44 10 1079 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 . . . We started marching, and I appeared at the first barricade, accompanied by the Commissaires of Section Quinze-Vingts. We were received with howling and the most atrocious insults by a great many armed men and a greater number of women, or rather, furies, who wanted to butcher us alive, or so they assured us. I let these howls quiet down, and I summoned them in the name of law and the national representation to deliver up the assassin [a man suspected of murdering National Representative Ferand on 1 Prairial] along with those who saved him from execution and to open the barricade at once. I threatened, in case of refusal, to use cannon to blow it up, throwing back onto the rebels the full horror of the consequences of their stubbornness. I will point out here that at that moment it would have been very easy for me to turn back and leave through the barrier du Trone without the slightest risk, but beside the fact that it is in my character to doggedly pursue an action I believe good, such a withdrawal, which would have looked like a retreat dictated by fear, would have increased the audacity of the rebels a hundredfold and would have notably discouraged the good citizens of Paris. I firmly resolved to force these same men who wanted to encircle us to tear down their barricades themselves, but this required a great deal of prudence and much tenacity. Considering that I had only twelve hundred men (whose courage and devotion, to tell the truth, could be relied upon absolutely), and considering that we were surrounded by twenty thousand armed men and forty thousand furies—for they cannot be referred to as women—this action will be judged as appropriate. Finally, having used first threats, then reason, we succeeded in opening up a passage. We started marching and arrived at the second barricade, where we were received with the same howls. At my end I used the same methods I had [used] the first time, and strongly supported all the while by the two Commissaires from Section Quinze-Vingts, whose zeal and devotion cannot be praised sufficiently, we succeeded, at the end of a quarter of an hour, in breaking through, but when we began marching, rumor spread that the rear guard had gotten hold of a cannon in Section Montreuil. Immediately the rebels took it upon themselves to rebuild the barricade. The cries and howls started up again. Several climbed up to the windows to assail us from there with gunfire, which made the position of the cavalry, above all, very alarming, as it could not defend itself in barricaded streets against men who were firing on them from the first floor. On the spot, I sent out General Brune, whose firmness I had tested. I asked him to go to the back of the column and order that no cannon be taken. . . . [General Kilmaine relates his consternation at not receiving reinforcements that had been promised him in the morning. He continues:] Two of the people's representatives, Vernier and Courtois . . . joined the ranks of the advance guard of the battalion. I feared that the rebels would recognize them and that the assassins would concentrate all their efforts on them. We were firmly resolved to defend them or get ourselves killed, but there were only twelve hundred of us, and we were surrounded by a countless multitude of armed men and a horde of women a thousand times more atrocious than the men. Besides, we could compromise the success of the great expedition [planned for the evening] by precipitating hostilities with such inferior forces. The rear guard abandoned the plan to carry the cannon off, but it was done with good grace and not in the least forced by the rebels. Then the second barricade was reopened, and we again started marching through. Having arrived at the last barricade, we found a more stubborn resistance than at the first two, increased by a great number of citizens who had strayed from Section Indivisibility and from the Grand Rue Saint-Antoine. The same cries, the same threats from the rebels' side. The same firmness, even sangfroid, on our side. At last, wearied by our minimal success in using reason, I ordered the cannon pointed against the barricade, quite resolved to fire in three minutes' time if our demand was not heeded. Sortable Date 1795-05-00 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press, 296–297. Description An account of the resource The Prairial insurrection of Year III (May 1795) would prove to be among the last major episodes of popular activism during the Revolution, due in part to the Convention’s forceful use of National Guard units, leading to the arrest of many activists and the execution of several popular leaders. While radicals viewed this outcome as evidence that the government had definitively turned its back on "the people," others—such as General Kilmane who commanded the troops on that day—viewed this event as the restoration of order by a government that had finally rejected Jacobin radicalism and firmly established its authority over an unruly Parisian population. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 419 Title A name given to the resource Military Suppression of Prairial Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/419/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 1795 Popular Politics Text 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 Paris, 7 Prairial [26 May], 1795, Year 3 of the French Republic Citizen: Believing neither that the respect due our sex is an authorization to commit evil, directly or indirectly, nor that there can be exceptions to the law made for women without some principles being violated, it is time that these "furies" who for too long have dishonored a portion of their sex with immoral and criminal conduct should come under the arm of the law and that those who remain loyal to their duty should stop being forced to be witnesses of their crimes or victims of their oppression. I sense the full importance of a denunciation stripped of all feelings of hate, vengeance, and even of spite. The voice of duty imperiously orders all ordinary individuals, above all in the crises we are in, to denounce enemies of the public interest, to make them known, and to establish a line of demarcation between