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Henri Grégoire

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Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire ( French: [ɑ̃ʁi ʒɑ̃ batist ɡʁeɡwaʁ] ; 4 December 1750 – 28 May 1831), often referred to as the Abbé Grégoire , was a French Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent slavery abolitionist and supporter of universal suffrage . He was a founding member of the Bureau des longitudes , the Institut de France , and the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers .

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109-581: Grégoire was born in Vého near Lunéville , France , as the son of a tailor. Educated at the Jesuit college at Nancy , he became curé (parish priest) of Emberménil in 1782. In 1783 he was crowned by the Academy of Nancy for his Eloge de la poésie , and in 1788 by that of Metz for an Essai sur la régénération physique et morale des Juifs . He was elected in 1789 by the clergy of the bailliage of Nancy to

218-593: A Committee of Public Safety . Social and economic difficulties exacerbated the tensions between the groups. The final showdown was precipitated by Jean-Paul Marat 's trial and the arrest of sectional activists. On 25 May, the Paris Commune marched to the Convention to demand the release of the activists. In reply, Maximin Isnard , who was presiding over the Convention, launched into a diatribe reminiscent of

327-543: A balance that was destroyed in July by the worsening of the crisis. The Convention rapidly approved the new constitution in the hope to clear itself of the charge of dictatorship and calm the anxieties of the departments. The Declaration of Rights, which precedes the text of the Constitution, solemnly reaffirmed the nation's indivisibility and the great principles of equality, liberty, security, and property. In contrast to

436-588: A few days the Girondins launched a bitter attack on their Montagnard opponents. Conflict continued without interruption until the expulsion of the Girondin leaders from the Convention on 2 June 1793. The Girondins had relied on votes from the majority of the deputies, many of whom were alarmed as well as scandalized by the September massacres , but their insistence on monopolising all positions of authority during

545-639: A free colored planter from Saint-Domingue who was trying to win admission to the Constituent Assembly as the representative of his group. Grégoire published numerous pamphlets and later books on the subject of racial equality . Grégoire also became an influential member of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks although the group and many others like it were seen as radical at the time. As

654-533: A government take shape. Danton resigned from it on 10 July. Couthon , Saint-Just , Jeanbon Saint-Andre , and Prieur of the Marne formed a nucleus of resolute Montagnards who rallied Barère and Lindet , then successfully added Robespierre on 27 July, Carnot and Prieur of Cote-d'Ore on 14 August, and Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne on 6 September. They had a few clear ideas to which they clung: to command, to fight, and to conquer. Their work in common,

763-460: A host of others, backed by officers who combined abilities as soldiers and their political sense. For the first time since the Roman Empire, a government succeeded in arming and feeding great numbers of soldiers. The technical innovations resulted chiefly from its sheer size as well the strategy that developed from it. The old system of cordons lost its prestige. Moving between the armies of

872-683: A member of the Corps Législatif , then of the Senate (1801). He took the lead in the national Church councils of 1797 and 1801; but he was strenuously opposed to Napoleon's policy of reconciliation with the Holy See , and after the signature of the Concordat he resigned his episcopal see on 8 October 1801. He was one of the minority of five in the Senate who voted against the proclamation of

981-645: A member of the National Assembly, Grégoire supported seemingly opposing views, such as the eradication of slavery in France, but also maintained his position as a member of the clergy, which was known for mostly wanting to keep slavery within France and its colonies. It was on Grégoire's motion in May 1791 that the Constituent Assembly passed its first law admitting some wealthy free men of color in

1090-471: A modification of the franchise; the Dessolles ministry resigned; and the first act of Count Decazes , the new premier, was to annul the election of Grégoire. Despite his revolutionary Gallican and liberal views, Grégoire considered himself a devout Catholic. During his 1831 final illness, he confessed to his parish curé , a priest of Jansenist sympathies, expressing his desire for the last Sacraments of

1199-558: A network of institutions set up haphazardly since spring in March, the Revolutionary Tribunal and representatives on missions in the departments and was followed the next month by the Convention's representatives to the armies, also armed with unlimited powers; and enforced acceptance of assignat as the sole legal tender, price controls for grain and the forced loan of a billion livres from the rich. At last, France saw

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1308-474: A philanthropist, Stanislaus had a church built and several follies in his gardens for the amusement and education of visiting Polish and Lithuanian nobility and followers of the Enlightenment . The more famous visitors to his court were Voltaire , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , André Morellet , and Montesquieu . After the death of his father-in-law in 1766, Louis XV of France annexed the duchy and turned

1417-514: A policy concession to the people. But the situation which united them in the summer of 1793 was stronger than those differences of opinion. The Committee had to set itself above all, and choose those popular demands which were most suitable for achieving the Assembly's aims: to crush the enemies of the Republic and dash the last hopes of the aristocracy. To govern in the name of the Convention, at

