51 10 1079 Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1802-09-11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 711 Title A name given to the resource Kingdom of Piedmont annexed to the French Republic as six new departments, followed in 1805–1808 by that of the republics of Genoa, Tuscany, and Parma. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/711/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 11, 1802 Timeline Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document First sirs, it is easy to anticipate that the justice of the first Parlement of the Kingdom would be to propagate the new and ill-considered doctrine that . . . would establish a dangerous concert between your principles and the declamations of the other royal courts. This general commotion could bring you the most bitter regrets, by generating ideas in others contrary to your own view. By rejecting the example that you have given to the court, the King has no doubt about the true principles at issue; they are engraved in the heart of all his subjects and if they could ever be altered, it would be in the Parlement of Paris that the King would be sure to see them restored in their original purity. These principles, universally acknowledged by the entire kingdom, are that the King alone must possess the sovereign power in his kingdom; that He is answerable only to God in the exercise of his power; that the tie which binds the King to the Nation is by nature indissoluble; that the interests and reciprocal obligations between the King and his subjects serve only to reassure that union; that the Nation's interest is that the powers of its head not be altered; that the King is the chief sovereign of the Nation and everything he does is with her interests in mind; and that finally the legislative power resides in the person of the King independent of and unshared with all other powers. These sirs are the invariable powers of the French Monarchy. . . . His Majesty finds them consecrated in the text of your decree of 20 March 1766. . . . As a consequence of these principles and of our History, it is clear that the King only has the right to convoke an Estates-General; that he alone must judge if this convocation is necessary; and that he needs no other power for the administration of his kingdom. Sortable Date 1787-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Discours de M. de Lamoignon, Garde des Sceaux de France à la Séance du Roi au Parlement le 19 novembre 1787 (Bibliothèque nationale de France: [Microfiche LB39-467]). Description An account of the resource On 19 November 1787, the King convoked the Parlement of Paris to enforce registration of an edict allowing the indebted royal treasury to borrow an additional 420 million livres. When the King appeared before the magistrates, his Keeper of the Seals, Chrétien–François de Lamoignon spoke for him. Lamoignon did not explain what the additional money would be spent on but instead argued that the King’s will had to be obeyed if France was to prosper, thus staking the monarchy’s legitimacy on the acceptance of this single bond issue. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 237 Title A name given to the resource Lamoignon, "The Principles of the French Monarchy" (1787) Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/237/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1787 Text https://revolution.chnm.org/files/original/ef00e526bd5634b2b78b9f353896bf56.jpg 132680ed20a2fc7b72ab8f21714999ca Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Engraving Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 39 x 48 cm Title (French) The image's title, in French. La dernière entrevue de Louis Seize, avec sa Famille Sortable Date 1794-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Bibliothèque Nationale de France Description An account of the resource Another version of the final meeting of the King with his family. To the left is his confessor; the figure to the right is most likely Cléry, the King’s valet. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nicolo Schiavonetti Charles Benazech Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public Domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource JPEG Language A language of the resource French Title A name given to the resource Last Meeting of Louis XVI with His Family at the Temple Prison Relation A related resource http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/214/|Collection Michel Hennin. Estampes relatives à l'Histoire de France. Tome 130, Pièces 11395-11488, période : 1793|Collection de Vinck. Un siècle d'histoire de France par l'estampe, 1770-1870. Vol. 30 (pièces 5018-5141), Ancien Régime et Révolution Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1794 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 214 Counterrevolution Image Monarchy Religion Women Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1793-12-04 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 970 Title A name given to the resource Law of 14 Frimaire on Revolutionary Government enacted. Institutes formally revolutionary government. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/970/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 4, 1793 Timeline Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1794-08-01 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 827 Title A name given to the resource Law of 22 Prairial repealed. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/827/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 1, 1794 Timeline Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1825-04-27 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1026 Title A name given to the resource Law on compensation for the émigrés and victims of the Terror. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1026/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 27, 1825 Timeline Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTIONARY CROWDS General Characteristics of the Crowd Whatever their origin, revolutions do not produce their full effects until they have penetrated the soul of the multitude. They therefore represent a consequence of the psychology of crowds. Although I have studied collective psychology at length in another volume, I must here recall its principal laws. Man, as part of a multitude, is a very different being from the same man as an isolated individual. His conscious individuality vanishes in the unconscious personality of the crowd. Material contact is not absolutely necessary to produce in the individual the mentality of the crowd. Passions and sentiments, provoked by certain events, are often sufficient to create it. The collective mind, momentarily formed, represents a very special kind of aggregate. Its chief peculiarity is that it is entirely dominated by unconscious elements, and is subject to a peculiar collective logic. Among the other characteristics of crowds, we must