them and respectable people. Consequently, I declare that I saw the above-named Femme Periot, a merchant at one of the gates of the Louvre, residing on rue des Lavandières, at the hatter's house next to the baker's—I declare, I say, that I saw the above-named, long before the Prairial Days, constantly showing loyalty to the Jacobin system, preaching Marat's maxims to various groups, and repeatedly demanding that heads roll. I saw her at the trial of Carrier conspiring on behalf of the Jacobins at the Revolutionary Tribunal. She was always threatening the Convention with an imminent dissolution and merchants with certain pillage. Revolted by the conduct of this shrew, I have denounced her to the Committee of Police of the Convention. At the time of the Triumvirate, this woman never stopped haranguing everyone with a human face. A person had to be marked with the stamp of an assassin or be tainted with blood to dare pass before her stall without being insulted. For without knowing you or speaking to you, she insulted you concerning your face and appearance. She always had the same refrain, "Patience, the brigands will not always have the upper hand. The Mountain will return. The time is not far off." During the recent events (Prairial), I saw the above-named with all the scoundrels, exhorting them with all the gestures of a madwoman not to give in until the Constitution of 1793 was agreed to on the spot. They should ask for Billaud, Collet, and Barère and hold the Convention under siege until they [the three men] were delivered back to Paris. She screamed, "Yes, we must eliminate these marsh-toads. We have on our side the troops, the good gendarmes, and the faubourgs. The muscadin guillotine will be called out. We must have the traitors' blood." And I point out that I heard her several times over. I have followed her constantly in the vicinity of the Tuileries and the Convention. I have even seen her provoke men and defy them, and try to stir up a brawl. For these reasons I have come to denounce her so that the constituted authorities will keep watch on such a shrew and put her out of the way of harming society. Since it is correct that the constituted authorities check up on the morality of informants, I am ready to give full information on my conduct during the twelve years I have lived in Paris and to prove that since 1789–90 I have struggled continuously against the Jacobins and have become their victim several times. But I affirm that no personal hate or vengeance has prompted my pen or my heart. In this spirit I am, with fraternity, your fellow citoyenne, Anne Marguerite Andelle, Widow Ruvet, rue des Fosses [Ste.] Germain [des près], no. 13, home of Citizen Allard. Sortable Date 1795-05-20 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 From Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795, edited and translated by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson. Copyright 1979 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press. Description An account of the resource Popular radical activity continued throughout the period of the Terror (see Chapter 7) and did not end with 9 Thermidor. On 1–4 Prairial, Year III (20–23 May 1795), a large group composed largely of women surrounded the Convention Hall and massacred a deputy to force the legislature to satisfy its demand that the democratic constitution drafted by the Jacobins, but never put into effect, be implemented. This mobilization, as much as any earlier journée, demonstrated social stresses, pitting urban poor against a government they perceived to represent property owners. The sizable role of women in Prairial also demonstrates that social cleavages divided women as well as men throughout the Revolution. This letter was addressed to the president of this Section and was read to the General Assembly of the Section du Museum, 10 Prairial, Year III (30 May 1795). Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 418 Title A name given to the resource Women’s Activities during the Prairial Uprising Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/418/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 20, 1795 Clubs Popular Politics Sans-culottes Text Women 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 1. Immediately after the publication of the present decree, all suspects within the territory of the Republic and still at large, shall be placed in custody. 2. The following are deemed suspects: 1– those who, by their conduct, associations, comments, or writings have shown themselves partisans of tyranny or federalism and enemies of liberty; 2– those who are unable to justify, in the manner prescribed by the decree of 21 March, their means of existence and the performance of their civic duties; 3– those to whom certificates of patriotism have been refused; 4– civil servants suspended or dismissed from their positions by the National Convention or by its commissioners, and not reinstated, especially those who have been or are to be dismissed by virtue of the decree of 14 August; 5– those former nobles, together with husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, and agents of the émigrés, who have not constantly demonstrated their devotion to the Revolution; 6– those who have emigrated between 1 July 1789, and the publication of the decree of 30 March (8 April 1792), even though they may have returned to France within the period established by said decree or prior thereto. Sortable Date 1793-09-17 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 Jean-Baptiste Duvergier, Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, règlements, avis du conseil d'état . . . de 1788 a 1830 . . . , 2d ed., 110 vols. (Paris, 1834–1906), 6:172–73. Description An account of the resource This law, passed on 17 September 1793, authorized the creation of revolutionary tribunals to try those suspected of treason against the Republic and to punish those convicted with death. This legislation in effect made the penal justice system into the enforcement arm of the revolutionary government, which would now set as its primary responsibility not only the maintenance of public order but also the much more difficult and controversial task of identifying internal enemies of the Republic—such as "profiteers" who violated the Maximum—and then removing them from the citizenry, where they might subvert the general will. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 417 Title A name given to the resource The Law of Suspects Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/417/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 17, 1793 Clubs Laws Nobility Popular Politics Sans-culottes 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 president [Robespierre] announces that a large number of Parisian citizens were requesting permission to enter the chamber and have their delegation present a petition.The delegation is introduced, headed by the mayor and several municipal officers.Chaumette: Citizen legislators, the citizens of Paris are tired of a situation that has been uncertain and wavering for too long and want to settle their fate once and for all. EuropeÕs tyrants, along with the stateÕs internal enemies, persist outrageously in their hideous plot to starve the French People into submission and to force them to shamefully trade their liberty and sovereignty for a piece of breadÑsomething they will certainly never do.New lords, just as cruel, just as greedy, and just as brazen as those they replaced, have risen up in the ruins of feudalism. They have leased or bought the properties of their former masters and continue to follow the well-worn paths of crime, to profit from public misery, to stem the tide of abundance, and to tyrannize those who destroyed tyranny.Another class, as greedy and as criminal as the first, has seized control of [the supply of] basic necessities. You have dealt them a blow, but they were only dazed. They continue to plunder beneath the very nose of the law.You have passed wise laws, laws that promise happiness. But they have not been implemented because the power to do so is lacking. If you do not create that power quickly, these laws risk becoming obsolete almost at birth.At this very moment, the enemies of the state are raising their swords against it . . . swords already stained with the stateÕs own blood. You both possess and implement the needed skills which then, in republican hands, change metal into weapons capable of felling tyrants. But where are the hands that can drive these weapons into the traitors' breasts?Hidden domestic enemies, freely speaking the word "liberty," stem the flow of life. In spite of your benevolent laws, they close granaries and coolly engage in the heinous calculation of how much they stand to make from a famine, a riot, or a massacre. Your spirit buckles at the very thought, so you turn over the granariesÕ keys and the execrable ledgers of these monsters back to the administrators. But where is the strong hand that will forcefully turn that key so fatal to such traitors? Where is that proud and impassible being, unyielding to conspiracy and corruption, who will tear out the pages of the book that has been written with the PeopleÕs blood, immediately commuting it into a death sentence against those who are starving the nation?Every day we learn of new betrayals and new crimes. Every day we become upset at the discovery and the reappearance of new conspiracies. Every day new disturbances stir up the Republic, ready to drag it into their stormy whirlwinds, hurling it into the bottomless abyss of the centuries to come. But where is that powerful being whose terrible cry will reawaken sleeping justiceÑor rather justice that has been paralyzed, dazed by the clamor of factionsÑand force it at last to strike off criminal heads? Where is that powerful being who will crush all these reptiles who corrupt everything they touch and whose venomous stings stir up our citizens, transforming political gatherings into gladiatorial arenas where each passion, each interest, finds apologists and armies?Legislators, it is time to put an end to the impious struggle that has been going on since 1789 between the sons and daughters of the nation and those who have abandoned it. Your fate, and ours, is tied to the unvarying establishment of the republic. We must either destroy its enemies, or they will destroy us. They have thrown down the gauntlet in the midst of the People, who have picked it up. They have stirred up agitation. They have attempted to separate, to divide the mass of the citizens, in order to crush the People and to avoid being crushed themselves. Today, the mass of the People, who are without resources, must destroy them using their own weight and willpower. . . .. . . Legislators, the immense gathering of citizens who assembled yesterday and today in the Commune building, and in the square outside it, passed only one resolution, which is brought to you by a delegation. It is: Food, and to get it, strength for the law. As a result, we are charged with demanding the creation of the revolutionary army which you have already decreed but which the guilty, through plotting and fear, have aborted. [Unanimous applause breaks out several times.] Let this army form its core in Paris immediately, and from every department through which it passes, let all men join who want a republic united and indivisible. Let an incorruptible and formidable tribunal follow this army, as well as that deadly tool which, with a single stroke, ends both the conspiracies and the days of their authors. Let this tribunal be tasked with making avarice and cupidity cough up the wealth of the land, that inexhaustible wet nurse of all children. Let it bear the following words on its standards, which shall be its constant order: Peace to men of good will; war on those who would starve people; protection for the weak; war on tyrants; justice; and no oppression.Finally, let this army be established such that there remains in each city sufficient forces to restrain malicious people. . . .Billaud-Varenne: It is by taking advantage of the energy of the People that we will finally exterminate the enemies of the revolution. We will lack neither food supplies nor plots of land on which to grow this food. Even more importantly, and what we must hope for, is that all the malicious people disappear from the face of the earth. As we stated before the Convention, it is finally time, it is more than time, that we settle the fate of the revolution. Indeed, we must