1526-604: A propaganda tool and combat weapon for the two groups. The departments and districts resisted the idea of centralization. They saw the idea being symbolised by the desire to reduce the capital of the Revolution to a minuscule share of influence. Much of the Gironde wished to remove the Assembly from a city dominated by "agitators and flatterers of the people" but did not yet encourage an aggressive federalism , which would have run counter to its political ambitions. The Plain

1635-463: A republican government. The country was little more republican in feeling or practice than it had been before at any time since Varennes but now had to become a republic because it no longer had a king. When the Convention met the military situation was undergoing an extraordinary transformation that seemed to confirm the Girondin prophecies of easy victory. After Valmy, the Prussians withdrew to

1744-499: A revolutionary and a schismatic bishop he was also the object of hatred by royalists. He was expelled from the Institut de France . From this time onward, he lived in retirement, occupying himself in literary pursuits and in correspondence with other intellectual figures of Europe. He was compelled to sell his library to obtain means of support. In 1814 he published De la constitution française de l'an 1814 , in which he commented on

1853-496: A series of three reports issued to the National Convention in 1794, Grégoire advocated for additional protection of art works, architecture, inscriptions, books, and manuscripts. He is credited by scholars, such as Joseph Sax and Stanley Idzerda, as one of the founders of the idea of preservation of cultural objects . The Abbé Grégoire is also known for advocating a unified French national language, and for writing

1962-420: Is less well known than the first, which was the true executive authority and was armed with immense prerogatives. It dated from April, but its composition was thoroughly reshuffled during the summer of 1793. The summer of 1793 saw sans-culotte disturbances reach a peak under a double banner: price fixing and terror. On top came the news of unprecedented treason: Toulon and its squadron had been handed over to

2071-564: Is twinned with: National Convention   The Mountain (302)   The Mountain (disputed members) (7)   Girondins (178)   Girondins (disputed members) (49)   The Plain (153) The National Convention (French: Convention nationale ) was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during

2180-673: The Charter from a Liberal point of view, and this work reached its fourth edition in 1819, in which year he was elected to the Lower Chamber by the département of Isère . This was considered a potentially harmful episode by the powers of the Quintuple Alliance , and the question was raised of a fresh armed intervention in France under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle . To prevent this, Louis XVIII decided on

2289-669: The Belle Époque , restored some of the glory of Stanislas's ducal court of the 18th century. Lunéville faience, a kind of unglazed faience produced from 1723 at Lunéville by Jacques Chambrette, became the Manufacture Royale du Roi de Pologne (“Royal Factory of the King of Poland”) after Stanislaus sponsored it in 1749. The earthenware first became famous for its detailed figurines and in the 20th century for its art deco designs, and it still exists today as "Terres d'Est". In 1858,

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2398-590: The Brunswick Manifesto : "If any attack made on the persons of the representatives of the nation, then I declare to you in the name of the whole country that Paris would be destroyed". On the next day, the Jacobins declared themselves in a state of insurrection. On 28 May, the Cité section called the other sections to a meeting in order to organize the insurrection. On 29 May, the delegates representing 33 of

2507-744: The Cordeliers Club , filled Bouchotte 's offices, and could generally carry the Commune with them. The other wing was the Dantonists , which formed in response to the increasing centralization of the Revolutionary Government and the dictatorship of the Committees. The Dantonists were led predominately by deputies of the Convention (rather than the sans-culottes), including Danton , Delacroix , and Desmoulins . Putting

2616-473: The Declaration of 1789 , the 1793 added rights to public assistance, work, education and insurrection. The chief aim of the Constitution was to ensure the major role of the deputies in the Convention, which was seen as being the essential basis for political democracy. The Legislative Assembly was to be elected by direct vote cast for a single member, deputies were elected on receiving a simple majority of

2725-543: The Estates-General , where he soon made his name as one of the group of clerical and lay deputies of Jansenist or Gallican sympathies who supported the Revolution. He was one of the first of the clergy to join the third estate, and thus contributed notably to the union of the three orders . He presided in the session that lasted sixty-two hours while the Bastille was being attacked , and spoke vehemently against

2834-712: The First Coalition , Charles François Dumouriez 's defection to the enemy and the War in the Vendée , which began in March 1793, were all used as arguments by Montagnards and sans-culottes to portray Girondins as soft. The Montagnards proposed measures, but the Girondins were reluctant to take such measures. The Girondins were forced to accept the Montagnards' creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal and

2943-590: The French Empire , and he opposed the creation of a new French nobility and Napoleon's divorce from Joséphine de Beauharnais . Notwithstanding this, he was created a Count and officer of the Légion d'honneur . During the later years of Napoleon's reign he traveled to England and Germany , but in 1814 he returned to France. After the restoration of the Bourbons, Grégoire remained influential, though as

