792, after the fall of the monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
, to Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité (Society of Jacobins, friends of liberty and equality). It occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the monastery.
Rapid growth
Once in Paris, the club underwent rapid modifications. The first great change was its extension of membership to others besides deputies. All citizens were allowed to enter and even foreigners were welcomed: the English writer Arthur Young joined the club in this manner on 18 January 1790. Jacobin Club meetings soon became a place for radical and rousing oratory that pushed for republicanism, widespread education, universal suffrage, separation of church and state, and other reforms. On 8 February 1790 the society became formally constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d'Aiguillon, the president. The club's objectives were defined as:- to discuss in advance questions to be decided by the National Assembly;
- to work for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in accordance with the spirit of the preamble (that is, of respect for legally constituted authority and the Declaration of the Rights of Man); and
- to correspond with other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm.
At the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the "purification" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate elements. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By 10 August 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralised organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power.
Initial moderation
At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by unconventional political views. The somewhat high subscription confined its membership to well-off men, and to the last it was—so far as the central society in Paris was concerned—composed almost entirely of professionProfession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
al men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do bourgeois, like the brewer Santerre
Antoine Joseph Santerre
Antoine Joseph Santerre was a businessman and general during the French Revolution.-Early life:The Santerre family moved from St. Michel- en Thierrache to Paris in 1747 where they purchased a brewery known as the Brasserie de la Magdeleine...
. From the first, however, other elements were present. Besides the teenage son of the Duc d'Orléans
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans commonly known as Philippe, was a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of France. He actively supported the French Revolution and adopted the name Philippe Égalité, but was nonetheless guillotined during the Reign of Terror...
, Louis Philippe
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...
, a future king of France, liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte de Noailles, and the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as "Père" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion. The club ostensibly supported the monarchy up until the very eve of the republic; it took no part in the petition of 17 July 1791 for the king's dethronement, nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of 10 June and 10 August 1792.
The club was radicalized by the departure of its conservative members to form their own Feuillants Club in July 1791. This club saw far less success than the Jacobins, surviving barely a year before its members were arrested and tried for treason.
The Terror
After the fall of the monarchyThe Legislative Assembly and the fall of the French monarchy
The French Revolution was a period in the history of France covering the years 1789 to 1799, in which republicans overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring...
Robespierre became a central figure in the Jacobin Club, and his faction in the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
, assembled in the fall of 1792, became known as Jacobins. They were at first a minority group, also called "The Mountain
The Mountain
The Mountain refers in the context of the history of the French Revolution to a political group, whose members, called Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the Assembly...
" (French: La Montagne), and its members Montagnards, because they sat together in the higher seats in the Convention's hall; they were dubious about the war with Austria which had begun that spring, but supported more revolutionary measures at home.
The Jacobins assumed more and more power during the spring of 1793, with the support of the Parisian mob, which overawed the Convention, culminating in a coup at the end of May. They were to hold power until the summer of 1794, and they repeatedly purged the Convention of those they held disloyal to the Republic, ending with a widespread program of execution, the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
in their last months. Robespierre, generally the spokesman for the successful faction, had great esteem for his reputation as "the sea-green incorruptible", and set up the slogan of the Republic of Virtue
Republic of Virtue
The "Republic of Virtue" was a period in French history where Maximilien Robespierre remained in power. Many proponents of the Republic of Virtue developed their notion of civic virtue from the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The "Republic of Virtue" was part of the de-Christianization of the...
, until the Jacobins' last purge, 9 Thermidor, July 27,
1794. Although some eye-witnesses said Robespierre was shot by a soldier, some historians state he attempted suicide; in any event, his lower jaw was shattered. He was executed the next day on Thermidor 10, July 28, 1794.
The Jacobin club, its leadership having been decimated with Robespierre's execution, was disbanded November
12, 1794. The Jacobins' overwhelming power rested on a very slender material basis. Some compared the club's autocracy to that of the Inquisition, with its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to escape. The power of the Jacobins was frequently felt through their influence with the Parisian underclass—the sans-culottes
Sans-culottes
In the French Revolution, the sans-culottes were the radical militants of the lower classes, typically urban laborers. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars...
-- who the Jacobins could reliably count on to support them, and to mass ominously in the streets and at the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
when a display of force was considered desirable. Yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins themselves could not command a force of more than 3000 men in Paris. A primary reason for their influence, or strength, was that, in the midst of the general disorganization in revolutionary Paris and in the provinces, they alone were organised. The police agent Dutard, in a report to the minister Garat (30 April 1793), describing an episode in the Palais Egalité (Royal), adds: "Why did a dozen Jacobins strike terror into two or three hundred aristocrats? It is that the former have a rallying-point and that the latter have none".
The reason for the actions of the Jacobins proffered by republican writers of later times and some modern scholars is quite different: that is that France was menaced by civil war within and by a coalition of hostile powers without, requiring the discipline of the Terror to mold France into a united Republic capable of resisting this double peril.
Fall from power
François-Noël Babeuf
François-Noël Babeuf , known as Gracchus Babeuf , was a French political agitator and journalist of the Revolutionary period...
).
The last attempt to reorganize Jacobin adherents was the foundation of the Réunion d'amis de l'égalité et de la liberté, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the Salle du Manège
Salle du Manège
The indoor riding academy called the Salle du Manège was the seat of deliberations during most of the French Revolution, from 1789 to 1798....
of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the Club du Manège. It was patronized by Barras
Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras
Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras was a French politician of the French Revolution, and the main executive leader of the Directory regime of 1795–1799.-Early life:...
, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf
François-Noël Babeuf
François-Noël Babeuf , known as Gracchus Babeuf , was a French political agitator and journalist of the Revolutionary period...
, and attacked the Directory
French Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
as a royauté pentarchique. But public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets. The suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after barely a month's existence. Its members revenged themselves on the Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte
Political influence
The Jacobin movement encouraged sentiments of patriotism and liberty amongst the populace. The movement's contemporaries, such as the King Louis XVILouis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
, located the effectiveness of the revolutionary movement not "in the force and bayonets of soldiers, guns, cannons and shells but by the marks of political power" (Schama; 1989; 279). Ultimately, the Jacobins were to control several key political bodies, in particular the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
and, through it, the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
, which was not only a legislature
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...
but also took upon itself executive
Executive (government)
Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...
and judicial
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
functions. The Jacobins as a political force were seen as "less selfish, more patriotic, and more sympathetic to the Paris Populace" (Bosher; 1989; 186). This gave them a position of charismatic authority that was effective in generating and harnessing public pressure, generating and satisfying sans-culotte pleas for personal freedom and social progress.
The Jacobin Club developed into a bureau for French Republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and revolutionary purity, and abandoned its original laissez faire economic views in favor of interventionism
Economic interventionism
Economic interventionism is an action taken by a government in a market economy or market-oriented mixed economy, beyond the basic regulation of fraud and enforcement of contracts, in an effort to affect its own economy...
. In power, they completed the abolition of feudalism that had been formally decided 4 August 1789, but had been held in check by a clause requiring compensation for the abrogation of the feudal
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
privileges.
Maximilien Robespierre entered the political arena at the very beginning of the Revolution, having been elected to represent Artois
Artois
Artois is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras , Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.-Location:...
at the Estates General
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...
. Robespierre was viewed as the quintessential political force of the Jacobin Movement, thrusting ever deeper the dagger of liberty within the despotism of the Monarchy. As a disciple of Rousseau, Robespierre's political views were rooted in Rousseau's notion of the social contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...
, which promoted "the rights of man" (Schama; 1989; 475). Robespierre particularly favored the rights of the broader population to eat, for example, over the rights of individual merchants. "I denounce the assassins of the people to you and you respond, 'let them act as they will.' In such a system, all is against society; all favors the grain merchants." Robespierre famously elaborated this conception in his speech on December 2nd, 1792: "What is the first goal of society? To maintain the imprescribable rights of man. What is the first of these rights? The right to exist."
The ultimate political vehicle for the Jacobin movement was the Reign of Terror overseen by the Committee of Public Safety, who were given executive powers to purify and unify the Republic. The Committee instituted requisitioning
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
, rationing
Rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
, and conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
to consolidate new citizen armies. They instituted the Terror as a means of destroying those they perceived as enemies within: "Terror", said Robespierre, "is only justice that is prompt, severe and inflexible".
Cultural influence
The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement during the French Revolution revolved around the creation of the Citizen. As commented in Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's 1762 book The Social Contract, "Citizenship is the expression of a sublime reciprocity between individual and General will" (Schama; 1989; 354). This view of citizenship and the General Will, once empowered, could simultaneously embrace the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...
and adopt the liberal French Constitution of 1793
French Constitution of 1793
The Constitution of 24 June 1793 , also known as the Constitution of the Year I, or the The Montagnard Constitution , was the constitution instated by the Montagnards and by popular referendum under the First Republic during the French Revolution...
, then immediately suspend that constitution and all ordinary legality and institute Revolutionary Tribunal
Revolutionary Tribunal
The Revolutionary Tribunal was a court which was instituted in Paris by the Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders, and eventually became one of the most powerful engines of the Reign of Terror....
s that did not grant a presumption of innocence
Presumption of innocence
The presumption of innocence, sometimes referred to by the Latin expression Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat, is the principle that one is considered innocent until proven guilty. Application of this principle is a legal right of the accused in a criminal trial, recognised in many...
.
The Jacobins saw themselves as constitutionalists, dedicated to the Rights of Man, and, in particular, to the Declaration's principle of "preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression" (Article II of the Declaration). The constitution reassured the protection of personal freedom and social progress within French society. The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement was effective in reinforcing these rudiments, developing a milieu for revolution. The Constitution was admired by most Jacobins as the foundation of the emerging republic and of the rise of citizenship.
Foes of both the Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and of atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, advocating deliberate government-organized terror as a substitute for both the rule of law and the more arbitrary terror of mob violence, inheritors of a war that, at the time of their rise to power, threatened the very existence of the Revolution, the Jacobins in power completed the overthrow of the Ancien Régime and successfully defended the Revolution from military defeat. However, to do so, they brought the Revolution to its bloodiest phase, and the one with least regard for just treatment of individuals. Although they doubtless consolidated republicanism in France and contributed greatly to the secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and the sense of nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
hood that have marked all French republican regimes to this day, their methods discredited the Revolution in the eyes of many who had previously supported it. Despite the fact that there were Jacobins among those who brought down Robespierre and the rest of The Mountain
The Mountain
The Mountain refers in the context of the history of the French Revolution to a political group, whose members, called Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the Assembly...
, the resulting Thermidorian reaction
Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Louis Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg and several other leading members of the Terror...
shuttered all of the Jacobin clubs, removed all Jacobins from power, and condemned many, well beyond the ranks of the Mountain, to death or deadly exile.
See Also
Maximilian RobespierrePierre-Antoine Antonelle
Pierre-Antoine Antonelle
Pierre-Antoine Antonelle was a French journalist, politician, president of the Jacobin Club and revolutionary. Although he came fom an aristocratic family, he was a strong supporter of the French Revolution, in Arles and Provence, and ultimately in Paris...