note their infinite credulity and exaggerated sensibility, their shortsightedness, and their incapacity to respond to the influences of reason. Affirmation, contagion, repetition, and prestige constitute almost the only means of persuading them. Reality and experience have no effect upon them. The multitude will admit anything; nothing is impossible in the eyes of the crowd. By reason of the extreme sensibility of crowds, their sentiments, good or bad, are always exaggerated. This exaggeration increases still further in times of revolution. The least excitement will then lead them to act with the utmost fury. Their credulity, so great even in the normal state, is still further increased; the most improbable statements are accepted. Arthur Young relates that when he visited the springs near Clermont, at the time of the French Revolution, his guide was stopped by the people, who were persuaded that he had come by Order of the Queen to mine and blow up the town. The most horrible tales concerning the Royal Family were circulated, depicting it as a nest of ghouls and vampires. These various characteristics show that man in the crowd descends to a very low degree in the scale of civilization. He becomes a savage, with all a savage's faults and qualities, with all his momentary violence, enthusiasm, and heroism. In the intellectual domain a crowd is always inferior to the isolated unit. In the moral and sentimental domain it may be his superior. A crowd will commit a crime as readily as an act of abnegation. Personal characteristics vanish in the crowd, which exerts an extraordinary influence upon the individuals which form it. The miser becomes generous, the skeptic a believer, the honest man a criminal, the coward a hero. Examples of such transformations abounded during the great Revolution. As part of a jury or a parliament, the collective man renders verdicts or passes laws of which he would never have dreamed in his isolated condition. One of the most notable consequences of the influence of a collectivity upon the individuals who compose it is the unification of their sentiments and wills. This psychological unity confers a remarkable force upon crowds. The formation of such a mental unity results chiefly from the fact that in a crowd gestures and actions are extremely contagious. Acclamations of hatred, fury, or love are immediately approved and repeated. What is the origin of these common sentiments, this common will? They are propagated by contagion, but a point of departure is necessary before this contagion can take effect. Without a leader the crowd is an amorphous entity incapable of action. A knowledge of the laws relating to the psychology of crowds is indispensable to the interpretation of the elements of our Revolution, and to a comprehension of the conduct of revolutionary assemblies, and the singular transformations of the individuals who form part of them. Pushed by the unconscious forces of the collective soul, they more often than not say what they did not intend, and vote what they would not have wished to vote. Although the laws of collective psychology have sometimes been divined instinctively by superior statesmen, the majority of Governments have not understood and do not understand them because they do not understand that so many of them have fallen so easily. PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS RESPECTING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the Return to a State of Nature, and the Psychology of People We have already repeated, and shall again repeat, that the errors of a doctrine do not hinder its propagation, so that all we have to consider here is its influence upon men's minds. But although the criticism of erroneous doctrines is seldom of practical utility, it is extremely interesting from a psychological point of view. The philosopher who wishes to understand the working of men's minds should always carefully consider the illusions which they live with. Never, perhaps, in the course of history have these illusions appeared so profound and so numerous as during the Revolution. One of the most prominent was the singular conception of the nature of our first ancestors and primitive societies. Anthropology not having as yet revealed the conditions of our remoter forbears, men supposed, being influenced by the legends of the Bible, that they had issued perfect from the hands of the Creator. The first societies were models which were afterwards ruined by civilization, but to which mankind must return. The return to the state of nature was very soon the general cry. "The fundamental principle of all morality, of which I have treated in my writings," said Rousseau, "is that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order." Modern science, by determining, from the surviving remnants, the conditions of life of our first ancestors, has long ago shown the error of this doctrine. Primitive man has become an ignorant and ferocious brute, as ignorant as the modern savage of goodness, morality, and pity. Governed only by his instinctive impulses, he throws himself on his prey when hunger drives him from his cave, and falls upon his enemy the moment he is aroused by hatred. Reason, not being born, could have no hold over his instincts. The aim of civilization, contrary to all revolutionary intentions, has been not to return to the state of nature but to escape from it. It was precisely because the Jacobins led mankind back to the primitive condition by destroying all the social restraints without which no civilization can exist that they transformed a political society into a barbarian horde. The ideas of these theorists concerning the nature of man were about as valuable as those of a Roman general concerning the power of omens. Yet their influence as motives of action was considerable. The Convention was always inspired by such ideas. The errors concerning our primitive ancestors were excusable enough, since before modern discoveries had shown us the real conditions of their existence these were absolutely unknown. But the absolute ignorance of human psychology displayed by the men of the Revolution is far less easy to understand. It would really seem as though the philosophers and writers of the eighteenth century must have been totally deficient in the smallest faculty of observation. They lived amidst their contemporaries without seeing them and without understanding them. Above all, they had not a suspicion of the true nature of the popular mind. The man of the people always appeared to them in the likeness of the chimerical model created by their dreams. As ignorant of psychology as of the teachings of history, they considered the plebeian man as naturally good, affectionate, grateful, and always ready to listen to reason. The speeches delivered by members of the Assembly show how profound were these illusions. When the peasants began to burn the chateaux they were greatly astonished, and addressed them in sentimental, harangues, praying them to cease, in order not to "give pain to their good king" and adjured them "to surprise him by their virtues." Sortable Date 1913-00-00 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, trans. Bernard Miall (London: T. Fisher Unwin, [1895] 1913), 102–5, 158–60. Description An account of the resource Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) disparaged the Revolution and the revolutionary legacy because he distrusted the common person, particularly when making collective decisions. His analysis of revolutionary crowds pictured them as primitive animals devoid of good decision–making abilities who had to be reigned in by a "strong man" or dictatorial figure. