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128-583: The September Massacres were a series of killings and summary executions of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution . Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by sans-culottes , fédérés , and guardsmen , with the support of gendarmes responsible for guarding the tribunals and prisons, the Cordeliers ,

256-406: A revolutionary tribunal , with extraordinary powers to impose the death sentence without any appeal , was installed on 17 August. Robespierre, who had proposed this measure, refused to preside over the tribunal, arguing that the same man ought not to be a denouncer, an accuser, and a judge. Already, on 15 August, four sections called for all priests and imprisoned suspects to be put to death before

384-642: A royauté pentarchique . But public opinion was now preponderantly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets. The suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after barely a month's existence. Its members avenged themselves on

512-823: A 20-hour interval. Among the victims were 223 nonjuring Catholic priests and (arch)bishops who refused to submit to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy , 81 Swiss guards , and 40–80 political suspects, mostly royalists, aristocrats, and some former judges and ministers including the queen's best friend, the Princesse de Lamballe , the only political victim in "La petite Force". Summary executions Summary executions have been practiced by police , military , and paramilitary organizations and are frequently associated with guerrilla warfare , counter-insurgency , terrorism , and any other situation which involves

640-590: A Jacobin, strongly pleaded against war with Prussia and Austria – but in the Jacobin Club, not in the Assembly where he was not seated. Disdainfully, Robespierre addressed those Jacobin war promoters as 'the faction from the Gironde'; some, not all of them, were indeed from department Gironde . The Jacobins finally rid itself of Feuillants in its midst; the number of clubs increased considerably, convening became

768-586: A bookseller who was accused of murder, was tied to a pole, killed, and mutilated. According to Prudhomme people sat on the stairs of the Palace of Justice watching the butchery in the courtyard. Not far away Restif de la Bretonne saw bodies piled high on Pont au Change in front of the Châtelet , then thrown in the river. He recorded the atrocities he witnessed in Les Nuits de Paris (1794). Before midnight

896-422: A breakdown of the normal procedures for handling accused prisoners, civilian or military. Under military law , summary execution is illegal in almost all circumstances, as a military tribunal would be the competent judge needed to determine guilt and declare a sentence of death. However, there are certain exceptions to this rule in emergencies and warfare where summary execution is legal. Major treaties such as

1024-620: A doubling of the number of seats. However, the assembly canceled the decree the next day at the request of Jacques-Alexis Thuriot . The balance of power was disrupted and the conflict between the Girondins and the Montagnards would influence the progress of the French Revolution. On 1 September the prisons were full. The citizens of Paris were told to prepare themselves for the defense of the country and gather immediately upon

1152-525: A group around Robespierre – after September 1792 called ' Montagnards ' or 'Montagne', in English 'the Mountain' – and the Girondins. These groups never had any official status, nor official memberships. The Mountain was not even very homogenous in their political views: what united them was their aversion to the Girondins. The Legislative Assembly , governing France from October 1791 until September 1792,

1280-528: A group of 200 "Septembriseurs" came to the house of Roland on Place Dauphine to arrest him, but, as he was at the ministry, they went there. Between 7:00 and 8:00 pm, the group of fédérés , etc. was back at the Abbaye prison. The Abbaye prison was located in what is now the Boulevard Saint-Germain just west of the current Passage de la Petite Boucherie. The door was closed, but the killing

1408-523: A hospice for women and girls to which a prison was attached, was visited. The number of victims is exactly known: 35 women, including 23 underaged. The average age of the 35 victims was 45 – only one of them, Marie Bertrand, a diocesan from Dyon, was 17 years old – and 52 were released according to Cassagnac. On Tuesday afternoon the killing in the Abbey finally stopped. Police commissioners Etienne-Jean Panis and Sergent-Marceau gave orders to wash away all

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1536-528: A nationwide fad. In March 1792, in retaliation for their opposition to war with Austria the Feuillant ministers were forced out by the Girondins. The Assembly in April 1792 finally decided for war, thus following the ' Girondin ' line on it, but Robespierre's place among the Jacobins had now become much more prominent. From then on, a polarization process started among the members of the Jacobin Club, between

1664-571: A new revolutionary commune headed by transitional authorities. The next day the insurrectionists stormed the Tuileries Palace . King Louis XVI was imprisoned with the royal family, and his authority as king was suspended by the Legislative Assembly . The following day the royalist press was silenced. A provisional executive ( conseil exécutif ) was named and busied itself with reorganizing or solving questions concerning

1792-747: A peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion. The Jacobin Club supported the monarchy up until the very Eve of the Republic (20 September 1792) . They did not support the petition of 17 July 1791 for the king's dethronement , but instead published their own petition calling for replacement of King Louis XVI . The departure of

1920-512: A pejorative denoting the violent excesses of the revolution, whereas they associated its positive features and principles with the Girondins . In Britain, the term faintly echoed negative connotations of Jacobitism , the pro-Catholic, monarchist, rarely insurrectional political movement that faded out decades earlier tied to deposed King James II of England and his descendants. The term Jacobin reached obsolescence and supersedence before

2048-499: A person found guilty of an offence except pursuant to a conviction pronounced by a court offering the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality. However, some classes of combatants may not be accorded POW status, but that definition has broadened to cover more classes of combatants over time. In the past, summary execution of pirates , spies , and francs-tireurs have been performed and considered legal under existing international law. Francs-tireurs (a term originating in

2176-460: A person responsible for the subordinates, have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry arms openly, and conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. If they do not meet all of those conditions, they may be considered francs-tireurs (in the original sense of " illegal combatant ") and punished as criminals in a military jurisdiction, which may include summary execution. Soldiers who are wearing uniforms of