3052-583: The French Revolution , following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly . Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792 , it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire IV under the Convention's adopted calendar ). The Convention came about when

3161-575: The Legislative Assembly . The full number of deputies was 749, not counting 33 from the French colonies, of whom only some arrived in Paris in time. Thomas Paine and Anacharsis Cloots were appointed in the Convention by Girondins. Besides these, however, the newly formed départements annexed to France from 1782 to 1789 were allowed to send deputations. According to its own ruling,

3270-505: The Rapport sur la Nécessité et les Moyens d'anéantir les Patois et d'universaliser l'Usage de la Langue française (Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language), which he presented on 4 June 1794 to the National Convention . According to his own research, the vast majority of people in France spoke one of 33 dialects or patois , and he argued that French had to be imposed on

3379-703: The War of the Pyrenees . The Piedmontese took advantage of the diversion of republican forces at Lyons in order to invade France from the east. In Corsica , Paoli 's revolt expelled the French from the island with British support. British troops opened the Siege of Dunkirk in August, and in October, the Allies invaded Alsace . The military situation had become desperate. In addition were other incidents that compounded

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3488-431: The abolition of the monarchy in the first session of the National Convention (21 September 1792) with the memorable phrase "Kings are in morality what monsters are in the world of nature." On 15 November 1792, he delivered a speech in which he demanded that King Louis XVI be brought to trial, and immediately afterwards was elected president of the Convention, over which he presided in his episcopal street dress. During

3597-458: The "Versailles of Lorraine". It includes a chapel designed by Germain Boffrand . Leopold and his wife were the parents of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (through him they were the grandparents of Marie Antoinette ). The last duke of Lorraine was Stanislaus I , the former king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania . A devout Catholic, an author and

3706-465: The 1871 treaty of Frankfurt. Today it is known for its trailers, but it started off as a manufacturer of cars and railway equipment. The population of Lunéville in 2019 was 17,867. Lunéville was the birthplace of : In 1874, a fossil Bennettitalean stem excavated from the area near the city was described as Cylindropodium liasinum by Saporta , which was reassigned in 2016 to the genus Cycadeoidea under Cycadeoidea cylindrica . Lunéville

3815-410: The 18th century, known as the capital of Lorraine . The grand Château de Lunéville , built in 1702 for Leopold, Duke of Lorraine to replace an older palace, was the residence of the duke of Lorraine until the duchy was annexed by France in 1766. The château was designed in the style of Versailles to satisfy Leopold's wife, Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans , the niece of Louis XIV, and became known as

3924-487: The 29th), on the 14th reorganized the Revolutionary Tribunal , on the 17th voted in the law on suspects, and on the 20th gave the local revolutionary committees the task of drawing up lists of them. The dictatorship of the Convention and the committees, simultaneously supported and controlled by the Parisian sections, representing the sovereign people in permanent session, lasted from June to September. It governed through

4033-734: The Church. Hyacinthe-Louis De Quelen , the uncompromising royalist Archbishop of Paris , would only concede on condition that he retract his oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which Grégoire refused to do. In defiance of the archbishop, the Abbé Baradère gave Grégoire the viaticum , while the rite of extreme unction was administered by the Abbé Guillon , an opponent of the Civil Constitution, without consulting

4142-494: The Coalition, the French could maneuver along interior lines, deploy part of their troops along the frontiers and take advantage of the inaction of any one of their enemies to beat the others. Acting en masse , and overwhelming the foe by sheer numbers were Carnot's principles. They were still untried and not until Bonaparte appeared did they enjoy any great success. As late as September 1793, there were two distinct wings among

4251-488: The Committee proved conciliatory. The Convention voted 10 million livres for relief, on 3 Ventôse , Barère presented a new general Maximum, and on the 8th Saint-Just obtained a decree confiscating the property of suspects and distributing it to the needy ( Ventôse Decrees ). The Hébertists felt that if they increased the pressure, they would triumph once and for all. Although the call appeared like one for insurrection it

4360-455: The Convention elected its President every fortnight, and the outgoing President was eligible for re-election after the lapse of a fortnight. Ordinarily, the sessions were held in the morning, but evening sessions also occurred frequently, often extending late into the night. Sometimes in exceptional circumstances, the Convention declared itself in permanent session and sat for several days without interruption. For both legislative and administrative

4469-586: The Convention ordered the entire National Guard to line both sides of the route to the scaffold. Louis was beheaded at the Place de la Revolution . Within the nation, "voters" and "appellants", those against or for the execution of Louis, swore undying hatred of each other. The rest of Europe, fearing the outcome of the French Revolution in their own countries, decreed a war of extermination against regicides. The Assembly began harmoniously, but within

