169-578: The Directory (also called Directorate ; French : le Directoire [diʁɛktwaʁ] ) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire an IV) until November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate . In mainstream historiography, the term Directoire
338-596: A European congress to settle borders, but the Directory refused, demanding direct negotiations with Austria instead. Under British pressure, Austria agreed to continue the war against France. Lazare Carnot , the Director who oversaw military affairs, planned a new campaign against Austria, using three armies: General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan 's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse on the Rhine and General Jean Victor Moreau 's Army of
507-744: A French official to teachers in the department of Finistère , in western Brittany, included the following: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language". The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to replace the Basque language with French..." Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process
676-431: A comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". In the article, Weber ranked French as, after English, the second-most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations,
845-464: A day, it covered only one-third of the government's needs. To fill the treasury, the Directory resorted in December 1795 to a forced loan of 600 million-₶. from wealthy citizens, who were required to pay between 50₶. and 6,000₶. each. To fight inflation, the government began minting more coins of gold and silver, which had real value; the government had little gold but large silver reserves, largely in
1014-462: A day. Another major problem faced by the Directory was the enormous public debt, the same problem that had led to the Revolution in the first place. In September–December 1797, the Directory attacked this problem by declaring bankruptcy on two-thirds of the debt, but assured payment on the other third. This resulted in the ruin of those who held large quantities of government bonds, but stabilized
1183-555: A foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and
1352-573: A new department , the Department of the Seine , replacing the former Department of Paris created in 1790. Meanwhile, the leaders of the still ruling National Convention tried to meet challenges from both neo-Jacobins on the left and royalists on the right. On 21 September 1794, the remains of Jean-Paul Marat , whose furious articles had promoted the Reign of Terror, were placed with great ceremony in
1521-452: A new government be formed. This time the army moved swiftly to clear the hall. Several deputies who had taken the side of the invaders were arrested. The uprising continued the following day, as the sans-culottes seized the Hôtel de Ville as they had done in earlier uprisings, but with little effect; crowds did not move to support them. On the third day, 22 May, the army moved into and occupied
1690-631: A particular sector: Rewbell diplomacy; Carnot and Le Tourneur military affairs, La Révellière-Lépeaux religion and public instruction, and Barras internal affairs. The Council of Ancients was attributed the building at the Tuileries Palace formerly occupied by the Convention, while the Council of Five Hundred deliberated in the Salle du Manège , the former riding school west of the palace in
1859-742: A peace treaty, the Peace of Basel , with Prussia , where King Frederick William II was tired of the war; Prussia recognized the French occupation of the western bank of the Rhine . On 22 July 1795, a peace agreement, the "Treaty of Basel", was signed with Spain, where the French Revolutionary Army had marched as far as Bilbao in the War of the Pyrenees . By the time the Directory was chosen,
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#17327827397132028-652: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on
2197-650: A proposal by Bertrand Barère on 18 March the committee was created on 6 April 1793. Closely associated with the leadership of Danton, it was initially known as the Danton Committee. Danton steered the Committee through the 31 May and 2 June 1793 journées that saw the violent expulsion of the Girondins and through the intensifying war in the Vendée. When the committee was recomposed on 10 July 1793, Danton
2366-494: A relic of the old nominal case system of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in
2535-613: A resurgence of the War in the Vendée , the royalist-led civil war in the Vendée region, but failed in its venture to support the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and create an Irish Republic. The French economy was in continual crisis during the Directory. At the beginning, the treasury was empty; the paper money, the Assignat , had fallen to a fraction of its value, and prices soared. The Directory stopped printing assignats and restored
2704-587: A second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and
2873-526: A second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only
3042-941: A second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as
3211-562: A speech to the Jacobin Club that night, he attacked Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, who had refused to allow the printing and distribution of his speech to the convention. On the following day, 27 July 1794 ( 9 Thermidor according to the Republican calendar ), Saint-Just began to speak before the Convention. However, he was almost immediately interrupted by Tallien and by Billaud-Varenne, who accused him of intending to "murder
3380-431: A succinct description of the financial state of France when the Directory took power: "The national Treasury was completely empty; not a single sou remained. The assignats were almost worthless; the little value which remained drained away each day with accelerated speed. One could not print enough money in one night to meet the most pressing needs of the next day.... The public revenues were nonexistent; citizens had lost
3549-406: A total of thirty thousand qualified electors, chose representatives to an electoral assembly in each department , which then elected the members of both houses. The members of this legislature had a term of three years, with one-third of the members renewed every year. The Ancients could not initiate new laws, but could veto those proposed by the Council of Five Hundred. The Constitution established
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#17327827397133718-480: A unique kind of executive, a five-man Directory chosen by the legislature. It required the Council of Five Hundred to prepare, by secret ballot, a list of candidates for the Directory. The Council of Ancients then chose, again by secret ballot, the Directors from that provided list. The Constitution required that Directors be at least forty years old. To assure gradual but continual change, one Director, chosen by lot,
3887-547: A variant of Canadian French , is spoken in parts of New England . Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana ), but is nearly extinct today. French also survived in isolated pockets along the Gulf Coast of what was previously French Lower Louisiana , such as Mon Louis Island , Alabama and DeLisle, Mississippi (the latter only being discovered by linguists in
4056-525: A year. This ruled out a large part of the French population. The greatest victim under the new system was the City of Paris, which had dominated events in the first part of the Revolution. On 24 August 1794, the committees of the sections of Paris, bastions of the Jacobins which had provided most of the manpower for demonstrations and invasions of the Convention, were abolished. Shortly afterwards, on 31 August,