2304-416: A regular correspondence. By 10 August 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. At the peak there were at least 7,000 chapters throughout France, with a membership estimated at a half-million or more. It

2432-482: A similar way to Perry, Williams emphasizes the understandable impatience of the people, who had been kept waiting too long for justice after the August Days, when husbands, brothers, and fathers had been killed. According to Pierre Caron there were almost 2,800 prisoners in early September. Between 1,250 and 1,450 prisoners were condemned and executed. According to Caron and Bluche 70% of the victims were killed in

2560-418: A speech in the assembly, stating: "We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death. The bell we are about to ring... sounds the charge on the enemies of our country." The massacres began around 2:30 pm in the middle of Saint-Germain-des-Prés , and within the first 20 hours more than 1,000 prisoners were killed. The next morning, the surveillance committees of

2688-822: A state education system that strongly promotes and inculcates civic values. It is more controversially used by or for proponents of a strong nation-state capable of resisting undesirable foreign interference. When the Estates General of 1789 in France convened in May–June 1789 at the Palace of Versailles , the Jacobin club, originating as the Club Breton , comprised exclusively a group of Breton representatives attending those Estates General. Deputies from other regions throughout France soon joined. Early members included

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2816-417: A state's interpretation of martial law, this may allow police or military forces to decide and carry out punishments that include death on its own citizens, in order to restore lawful authority or for other vital reasons. That would not include killing a suspect who is directly endangering another's life, which is always legal for police, but executing a suspect under one's control as a punishment. Proving that

2944-475: A strong patois accent. They forced the priests one by one to take the oath on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and "swear to be faithful to the nation and to maintain liberty and equality or die defending it". Some priests hid in the choir and behind the altar. Several tried to get away by climbing in the trees and over the walls and making their escape through the Rue Cassette. At around 5:00 pm,

3072-632: A summary execution fell under the legal exception would be exceptionally difficult, as one would have to show why a judgment and sentence of death absolutely needed to be meted out on the spot. Hence, such extraordinary acts are almost always seen as illegal violations of human rights . Jacobin Former Former The Society of the Friends of the Constitution ( French : Société des amis de la Constitution ), renamed

3200-568: A temporary lack of judges. Bicêtre , a hospital for men and boys that also served as a prison for beggars and the homeless, was visited twice that day after a rumor that there were thousands of rifles stored there. The commander brought seven cannons. According to Cassagnac François Hanriot and his battalion were present; 56 prisoners were released. The average age of the 170 victims was 24–25 years, 41 were between 12 and 18 years old, and 58 were under 20. Mayor Pétion did not have much influence discussing humanity with them. At dawn Salpêtrière ,

3328-402: A treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them

3456-521: A waiting mob consisting of men, women, and children. The massacres were opposed by the staff of the prison, who allowed many prisoners to escape, one example being Pauline de Tourzel . The Prison de l'Abbaye contained a number of prisoners formerly belonging to the royal household, as well as survivors of the Swiss Guards from the royal palace. Among them were the royal governesses Marie Angélique de Mackau and Louise-Élisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel ;

3584-415: Is not an alarm signal; it sounds the charge on the enemies of our country." After the applause, he continued, "To conquer them we must dare, dare again, always dare, and France is saved." His speech acted as a call for direct action among the citizens, as well as a strike against the external enemy. Madame Roland and Hillary Mantel weren't the only ones who thought his speech was responsible for inciting

3712-537: Is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece. Most of the victims' clothes were pierced with spade marks and had bloodstains. According to Louvet four armed men came to the house of Roland to get paid. On Monday morning nine o'clock, Billaud-Varenne came to the Abbaye prison and declared that the tribunal should stop stealing and would get paid by the Commune. At ten Maillard and his twelve judges resumed their work. In three days 216 men, and only three women were massacred in

3840-671: The Salle du Manège of the Tuileries , and was thus known as the Club du Manège . It was patronized by Barras , and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres , proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf , and attacked the Directory as

3968-732: The Committee of Public Safety and, through it, the National Convention, which was not only a legislature but also took upon itself executive and judicial functions. The Jacobins as a political force were seen as "less selfish, more patriotic, and more sympathetic to the Paris Populace." The Jacobin Club developed into a bureau for French republicanism and revolution , rejecting its original laissez-faire economic policy and economic liberal approach in favour of economic interventionism . In power, they completed

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4096-507: The Franco-Prussian War ) are enemy civilians or militia who continue to fight in territory occupied by a warring party and do not wear military uniforms, and may otherwise be known as guerrillas , partisans , insurgents , etc. Though they could be legally jailed or executed by most armies a century ago, the experience of World War II influenced nations occupied by foreign forces to change the law to protect this group. Many of

4224-679: The Geneva Conventions and Hague Conventions , and customary international law from history, protect the rights of captured regular and irregular enemy soldiers , along with civilians of enemy states. Prisoners-of-war (POWs) must be treated in carefully defined ways which definitively ban summary execution, as the Second Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions (1977) states: No sentence shall be passed and no penalty shall be executed on

4352-665: The Gestapo . Shortly after World War II, at the Nuremberg Trials , the Commando Order was found to be a direct breach of the laws of war , and German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of war crimes . According to Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, irregular forces are entitled to prisoner of war status if they are commanded by