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4578-644: The Convention that a Constitution which Louis had violated himself, despite declaring his inviolability, could not be used in his defence. Robespierre had been taken ill and had done little other than support Saint-Just , who gave his first major speech, in his argument against the king's inviolability. On 20 November, opinion turned sharply against Louis following the discovery of a secret cache of 726 documents consisting of Louis's personal communications with bankers and ministers. At his trial, he claimed not to recognise documents that had been clearly signed by himself. The trial began on 10 December. The Montagnards put

4687-506: The Convention used committees, with powers more or less widely extended and regulated by successive laws. The most famous of these committees included the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security . The Convention held legislative and executive powers during the first years of the French First Republic and had three distinct periods: Girondin, Montagnard or Jacobin, and Thermidorian . The National Convention

4796-483: The Convention, and their attacks on the Montagnard leaders, soon irritated them and caused them to regard the party as a faction. One by one, deputies such as Couthon , Cambon , Carnot , Lindet and Barère began to gravitate towards the Montagnards, and the majority, The Plain, as it was called, held itself aloof from both sides. Girondins were convinced that their opponents aspired to a bloody dictatorship, but

4905-412: The Convention, was postponed until peace had been made. Indeed, the Montagnards faced dramatic circumstances: federalist insurrection, war in the Vendée, military failures and a worsening economic situation. Despite everything, a new civil war could not be avoided. By the middle of June, about 60 departments were in more or less open rebellion . However, the frontier departments had remained faithful to

5014-450: The Convention. The rising was widespread, rather than deep. It was essentially the work of the departmental and district administrations. The communes, which were more popular in composition, showed themselves in general lukewarm or hostile, and federalist leaders soon became divided among themselves. Sincere republicans among them could not fail to be uneasy about the foreign invasion and the Vendée. Those who were seeing themselves rejected by

5123-521: The French colonies to the same rights as whites. Later, he was recognized for his work De la littérature des Nègres on the literature of black writers as it showed readers that blacks are equal in every way to whites, including intellectually. In 1810, the encyclopedia was published in New York City in an English translation by the Irish republican exile in Paris, David Bailie Warden . Grégoire

5232-486: The Legislative Assembly decreed the provisional suspension of King Louis XVI and the convocation of a National Convention to draw up a new constitution with no monarchy. The other major innovation was to decree that deputies to that Convention should be elected by all Frenchmen twenty-one years old or more, domiciled for a year and living by the product of their labor. The National Convention was, therefore,

5341-434: The Montagnards believed that the Girondins were ready for any compromise with conservatives and even royalists to guarantee their remaining in power. The bitter enmity soon reduced the Convention to a state of limbo. Debate after debate degenerated into verbal brawling from which no decision could emerge. The political deadlock, which had repercussions all over France, eventually drove men to accept dangerous allies: royalists in

5450-524: The Montagnards, although they were still democrats . The Girondins drew their name from the Gironde , a region of France from which many of the deputies of this faction were elected (although many "Girondins" were actually Parisian by origin) and were also known as the Brissotins after their most prominent speaker, Jacques Pierre Brissot . The Montagnards drew their support from the Paris Commune and

5559-730: The aircraft. The Treaty of Lunéville was signed at 61 Rue de Lorraine (Treaty House), one of the houses built up against the château gardens of Lunéville, on 9 February 1801 between the French Republic and the Austrian Empire by Joseph Bonaparte and Count Ludwig von Cobenzl . Another treaty, signed in Germany, was the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) . It made Lunéville into a border town that attracted people from Alsace and Moselle who relocated to keep their French nationality. A new period of economic prosperity, known as

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5668-546: The archbishop or the parish curé . The attitude of the archbishop caused uproar in Paris, and the government deployed troops to avoid a repetition of the riots in February of that year which had led to the sacking of the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois and the archbishop's palace. Grégoire's funeral was held at the church of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. Its clergy absented in obedience to the archbishop's orders, and Mass

5777-517: The arrest of suspects and a purge of the committees. It was probably the key day in the formation of the revolutionary government: the convention yielded, but kept control of events. It put Terror on the agenda on 5 September, on the 6th elected Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne to the Committee of Public Safety, on the 9th created the revolutionary army, on the 11th decreed the Maximum for grain and fodder (general controls for prices, and wages on

5886-459: The assembly agreed to the proposition " That royalty be abolished in France " and was carried with cheers. On the 22nd came the news of the Battle of Valmy . On the same day, it was decreed that "in future the acts of the assembly shall be dated First Year of the French Republic ". Three days later, the corollary that "the French republic is one and indivisible" was added to guard against federalism. A republic had been proclaimed but remained to enact

5995-405: The author of: Lun%C3%A9ville Lunéville ( French pronunciation: [lynevil]  ; German, obsolete: Lünstadt [ˈlʏnʃtat] ) is a commune in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle . It is a subprefecture of the department and lies on the river Meurthe at its confluence with the Vezouze . Lunéville was a renowned resort in

