A Jacobin club in Besançon in the Franche–Comté on the eastern borders of France sent this report to the Jacobin Club of Paris on 8 January 1792. The club sees the continuing presence of those who did not take the clerical oath to the new regime…
Figures compiled by the historian Martyn Lyons for the large southwestern city of Toulouse show that Napoleon enjoyed considerable support in 1802 when he declared himself Consul for Life but that his support eroded over time. In Toulouse, a city…
Naming his brother Lucien to the key post of minister of the interior, Bonaparte quickly moved to establish his political control over the country. He set up “prefects” for every administrative region known as a department; these appointees had final…
A former playwright and old regime colonial official, Nicolas–Louis François de Neufchâteau, twice Minister of the Interior under the Directory, here outlines the importance of elections for the Directory. In this circular letter sent to the chief…
The Directory’s constitution had ensured the rights of assembly, free speech, and a limited suffrage; for former Jacobins now deprived of their clubs and of their power in the legislature, these constitutional liberties offered the potential to…
The Directorial legislatures were formed in 1795 primarily of holdovers from the Convention, so the elections in the fall of 1797 were the first open legislative elections since 1792. The result, to the consternation of the executive council of the…
The "Central Committee" organizing royalist efforts in 1795 was led by François–Athanése de Charette de la Contrie, a former nobleman. He had participated in the Vendéan uprising in 1793, with the goal of restoring to the throne the nearest living…
The fall of Robespierre and the Mountain in the summer of 1794 also reinvigorated counterrevolutionary forces, especially those hoping to restore royal authority in the person of the son of the "martyr" Louis XVI. We see evidence of efforts to…
At the demand of patriots in Paris and the provinces, the National Convention sent irregular units to the countryside and to cities where resistance to the Revolution had appeared. In this report from Toulouse, the Convention, through the medium of…
The first groups of "brigands" formed in the west in mid–1792, in response most immediately to the call to all citizens to volunteer for the army. In this letter, a local government official, Choudieu, informs the National Convention that the…