4480-728: The Girondists to a more social approach given by the commune as expressed by Pierre-Joseph Cambon : "To reject with more efficacy the defenders of despotism, we have to address the fortunes of the poor, we have to associate the Revolution with this multitude that possesses nothing, we have to convert the people to the cause." Besides these measures, the commune engaged in a policy of political repression of all suspected counter-revolutionary activities. Beginning on 11 August, every Paris section named surveillance committees (committees of vigilance) for conducting searches and making arrests. It

4608-740: The Habsburg monarchy , prompting the War of the First Coalition . In July, an army under the Duke of Brunswick , and composed mostly of Prussians , joined the Austrian side and invaded France. As the army advanced, Paris went into a state of hysteria, especially after the Duke issued the " Brunswick Manifesto " on 25 July. His avowed aim was to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check

4736-451: The Reign of Terror , during which well over 10,000 people were put on trial and executed in France, many for political crimes. Initially founded in 1789 by anti-royalist deputies from Brittany , the club grew into a nationwide republican movement with a membership estimated at a half million or more. The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of

4864-503: The Russian Revolution , when the terms (Radical) Marxism , anarchism , socialism , and communism had overtaken it. In modern France, the term Jacobin generally denotes a position of more equal formal rights, centralization, and moderate authoritarianism . It can be used to denote supporters of a role of the state in the transformation of society. It is, in particular, used as a self-identification by proponents of

4992-598: The Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality ( Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité ) after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club ( Club des Jacobins ) or simply the Jacobins ( / ˈ dʒ æ k ə b ɪ n / ; French: [ʒakɔbɛ̃] ), was the most influential political club during the French Revolution of 1789. The period of its political ascendancy includes

5120-583: The Thermidorian Reaction . The Jacobins became targets of Thermidorian and anti-Jacobin papers, with Jacobins lamenting counterrevolutionary pamphlets "poisoning public opinion". The Jacobins disavowed the support they gave Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, yet supported an unpopular return to the Terror. Meanwhile, the society's finances fell into disarray and membership dipped to 600. Further, they were linked to ongoing trials of prominent members of

5248-409: The abolition of feudalism in France that had been formally decided 4 August 1789 but had been held in check by a clause requiring compensation for the abrogation of the feudal privileges. Robespierre entered the political arena at the very beginning of the Revolution, having been elected to represent Artois at the Estates General . Robespierre was viewed as the quintessential political force of

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5376-511: The prison de l'Abbaye near the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés , after being interrogated by Billaud-Varenne in the town hall. One of the carriages, escorted by Fédérés, was attacked after an incident. The fédérés killed three men in the middle of the street, before the procession arrived at the prison. Eighteen of the arrested were taken inside. They then mutilated the bodies, "with circumstances of barbarity too shocking to describe" according to

5504-449: The seminary Saint Firmin was visited by just four men, who killed all the seminarians . All of them were detained in August according to Cassagnac; the average age of the prisoners was 47. At 2.30 am, the Assembly was informed that most of the prisons were empty. The next morning the Assembly was still involved with the defense of the city; Hérault de Séchelles presided. It decided the other prisoners had to wait for their trial because of

5632-586: The 83 departments against the politicians and Parisians, mainly Montagnards, that had seized power over the Republic. The government in Paris called such revolts 'federalist' which was not accurate: most did not strive for regional autonomy but for a different central government. In October 1793, 21 former Girondin Convention deputies were sentenced to death for supporting an insurrection in Caen . In March 1794,

5760-530: The Abbaye, to seize priests, and especially the officers of the Swiss Guards and their accomplices and run a sword through them". From 15 to 25 August, around 500 detentions were registered; some were sent to Orléans. Half the detentions were of nonjuring priests, but even priests who had sworn the required oath were caught in the wave. Around 26 August, news reached Paris that the Prussian army had crossed

5888-575: The Abbey. De Virot , responsible for the safeguarding of large stocks of weapons stored in the Hotel des Invalides , and his daughter survived. Late in the afternoon, they went to Tour Saint-Bernard (belonging to a confiscated monastery Collège des Bernardins , located in the Sansculotte district) where forgers of assignats were jailed. (Almost all of them were locked up in the previous three months.) The pattern of semi-formal executions followed by

6016-499: The British diplomatic dispatch. One of their victims was the former minister of foreign affairs Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin . Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard was recognized as a beneficent priest and released. In the late afternoon 115 priests in the former convent of Carmelites , detained with the message they would be deported to French Guiana , were massacred in the courtyard with axes, spikes, swords and pistols by people with

6144-879: The Citizen. As commented in Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's 1762 book The Social Contract , "Citizenship is the expression of a sublime reciprocity between individual and General will ." This view of citizenship and the General Will, once empowered, could simultaneously embrace the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and adopt the French Constitution of 1793 , then immediately suspend that constitution and all ordinary legality and institute Revolutionary Tribunals that did not grant

6272-712: The Committee in May, Robespierre entered it in July, Collot d'Herbois in September and Billaud-Varenne also around September 1793. Robespierre for his steadfast adherence to and defence of his views received the nickname and reputation of l'Incorruptible (The Incorruptible or The Unassailable). Several deposed Girondin-Jacobin Convention deputies, among them Jean-Marie Roland , Brissot , Pétion, Louvet , Buzot and Guadet , left Paris to help organize revolts in more than 60 of

6400-523: The Committee of Surveillance of the Commune , and the revolutionary sections of Paris . With Prussian and royalist armies advancing on Paris, and widespread fear that prisoners in the city would be freed to join them, on 1 September the Legislative Assembly called for volunteers to gather the next day on the Champs de Mars . On 2 September, around 1:00 pm, Minister of Justice Georges Danton delivered

