Misplaced Pages

#415584

35-746: The "Thermidorian Reaction" was named after the month in which the coup took place and was the latter part of the National Convention 's rule of France. It was marked by the end of the Reign of Terror , decentralization of executive powers from the Committee of Public Safety and a turn from the radical Jacobin policies of the Montagnard Convention to more moderate positions. Economic and general populism, dechristianization , and harsh wartime measures were largely abandoned, as

70-735: A dandyish manner, who were the street fighters of the Thermidorian Reaction in Paris in the French Revolution (1789-1799). After the coup against Robespierre and the Jacobins of 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), they took on the remaining Jacobins and sans-culottes , and largely succeeded in suppressing them over the next year or two. In prints they are often seen carrying large wooden clubs, which they liked to call "constitutions". They were supposedly organized by

105-428: A pre-revolutionary state, and power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership. Leon Trotsky , in his book The Revolution Betrayed , refers to the rise of Joseph Stalin and the accompanying post-revolutionary bureaucracy as the "Soviet Thermidor". The food Lobster Thermidor was named, directly or indirectly, after the month. Sometimes it is said that it was first prepared for Napoleon I during

140-675: A trial. The Commune forces at the Hôtel de Ville deserted. The Convention troops under Barras approached the Hôtel around 2 a.m. on 28 July. Robespierre, his jaw broken by a possibly self-inflicted shot, was taken with most of his supporters. On that very day, Robespierre was executed with twenty-one of his closest associates, including François Hanriot , ex-commander of the Parisian National Guard; Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot , mayor of Paris; Georges Couthon , Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and René-François Dumas , ex-president of

175-401: Is replaced by a more conservative regime, sometimes to the point where the political pendulum may swing back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state. Leon Trotsky in his book The Revolution Betrayed , alleged that the rise of Joseph Stalin to power was a Soviet Thermidor for 'not restoring capitalism', yet still being a 'counterrevolutionary regression' within the regime of

210-482: The Committee of Public Safety , came together on 9 Thermidor (27 July) 1794. Jean-Lambert Tallien, a member of and previously President of the National Convention, impugned Saint-Just and then went on to denounce the tyranny of Robespierre. The attack was taken up by Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne . Cries went up of "Down with the tyrant! Arrest him!" Robespierre then made his appeal to the deputies of

245-515: The Constitution of the Year III was drawn up on 22 August 1795, which eased back some of the democratic elements of the constitution of 1793 , establishing an electoral college for the election of officials, a bicameral legislature and other provisions designed to protect the current holders of power. On 5 October ( 13 Vendémiaire ), a revolt led by Royalists challenged the convention. It

280-740: The September Massacres were repeated; however this time the victims were imprisoned officials of the Terror. In Paris, Royalist sentiments were openly tolerated. Meanwhile, French armies overran the Netherlands and established the Batavian Republic , occupied the left bank of the Rhine and forced Spain , Prussia and several German States to sue for peace, enhancing the prestige of the convention. A new constitution called

315-721: The "Thermidor" of the Russian Revolution '. Thermidor Thermidor ( French pronunciation: [tɛʁmidɔʁ] ) was the eleventh month in the French Republican calendar . The month was named after the French word thermal , derived from the Greek word thermos 'heat'. Thermidor was the second month of the summer quarter ( mois d'été ). It started July 19 or 20. It ended August 17 or 18. It follows Messidor and precedes Fructidor . During Year 2, it

350-488: The French Revolutionary calendar. The Thermidorian regime excluded the remaining Montagnards from power, even those who had joined in conspiring against Robespierre and Saint-Just. The White Terror of 1795 resulted in numerous imprisonments and several hundred executions, almost exclusively of people on the political left. These numbers, while significant, were considerably smaller than those associated with

385-479: The Jacobin regime: Bertrand Barère , Jacques-Louis David , Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois and Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne , who were all threatened with transportation to French Guiana (though only the latter two were eventually sent there). After they had succeeded in suppressing the sans-culottes , their usefulness to the government was over, and they began to pose a threat. After the "whiff of grapeshot" in

SECTION 10

#1732766216416

420-567: The Jacobins was to be resolved the next year by the execution of both men with many of their respective factions; in the meeting of the Committee of Public Safety that moved against the "Hébertistes" in March 1794, Barère complained that Muscadins, along with foreigners and deserters, were seen to "congregate at the theatre, dressed with ridiculous ostentation, and ... show themselves with dirty stockings, large moustaches, and long sabres, threatening

455-530: The Parisian working class. The Muscadins are considered to be part of the First White Terror in response to the preceding Reign of Terror of the Jacobins. The " jeunesse dorée " came to have a considerable influence on the National Convention , and after the Jacobin revolt of 12 Germinal , Year III (April 1, 1795), are held to have forced the arrest of the four main "ringleaders" remaining from

