Radical Phase of the
French Revolution
The Second Revolution:
8 or 9/1792- 7/1794
September Massacres
Sept 2-6
Over 1,500 prisoners
The Jacobins
Jacobin Meeting House
 Started as a debating society.
 Membership mostly middle class.
 Political & educated
 Created a vast network of clubs
 Drove much of the 2nd Fr Rev
 Not the only political club, but the most influential
The Sans-Culottes:
The Parisian Working Class
The Sans-Culottes
Depicted as Savages by a British Cartoonist.
The Political Spectrum
Of the National Convention
TODAY:
1790s:
The Plain
Montagnards
(“The Mountain”)
Sans
culottes
(swing votes)
Girondists
Monarchíen
(Royalists)
Jacobins
Economic & Social Policies
of the National Convention
• Abolished the monarchy & established a Republic
• Universal male suffrage
• Abolished feudalism
• Also abolished slavery
• Planned economy
• “Embryonic war-socialism” 
• Law of Maximum  Price controls insisted on by sans-culottes
• On “goods of the first necessity”
• Keep price gauging to a minimum
The “Cultural Revolution” Brought
About by the Convention
* It was premised upon Enlightenment principles of
rationality.
* The metric system of weights and measures
 Was defined by the French Academy of Sciences in
1791 and enforced in 1793.
 It replaced weights and measures that had their
origins in the Middle Ages.
* The Convention legalized divorce and enacted shared
inheritance laws [even for illegitimate offspring] in an
attempt to eradicate inequalities.
L’armoire de fer
(the iron chest)
Louis XVI’s Head (January 21, 1793)
c
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The trial of the king was
hastened by the l’amoire
de fer.
The National Convention
unanimously agreed Louis
was guilty; they voted
361 to 360 to execute
the monarchs.
The Death of “Citizen” Louis Capet
Matter for reflection
for the crowned
jugglers.
So impure blood
doesn’t soil our land!
The Reign of Terror
5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794
Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible... Let
terror be the order of the day! -- Robespierre
c
c
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The Committee of Public Safety was
given power by the National Convention
to take “all measures necessary for the
internal and external defense of the
Republic.”
The use of terror was a conscious
effort- the CPS wanted “to horrify
conspirators” that “the blade of the law
[was] hovering over them.”
Law of Suspects- Arrested ALL former
nobles, including women and children, who
couldn’t PROVE they supported the Rev
Maximillian Robespierre
(1758 – 1794)
Georges Jacques
Danton
(1759 – 1794)
Jean-Paul Marat
(1744 – 1793)
“The Death of Marat”
by Jacques Louis David, 1793
The Guillotine
The “Monster” Guillotine
The Guillotine Song :
An “Enlightenment Tool”?
Oh, thou charming guillotine,
You shorten kings and queens;
By your influence divine,
We have re-conquered our rights.
Come to aid of the Country
And let your superb instrument
Become forever permanent
To destroy the impious sect.
Sharpen your razor for Pitt and his agents
Fill your divine sack with heads of tyrants.
Different Social Classes
Executed in Reign of Terror
8%
7%
28%
25%
31%
War!
Nat’l Convention
declares war on
GB, Sp, Holland;
already at war
with Prus & Aus,
who
consistently
defeat French
armies
"Gallic Declaration of War, or, Bumbardment of all Europe"
This scatological English cartoon mocks France’s claim that it was going to war for "liberty,"
suggesting instead that France’s body politic is ill and that England needs to fight back to defend
itself from such sickness. The figures in this drawing represent all the major leaders of Europe,
including Louis XVI, Catherine of Russia, William Pitt, King George III of Britain, and the Pope,
while symbols represent the Prussian and Habsburg monarchies.
The Levee en Masse
(1793)
CPS established massive
draft
 800,000 -in less than a




year!
MUCH larger than any
other Euro army
Demonstrated
creativity of CPS
Set foundation for
future successes of
French army
Turning point in history
of warfare- now TOTAL
war
 ENTIRE society &
econ mobilized for war
effort
An army based on merit, not birth!