6528-580: The Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte. The Jacobin movement encouraged sentiments of patriotism and liberty amongst the populace. The movement's contemporaries, such as the King Louis XVI , located the effectiveness of the revolutionary movement not "in the force and 1789 bayonets of soldiers, guns, cannons and shells but by the marks of political power". Ultimately, the Jacobins were to control several key political bodies, in particular

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6656-459: The French border and occupied Longwy without a battle. Roland proposed that the government should leave Paris, whereas Robespierre suggested in a letter to the sections of the commune that they should defend liberty and equality and maintain their posts, and die if necessary. The assembly decreed that all the non-juring priests had to leave Paris within eight days and the country within two weeks. In

6784-426: The Fédérés from Marseille, Avignon and Brest were involved in the killing. About 800–1000 were staying in barrack, but moved supposedly to where events would take place. It seems around 300 Fédérés from Brest and 500 from Marseille were then lodged in Cordeliers Convent . Servan planned to give them military training before using them to supplement the army at the front. The fact is that the reports of conspiracies in

6912-401: The Jacobin Club closed. In the years and decades after the revolution, the term Jacobin was used in an extended sense to denote political positions perceived as similar to those of the historical Jacobins and the Mountain in the National Convention . It was popular among conservative publicists as a pejorative to deride progressive politics , and among Anglophone progressives likewise as

7040-400: The Jacobin Movement, thrusting ever deeper the dagger of liberty within the despotism of the Monarchy. As a disciple of Rousseau, Robespierre's political views were rooted in Rousseau's notion of the social contract , which promoted "the rights of man". Robespierre particularly favored the rights of the broader population to eat, for example, over the rights of individual merchants. "I denounce

7168-430: The Jacobin movement was the Reign of Terror overseen by the Committee of Public Safety, who were given executive powers to purify and unify the Republic. The Committee instituted requisitioning , rationing , and conscription to consolidate new citizen armies. They instituted the Terror as a means of combating those they perceived as enemies within: Robespierre declared, "the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead

7296-411: The Jacobins use of mass movements , direct democracy and left-wing populism . The Jacobin philosophy of a complete dismantling of an old system, with completely radical and new structures, is historically seen as one of the most revolutionary and important movements throughout modern history. The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement during the French Revolution revolved around the creation of

7424-456: The Montagnard Hébert and some followers were sentenced to death; in April the Montagnard Danton and 13 of his followers were sentenced to death; in both cases after insinuation by Robespierre in the Convention that those "internal enemies" were promoting 'the triumph of tyranny'. Meanwhile, the Montagnard-dominated government resorted also to harsh measures to repress what they considered counter-revolution, conspiracy and " enemies of freedom " in

7552-413: The Montagnards at 120. The remaining 480 of the 750 deputies of the convention were called ' the Plain ' (French: la Plaine) and managed to keep some speed in the debates while Girondins and Montagnards were mainly occupied with nagging the opposite side. Most Ministries were manned by friends or allies of the Girondins, but while the Girondins were stronger than the Montagnards outside Paris, inside Paris

7680-454: The Montagnards at the Hôtel de Ville and the Jacobin Club itself where members had been gathering every Saturday evening. Robespierre and 21 associates including the Jacobin Saint-Just and the Montagnard Couthon were sentenced to death by the National Convention and guillotined . Probably because of the high level of repressive violence – but also to discredit Robespierre and associates as solely responsible for it – historians have taken up

7808-417: The Montagnards were much more popular, implying that the public galleries of the convention were always loudly cheering for Montagnards, while jeering at Girondins speaking. On 6 April 1793, the convention established the Comité de salut public (Committee of Public Prosperity, also translated as Committee of Public Safety) as sort of executive government of nine, later twelve members, always accountable to

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7936-420: The National Convention. Initially, it counted no Girondins and only one or two Montagnards, but gradually the influence of Montagnards in the Committee grew. Early April 1793, Minister of War Pache said to the National Convention that the 22 leaders of the Girondins should be banned. Later that month, the Girondin Guadet accused the Montagnard Marat of 'preaching plunder and murder' and trying 'to destroy

8064-406: The September Massacres, also Louis Mortimer−Ternaux. Around 4 in the afternoon Madame de Staël , as ambassadress of Sweden, who lived in Rue du Bac near Champ de Mars, tried to flee through crowded streets but her carriage was stopped and the crowd forced her to go to the Paris town hall , where Robespierre presided. (However, according to Maximilien's sister Charlotte , he never presided over

8192-465: The Terror involved in atrocities in Nantes , especially Jean-Baptiste Carrier . Organized gangs formed, the jeunesse doree or Muscadins , who harassed and attacked Jacobin members, even assailing the Jacobin Club hall in Paris. On 21 Brumaire, the Convention refused to support enforcement of protection of the club. The Committee of General Security decided to close the Jacobins' meeting hall late that night, resulting in it being padlocked at four in

8320-414: The assassins of the people to you and you respond, 'let them act as they will.' In such a system, all is against society; all favors the grain merchants." Robespierre famously elaborated this conception in his speech on 2 December 1792: "What is the first goal of society? To maintain the imprescribable rights of man. What is the first of these rights? The right to exist." The ultimate political vehicle for

8448-417: The assault. Supported by a new armed force, the commune dominated the Legislative Assembly and its decisions. The commune pushed through several measures: universal suffrage was adopted, the civilian population was armed, all remnants of noble privileges were abolished and the properties of the émigrés were sold. These events meant a change of direction from the political and constitutional perspective of

8576-400: The attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and the liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him. The manifesto threatened the French population with instant punishment should it resist the imperial and Prussian armies or the reinstatement of