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 628 Title A name given to the resource Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/628/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1913 Clubs Public Opinion Text The Terror Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The Le Chapelier Law (14 June 1791) Article 1. In that the abolition of any kind of citizen's guild in the same trade or of the same profession is one of the fundamental bases of the French Constitution, it is forbidden to reestablish them under any pretext or in any form whatsoever. Article 2. Citizens of the same trade or profession, entrepreneurs, those who have set up shop, workers and journeymen of any skill may not, when assembled, appoint a president, secretaries, or trustees, keep accounts, pass decrees or resolutions, or draft regulations concerning their alleged common interests. Article 3. All administrative or municipal bodies are forbidden to receive any address or petition in the name of an occupation or profession, or to make any response thereto. Additionally, they are enjoined to declare null and void whatever resolutions have been made in such manner, and to make certain that no effect or execution be given thereto. Article 4. It is contrary to the principles of liberty and the Constitution for citizens with the same professions, arts, or trades to deliberate or make agreements among themselves designed to set prices for their industry or their labor. If such deliberations and agreements are concluded, whether accompanied by oath or not, they will be declared unconstitutional, prejudicial to liberty and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and will be null and void. Administrative and municipal bodies shall be required to declare them as such. The authors, leaders, and instigators who provoked, drafted, or presided over these agreements shall be charged by the police and at the request of the communal attorney will be fined 500 livres, suspended for a year from the enjoyment of all rights of active citizenship, and barred from admittance to the primary assemblies. Article 5. All administrative and municipal bodies are forbidden, even if the members are using their own names, to employ, admit, or allow to be admitted to their professions in any public works, those entrepreneurs, workers, or journeymen who have provoked or signed the said deliberations or conventions, unless, of their own accord, they have presented themselves to the registrar of the police court to retract or disavow them. Article 6. If the said deliberations or convocations, posted placards, or circular letters contain any threats against entrepreneurs, artisans, workers, or foreign day-laborers working there, or against those accepting lower wages, all authors, instigators, and signatories of such acts or writings shall be punished with a fine of 1,000 livres each and imprisoned for three months. Article 7. Those who use threats or violence against workers who are taking advantage of the freedoms granted to labor and industry by constitutional law shall be subject to criminal prosecution and shall be punished to the fullest extent of the law, as disturbers of the public peace. Article 8. All assemblies composed of artisans, workers, journeymen, day-laborers, or those incited by them against the free exercise of industry and labor, belonging to any kind of person and under all circumstances mutually agreed to, or against the action of police and the execution of judgments rendered in such connection, as well as against public auctions and adjudications of various enterprises, shall be considered seditious assemblies, and as such shall be dispersed by the guardians of the law, upon legal warrants made thereupon, and shall be punished to the fullest extent of the laws concerning authors, instigators, and leaders of the said assemblies, and all those who have committed assaults and acts of violence. Sortable Date 1791-06-14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 165–66. (Slightly retranslated) Description An account of the resource In the spring of 1791, as the National Assembly worked on political and social reforms, workers in Paris took economic matters into their own hands by staging a series of strikes and demonstrations against their employers. To many deputies, most prominently Isaac–René–Guy Le Chapelier, the workers were still thinking in terms of a guild concept, and they were acting on a collective rather than an individual basis. Thus Le Chapelier found their demands for higher wages contrary to what he claimed were the new principles of the Revolution. To prevent continued associations of workers based on such economic interests, he introduced a measure (passed into law on 14 June 1791) that historians remember by his name, the "Le Chapelier law." It barred craft guilds and would bar trade unions until 1884. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 370 Title A name given to the resource Le Chapelier Law Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/370/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 14, 1791 Economic Conditions Laws Text Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1802-02-06 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1001 Title A name given to the resource Leclerc lands in Saint Domingue on a mission to quell the revolt of Toussaint–L’Ouverture. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1001/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 6, 1802 Timeline Event A non-persistent, time-based occurrence. Metadata for an event provides descriptive information that is the basis for discovery of the purpose, location, duration, and responsible agents associated with an event. Examples include an exhibition, webcast, conference, workshop, open day, performance, battle, trial, wedding, tea party, conflagration. Sortable Date 1771-02-23 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 980 Title A name given to the resource Legal system reorganized by Chancellor Maupeou. Parlement of Paris is split up and magistrates are appointed by the government. Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/980/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 23, 1771 Timeline