4225-437: Is 95%, and in the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna , it is 84%. In French Polynesia and to a lesser extent Wallis and Futuna, where oral and written knowledge of the French language has become almost universal (95% and 84% respectively), French increasingly tends to displace the native Polynesian languages as the language most spoken at home. In French Polynesia, the percentage of the population who reported that French
4394-472: Is a widespread second language among the Lebanese people , and is taught in many schools along with Arabic and English. French is used on Lebanese pound banknotes, on road signs, on Lebanese license plates , and on official buildings (alongside Arabic). Today, French and English are secondary languages of Lebanon , with about 40% of the population being Francophone and 40% Anglophone. The use of English
4563-489: Is also a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), and Médecins du Monde (used alongside English). Given
4732-667: Is also used to refer to the period (i.e. from the dissolution of the National Convention on 26 October 1795 to Napoleon's coup d'état), coinciding with the final four years of the French Revolution . The Directory was continually at war with foreign coalitions, including Britain , Austria , Prussia , the Kingdom of Naples , Russia and the Ottoman Empire . It annexed Belgium and the left bank of
4901-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including
5070-462: Is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share
5239-652: Is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also an official language of all of the territories ( Northwest Territories , Nunavut , and Yukon ). Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, making up just under 4% of the population. Furthermore, while French is not an official language in Ontario , the French Language Services Act ensures that provincial services are available in
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5408-503: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English
5577-404: Is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects . The period is marked by a heavy superstrate influence from
5746-469: Is often considered to be a useful skill by business owners in the United Kingdom; a 2014 study found that 50% of British managers considered French to be a valuable asset for their business, thus ranking French as the most sought-after foreign language there, ahead of German (49%) and Spanish (44%). MIT economist Albert Saiz calculated a 2.3% premium for those who have French as a foreign language in
5915-828: Is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , the Caribbean Court of Justice , the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights , the International Court of Justice , the International Criminal Tribunal for
6084-576: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,
6253-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure
6422-483: Is the native language of about 23% of the Swiss population, and is spoken by 50% of the population. Along with Luxembourgish and German, French is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg , where it is generally the preferred language of business as well as of the different public administrations. It is also the official language of Monaco . At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in
6591-492: Is the second-most spoken language (after English) in the states of Maine and New Hampshire . In Louisiana , it is tied with Spanish for second-most spoken if Louisiana French and all creoles such as Haitian are included. French is the third most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in the states of Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Hampshire . Louisiana is home to many distinct French dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French . New England French , essentially
6760-424: Is the sole official language in the province of Quebec , where some 80% of the population speak it as a native language and 95% are capable of conducting a conversation in it. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal , which is the world's fourth-largest French-speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism
6929-590: The levée en masse passed on 23 August 1793, the Law of Suspects passed on 17 September 1793 and the Law of the General Maximum passed on 29 September 1793. The broad and centralized powers of the committee were codified by the Law of 14 Frimaire (also known as the Law of Revolutionary Government) on 4 December 1793. On 5 December 1793, journalist Camille Desmoulins began publishing Le Vieux Cordelier with
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7098-764: The Aosta Valley region of Italy where it is the first language of approximately 50% of the population, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands . It is also spoken in Andorra and is the main language after Catalan in El Pas de la Casa . The language is taught as the primary second language in the German state of Saarland , with French being taught from pre-school and over 43% of citizens being able to speak French. The majority of
7267-462: The Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as
7436-593: The Committee of Public Safety was dissolved or rather disappeared before the end of the month. On 31 October, in addition to Paul Barras , Jean-François Reubell , Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux , Étienne-François Le Tourneur and Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès were chosen as Directors. At the end of October a legislature consisting of the Council of 500 was created, responsible for drafting legislation, and Council of Ancients , an upper house containing 250 men over
7605-572: The Constitution until "peace was achieved". According to archival records, from September 1793 to July 1794 some 16,600 people were executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity; another 40,000 may have been summarily executed or died awaiting trial. At its peak, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts could place one under suspicion, and even his supporters began to fear their own survival depended on removing Robespierre. On 27 July, he and his allies were arrested and executed
7774-539: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, but written forms of
7943-605: The Dutch Republic . He captured Utrecht on 18 January, and on 14 February units of French cavalry captured the Dutch fleet, which was trapped in the ice at Den Helder . The Dutch government asked for peace, conceding Dutch Flanders , Maastricht and Venlo to France. On 9 February, after a French offensive in the Alps, Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany signed a treaty with France. Soon afterwards, on 5 April, France signed
8112-485: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains
8281-559: The Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically,
8450-894: The Imperial Diet to surrender the lands beyond the Rhine. French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are
8619-439: The International Olympic Committee , the Council of Europe , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, Portuguese and English), the Eurovision Song Contest , one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency , World Trade Organization and the least used of the three official languages in the North American Free Trade Agreement countries. It
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#17327827397138788-423: The Jacobins , the Convention had strictly regulated grain distribution and set maximum prices for bread and other essential products. As the value of the currency dropped, the fixed prices soon did not cover the cost of production, and supplies dropped. The Convention was forced to abolish the maximum on 24 December 1794, but it continued to buy huge quantities of bread and meat which it distributed at low prices to