8704-435: The blood from the stairs and the courtyard, to spread straw, to count the corpses, and to dispose of them on carts to avoid infections. A contract was signed with the gravedigger of the nearby Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris , who also had to purchase quicklime . On 5 September, the day of the election, it was perfectly quiet in Paris according to Le Moniteur Universel . There were still 80 prisoners in "La Force". On 6 September

8832-428: The capital. As a result of this inquisition, more than 1,000 "suspects" were added to the immense body of political prisoners already confined in the jails and convents of the city." On 29 August, the Prussians attacked Verdun . When this news arrived it escalated panic in the capital; the situation was highly critical. Throughout August, the Legislative Assembly, which had been greatly diminished as more than half of

8960-404: The club, still entirely composed of deputies, reverted to being a provincial caucus for National Constituent Assembly deputies from Brittany. The club was re-founded in November 1789 as the Société de la Révolution , inspired in part by a letter sent from the Revolution Society of London to the Assembly congratulating the French on regaining their liberty. To accommodate growing membership,

9088-492: The committee, agreed to kill them in "whole groups," voting down a Marat proposal to murder them by setting them on fire, then finally agreeing to a proposal by Billaud-Varennes to "butcher them". The bulk of the butchers were made up of "Marseilles," "hired assassins" from the prisons of Genoa and Sicily, paid twenty-four dollars, whose names were listed by "M. Granier de Cassagnac." The rest were murderers and others previously imprisoned for violent crimes released ahead of time from

9216-418: The commune of the atrocities. Charlotte Corday held Jean-Paul Marat responsible, while Madame Roland blamed Georges Danton . Danton was also accused by later French historians Adolphe Thiers , Alphonse de Lamartine , Jules Michelet , Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet of doing nothing to stop them. According to modern historian Georges Lefebvre , the "collective mentality is a sufficient explanation for

9344-442: The commune published a circular that called on provincial patriots to defend Paris by eliminating counter-revolutionaries, and the secretary, Jean-Lambert Tallien , called on other cities to follow suit. The massacres were repeated in a few other French cities; in total 65–75 incidents were reported. The exact number of victims is not known, as over 440 people had uncertain fates, including from 22 to 200 Swiss soldiers. The identity of

9472-459: The conservative members of the Jacobin Club to form their own Feuillants Club in July 1791 to some extent radicalized the Jacobin Club. Late 1791, a group of Jacobins in the Legislative Assembly advocated war with Prussia and Austria. Most prominent among them was Brissot , other members were Pierre Vergniaud , Fauchet , Maximin Isnard , Jean-Marie Roland . Maximilien Robespierre , also

9600-476: The deputies had fled since the storming of the Tuileries, had acquiesced to the activities of the commune and its sections. On 30 August, the Girondins Roland and Marguerite-Élie Guadet tried to suppress the influence of the commune, which they accused of exercising unlawful power. The assembly, tired of the pressures, declared the commune illegal and suggested the organization of communal elections and

9728-405: The discussions from the balconies. The rather high subscription of the Jacobin Club confined its membership to well-off men. The Jacobins claimed to speak on behalf of the people but were themselves not of 'the people': contemporaries saw the Jacobins as a club of the bourgeoisie . As far as the central society in Paris was concerned, it was composed almost entirely of professional men (such as

9856-402: The dominant voice in the Jacobin Club. Since late 1791, the Girondins became opponents of Robespierre, taking their place on the right side of the session room of the convention. By this time, they stopped visiting the Jacobin Club. Those parliamentary groups, Montagnards and Girondins, never had any official status, but historians estimate the Girondins in the Convention at 150 men strong,

9984-603: The dominating comte de Mirabeau , Parisian deputy Abbé Sieyès , Dauphiné deputy Antoine Barnave , Jérôme Pétion , the Abbé Grégoire , Charles Lameth , Alexandre Lameth , Artois deputy Robespierre , the duc d'Aiguillon , and La Revellière-Lépeaux . At this time meetings occurred in secret, and few traces remain concerning what took place or where the meetings convened. By the March on Versailles in October 1789,

10112-633: The early 1790s: The Mountain and the Girondins . In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France when they declared war on Austria and on Prussia , overthrew King Louis XVI , and set up the French First Republic . In May 1793, the leaders of the Mountain faction, led by Maximilien Robespierre , succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government featured high levels of political violence, and for this reason

10240-614: The evening, in the presence of 350,000 people, a funeral ceremony was held in the gardens of the Tuileries for those killed while storming the Tuileries . On 28 August, the assembly ordered a curfew for around two days. The city gates were closed; all communication with the country was stopped. At the behest of Justice Minister Danton, thirty commissioners from the sections were ordered to search in every (suspect) house for weapons, munition, swords, carriages and horses. "They searched every drawer and every cupboard, sounded every panel, lifted every hearthstone, inquired into every correspondence in

10368-448: The galleries and around the convention would finally lead the country to anarchy and civil war, and he threatened on 25 May: "If anything should befall to the representatives of the nation, I declare, in the name of France, that all of Paris will be obliterated". The next day, Robespierre said in the Jacobin Club that the people should "rise up against the corrupted deputies" in the convention. On 27 May, both Girondins and Montagnards accused

10496-477: The gates closed and an alarm gun fired. After the tocsin was rung around 2:00 pm, 50 or 60,000 men enrolled for the defense of the country on the Champs de Mars. On 2 September, around 13:00, Georges Danton , a member of the provisional government, delivered a speech in the assembly: "We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death." "The bell we are about to ring