6104-410: The bar of the Convention, Grégoire, who was temporarily absent, hearing what had happened, faced the indignation of many deputies, refusing to give up either his religion or his office. This display of courage ultimately saved him from the guillotine . Throughout the Reign of Terror , in spite of attacks in the Convention, in the press, and on placards posted at the street corners, Grégoire appeared in

6213-461: The case of Girondins, sans-culottes in that of the Montagnards. Thus, the struggle within the Convention continued without results. The decision was to come from outside. Since the king's trial, the sans-culottes had been constantly assailing the "appealers" ( appelants ), quickly came to desire their expulsion from the Convention and demanded the establishing a Revolutionary Tribunal to deal with supposed aristocratic plots. Military setbacks from

6322-412: The castle into a barracks, but much of the original construction has survived, and what remains is open to the public and the château's intricate parterre gardens, designed by Yves Hours (a pupil of André Le Nôtre ) in 1711 and Louis de Nesle in 1724, are a public park today. It was over the nearby Parroy Forest, directly east of Lunéville, only some 11 months after the outbreak of World War I , that

6431-474: The command was reconstituted. The purge ended with most of the nobles excluded. The new generation reached the highest ranks, and the War College ( Ecole de Mars ) received six young men from each district to improve the staff. Army commanders were to be appointed by the Convention. What gradually emerged was a well-equipped military command. François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers , Lazare Hoche , Jean Baptiste Kléber , André Masséna , Jean-Baptiste Jourdan , and

6540-407: The danger, the taste of and pride in power created solidarity that made the Committee an autonomous organism. The committee was always managed collegially, despite the specific nature of the tasks of each director: the division into "politicians" and "technicians" was a Thermidorian invention, intended to lay the corpses of the Terror at the door of the Robespierrists alone. Many things, however, set

6649-410: The death penalty without condition, 26 voted for death on condition that the Mailhe amendment be applied, 334 were opposed (incl. 44 who voted for death with reprieve), 5 abstained or recused. On 19 January, the question of reprieve was put to a vote: 380 votes were cast against and 310 for (2 voted on condition, 10 abstained or recused). Each time, the Girondins had split. On the morning of 21 January,

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6758-449: The debate on the ideological level. Louis XVI was classified as an enemy, who was alien to the body of the nation and as a "usurper". Balloting began on 15 January 1793. Each deputy explained his vote at the rostrum. The vote against the king was unanimous. There was to be no popular referendum, as Girondins had hoped. The fatal vote started on 16 January and continued until the next day. Of the 726 deputies present, 361 declared themselves for

6867-451: The disposal of the nation: forests, mines, quarries, furnaces, forges, tanneries, paper mills, large cloth factories and shoe making workshops. The labor of men and the value of things were subject to price controls. No one had a right to speculate at the cost of Patrie while it was in danger. Armaments caused more concern. As early as September 1793 efforts were made to create a large factory in Paris for rifles and sidearms. A special appeal

6976-756: The emergency required. It was necessary to develop war production, revive foreign trade, and find new resources in France itself, and time was short. Circumstances gradually compelled it to assume the economic government of the country. Along with organization of the army, this was the most original feature of its work. All material resources were subjected to requisitioning. Farmers surrendered their grain, fodder, wool, flax, and hemp. Artisans and merchants gave up their manufactured products. Raw materials were carefully sought out: metal of all kinds, church bells, old paper, rags and parchments, grasses, brushwood, and even household ashes for manufacturing of potassium salts, and chestnuts for distilling. All businesses were placed at

7085-433: The enemy. In the name of the wretched poverty of the people, the leaders of the enragés , with Jacques Roux at their head, called for a planned economy from a Convention, which had no liking for the idea. However, the revolutionary logic of the mobilization of resources by national dictatorship was infinitely more powerful than economic doctrine. In August, a series of decrees gave the authorities discretionary powers over

7194-400: The establishment of the Directory in 1795, Grégoire was elected to the Council of Five Hundred . He and his fellow council members opposed the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire in which Napoleon seized power. The day after the coup, the Council issued a proclamation warning the coup would cause France to revert to the times before the Revolution. Under Napoleon Bonaparte's rule, Grégoire became

7303-470: The fate of the former king. A commission was therefore established to examine the evidence against him while the Convention's Legislation Committee considered legal aspects of any future trial. Most Montagnards favoured judgment and execution, but the Girondins were divided concerning Louis's fate, with some arguing for royal inviolability, others supporting clemency and still others advocating lesser punishment or banishment. On 13 November, Robespierre stated in

7412-403: The favorable conditions that a great war always offers the labor force. Still Paris became calmer because the sans-culottes were gradually finding ways to subsist; the levée en masse and the formation of the revolutionary army were thinning their ranks; many now were working in arms and equipment shops or in the offices of the committees and ministries, which were expanded enormously. During