8957-410: The National Convention , which was 25 October 1795, but it probably continued till the end of the month. The French Revolution brought about an immense shift in society in which citizens desired to bring about a new age of critical rationality, egalitarianism , and patriotism amongst French men. Revolutionary ideals were spread throughout France and a belief in democracy and civilian government
9126-420: The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia , while Old French literature began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the Vie de Saint Alexis ), or wars and royal courts, notably including the Chanson de Roland , epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court , as well as a cycle focused on William of Orange . It
9295-413: The Panthéon , while on the same day, the moderate Convention member Merlin de Thionville described the Jacobins as "A hangout of outlaws" and the "knights of the guillotine". Young men known as Muscadins , largely from middle-class families, attacked the Jacobin and radical clubs. The new freedom of the press saw the appearance of a host of new newspapers and pamphlets from the left and the right, such as
9464-404: The Reign of Terror began as a way of harnessing revolutionary fervour, but quickly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. On 17 September 1793, the Law of Suspects authorised the arrest of any suspected "enemies of freedom"; on 10 October, the National Convention recognised the Committee of Public Safety under Maximilien Robespierre as the supreme authority , and suspended
9633-404: The Reign of Terror . Marat's remains were removed from the Panthéon two days later. The surviving Girondin deputies, whose leaders had been executed during the Reign of Terror, were brought back into the Convention on 8 March 1795. The Convention tried to bring a peaceful end to the Catholic and royalist uprising in the Vendée . The Convention signed an amnesty agreement, promising to recognize
9802-440: The Rhine and the Alps , the borders of Gaul at the time of the Roman Empire . In 1795, Prussia , Spain and the Dutch Republic quit the War of the First Coalition and made peace with France, but Great Britain refused to accept the French annexation of the Austrian Netherlands . Beside Britain and Austria, the only enemies remaining for France were the Kingdom of Sardinia and several small Italian states. Austria proposed
9971-402: The Tuileries Garden . One of the early decisions of the new parliament was to designate uniforms for both houses: the Five Hundred wore long white robes with a blue belt, a scarlet cloak and a hat of blue velour , while members of the Ancients wore a robe of blue-violet, a scarlet sash, a white mantle, and a violet hat. The new Director overseeing financial affairs, La Réveillière-Lépeaux, gave
10140-520: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , the World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin
10309-455: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;
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#173278273971310478-474: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed
10647-567: The Agrarian Law, an agrarian reform preconized by the ancient Roman brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus , of sharing goods in common , as means of achieving economic equality. By the time of the fall of Robespierre , he had abandoned this as an impractical scheme and was moving towards a more complex plan. Babeuf did not call for the abolition of private property, and wrote that peasants should own their own plots of land, but he advocated that all wealth should be shared equally: all citizens who were able would be required to work, and all would receive
10816-510: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French
10985-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,
11154-636: The Committee due to illness (he all but ceased to attend meetings in June 1794) created the impression among some members that he was isolated and out of touch. Charlotte Robespierre reported in her memoirs that Robespierre had come into conflict with several of the representatives on mission due to their excessive use of violence, which likely also led to the unity of the Committee devolving. When it became suspected in mid-July 1794 that Robespierre and Saint-Just were planning to strike against their political opponents Joseph Fouché , Jean-Lambert Tallien and Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier (the latter two members of
11323-448: The Committee of General Defence, created early January 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was created on 6 April 1793 by the National Convention . It was charged with protecting the new republic against its foreign and domestic enemies, fighting the First Coalition and the Vendée revolt . As a wartime measure, the committee was given broad supervisory and administrative powers over the armed forces, judiciary and legislature, as well as
11492-430: The Committee of General Security), the fragile truce within the government was dissolved. Saint-Just and his fellow Committee of Public Safety member Bertrand Barère attempted to keep the peace between the Committees of Public Safety and General Security. However, Robespierre delivered a speech to the National Convention on 26 July 1794 in which he emphasized the need to "purify" the Committees and "crush all factions". In
11661-496: The Conspiracy only via trusted intermediaries. This conspiratorial structure was later adopted by Marxist movements. Despite his precautions, the Directory infiltrated an agent into the conspiracy, and was fully informed of what he was doing. Bonaparte, the newly named commander of the Army of the Interior , was ordered to close the Panthéon Club , the major meeting place for the Jacobins in Paris, which he did on 27 February 1796. The Directory took other measures to prevent an uprising;
11830-400: The Convention and Committees of Public Safety and General Security. The law enumerated various forms of public enemies, required their denunciation, and severely limited the legal recourse available to those accused. The punishment for all crimes covered under this law was death; from its inception to its removal, more people were condemned to death in Paris than in the entire previous history of
11999-446: The Convention". Barère, Vadier and Stanislas Fréron joined the accusations against Saint-Just and Robespierre. The Convention ordered the arrest of Robespierre, his brother Augustin , and Saint-Just, along with that of their supporters, including Philippe Le Bas and Georges Couthon . A period of intense civil unrest ensued, during which the members of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security were forced to seek refuge in
12168-642: The Convention, very much experienced with conspiracies, were well aware that the planning was underway. A group of five republican deputies, led by Paul Barras , had already formed an unofficial directory, in anticipation of the creation of the real one. They were concerned about the National Guard members from western Paris, and were unsure about the military commander of Paris, General Jacques-François Menou . Barras decided to turn to military commanders in his entourage who were known republicans, particularly Napoleon Bonaparte , whom he had known when Bonaparte
12337-583: The Directory brought about a relative stability of finances which continued through the Directory and Consulate. The food supply for the population, and particularly for the Parisians, was a major economic and political problem before and during the Revolution; it had led to food riots in Paris and attacks on the Convention . To assure the supply of food to the sans-culottes in Paris, the base of support of