10624-672: The governments of Europe throughout the 1800s. This complex and complete revolution in political, societal and cultural structure, caused in part by the Jacobins, had lasting impact throughout Europe, with such societal revolutions throughout the 1800s culminating in the Revolutions of 1848 . Jacobin populism and complete structural destruction of the old order led to an increasingly revolutionary spirit throughout Europe and such changes would contribute to new political foundations. Leftist organizations would take different elements from Jacobin's core foundation. Anarchists took influence from

10752-494: The group around Robespierre dominating French politics in June 1793–July 1794 was often designated as 'Jacobins'. Many of these Montagnards (and Jacobins) entered, or were already, in the de facto executive government of France, the Committee of Public Prosperity (or Public Safety) : Barère was in it since April 1793 until at least October 1793, Danton served there from April until July 1793, Couthon and Saint-Just had entered

10880-531: The group rented for its meetings the refectory of the Dominican monastery of the “Jacobins” in the Rue Saint-Honoré , adjacent to the seat of the Assembly. They changed their name to Société des amis de la Constitution in late January, though by this time, their opponents had already concisely dubbed them "Jacobins", a nickname originally given to French Dominicans because their first house in Paris

11008-461: The habit to roughly label the period June 1793–July 1794 as ' Reign of Terror '. Later and modern scholars explain that high level of repressive violence occurred at a time when France was menaced by civil war and by a coalition of foreign hostile powers, requiring the discipline of the Terror to mold France into a united Republic capable of resisting this double peril. With the execution of Robespierre and other leading Montagnards and Jacobins, began

11136-559: The insurrectionary commune. According to Louvet de Couvrai he "governed" the Paris Conseil Général of the département .) Late in the evening, she was conveyed home, escorted by the procurator Louis Pierre Manuel . The next day the secretary-general to the Commune of Paris , Tallien, arrived with a passport and accompanied her to the barrier . The first massacre began in the quartier Latin around 2:30 pm on Sunday when 24 non-juring priests were being transported to

11264-423: The killing". Historian Timothy Tackett deflected specific blame from individuals, stating: "The obsession with a prison conspiracy, the desire for revenge, the fear of the advancing Prussians, the ambiguity over who was in control of a state that had always relied in the past on a centralized monarchy: all had come together in a volatile mixture of anger, fear, and uncertainty." In April 1792 France declared war on

11392-566: The ladies-in-waiting the Princess de Tarente and the Princess de Lamballe ; the queen's ladies-maids Marie-Élisabeth Thibault and Mme Bazile; the dauphin's nurse St Brice; the Princesse de Lamballe's lady's maid Navarre; and the valets of the king, Chamilly and Hue. All ten former members of the royal household were placed before the tribunals and freed from charges, with the exception of the Princess de Lamballe, whose death would become one of

11520-491: The lawyer Robespierre ) and well-to-do bourgeoisie (like the brewer Santerre ). From the start, however, other elements were also present. Besides the teenage son of the Duc d'Orléans , Louis Philippe , a future king of France, aristocrats such as the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie , and the vicomte de Noailles , and the bourgeoisie formed the mass of the members. The club further included people like "père" Michel Gérard,

11648-459: The left side on the highest seats of the session room: therefore that group around and led by Robespierre was called The Mountain (French: la Montagne , les Montagnards ). Some historians prefer to identify a parliamentary group around Robespierre as Jacobins, which can be confusing because not all Montagnards were Jacobin and their primal enemies, the Girondins, were originally also Jacobins. By September 1792, Robespierre indeed had also become

11776-448: The massacres finally ended. The next day the gates were opened, but it was impossible to travel to another department without a passport. In a letter from 25 January 1793 Helen Maria Williams accused Robespierre and Danton, saying that Marat was only their instrument. Francois Buzot , a Girondin, mentions Camille Desmoulins and Fabre d'Eglantine . According to Galart de Montjoie, a lawyer and royalist, in those days everyone believed

11904-427: The monarchy. The manifesto was frequently described as unlawful and offensive to national sovereignty. Its authorship was frequently in doubt. Revolutionaries like Marat and Hébert preferred to concentrate on the internal enemy. On 3 August Pétion and 47 sections demanded the deposition of the king. On the evening of 9 August 1792, a Jacobin insurrection overthrew the leadership of the Paris municipality, proclaiming

12032-488: The morning. The next meeting day, 22 Brumaire (12 November 1794), without debate the National Convention passed a decree permanently closing the Jacobin Club by a nearly unanimous vote. Within a year 93% of the Jacobin clubs were closed throughout the country. An attempt to reorganize Jacobin adherents was the foundation of the Réunion d'amis de l'égalité et de la liberté , in July 1799, which had its headquarters in

12160-544: The most publicized of the September Massacres. Louise-Élisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel was released on order of Manuel by the Commune. Of the Swiss Guard prisoners 135 were killed, 27 were transferred, 86 were set free, and 22 had uncertain fates. According to George Long 122 died and 43 people were released. The victims had to leave behind money, jewelry, silver, gold, assignats, but also an Aeneid which

12288-492: The opposing army after the start of combat may be considered illegal combatants and subject to summary execution. Many armies have performed that kind of false flag ruse in the past, including both German and US special forces during World War II. However, if soldiers remove their disguises and put on proper insignia before the start of combat in such an operation, they are considered legal combatants and must be treated as prisoners of war (POWs) if captured. That distinction