7521-436: The federalist revolt gained strength, the popular movement, roused to fury by high prices, was increasing the pressure it exercised on the government. Meanwhile, the Government was proving incapable of controlling the situation. In July 1793, the nation appeared to be on the point of falling apart. In June the Montagnards played for time. On 3 June the sale of the property of emigrants, in small parcels and payable in ten years,

7630-411: The first French assembly elected by a suffrage without distinctions of class . Although the Convention lasted until 1795, power was effectively delegated by the Convention and concentrated in the small Committee of Public Safety from April 1793. The eight months from the fall of 1793 to the spring of 1794, when Maximilien Robespierre and his allies dominated the Committee of Public Safety, represent

7739-400: The first aerial victory by a fighter aircraft armed with a synchronised machine gun occurred on 1 July 1915 , as the German Fliegertruppe officer Kurt Wintgens forced down an Aeronautique Militaire Morane-Saulnier L parasol monoplane . Neither member of the French air crew was seriously wounded, while the French aircraft's Gnome Lambda engine received multiple hits to disable

7848-640: The frontier, and in November, French troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine . The Austrians , who had besieged Lille in October, were defeated by Dumouriez at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November and evacuated the Austrian Netherlands . Nice was occupied and Savoy proclaimed its union with France. The successes made it safe to quarrel at home. The Girondins were more conservative than

7957-455: The fury of the revolutionaries and convinced them that their opponents had abandoned all restraint of civilized behavior. On 13 July, Charlotte Corday murdered the sans-culotte idol Jean-Paul Marat . She had been in touch with Girondin rebels in Normandy , and they were believed to have used her as their agent. The lack of forethought displayed by the Convention during the first few days

8066-571: The glass factory of Croismare was built. It became famous when the Müller brothers settled there in 1897 and began creating Art Deco glass designs. Louis Ferry-Bonnechaux discovered a technique using beads and sequins on embroidery in 1865. His craft was widely copied and became known as Lunéville Point, and its heritage can still be seen in modern haute couture . A subsidiary of the Dietrich company, Lorraine-Dietrich moved to Lunéville after

8175-557: The most radical and bloodiest phase of the French Revolution, known as the Reign of Terror . After the fall of Robespierre , the Convention lasted for another year until a new constitution was written, ushering in the French Directory . The indirect election took place from 2 to 10 September 1792 after the election of the electoral colleges by primary assemblies on 26 August. Despite the introduction of universal male suffrage,

8284-554: The needs of national defense above all other considerations, the Committee of Public Safety had no intentions of giving in to the demands of either the popular movement or the moderates. Following the Hébertists would jeopardize revolutionary unity, and giving in to the demands of the moderates would have undermined both the Terror and the controlled economy. However, unity, centralization and the Terror were all considered essential to

8393-636: The people sought support from the moderates, the Feuillants and even the aristocrats. July and August were bad months on the frontiers. Within three weeks Mainz , the symbol of previous successes, capitulated to the Prussians, and the Austrians captured the fortresses of Condé and Valenciennes and invaded northern France. Spanish troops crossed the Pyrenees and began advancing on Perpignan in

8502-613: The popular societies such as the Jacobin Club and the Cordeliers , they got their name from the high bleachers on which they sat while the Convention was in session. Three issues dominated the first months of the National Convention: revolutionary violence , the trial of the king , and the Parisian dominance of politics. Antagonism between Paris and the provinces created friction among the people that served as

8611-523: The population and all other dialects eradicated. Although he was natively raised with knowledge of the Lorrain "patois" , his conclusion came from a common view at the time within Jacobin circles that the linguistic diversity of France had been purposely used by the nobility of France to keep the various linguistic groups of France separated from one another and from the political institutions in which French

8720-444: The production and circulation of grain and ferocious punishments for fraud. "Granaries of plenty" were prepared, to stock corn requisitioned by authorities in each district. On 23 August, the decree on the levée en masse turned able-bodied civilians into soldiers. On 5 September, Parisians tried to repeat the revolt of 2 June. Armed sections again encircled the Convention to demand the setting up of an internal revolutionary army,

8829-431: The provisioning of the population. The Commune of Paris, a famous sans-culotte bastion, was neutralized by coming under its control. Administrative and economic centralization went hand in hand. The state of siege forced France into autarky ; to save the Republic the government mobilized all the nation's productive forces and reluctantly accepted the need for a controlled economy, which it introduced extemporaneously, as

8938-566: The public and bad acoustics. From 10 May 1793 it met in the Salle des Machines , an immense hall in which the deputies were loosely scattered. The Salle des Machines had galleries for the public who often influenced the debates with interruptions or applause. The members of the Convention came from all classes of society, but the most numerous were lawyers. 75 members had sat in the National Constituent Assembly , 183 in