12506-690: The Directory. Bonaparte faced the combined armies of Austria and Sardinia, which numbered seventy thousand men. Bonaparte slipped his army between them and defeated them in a series of battles, culminating at the Battle of Mondovi where he defeated the Sardinians on 22 April 1796, and the Battle of Lodi , where he defeated the Austrians on 10 May. King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to make peace in May 1796 and ceded Nice and Savoy to France. At
12675-427: The Directory. This executive will have a force concentrated enough that it will be swift and firm, but divided enough to make it impossible for any member to even consider becoming a tyrant. A single chief would be dangerous. Each member will preside for three months; he will have during this time the signature and seal of the head of state. By the slow and gradual replacement of members of the Directory, you will preserve
12844-538: The Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek. The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of
13013-484: The Germanic Frankish language , which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of V2 word order , a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary ) including the impersonal singular pronoun on (a calque of Germanic man ), and the name of the language itself. Up until its later stages, Old French , alongside Old Occitan , maintained
13182-494: The Jacobins and an early socialist revolutionary, François-Noël Babeuf , known as " Gracchus Babeuf". But after the discovery of a royalist conspiracy including a prominent general, Jean-Charles Pichegru , the Jacobins took charge of the new Councils and hardened the measures against the Church and émigrés. They took two additional seats in the Directory, hopelessly dividing it. In 1799, after several defeats, French victories in
13351-549: The Legion of Police ( légion de police ), a local police force dominated by Jacobins, was forced to become a part of the Army, and the Army organized a mobile column to patrol the neighborhoods and stop uprisings. Before Babeuf and his conspiracy could strike, he was betrayed by a police spy and arrested in his hiding place on 10 May 1796. Though he was a talented agitator, he was a very poor conspirator; with him in his hiding place were
13520-615: The Netherlands and Switzerland restored the French military position, but the Directory had lost all the political factions' support, including some of its Directors. Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October, and was engaged by Abbé Sieyès and others to carry out a parliamentary coup d'état on 9–10 November 1799. The coup abolished the Directory and replaced it with the French Consulate led by Bonaparte. The period known as
13689-459: The Parisians. This Paris food distribution cost a large part of the national budget, and was resented by the rest of the country, which did not have that benefit. By early 1796, the grain supply was supplemented by deliveries from Italy and even from Algeria . Despite the increased imports, the grain supply to Paris was not enough. The Ministry of the Interior reported on 23 March 1796 that there
13858-608: The People"), were mostly middle-class far-left Jacobins who had been excluded from the new government. However, his popularity increased in the working-class of the capital with the drop in value of the assignats , which rapidly resulted in the decrease of wages and the rise of food prices. Beginning in October 1795, he allied himself with the most radical Jacobins, and on 29 March 1796 formed the Directoire secret des Égaux ("Secret Directory of Equals"), which proposed to "revolutionize
14027-448: The Revolution entirely, the Council required that all of the members of the Directory be former members of the Convention and regicides , those who had voted for the execution of Louis XVI . Due to the rules established by the Convention, a majority of members of the new legislature, 381 of 741 deputies, had served in the Convention and were ardent republicans, but a large part of the new deputies elected were royalists, 118 versus 11 from
14196-612: The Revolutionary Tribunal. However, this statistic is accentuated by the fact that, as noted previously, all capital trials and sentences were carried out in Paris rather than being scattered across the provinces. Robespierre, a fervent supporter of the theistic Cult of the Supreme Being , found himself frequently in conflict with anti-religious Committee members Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne . Moreover, Robespierre's increasingly extensive absences from
14365-626: The Rhine , while Bonaparte conquered a large part of Italy. The Directory established 29 short-lived sister republics in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands . The conquered cities and states were required to send France huge amounts of money, as well as art treasures, which were used to fill the new Louvre museum in Paris. An army led by Bonaparte tried to conquer Egypt and marched as far as Saint-Jean-d'Acre in Syria . The Directory defeated
14534-501: The Rhine and Moselle on the Danube would march to Vienna and dictate a peace. A third army, the Army of Italy under General Bonaparte, who had risen in rank with spectacular speed due to his defense of the government from a royalist uprising, would carry out a diversionary operation against Austria in northern Italy. Jourdan's army captured Mayence and Frankfurt , but on 14 August 1796
14703-758: The Roman tyrants chronicled by Tacitus and expounding the indulgent views of the Dantonist faction. Consequently, though the Hébertists were arrested and executed in March 1794, the Committees had Desmoulins and Danton arrested as well. Hérault de Séchelles , a friend and ally of Danton, was expelled from the Committee of Public Safety, arrested and tried alongside them. On 5 April 1794, the Dantonists went to
14872-534: The Sablons and by Bonaparte's soldiers and artillery in front of the church of Saint-Roch . Over the next two hours, the " whiff of grapeshot " of Bonaparte's cannons and gunfire of his soldiers brutally mowed down advancing columns, killing some four hundred insurgents, and ending the rebellion. Bonaparte was promoted to General of Division on 16 October, and General in Chief of the Army of the Interior on 26 October. It
15041-635: The advantages of order and continuity and will have the advantages of unity without the inconveniences. The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was attached as a preamble, declaring "the Rights of Man in society are liberty, equality, security, and property". It guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of labour, but forbade armed assemblies and even public meetings of political societies. Only individuals or public authorities could tender petitions. The judicial system
15210-504: The age of 40, who would review and approve it. Executive power was in the hands of five Directors, selected by the Council of Ancients from a list provided by the lower house, with a five-year mandate. This was intended to prevent executive power being concentrated in the hands of one man. D'Anglas wrote to the Convention: We propose to you to compose an executive power of five members, renewed with one new member each year, called
15379-469: The appointment of generals), the appointing of judges and juries for the Revolutionary Tribunal, the provisioning of the armies and the public, the maintenance of public order and oversight of the state bureaucracy. The committee was also responsible for interpreting and applying the decrees of the National Convention and thus for implementing some of the most stringent policies of the Terror—for instance,