12416-787: The other party of propagating civil war. On 2 June 1793, the convention was besieged in its Tuileries Palace by a crowd of around 80,000 armed soldiers, clamorously on the hand of the Montagnards. In a chaotic session a decree was adopted that day by the convention, expelling 22 leading Girondins from the convention, including Lanjuinais , Isnard and Fauchet. Around June 1793, Maximilien Robespierre and some of his associates (Montagnards) gained greater power in France. Many of them, like Robespierre himself, were Jacobin: Fouché , Collot d'Herbois , Billaud-Varenne , Marat , Danton , Saint-Just . Three other powerful Montagnards were not known as Jacobin: Barère , Hébert and Couthon . In 'culture wars' and history writing after 1793 however,

12544-563: The people by reason and the people's enemies by terror." The meeting place of the Fraternal Society of Patriots of Both Sexes was an old library room of the convent which hosted the Jacobins, and it was suggested that the Fraternal Society grew out of the regular occupants of a special gallery allotted to women at the Jacobin Club. Georges Valois , founder of the first non-Italian fascist party Faisceau , claimed

12672-793: The period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is identified as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were guillotined . The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide as a way to suppress the Vendée insurrection and the Federalist revolts , and to deter recurrences. In July 1794, the National Convention pushed the administration of Robespierre and his allies out of power and had Robespierre and 21 associates executed . In November 1794,

12800-425: The perpetrators, called " septembriseurs ", is poorly documented, but a large number were Parisian national guards and provincial federates who had remained in the city since their arrival in July. Of those killed, 72% were non-political prisoners including forgers of assignats (galley convicts), common criminals, women, and children, while 17% were Catholic priests. The minister of the interior, Roland , accused

12928-595: The police in occupied territories, for instance) were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service). The order, which was issued in secret, made it clear that failure to carry out such orders by any commander or officer would be considered to be an act of negligence punishable under German military law. This was in fact the second "Commando Order", the first being issued by Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt on July 21, 1942, stipulating that parachutists should be handed over to

13056-405: The police, justice, the army, navy, and paper money, but actual power now rested with the new revolutionary commune, whose strength resided in the mobilized and armed sans-culottes , the lower classes of Paris, and fédérés , armed volunteers from the provinces that had arrived at the end of July. The 48 sections of Paris were equipped with munitions from the plundered arsenals in the days before

13184-535: The political foundation of almost all leftist schools of thought including anarchism , communism and socialism . The Paris Commune was seen as the revolutionary successor to the Jacobins. The undercurrent of radical and populist tendencies espoused and enacted by the Jacobins would create a complete cultural and societal shock within the traditional and conservative governments of Europe, leading to new political ideas of society emerging. Jacobin rhetoric would lead to increasing secularization and skepticism towards

13312-478: The popular tribunals was for condemned prisoners to be ordered "transferred" and then taken into the prison courtyard where they would be cut down. One man was released after he was recognized as a thief. The participants in the killing received bread, wine and cheese, and some money. In the early evening, groups broke into another Paris prison, the Conciergerie , via an open door in a side stair. The massacre

13440-521: The post-war victors, such as France, Poland, and the USSR, had the experience of resistance fighters being summarily executed by the Axis if they were captured. The war also influenced them to make sure that commandos and other special forces who were caught deep behind enemy lines would be protected as POWs, rather than summarily executed as Hitler decreed through his 1942 Commando Order . The Commando Order

13568-408: The prisons they would soon be returning to for the massacres. Earl Gower, the British ambassador reported: A party at the instigation of someone or other declared they would not quit Paris, as long as the prisons were filled with Traitors (for they called those so, that were confined in the different Prisons and Churches), who might in the absence of such a number of Citizens rise and not only effect

13696-417: The prisons, however improbable, and the constant propaganda about the people's will and the people's anger, held everyone in a sort of stupor and gave the impression that this infamous performance was the work of the populace, whereas in reality there were not above 200 criminals. Though it is an ascertained fact that the perpetrators of the atrocious murders were but a few; yet it is not so clear that this work

13824-427: The provinces outside Paris, resulting in 17,000 death sentences between September 1793 and July 1794 in all of France. In late June 1794, three colleagues on the Committee of Public Prosperity/Safety – Billaud-Varenne, Collot d'Herbois and Carnot – called Robespierre a dictator. On 10 Thermidor, Year II (28 July 1794), at some time in the evening, Louis Legendre was sent out with troops to arrest leading members of

13952-439: The release of His Majesty but make an entire counterrevolution. On 1 September, the gates of the city closed the days before, were opened on the orders of Pétion, providing an opportunity for suspects to flee the capital. According to Louis-Marie Prudhomme people still profited from the opportunity on Sunday morning 2 September. (Verdun capitulated on 2 September gaining a clear westward path to Paris.) The Assembly decreed arming

14080-498: The roots of fascism stemmed from the Jacobin movement. This is disputed as the Jacobin's were socially and politically liberal , against conservatism, and advocated for republicanism . The Jacobin movement is considered to be left-wing . The political rhetoric and populist ideas espoused by the Jacobins would lead to the development of the modern leftist movements throughout the 19th and 20th century, with Jacobinism being

14208-411: The society became formally constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave , which were issued with the signature of the duc d'Aiguillon, the president. The club's objectives were defined as such: At the same time the rules of order of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There was to be a president, elected every month, four secretaries,

14336-451: The sound of the tocsin. Their imminent departure from the capital provoked further concern about the crowded prisons, now full of counter-revolutionary suspects who might threaten a city deprived of so many of its defenders. Marat called for a "new blood-letting", larger than the one on 10 August. Marat and his Committee of Surveillance of the Commune organized the massacres, first voting to round up 4,000 mostly ordinary people, "suspects" of