9047-456: The resting place of French notables, in a ceremony at which President François Mitterrand presided. The apostolic nuncio to France, Archbishop Lorenzo Antonetti , and the outspoken Bishop Jacques Gaillot of Évreux attended. The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger , offered a requiem Mass in Grégoire's memory the previous day. Besides several political pamphlets, Grégoire was

9156-409: The revolutionaries. Firstly, those who were later called Hébertists although Jacques Hébert himself was never the official leader of a party that advocated war to the death and adopted the program of the enragés , ostensibly because the sans-culottes approved it. The Hébertists preferred to side with the Montagnards so long as they could hope to control the Convention through them. They dominated

9265-406: The same time controlling it, and to restrain the people without quenching their enthusiasm—this was a gamble. The ensemble of institutions, measures and procedures which constituted it was codified in a decree of 14 Frimaire (4 December) which set the seal on what had been the gradual development of centralized dictatorship founded on the Terror. In the center was the Convention, whose secular arm

9374-476: The sections formed an insurrectionary committee of nine members. On 2 June, 80,000 armed sans-culottes surrounded the Convention. After an attempt of deputies to leave was stopped with guns, the deputies resigned themselves to declare the arrest of 29 leading Girondins. In that way, the Gironde ceased to be a political force. Scarcely had the Gironde been eliminated when the Convention, now under Montagnard leadership, found itself caught between two threats. While

9483-408: The streets in his episcopal dress and celebrated daily Mass in his house. He was then the first to advocate the reopening of the churches (speech of 21 December 1794). Grégoire also coined the term vandalism in reference to the destruction of property that occurred during the Revolution, both that which was ordered by the National Convention and that which occurred at the hands of individuals. In

9592-469: The summer the requisition of the levy was completed and by July the total strength of the army reached 650,000. The difficulties were tremendous. The war production just started in September. The army was in the middle of the purge. In the spring of 1794, the amalgamation was undertaken. Two battalions of volunteers joined one battalion of regulars to constitute a demi-brigade, or regiment. At the same time,

9701-543: The supposed "enemies of the nation". He later took a leading role in the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and the Church. Under the new Civil Constitution of the Clergy , to which he was the first priest to take the oath (27 December 1790), Grégoire was elected bishop by two départements . He selected that of Loir-et-Cher , but assumed the old title of bishop of Blois , and for ten years (1791–1801) governed his diocese with exemplary zeal. An ardent republican , he strongly supported Collot d'Herbois ' motion for

9810-516: The three groups the Mountain was the most cohesive and the Plain was the least cohesive. Over 94% of The Mountain voted similarly on core issues, comparatively the Girondins and the Plain were much more divided with only 70% of Girondins voting similarly on the same issues and only 58% of the Plain voting similarly on the same issues. The first session was held on 20 September 1792. The following day,

9919-406: The trial, being absent with other three colleagues on a mission for the union of Savoy to France, he along with them wrote a letter urging the condemnation of the king, but attempted to save the life of the monarch by proposing that the death penalty should be suspended. When, on 7 November 1793, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel , bishop of Paris , was intimidated into resigning his episcopal office at

10028-421: The turn-out was low, though the election saw an increase in comparison to the 1791 elections—in 1792 11.9% of a greatly increased electorate votes, compared to 10.2% of a much smaller electorate in the 1791. The low turn-out was partly due to a fear of victimization; in Paris, Robespierre presided over the elections and, in concert with the radical press, managed to exclude any candidate of royalist sympathies. In

10137-464: The twelve committee members at loggerheads; Barère was more a man of the Convention than of the committee and was a link with The Plain. Robert Lindet had qualms about the Terror which, by contrast, was the outstanding theme of Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, latecomers to the committee, forced on it by the sans-culottes in September; unlike Robespierre and his friends, Lazare Carnot had given his support only provisionally and for reasons of state to

10246-405: The votes cast, and the assembly would sit for one year. The executive council of 24 members was chosen by the Legislative Assembly from among the 83 candidates chosen by the departments on the basis of universal male suffrage, and in that way, ministers were made responsible to the representatives. The exercise of popular suffrage was widened through the institution of the referendum. The Constitution

10355-421: The war effort. In order to balance the contradictory demands of these two factions, the Revolutionary Government attempted to maintain a position halfway between the moderate Dantonists ( citras ) and the extremist Hébertists ( ultras ). But at the end of the winter of 1793–94, the shortage of food took a sharp turn for the worse. The Hébertists incited sans-culottes to demand stringent measures, and at first,

10464-433: The whole of France, only eleven primary assemblies wanted to retain the monarchy. The electoral assemblies all tacitly voted for a "republic", though only Paris used that word. The elections returned the same sort of men that the active citizens had chosen in 1791. On 20 September the Convention held its first session in the "Salle des Cent-Suisses", the next day it moved to the Salle du Manège , which had little room for