congratulate ourselves, for it is in fact the very misfortunes of the People that increase their energy and make us equal to the task of exterminating our enemies. . . . The time has come to act . . . the time for deliberations is over. We must place all our enemies under arrest this very day. [Applause]If revolutions drag on, it is because only half measures are taken. Let us leave it to weaker minds to worry about the results of the revolution. We work everything out . . . we see the grand vision of what must be achieved for the happiness of the People . . . let us boldly go along the path we have set for ourselves. Let us save the People, they will assist us. They want liberty regardless of the price. Let us crush the enemies of the revolution, and starting today, let the government take action, let the laws be executed, let the lot of the People be strengthened, and let liberty be saved.Danton: . . . You have just proclaimed to all of France that it is still in a real and active state of revolution. Well, this revolution must be consummated. You must never fear movements that could tempt counterrevolutionaries in Paris, who would no doubt like to extinguish the flame of liberty where it burns the brightest. But the immense number of true patriots, of sans-culottes who have crushed their enemies a hundred times, still exists [and] is ready to take action. We only need to know how to lead them, and once again they will confound and foil all conspiracies. It is not enough to have a revolutionary army; you must be revolutionary yourselves. Remember that industrious men who live by the sweat of their brow cannot attend the sections and that it is only when the true patriots are absent that scheming can take over the section meetings. Therefore decree that two large section-meetings be held each week, and that the man of the People who attends these political assemblies will receive just remuneration for the time spent away from his work.It is also good that you proclaim to all our enemies that we are determined to be continually and completely prepared for them. You have ordered thirty million [francs] placed at the disposal of the Minister of War in order to manufacture weapons. Decree that this emergency production cease only when the nation has given a gun to each citizen. Let us announce the firm resolution of having as many guns and almost as many cannon as there are sans-culottes. [Applause] Let it be the republic that puts a gun into the hands of the citizen, the true patriot, and let the republic say to him, "The country entrusts this weapon to you with for its defense. You will stand up for your country each month of the year, as well as any other time you are required to do so by the national authority." Let a gun be our most sacred object. . .let each of us lose our life rather than our gun. [Applause] I therefore ask that you decree at least 100 million [francs] to produce all kinds of weapons because, had we all had arms, we would all have marched. It is the lack of weapons that enslaves us. A country in danger will never be short of citizens. Sortable Date 1793-09-05 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 Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur, 32 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1858-63), 17:580-83, 586, 591. Description An account of the resource Responding to pressure from the sections, the Convention voted on 5 September 1793, to declare that "Terror is the Order of the Day," meaning that the government, through internal "revolutionary armies" that were formed two days later,should and would use force against its own citizens to ensure compliance with its laws, including the law of the Maximum. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 416 Title A name given to the resource "Terror Is the Order of the Day" Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/416/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 5, 1793 Clubs Laws Popular Politics Sans-culottes 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 29 September 1793 1. The articles which the National Convention has deemed essential, and the maximum or highest price of which it has believed it should establish, are: fresh meat, salt meat and bacon, butter, sweet oil, cattle, salt fish, wine, brandy, vinegar, cider, beer, firewood, charcoal, coal, candles, lamp oil, salt, soda, sugar, honey, white paper, hides, iron, cast iron, lead, steel, copper, hemp, linens, woolens, stuffs, canvases, the raw materials which are used for fabrics, wooden shoes, shoes, turnips and rape, soap, potash, and tobacco. . . . 7. All persons who sell or purchase the merchandise specified in article 1 for more than the maximum price stated and posted in each department shall pay, jointly and severally, through the municipal police, a fine of double the value of the article sold, and payable to the informer; they shall be inscribed upon the list of suspected persons, and treated as such. The purchaser shall not be subject to the penalty provided above if he denounces the contravention of the seller; and every merchant shall be required to have a list bearing the maximum or highest price of his merchandise visible in his shop. 8. The maximum or highest figure for salaries, wages, manual labor, and days of labor in every place shall be established, dating from the publication of the present law until the month of September next, by the general councils of the communes, at the same rate as in 1790, plus one-half. 9. The municipalities may put in requisition and punish, according to circumstances, with three days' imprisonment, workmen, manufacturers, and divers laborers who refuse, without legitimate grounds, to do their usual work. . . . 17. During the war, all exportation of essential merchandise or commodities is prohibited on all frontiers, under any name or commission whatsoever, with the exception of salt. Sortable Date 1793-09-29 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), 499–500. Description An account of the resource In September 1793 the Convention furthered its role as the guarantor of the basic right to subsistence of all citizens by instituting price maximums on all essential consumer goods, especially foodstuffs, and on wages paid in the production of those goods. The Maximum was to remain in effect, at least theoretically, until the end of 1794 and thereafter would remain for historians evidence that the "revolutionary government" was concerned with more than merely executions, but with enlarging the meanings of "virtue" and "fraternity" to include a concern for the material well–being as well as political rights of all citizens. Yet the gradual abandonment of price controls, as politicians faced pressure from producers, suggested hypocrisy to many contemporaries. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 415 Title A name given to the resource The Maximum Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/415/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 29, 1793 Clubs Economic Conditions Laws Popular Politics Sans-culottes 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 26 July 1793 1. Monopoly is a capital crime. 2. Those who keep out of circulation essential merchandise or commodities, which they buy and hold stored in any place whatsoever without offering them for sale daily and publicly, are declared guilty of monopoly. 3. Those who cause essential commodities and merchandise to perish, or willfully allow them to perish, likewise are declared monopolists. 4. The essential commodities and merchandise are: bread, meat, wine, grain, flour, vegetables, fruit, butter, vinegar, cider, brandy, charcoal, tallow, wood, oil, soda, soap, salt, dried, smoked, salted, or pickled meat and fish, honey, sugar, hemp, paper, worked and unworked wool, hides, iron and steel, copper, clothing, linen, and generally all stuffs, as well as the raw materials used in their manufacture, excepting silk goods. 5. During the week following the proclamation of the present decree, those who have on hand, in any place whatsoever in the Republic, any of the merchandise or commodities designated in the preceding article, shall be required to make a declaration thereof to the municipality or section in which the store of the said commodities or merchandise is situated. The municipality or section shall have the existence thereof verified, as well as the nature and quantity of the items contained therein, by a commissioner whom it shall appoint for such purpose. The municipalities or sections are authorized to grant him an indemnity on behalf of the operations with which he is charged, which indemnity shall be determined by a decision made in a general assembly of the municipality or section. 6. The verification completed, the owner of the commodities or merchandise shall declare to the commissioner, on the summons made to him therefor and issued in writing, whether he wishes to offer the said commodities or merchandise for sale, in small lots and to all comers, three days, at the latest, after his declaration. If he consents thereto, the sale shall be held in such manner, without interruption or delay, under the supervision of the commissioner appointed by the municipality or section. 7. If the owner will not or cannot hold said sale, he shall be required to submit to the municipality or the section a copy of the invoices of prices pertaining to the merchandise verified as present in the store. The municipality or section shall give him an acknowledgment thereof, and shall then charge a commissioner with holding the sale thereof, according to the manner above indicated, fixing the price so that the owner may receive, if possible, a commercial profit according to the invoices communicated. If, however, the high price of the invoices makes such profit impossible, the sale thereof shall take place, nevertheless, without interruption, at the current price of said merchandise; it shall also take place, in the same manner, if the owner is unable to produce any invoice. The amounts resulting from the proceeds of such sale shall be remitted to him as soon as it is finished, the expenses incurred being first deducted from said proceeds. 8. One week after publication and proclamation of the present decree, those who have not made the declarations prescribed thereby shall be considered monopolists, and, as such, punished with death; their property shall be confiscated, and the commodities or merchandise which constitute a part thereof shall be placed on sale as indicated in the preceding articles. 9. Those convicted of making false declarations, or of countenancing substitutions of names of persons or property relative to warehouses and merchandise, likewise shall be punished with death. Public functionaries, as well as the commissioners appointed to effect the sales, who are convicted of abusing their offices to protect monopolists, also shall be punished with death. Sortable Date 1793-07-26 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), 469–71. Description An account of the resource In July 1793, faced with a restive populace angered by continuing shortages of food in Paris, the Convention followed the lead of the sections in blaming the high price of bread on "profiteers" in the countryside, who were taking advantage of their fellow citizens by charging abnormally high prices for grain. This decree, the first of a series of such condemnations by the Convention, responded to the notion that manipulation of the marketplace for the purpose of self–enrichment was contrary to morality and to law because it harmed fellow citizens and thus undermined the liberty of all. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 414 Title A name given to the resource Decree against Profiteers Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/414/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 26, 1793 Economic Conditions Laws Middle Classes – Bourgeoisie Popular Politics Sans-culottes 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 Some time ago we set forth the principles of our foreign policy; today we come to expound the principles of our internal policy. After having proceeded haphazardly for a long time, swept along by the movement of opposing factions, the representatives of the French people have finally demonstrated a character and a government. A sudden change in the nation's fortune announced to Europe the regeneration that had been effected in the national representation. But, up to the very moment when I am speaking, it must be agreed that we have been guided, amid such stormy circumstances, by the love of good and by the awareness of our country's needs rather than by an exact theory and by precise rules of conduct, which we did not have even leisure enough to lay out. . . . What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice whose laws have been inscribed, not in marble and stone, but in the hearts of all men, even in that of the slave who forgets them and in that of the tyrant who denies them. We seek an order of things in which all the base and cruel passions are enchained, all the beneficent and generous passions are awakened by the laws; where ambition becomes the desire to merit glory and to serve our country; where distinctions are born only of equality itself; where the citizen is subject to the magistrate, the magistrate to the people, and the people to justice; where our country assures the well-being of each individual, and where each individual proudly enjoys our country's prosperity and glory; where every soul grows greater through the continual flow of republican sentiments, and by the need of deserving the esteem of a great people; where the arts are the adornments of the liberty which ennobles them and commerce the source of public wealth rather than solely the monstrous opulence of a few families. In our land we want to substitute morality for egotism, integrity for formal codes of honor, principles for customs, a sense of duty for one of mere propriety, the rule of reason for the tyranny of fashion, scorn of vice for scorn of the unlucky; self-respect for insolence, grandeur of soul for vanity, love of glory for the love of money, good people in place of good society. We wish to substitute merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glamor, the charm of happiness for sensuous boredom, the greatness of man for the pettiness of the great, a people who are magnanimous, powerful, and happy, in place of a kindly, frivolous, and miserable people—which is to say all the virtues and all the miracles of the republic in place of all the vices of the monarchy. . . . What kind of government can realize these wonders? Only a democratic or republican government—these two words are synonyms despite the abuses in common speech—because an aristocracy is no closer than a monarchy to being a republic. Democracy is not a state in which the people, continually meeting, regulate for themselves all public affairs, still less is it a state in which a tiny fraction of the people, acting by isolated, hasty, and contradictory measures, decide the fate of the whole society. Such a government has never existed, and it could exist only to lead the people back into despotism. Democracy is a state in which the sovereign people, guided by laws which are of their own making, do for themselves all that they can do well, and by their delegates do all that they cannot do for themselves. It is therefore in the principles of democratic government that you should seek the rules of your political conduct. But, in order to lay the foundations of democracy among us and to consolidate it, in order to arrive at the peaceful reign of constitutional laws, we must finish the war of liberty against tyranny and safely cross through the storms of the revolution: that is the goal of the revolutionary system which you have put in order. You should therefore still base your conduct upon the stormy circumstances in which the republic finds itself; and the plan of your administration should be the result of the spirit of revolutionary government, combined with the general principles of democracy. Now, what is the fundamental principle of popular or democratic government, that is to say, the essential mainspring which sustains it and makes it move? It is virtue. I speak of the public virtue which worked so many wonders in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce even more astonishing things in republican France—that virtue which is nothing other than the love of the nation and its laws. . . . But the French are the first people of the world who have established real democracy, by calling all men to equality and full rights of citizenship; and there, in my judgment, is the true reason why all the tyrants in league against the Republic will be vanquished. There are important consequences to be drawn immediately from the principles we have just explained. Since the soul of the Republic is virtue, equality, and since your goal is to found, to consolidate the Republic, it follows that the first rule of your political conduct ought to be to relate all your efforts to maintaining equality and developing virtue; because the first care of the legislator ought to be to fortify the principle of the government. Thus everything that tends to excite love of country, to purify morals, to elevate souls, to direct the passions of the human heart toward the public interest ought to be adopted or established by you. Everything which tends to concentrate them in the abjection of selfishness, to awaken enjoyment for petty things and scorn for great ones, ought to be rejected or curbed by you. Within the scheme of the French revolution, that which is immoral is impolitic, that which is corrupting is counterrevolutionary. . . . We deduce from all this a great truth—that the characteristic of popular government is to be trustful towards the people and severe towards itself. Here the development of our theory would reach its limit, if you had only to steer the ship of the Republic through calm waters. But the tempest rages, and the state of the revolution in which you find yourself imposes upon you another task. This great purity of the French Revolution's fundamental elements, the very sublimity of its objective, is precisely what creates our strength and our weakness: our strength, because it gives us the victory of truth over deception and the rights of public interest over private interests; our weakness, because it rallies against us all men who are vicious, all those who in their hearts plan to despoil the people, and all those who have despoiled them and want impunity, and those who reject liberty as a personal calamity, and those who have embraced the revolution as a livelihood and the Republic as if it were an object of prey. Hence the defection of so many ambitious or greedy men who since the beginning have abandoned us along the way, because they had not begun the voyage in order to reach the same goal. One could say that the two contrary geniuses that have been depicted competing for control of the realm of nature, are fighting in this great epoch of human history to shape irrevocably the destiny of the world, and that France is the theater of this mighty struggle. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all the friends of tyranny conspire—they will conspire until crime has been robbed of hope. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish, in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror. If the mainspring of popular government in peacetime is virtue, amid revolution it is at the same time [both] virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. It is less a special principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most pressing needs. It has been said that terror was the mainspring of despotic government. Does your government, then, resemble a despotism? Yes, as the sword which glitters in the hands of liberty's heroes resembles the one with which tyranny's lackeys are armed. Let the despot govern his brutalized subjects by terror; he is right to do this, as a despot. Subdue liberty's enemies by terror, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is it not to strike the heads of the proud that lightning is destined? Nature imposes upon every physical and moral being the law of providing for its own preservation. Crime slaughters innocence in order to reign, and innocence in the hands of crime fights with all its strength. Let tyranny reign for a single day, and on the morrow not one patriot will be left. How long will the despots' fury be called justice, and the people's justice barbarism or rebellion? How tender one is to the oppressors and how inexorable against the oppressed! And how natural whoever has no hatred for crime cannot love virtue. . . . Social protection is due only to peaceful citizens; there are no citizens in the Republic but the republicans. The royalists, the conspirators are, in its eyes, only strangers or, rather, enemies. Is not the terrible war, which liberty sustains against tyranny, indivisible? Are not the enemies within the allies of those without? The murderers who tear our country apart internally; the intriguers who purchase the consciences of the people's agents; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary libelers subsidized to dishonor the popular cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fires of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by means of moral counterrevolution—are all these men less to blame or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve? All those who interpose their parricidal gentleness to protect the wicked from the avenging blade of national justice are like those who would throw themselves between the tyrants' henchmen and our soldiers' bayonets. All the outbursts of their false sensitivity seem to me only longing sighs for England and Austria. Aristocracy defends itself better by its intrigues than patriotism does by its services. Some people would like to govern revolutions by the quibbles of the law courts and treat conspiracies against the Republic like legal proceedings against private persons. Tyranny kills; liberty argues. And the code made by the conspirators themselves is the law by which they are judged. Sortable Date 1704-02-05 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 From THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR by Richard Bienvenu. Copyright (c) 1970 by Oxford University Press, Inc., 32–49. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Description An account of the resource In this speech to the Convention, delivered on 5 February 1794, Robespierre offered a justification of the Terror. By this date, the Federalist revolt and Vendée uprisings had been by and large pacified and the threat of invasion by the Austrians, British, and Prussians had receded, yet Robespierre emphasized that only a combination of virtue (a commitment to republican ideals) and terror (coercion against those who failed to demonstrate such a commitment) could ensure the long–term salvation of the Republic, since it would always be faced with a crisis of secret enemies subverting it from within, even when its overt enemies had been subdued. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 413 Title A name given to the resource Robespierre, "On Political Morality" Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/413/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 5, 1704 Clubs Enlightenment 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 You pitiful priests, you villainous and stupid clowns, do you not see that your God would not have been eligible [to vote?] Jesus-Christ, who you make to be God incarnate, would have been among the scum under the law you yourself have just helped to pass. How can we respect you, preachers of a proletarian God, who is not even an active citizen! You should respect the poverty that Christ himself ennobled. . . . The true active citizens are those who captured the Bastille, those who cleared the fields while the feeble clergy and the Court, despite their immense wealth, acted like plants. . . . Despite the most profound respect for the holy decrees of the National Assembly . . . I do not consider this law [on citizenship] to be a valid decree. As I have written repeatedly, there are in the National Assembly 600 members [i.e., noble and clerical deputies] who have no more right to vote on laws than I do. Certainly the clergy and the nobility should have the same number of representatives as the rest of the Nation, that is one for each 20,000. Yet the nobles and the clergy number 300,000 individuals and thus should choose 15 representatives from among their 600. The rest should be sent to the observation galleries with only a consultative vote. It is from among these 600 that the majority of votes to pass the decree on silver currency came [and the law on citizenship]. . . . So these decrees should be ignored, because the minority [i.e., the First and Second Estates] became the majority in these cases, . . . so it is right to say that the Decree that should be obeyed is that which was rejected [against the silver currency and against passive citizenship]! Sortable Date 1789-12-12 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 Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant (12 December 1789), 109–12. Description An account of the resource Camille Desmoulins, an influential populist writer, here attacks the distinction between "active" and "passive" citizenry based on personal wealth, by pointing out that Christ himself would have been relegated to "passive" citizenry. Desmoulins holds the clergy responsible for this undemocratic policy, charging that the 300 representatives of the clergy in the National Assembly, as well as those from the nobility, should have only a "consultative" vote and that any laws passed with the votes of these deputies should be disregarded by all patriots. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 412 Title A name given to the resource The Clergy as a Target: A Political Problem Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/412/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 12, 1789 Religion Sans-culottes 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 What is, tell me, the goal of the new alliance treaty between Spain, Austria, Russia, Naples, Turin, and Venice, a treaty orchestrated by your own ambassadors sick with aristocracy? . . . Why do you wait, sovereign nation, to recall these detestable "excellencies"? Is it not evident that our neighboring countries are awaiting only a signal to attack the kingdom? Leopold, King of Hungary, keeps at the ready a formidable army as he negotiates day and night to make peace with Turkey and Prussia, to make them his good brothers, so they can together sap the foundation of our constitution. . . . French people, look for a moment beyond your own frontiers and you will see everywhere . . . the long chains which originate from the Tuileries and which hold at their ends the aristocrats, vomited up by the nation. . . . An intense correspondence between them links together this band of sworn foes [of the Revolution]. Their plan is made; they burn to carry it out: the capital [of France] buried in mountains of blood and fire, the National Assembly removed, and despotism again raising its hideous head. Within the kingdom . . . the priests kindle the torches of fanaticism, blessing the daggers which . . . will slit the throats of our brothers and finish them off by crucifixion. . . . All of this, citizens . . . must they not give rise to all the horrors of civil war . . . ? Arise then, form up in ranks, unfurl your flags, and led by La Fayette and animated by liberty, you will be invincible! Sortable Date 1791-04-00 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 Orateur du Peuple, vol. 1, no. 6 (April 1791), 44–45. Description An account of the resource In this article from April 1791, Fréron, a journalist allied to the radical Jean–Paul Marat, focuses on foreign enemies. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 411 Title A name given to the resource Fear of Aristocratic Politics Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/411/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1791 Nobility Popular Politics 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 philosophers who study the causes of important events have said that, in some way, each century carries within it the century that will follow. This bold metaphor covers an important truth that has been confirmed by the history of Athens: the century of laws and virtues prepared that of valor and glory, in turn producing a century of conquests and luxury, which finished with the destruction of the republic. The deeply philosophic thought can be applied to the history of all peoples. The tyrannical humiliations and bloodthirsty barbarity of Richelieu laid the groundwork for the despotism of Louis XIV. That century of great men was the work of the literary and religious debates that had preceded it. It is in the eye of the storm that the nature and policy of empires, the laws and all human institutions are regenerated, and that the sciences grow with renewed vigor. The nation, sagging beneath the weight of its misfortunes, crushed by its disgrace and caught up in terror and superstition, whimpered for a fragile and fleeting glory which it acquired at the cost of the people's future, the price of their blood, and the prosperity of the empire. Its gloomy silence evidenced its pain. For a few years, the call of the monarchy relieved the nation of this distressing state, only to deliver it up to the convulsions of madness and cupidity. The squanderings of Louis XIV gave birth to this system. The French, bent beneath the yoke, nevertheless endured the vices and errors of the government with incredible patience. The sacred and inalienable rights of the People were relegated to the museums of science and art as if they were curiosities to behold, things rendered useless by the long period of slavery. Thus was the reasoning that suspended any public demands during the entire reign of Louis XV. During the final years of that monarch the nation lost almost all of its morality. Corruption spread out from the base of the throne to almost all classes of society. Finally, the limit of arbitrary excesses of power had been reached. The horrible financial disarray rendered the required severe reform inevitable. This is how the course of events is played out: not by fortuitous syntheses, but by a primary and irrefutable impulse. It is very true that extremes come full circle. Sortable Date 1790-05-10 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 Journal Universel, no. 169 (10 May 1790), 1350. Description An account of the resource This 1790 article from the Journal Universel, a leading radical newspaper, recounts the long desperate history of the monarchy that ironically led the revolution. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 410 Title A name given to the resource A Royal History Relation A related resource https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/410/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 10, 1790 Counterrevolution Nobility Text The Terror