15548-401: The approval of Robespierre and the Committee . This newspaper was initially aimed against the ultrarevolutionary Hébertist faction, whose extremist demands, anti-religious fervor and propensity for sudden insurrections troubled the committee. However, Desmoulins quickly turned his pen against the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security, comparing their reign to that of
15717-502: The atmosphere for a radicalized governing authority to take power. Members of the French common classes such as the Sans-Culottes turned to radicalism and inspired militant activism among the French populace. On 5 April 1793, the French military commander and former minister of war General Charles François Dumouriez defected to Austria following the publication of an incendiary letter in which he threatened to march his army on
15886-460: The beginning of the Directory, increased to 3,000₶. and then 5,000₶. The price of a liter of wine increased from 2₶.10 s. in October 1795 to 10₶. and then 30₶. A measure of flour worth 2₶. in 1790 was worth 225₶. in October 1794. The new government continued to print assignats , which were based on the value of property confiscated from the Church and the aristocracy, but it could not print them fast enough; even when it printed one hundred million in
16055-472: The city of Paris if the National Convention did not accede to his leadership. News of his defection caused alarm in Paris, where imminent defeat by the Austrians and their allies was feared. A widespread belief held that revolutionary France was in immediate peril, threatened not only by foreign armies and by recent revolts in the Vendée , but also by foreign agents who plotted the destruction of
16224-613: The coalition against France was reduced to Britain and Austria , which hoped that Russia might be brought in on its side. On 20 May 1795 (1 Prairial Year III), the Jacobins attempted to seize power in Paris. Following the model of Danton's seizure of the National Assembly in June 1792, a mob of sans-culottes invaded the meeting hall of the Convention at the Tuileries Palace , killed one deputy, and demanded that
16393-502: The committee's political power, discord was growing within the revolutionary government. Members of the Committee of General Security resented the aggressive behavior of the Committee of Public Safety and particularly the encroachment of the General Police Bureau upon their own brief. Arguments within the Committee of Public Safety itself had grown so violent that it relocated its meetings to a more private room to preserve
16562-403: The complete records of the conspiracy, with all of the names of the conspirators. Despite this setback, the conspiracy went ahead with its plans. On the night of 9–10 September 1796, between 400 and 700 Jacobins went to the 21st Regiment of Dragoons ( 21e régiment de dragons ) army camp at Grenelle and tried to incite an armed rebellion against the Directory. At the same time a column of militants
16731-548: The convention. The Robespierre brothers, Saint-Just, Le Bas and Couthon ensconced themselves in the Hôtel de Ville , attempting to incite an insurrection. Ultimately, faced with defeat and arrest, Le Bas committed suicide, while Saint-Just, Couthon, and Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre were arrested and guillotined on 28 July 1794. The ensuing period of upheaval, dubbed the Thermidorian Reaction , saw
16900-544: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Committee of Public Safety The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comité de salut public ) was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror , a violent phase of the French Revolution . Supplementing
17069-420: The currency. To keep the treasury full, the Directory also imposed new taxes on property owners, based on the number of fireplaces and chimneys, and later on the number of windows, of their residences. It refrained from adding more taxes on wine and salt, which had helped cause the 1789 revolution, but added new taxes on gold and silver objects, playing cards, tobacco, and other luxury products. Through these means,
17238-519: The demographic prospects of the French-speaking nations of Africa, researcher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote in 2014 that French "could be the language of the future". However, some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to eradicate the use of French, and as of 2024 it was removed as an official language in Mali and Burkina Faso . Significant as a judicial language, French
17407-503: The downfall of Robespierre, was resumed on this occasion. Despite his arrest, Babeuf, in jail, still felt he could negotiate with the government. He wrote to the Directory: "Citizen Directors, why don't you look above yourselves and treat with me as with an equal power? You have seen now the vast confidence of which I am the center... this view makes you tremble." Several attempts were made by Babeuf's followers to free him from prison. He
17576-448: The economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Weber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). In a 2008 reassessment of his article, Weber concluded that his findings were still correct since "the situation among the top ten remains unchanged." Knowledge of French
17745-594: The elites primarily spoke French, while many servants who worked in French households spoke a French pidgin known as " Tây Bồi " (now extinct). After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. However, since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the first foreign language of choice by English in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it continues to be taught as
17914-628: The end of 1796, Austria sent two new armies to Italy to expel Bonaparte, but Bonaparte outmaneuvered them both, winning a first victory at the Battle of Arcole on 17 November 1796, then at the Battle of Rivoli on 14 January 1797. He forced Austria to sign the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797), whereby Emperor Francis II ceded Lombardy and the Austrian Netherlands to the French Republic in exchange for Venice and urged
18083-559: The executive bodies and ministers of the convention. As the committee, restructured in July, raised the defense ( levée en masse ) against the monarchist coalition of European nations and counter-revolutionary forces within France, it became more and more powerful. In December 1793, the Convention formally conferred executive power upon the committee . Among the members, the radical Montagnard Jacobin Maximilien Robespierre
18252-462: The first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the Aosta Valley in 1536, while the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law in the Kingdom of France . During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations ( lingua franca ). It retained this role until approximately the middle of
18421-458: The following months, the Directory and Councils gradually turned away from the royalist right and tried to find new allies on the left. The major preoccupation of the Directory during its existence was the war against the coalition of Britain and Austria . The military objective set by the Convention in October 1795 was to enlarge France to what were declared its natural limits: the Pyrenees ,
18590-559: The following years and the food supplies improved considerably, but the supply was still precarious in the north, the west, the southeast, and the valley of the Seine. In 1795, the Directory faced a new threat from the left, from the followers of François Noël Babeuf , a talented political agitator who took the name Gracchus and was the organizer of what became known as the Conspiracy of the Equals . Babeuf had, since 1789, been drawn to