14464-425: The sovereignty of the people'. A majority of the Convention agreed to put Marat on trial, but the court of justice quickly acquitted Marat. This apparent victory of the Montagnards intensified their antipathies of the Girondins, and more proposals were vented to get rid of the Girondins. On both 18 and 25 May 1793, the acting president of the convention, Isnard, a Girondin, warned that the disturbances and disorder on

14592-466: The unprecedented depravity of an entire population, the prison massacres were the explicable result of both the "wrath and fury" of the victims of 10 August and the machinations of the Paris Commune, who gave their tacit consent to the killings. Those targeted in the attacks had not been imprisoned unjustly but had been suspected of having aided the court in its negotiations with foreign princes. In

14720-463: The volunteers departed. Robespierre proposed to erect a pyramid on Place Vendôme to remember the victims of 10 August. On 19 August the nonjuring priests were ordered to leave the country within two weeks, which meant before 2 September 1792. In Paris, all monasteries were closed and would soon be in use as hospitals, etc. The remaining religious orders were banned by the law of 15 August. Marat left nothing in doubt when he urged "good citizens to go to

14848-412: The volunteers; a third would stay in Paris and defend the city with pikes, the others were meant for the frontier and the trenches. It further decreed that traitors who refused to participate in the defense or hand over their arms deserved death. The sections, gathered in the town hall, decided to remain in Paris; Marat proposed to have Roland and his fellow Girondist Brissot arrested. The commune ordered

14976-406: Was arrested. A lie was fatal, and the prisoners were summarily judged and either freed or executed. Each prisoner was asked a handful of questions, after which the prisoner was either freed with the words " Vive la nation " and permitted to leave, or sentenced to death with the words "Conduct him to the Abbaye" or "Let him go", after which the condemned was taken to a yard and was immediately killed by

15104-423: Was changed to Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité (Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality). In the newly elected National Convention , governing France as of 21 September 1792, Maximilien Robespierre made his comeback in the center of French power. Together with his 25-year-old protégé Louis Antoine de Saint-Just , Marat , Danton and other associates they took places on

15232-421: Was dominated by men like Brissot, Isnard and Roland: Girondins. But after June 1792, Girondins visited less and less the Jacobin Club, where Robespierre, their fierce opponent, grew more and more dominant. On 21 September 1792, after the fall of the monarchy the title assumed by the Jacobin Club after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791 ( Société des amis de la constitution séants aux Jacobins à Paris )

15360-562: Was in the Rue Saint-Jacques . Once in Paris, the club soon extended its membership to others besides deputies. All citizens were allowed to enter, and even foreigners were welcomed: the English writer Arthur Young joined the club in this manner on 18 January 1790. Jacobin Club meetings soon became a place for radical and rousing oratory that pushed for republicanism, widespread education, universal suffrage , separation of church and state, and other reforms. On 8 February 1790,

15488-554: Was issued by Adolf Hitler on October 18, 1942, stating that all Allied commandos encountered by German forces in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents and saboteurs not in proper uniforms who fell into the hands of the German military forces by some means other than direct combat (through

15616-519: Was more uncontrolled in the Conciergerie than in the Prison de l'Abbaye. In the Conciergerie, the staff did not cooperate by turning the prisoners to the mob; instead, the mob broke into the cells themselves. The massacre continued from late evening through the night until morning. Of 488 prisoners in the Conciergerie, 378 were killed during the massacre. One woman in the Conciergerie, Marie Gredeler,

15744-463: Was mostly these decentralized committees, rather than the commune as a whole, which engaged in the repression of August and September 1792. Within a few days each section elected three commissioners to take seats in the insurrectionary commune; one of them was Maximilien Robespierre . To ensure that there was some appropriate legal process for dealing with suspects accused of political crimes and treason, rather than arbitrary killing by local committees,

15872-404: Was not connived at, or consented to, by a much greater number, and those perhaps in authority; for otherwise, two or three companies of the town guard would have been sufficient to disperse those who were employed on the occasion. Perry describes the restoration of order after the events, giving the impression that the massacres may even have had a cathartic effect. He also suggests that France

16000-427: Was plagued by fewer foreign enemies afterward. What emerges therefore from Perry's report is a view that, if massacres did take place, they occurred not out of spontaneous popular madness but because of comprehensible grievances. According to Robert Lindet , Adolphe Thiers , George Long , and Stanley Loomis the massacres were not an outburst of passion, but coldly and carefully organized. Rather than being proof of

16128-424: Was resumed after an intense discussion with Manuel, the procurator, on people's justice and failing judges. Manuel and Jean Dussaulx belonged to a deputation sent by the " Conseil Général " of the commune to ask for compassion. They were insulted and escaped with their lives. A tribunal composed of twelve people presided over by Stanislas-Marie Maillard, started the interrogation by asking the prisoner why he or she

16256-525: Was settled by a military tribunal in the postwar trial of Otto Skorzeny , who led Operation Greif , an infiltration mission in which German commandos wore US uniforms to infiltrate US lines during the Battle of the Bulge . Within a state's policy, martial law may be declared in emergencies such as invasions or insurrections, and in such a case constitutionally protected rights would be suspended. Depending on

16384-530: Was this widespread yet highly centralized organization that gave to the Jacobin Club great power. By early 1791, clubs like the Jacobins, the Club des Cordeliers and the Cercle Social were increasingly dominating French political life. Numbers of men were members of two or more of such clubs. Women were not accepted as members of the Jacobin Club (nor of most other clubs), but they were allowed to follow

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