Cordelier Club

Cordelier Club

https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1076/

1076

A Paris political society that had a more popular orientation than the Jacobins. Officially named the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and Citizen, it met in a former Franciscan monastery on the rue des Cordeliers. Although expelled from the building, the club kept the nickname. The Cordeliers section, led by Georges-Jacques Danton, Jean- Paul Marat, and Camille Desmoulins, spearheaded democratic agitation in Paris in 1789–90. When the sections were created, the club soon dominated them. Women played a prominent role in the club. In the summer of 1791, the Cordeliers again championed democratization, this time of the new French constitution. Delegates met with a crowd on 17 July 1791, on the Champ de Mars, but the crowd was dispersed by the National Guard. Subsequent repression focused on the club. Restored to prominence by the summer of 1792, the Cordeliers were at the heart of the movement that overthrew the monarchy on 10 August, called for the election of the National Convention and the widening of the suffrage to include all men. The Cordeliers also played an important role in the expulsion of the Girondins from the National Convention in May–June 1793 as they came under the influence of first the Enragés and then Jacques-Réné Hébert. In Ventôse, Year II (March 1794), the club was purged and the Hébertistes sent to the guillotine. The club then submitted to the Jacobins, and a few members continued to meet until the spring of 1795, but by this point the club had little influence.