18759-442: The form of silverware, candlesticks and other objects confiscated from the churches and the nobility. It minted 72 million écus , and when this silver supply ran low, it obtained much more gold and silver through military campaigns outside of France, particularly from Bonaparte's army in Italy . Bonaparte demanded gold or silver from each city he conquered, threatening to destroy the cities if they did not pay. These measures reduced
18928-866: The former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body . It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union , and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights 's two working languages. In 1997, George Weber published, in Language Today ,
19097-585: The freedom of religion and allowing territorial guards to keep their weapons if the Vendéens would end their revolt. On a proposal from Boissy d'Anglas, on 21 February 1795 the Convention formally proclaimed the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Between July 1794 and the October 1795 elections for the new-style Parliament, the government tried to obtain international peace treaties and secure French gains. In January 1795 General Pichegru took advantage of an extremely cold winter and invaded
19266-829: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert , which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240. Known Gaulish loans are skewed toward certain semantic fields, such as plant life ( chêne , bille , etc.), animals ( mouton , cheval , etc.), nature ( boue , etc.), domestic activities (ex. berceau ), farming and rural units of measure ( arpent , lieue , borne , boisseau ), weapons, and products traded regionally rather than further afield. This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being
19435-411: The guillotine. The elimination of the Hébertists and the Dantonists made evident the strength of the Committees to control and silence opposition. The creation in March 1794 of a General Police Bureau—reporting nominally to the Committee of Public Safety—served to increase the power of the Committee of Public Safety. However, even as the period later known as the 'Terror' reached its height and with it
19604-578: The guillotine. On 23 June 1795, the Chouans , royalist and Catholic rebels in Brittany , formed an army of 14,000 men near Quiberon . With the assistance of the British navy, a force of two thousand royalists was landed at Quiberon . The French army under General Lazare Hoche reacted swiftly, forcing the royalists to take refuge on the peninsula and then to withdraw. They surrendered on 21 July; 748 of
19773-414: The habit of paying taxes. [...] All public credit was dead and all confidence lost. [...] The depreciation of the assignats , the frightening speed of the fall, reduced the salary of all public employees and functionaries to a value which was purely nominal." The drop in value in the money was accompanied by extraordinary inflation. The Louis d'or (gold coin), which was worth 2,000 ₶. in paper money at
19942-411: The illusion of agreement. On 21 May 1794 the revolutionary government decided that the judicial system would be centralised, with almost all the tribunals in the provinces closed and all the capital trials held in Paris. The Law of 22 Prairial , proposed by the committee and enacted by the convention on 10 June 1794, went further in establishing the control of the Revolutionary Tribunal and above it
20111-454: The language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English. As of the 2021 Canadian census , it was the native language of 7.7 million people (21% of the population) and the second language of 2.9 million (8% of the population). French
20280-479: The language, although it has now given way to Tamil and English. A former French mandate , Lebanon designates Arabic as the sole official language, while a special law regulates cases when French can be publicly used. Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used". The French language in Lebanon
20449-612: The language. The Act applies to areas of the province where there are significant Francophone communities, namely Eastern Ontario and Northern Ontario . Elsewhere, sizable French-speaking minorities are found in southern Manitoba, Nova Scotia , Prince Edward Island and the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the unique Newfoundland French dialect was historically spoken. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. The Ontarian city of Ottawa ,
20618-479: The last to hold onto Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc . Langue d'oïl grew into what
20787-468: The left. The members of the upper house, the Council of Ancients, were chosen by lot from among all of the deputies. On 31 October 1795, the Council of Ancients chose the first Directory from a list of candidates submitted by the Council of Five Hundred. One person elected, the Abbé Sieyès , refused to take the position, saying it didn't suit his interests or personality. A new member, Lazare Carnot ,
20956-527: The legislature over the government. They required that in the first elections, two hundred and fifty new deputies would be elected, while five hundred members of the old Convention would remain in place until the next elections. A national referendum of eligible voters was then held. The total number of voters was low; of five million eligible voters, 1,057,390 electors approved the Constitution, and 49,978 opposed it. The proposal that two thirds of members of
21125-561: The legislature, and they could not be removed by the legislature unless they violated the law. Under the new Constitution of 1795 , to be eligible to vote in the elections for the Councils, voters were required to meet certain minimum property and residency standards. In towns with over six thousand population, they had to own or rent a property with a revenue equal to the standard income for at least one hundred fifty or two hundred days of work, and to have lived in their residence for at least
21294-405: The municipality of Paris, which had been the domain of Danton and Robespierre, was abolished, and the city placed under direct control of the national government. When the Law of 19 Vendémiaire Year IV (11 October 1795), in application of the new Constitution , created the first twelve arrondissements of Paris, it established twelve new committees, one for each arrondissement . The city became
21463-581: The nation from within. Dumouriez's defection lent greater credence to this belief. In light of this threat, the Girondin leader Maximin Isnard proposed the creation of a nine-member Committee of Public Safety. Isnard was supported in this effort by Georges Danton , who declared: "This Committee is precisely what we want, a hand to grasp the weapon of the Revolutionary Tribunal ". After
21632-420: The necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory , only French was taught and the use of any other ( patois ) language was punished. The goals of the public school system were made especially clear to the French-speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany . Instructions given by
21801-467: The next day. In July 1794, the Convention established a committee to draft what became the 1795 Constitution . Largely designed by Pierre Daunou and Boissy d'Anglas , it established a bicameral legislature , intended to slow down the legislative process, ending the wild swings of policy under the previous unicameral systems. Deputies were chosen by indirect election, a total franchise of around 5 million voting in primaries for 30,000 electors, or 0.5% of
21970-652: The official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco;