Religious Terror:
De-Christianization by the National Convention (17931794)
 The Catholic Church was linked with
real or potential counter-revolution.
 Religion was associated with the
Ancien Régime and superstitious
practices.
 De-Christinaization VERY popular
among the sans-culottes.
 Religion had no place in a
rational, secular republic!
The De-Christianization Program
The adoption of a new Republican Calendar:
abolished Sundays & religious holidays.
months named after seasonal & agricultural features.
7-day weeks replaced by 10-day decades.
the yearly calendar was dated from the creation of
the Republic: Year I [Sept. 22, 1792]
The Convention symbolically divorced
time from the Church!!
The New Republican Calendar
New Name
Meaning
Time Period
Vendemaire
Vintage
September 22 – October 21
Brumaire
Fog
October 22 – November 20
Frimaire
Frost
November 21 – December 20
Nivose
Snow
December 21 – January 19
Pluviose
Rain
January 20 – February 18
Ventose
Wind
February 19 – March 20
Germinal
Budding
March 21 – April 19
Floreal
Flowers
April 20 – May 19
Prairial
Meadow
May 20 – June 18
Messidor
Harvest
June 19 – July 18
Thermidor
Heat
July 19 – August 17
Fructidor
Fruit
August 18 – September 21
The Gregorian System returned in 1806.
A New Republican Calendar Year
I
1792 – 1793
II
1793 – 1794
III
1794 – 1795
IV
1795 – 1796
V
1796 – 1797
VI
1797 – 1798
VII
1798 – 1799
VIII
1799 – 1800
IX
1800 – 1801
X
1801 – 1802
XI
1802 – 1803
XII
1803 – 1804
XIII
1804 – 1805
XIV
1805
The De-Christianization Program
2. The public exercise of religion was
banned.
3. Civil Constitution of the Clergy
* Subordinated the Catholic Church in
France to the French government
* Priests had to take an oath of loyalty to
the government
 Those who did called “jurors” or
“jurying priests”
 Those who did NOT- “non-jurors”
or “refractory”
4. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris
was turned into the “Temple of Reason.”
The “Temple of Reason”
Come, holy Liberty, inhabit this temple,
Become the goddess of the French people.
The Festival of Supreme Being
A new secular holiday
The government required all clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy. Only seven bishops and about half the clergy
agreed: the rest, mainly in western France, refused; these became known
as "non-jurors" or "refractory priests". While there was a higher rate of
rejection in urban areas, most of these refractory priests (like most of the
population) lived in the countryside, and the Civil Constitution generated
considerable resentment among religious peasants.
Backlash to the
De-Christianization Program
 It alienated most of the population
(especially in the rural areas).
 Robespierre never supported it.
 he persuaded the Convention to
reaffirm the principle of religious
toleration.
War of Resistance to the Revolution:
The Vendee Revolt, 1793
Why was there a Revolt
in the Vendee?
1. The draft of French troops- Vendee
required to send MANY for the war
effort.
2. Rural peasantry still highly taxed.
3. Resentment of the Civil Constitution
the Clergy.
4. Peasants had failed to benefit from
the sale of church lands.
TARGETS:
Local government officials
Representatives on mission
Jurying priests
Siege of Lyon
"An Example of Heroic Courage" The Heroine of Milhier
In this rendition of an incident from the Vendée rebellion, an ordinary woman is shown standing up to the rebels. It comes from a series of heroic images of the Revolution and
shows that women could be heroines for the Republic
Political Propaganda
The Contrast:
“French Liberty / British Slavery”
The
Radical’s
Arms:
No God!
No Religion!
No King!
No Constitution!
From an English periodical of 1819, this antirevolutionary print portrays the sans–
culottes as drunkards anxious to destroy by fire, gallows, and guillotine rather than to
work for their own good. The image satirizes the idea of sans–culotte simplicity by
arranging the two figures and the guillotine as an aristocratic coat of arms
French Victory at Fleurus
 June 26, 1794.
 France defeated Austria.
 Invalidated the argument that continuation of the
Reign of Terror was necessary because of the
military threat to France's very existence.