10573-404: Was a third faction during the Convention. It derived its name from their place on the floor of the Convention. During the start of the Convention, they sided with the Girondins, however, as it progressed and the Montagnards began to push for the execution of Louis XVI , The Plain began to side with them. The Convention's unanimous declaration of a French Republic on 21 September 1792 left open

10682-508: Was considered a friend of the Jews . He argued that in the French society, the supposed degeneracy of Jews was not inherent, but rather a result of their circumstances. He blamed the condition of the Jews on the way they had been treated, their persecution by Christians, and the "ridiculous" teachings of their rabbis, and believed they could be brought into mainstream society and made citizens. After

10791-465: Was decomposed into a variety of syntactically-loose local remnants of the language of troubadours that were mutually unintelligible and should be abandoned in favor of the language of Paris. Thus began a process that was expanded dramatically by the policies of Jules Ferry a century later and led to the declining use of the regional languages in France. In October 1789, Grégoire took a great interest in abolitionism after he had met Julien Raimond ,

10900-409: Was decreed; on the 10 June, the optional division of common lands by head; and on 17 July, the abolition, without compensation, of all that remained of manorial rights. The Montagnards attempted to reassure the middle classes by rejecting any idea of terror, by protecting property rights and by restricting the popular movement to very narrowly-circumscribed limits. It was a delicate balance to achieve,

11009-674: Was identified with the Republic, and royalism, which was the ally of the enemy. The royalist insurrection in the Vendée had already led the Convention to take a long step in the direction of the Terror: that is to say, the dictatorship of central power and the suppression of liberties. The Girondin insurrection now prompted it to take a decisive step in the same direction. The Constituent Assembly had legislated through its commissions. The Convention governed by means of its committees . Two of them were of essential importance: Public Safety and General Security . The second, which had formidable powers,

11118-486: Was made to scientists. Monge , Vandermonde , Berthollet , Darcet , Fourcroy perfected metallurgy and manufacture of arms. Only to the wage earners did the Maximum seem thoroughly advantageous. It increased wages by one-half in relation to 1790, and commodities by only one-third. But since the Committee did not ensure that it was respected (except for bread), they would have been duped had they not been benefiting from

11227-517: Was made up of three major factions: The Montagnards ( the Mountain ), the Marais ( the Plain ) and the Girondins , also called Brissotins. Historians are divided on the exact make up of the Convention but the current consensus is that the Mountain was the biggest faction with around 302–309 deputies. The Girondins were represented by 178–227 deputies and the Plain was represented by 153–250 deputies. Of

11336-502: Was primarily spoken. That made Grégoire see the various patois as limiting to the ability of French citizens to practice their individual rights. However, his work was still influenced by the rising sense of French linguistic superiority that had been started by Bertrand Barère with Rapport du Comité de salut public sur les idiomes (1794) . He thus classified Corsican and Alsatian as "highly degenerate" ( très-dégénérés ) forms of Italian and German, respectively. In his view, Occitan

11445-420: Was probably just for a new demonstration, like the one in September. However, the Committee of Public Safety decided on 22 Ventôse Year II (12 March 1794) that the Hébertists posed too serious a threat. The Committee linked Hébert, Charles-Philippe Ronsin , François-Nicolas Vincent , and Antoine-François Momoro to the émigrés Proli, Anacharsis Cloots and Pereira, so as to present the Hébertists as parties to

11554-418: Was redeemed by its vigor and skill in organizing measures of repression. Warrants were issued for the arrest of the rebellious Girondin leaders. The members of the revolting departmental administration were deprived of their office. The regions in which the revolt was dangerous were precisely those in which a large number of royalists had remained. There was no room for a third party between the Mountain, which

11663-536: Was sung by the Abbé Louis-Charles de Grieu (1755–1836), assisted by two clerics, the catafalque being decorated with the episcopal insignia. The horses were unyoked from the hearse after it set out from the church, and it was pulled by students to the cemetery of Montparnasse , the cortege being followed by a crowd of some 20,000 people. On 12 December 1989, his ashes were transferred to the Panthéon ,

11772-523: Was the Committee of Public Safety, vested with immense powers: it interpreted the Convention's decrees and settled their methods of application; under its immediate authority it had all state bodies and all civil servants (even ministers would disappear in April 1794); it directed military and diplomatic activity, appointed generals and members of other committees, subject to ratification by the Convention. It held responsibility for conducting war, public order and

11881-408: Was to be ratified by the people, as were laws in certain precisely defined circumstances. The Constitution was submitted for popular ratification and adopted by a huge margin of more than 1,801,918 in favour to some 17,610 against. The results of the plebiscite were made public on 10 August 1793, but the application of the Constitution, the text of which was placed in an ark in the debating-chamber of

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