22139-459: The old Convention should remain in place was approved by a much smaller margin, 205,498 to 108,754. The new Constitution of the Year III was officially proclaimed in force on 23 September 1795, but the new Councils had not yet been elected, and the Directors had not yet been chosen. The leaders of the royalists and constitutional monarchists chose this moment to try to seize power. They saw that
22308-570: The other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French
22477-534: The other main foreign language in the Vietnamese educational system and is regarded as a cultural language. All three countries are full members of La Francophonie (OIF). French was the official language of French India , consisting of the geographically separate enclaves referred to as Puducherry . It continued to be an official language of the territory even after its cession to India in 1956 until 1965. A small number of older locals still retain knowledge of
22646-591: The people" through pamphlets and placards, and eventually to overthrow the government. He formed an alliance of utopian socialists and radical Jacobins, including Félix Lepeletier , Pierre-Antoine Antonelle , Sylvain Marechal , Jean-Pierre-André Amar and Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet . The Conspiracy of Equals was organized in a novel way: in the center was Babeuf and the Secret Directory, who hid their identities, and shared information with other members of
22815-417: The population. Since they were also subject to stringent property qualification, it guaranteed the return of conservative or moderate deputies. The Directory was established after the Constitution of Year III which was adopted by a referendum on 24 September 1795, and constituted after the first elections which were held from 12–21 October 1795. On 25 October the National Convention held its last meeting;
22984-471: The preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the Court of Justice of the European Union , where it is the sole internal working language, or the Directorate-General for Agriculture . Since 2016, Brexit has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union. A leading world language , French
23153-480: The prevailing Enlightenment era ideology of the French government at this stage of the revolutionary period. The constitution outlines a right to the resistance of oppression as well as the right to personal liberty. The equality of all French men is detailed as is the structure of the French Republic . The new constitution and the shift into a republican government centered on the National Assembly created
23322-761: The rate of inflation. On 19 February 1796, the government held a ceremony in the Place Vendôme to destroy the printing presses which had been used to produce huge quantities of assignats . This success produced a new problem: the country was still flooded with more than two billion four hundred million (2.400.000.000) assignats , claims on confiscated properties, which now had some value. Those who held assignats were able to exchange them for state mandates, which they could use to buy châteaux, church buildings and other biens nationaux (state property) at extremely reduced prices. Speculation became rampant, and property in Paris and other cities could change hands several times
23491-434: The rebels were executed by firing squad. The new Constitution of the Year III was presented to the Convention and debated between 4 July – 17 August 1795, and was formally adopted on 22 August 1795. It was a long document, with 377 articles, compared with 124 in the first French Constitution of 1793 . Even before it took effect, however, the members of the Convention took measures to assure they would still have dominance in
23660-606: The repeal of many of the previous year's most unpopular laws and the restriction of the Committees of General Security and Public Safety. The Committees ceased to exist under the Constitution of the Year III (1795), which marked the beginning of the Directory . During the May 1958 crisis in France , an army junta under General Jacques Massu seized power in Algiers on the night of 13 May 1958 and General Salan assumed leadership of
23829-471: The rest largely speak French as a first language. As a French Creole language , Haitian Creole draws the large majority of its vocabulary from French, with influences from West African languages, as well as several European languages. It is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles . French is the sole official language of all the overseas territories of France in
23998-420: The royalist L'Orateur du peuple edited by Stanislas Fréron , an extreme Jacobin who had moved to the extreme right, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Tribun du peuple , edited by Gracchus Babeuf , a former priest who advocated an early version of socialism . On 5 February 1795, the semi-official newspaper Le Moniteur Universel ( Le Moniteur ) attacked Marat for encouraging the bloody extremes of
24167-457: The same income. Babeuf did not believe that the mass of French citizens was ready for self-government; accordingly, he proposed a dictatorship under his leadership until the people were educated enough to take charge. "People!", Babeuf wrote. "Breathe, see, recognize your guide, your defender.... Your tribune presents himself with confidence." At first, Babeuf's following was small; the readers of his newspaper, Le Tribun du peuple ("The Tribune of
24336-414: The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. In a study published in March 2014 by Forbes , the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. In
24505-619: The two official languages—along with Dutch —of the Brussels-Capital Region , where it is spoken by the majority of the population (approx. 80%), often as their primary language. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh , and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy , of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions, and some cantons have bilingual status: for example, cities such as Biel/Bienne and cantons such as Valais , Fribourg and Bern . French
24674-508: The urban intellectual elite. The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable Romanization . Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French contributing loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by
24843-425: The use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. In Belgium, French is an official language at the federal level along with Dutch and German. At the regional level, French is the sole official language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons , which are German-speaking ) and one of
25012-443: The value of the money, but this caused a new crisis; prices and wages fell, and economic activity slowed to a standstill. In its first two years, the Directory concentrated on ending the excesses of the Jacobin Reign of Terror ; mass executions stopped, and measures taken against exiled priests and royalists were relaxed. The Jacobin political club was closed on 12 November 1794 and the government crushed an armed uprising planned by
25181-414: The vote in favor of the new Constitution was hardly overwhelming. Paris voters were particularly hostile to the idea of keeping two-thirds of the old members of the Convention in the new Councils. A central committee was formed, with members from the wealthier neighborhoods of Paris, and they began planning a march on the center of the city and on the Tuileries, where the Convention still met. The members of
25350-450: The working-class neighborhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine . The sans-culottes were disarmed and their leaders were arrested. In the following days the surviving members of the Committee of Public Safety, the committee that had been led by Robespierre, were arrested, with the exception of Carnot and two others. Six of the deputies who had participated in the uprising and had been sentenced to death committed suicide before they were taken to
25519-481: The workplace. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese . In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, French is the second-most commonly taught foreign language in schools and universities, although well behind Spanish. In some areas of
25688-402: The world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to a 2023 estimate from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie , an estimated 167 million African people spread across 35 countries and territories can speak French as either a first or a second language . This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as
25857-428: Was defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Amberg and again on 3 September 1796 at the Battle of Würzburg , and had to retreat back to the Rhine. General Moreau, without the support of Jourdan, was also forced to retreat. The story was very different in Italy. Bonaparte, though he was only twenty-eight years old, was named commander of the Army of Italy on 2 March 1796, through the influence of Barras, his patron in
26026-531: Was during the period of the Crusades in which French became so dominant in the Mediterranean Sea that became a lingua franca ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the Arabs during the Crusades who referred to them as Franj , numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as amiral (admiral), alcool (alcohol), coton (cotton) and sirop (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as algébre (algebra), alchimie (alchemy) and zéro (zero). Within Old French many dialects emerged but
26195-425: Was elected in his place. The members elected to the Directory were the following: The following day, the members of the new government took over their offices in the Luxembourg Palace , which had previously been occupied by the Committee of Public Safety. Nothing had been prepared, and the rooms had no furniture: they managed to find firewood to heat the room, and a table in order to work. Each member took charge of
26364-526: Was finally moved to Vendôme for trial. The Directory did not tremble. The accused Jacobins were tried by military courts between 19 September and 27 October. Thirty Jacobins, including three former deputies of the Convention, were convicted and guillotined. Babeuf and his principal followers were tried in Vendôme between 20 February and 26 May 1797. The two principal leaders, Babeuf and Augustin Alexandre Darthé , were convicted. They both attempted suicide, but failed and were guillotined on 27 May 1797. However, in
26533-601: Was formed in the working-class neighborhoods of Paris to march on the Luxembourg Palace, headquarters of the Directory. Director Carnot had been informed the night before by the commander of the camp, and a unit of dragoons was ready. When the attack began at about ten o'clock, the dragoons appeared suddenly and charged. About twenty Jacobins were killed, and the others arrested. The column of militants, learning what had happened, disbanded in confusion. The widespread arrest of Babeuf's militants and Jacobins followed. The practice of arresting suspects at their homes at night, stopped after
26702-400: Was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul. As the language was learned by the common people, it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which is attested in graffiti. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan . The evolution of Latin in Gaul
26871-459: Was heralded as the new era of French civilization. 1793 would bring a new republican constitution, drafted by the National Assembly. The French Constitution of 1793 and its subsequent government would bring sweeping reforms to French politics and the French social order. Major reforms included comprehensive education, the recognition of rights for illegitimate children and improved rights for married women. The French Constitution of 1793 outlined
27040-469: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates
27209-399: Was not included. Nevertheless, he continued to support the centralization of power by the committee. On 27 July 1793, Maximilien Robespierre was elected to the committee. At this time, the committee was entering a more powerful and active phase, alongside its partner, the Committee of General Security . The role of the Committee of Public Safety included the governance of the war (including
27378-407: Was one of the most well-known, though he did not have any special powers or privileges. After the arrest and execution of the rival factions of Hébertists and Dantonists , sentiment in the Convention eventually turned against Robespierre, who was executed in July 1794. In the following Thermidorian Reaction , the committee's influence diminished after 26 months and it disappeared on the same day as
27547-413: Was only enough wheat to make bread for five days, and there were shortages of meat and firewood. The Directory was forced to resume deliveries of subsidized food to the very poor, the elderly, the sick, and government employees. The food shortages and high prices were one factor in the growth of discontent and the Gracchus Babeuf 's uprising, the Conspiracy of the Equals , in 1796. The harvests were good in
27716-448: Was reformed, and judges were given short terms of office: two years for justices of the peace, five for judges of department tribunals. They were elected, and could be re-elected, to assure their independence from the other branches of government. The new legislature had two houses, a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients with two hundred fifty members. Electoral assemblies in each canton of France , which brought together
27885-456: Was replaced each year. Ministers for the various departments of State aided the Directors. These ministers did not form a council or cabinet and had no general powers of government. The new Constitution sought to create a separation of powers ; the Directors had no voice in legislation or taxation, nor could Directors or Ministers sit in either house. To assure that the Directors would have some independence, each would be elected by one portion of
28054-411: Was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language , which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . The population remained 90% indigenous in origin; the Romanizing class were the local native elite (not Roman settlers), whose children learned Latin in Roman schools. At the time of the collapse of
28223-442: Was successfully fighting the British in Toulon . Bonaparte, at this point a general of second rank in the Army of the Interior , was ordered to defend the government buildings on the right bank. The armed royalist insurgents planned a march in two columns along both the right bank and left bank of the Seine toward the Tuileries. There on 5 October 1795, the royalists were met by the artillery of sous-lieutenant Joachim Murat at
28392-437: Was the language they use the most at home rose from 67% at the 2007 census to 74% at the 2017 census. In Wallis and Futuna, the percentage of the population who reported that French was the language they use the most at home rose from 10% at the 2008 census to 13% at the 2018 census. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie ,
28561-409: Was the last uprising to take place in Paris during the French Revolution. Between 12 and 21 October 1795, immediately after the suppression of royalist uprising in Paris, the elections for the new Councils decreed by the new Constitution took place. 379 members of the old Convention, for the most part moderate republicans, were elected to the new legislature. To assure that the Directory did not abandon
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