490-681: The Revolutionary Tribunal. The events of 9 Thermidor proved a watershed in the revolutionary process. The Thermidorian regime that followed proved to be an unpopular one, facing many rebellions after its execution of Robespierre and his allies, along with seventy members of the Paris Commune, the largest mass execution to have ever taken place in Paris. This led to a very fragile situation in France. The hostility toward Robespierre did not just vanish with his execution. Instead,

525-610: The Right, yet failed. An order was made to arrest Robespierre and his followers. Troops from the Paris Commune , who were loyal to Robespierre, arrived to liberate him and the other prisoners. The Convention responded by ordering troops of its own under Paul Barras to counteract. The Robespierrists barricaded at the Hôtel de Ville . The Convention declared them to be outlaws, meaning that they could be executed within 24 hours without

560-619: The USSR, as Thermidor did not itself restore a monarchy, etc. Uttaldo Buttafava, a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist stated that the end of Stalin's rule Nikita Khruschev 's rise to power in Russia, and the economic policies of the time were a kind of Thermidor within the Soviet Union. A CIA document considered Khruschev's " On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences " may have 'marked

595-527: The crisis of 13 Vendémiaire , in October 1795, they ceased to be a significant factor in Parisian politics. The term "Muscadin" existed well before the post-Thermidor gangs, who are also referred to as the "jeunesse dorée" ("gilded youth") or simply les jeunes gens ("the young people"). The term had long been current in Lyon , used by the working class of "white-collar" domestic servants, shop boys and clerks of

630-732: The date according to the French Republican Calendar when Maximilien Robespierre and other radical revolutionaries came under concerted attack in the National Convention . Thermidorian Reaction refers to the remaining period until the National Convention was superseded by the Directory ; this is also sometimes called the era of the Thermidorian Convention. Prominent figures of Thermidor include Paul Barras , Jean-Lambert Tallien , and Joseph Fouché . Conspiracies against Robespierre , who had dominated

665-567: The good citizens, and especially the people's representatives" – he saw them as supporting the ultra-radical "Hébertistes". The costumes of the Muscadins are less well-recorded than those of their successors, the Incroyables , but appear to have been similar to these. Characteristics include tightly-cut coats with extravagantly large lapels, typically in a different colour, with large and elaborately knotted cravats and perhaps sashes round

700-678: The leadership. Others such as Billaud-Varenne , Collot d’Herbois , Barère and Vadier were sentenced to exile in South America, though the latter two managed to evade arrest. Many Jacobin clubs were closed. Freedom of worship was extended first to the Vendée and later to all France. On 24 December 1794, the Maximum (controls on prices and wages) was abolished. The government exacerbated this inflationary move by issuing more assignats . In April and May 1795, protests and riots in support of

735-653: The members of the convention, disillusioned and frightened of the centralized government of the Terror, preferred a more stable political order that would have the approval of the plurality. The Reaction saw the Left suppressed by brutal force , including massacres, as well as the disbanding of the Jacobin Club , the dispersal of the sans-culottes , and the renunciation of the Montagnard ideology. The name Thermidorian originated with 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794),

SECTION 20

#1732766216416

770-514: The merchants. An element of effeminacy was implied. In 1789, at the start of the Revolution, a royalist militia was raised in Lyon, with the encouragement of the city elite, and containing many of their employees, and their revolutionary opponents started to call them the "muscadins". Perfumed or not, they were an effective military force in the area for nearly a year, before being disbanded after it

805-593: The month of Thermidor. Others say that it was created by Tony Girod at the Café de Paris , to celebrate the opening of a play called Thermidor . Thermidor is the name of a story revolving around the end of the French Revolution in Neil Gaiman 's The Sandman , issue #29. "Thermidor" and "Thermidor 2" were lobster-like robots on Robot Wars . There is a song recorded by J-pop artist Nana Mizuki by

840-476: The name of "Thermidor". Its lyrics talk about a person in love that is also rethinking his or her personal feelings after realizing that the person they love has changed, and so has the person. Its lyrics mimic the modern definition of Thermidor. Muscadin The term Muscadin ( French: [myskadɛ̃] ), meaning "wearing musk perfume", came to refer to mobs of young men, relatively well-off and dressed in

875-606: The people decided to blame those who were involved with Robespierre in any way, namely the many members of the Jacobin Club, their supporters, and individuals suspected of being past revolutionaries. The massacre of these groups became known as the White Terror , and was partially carried out by the Muscadin , a group of dandyish street fighters organized by the new government. Often, members of these targeted groups were

910-399: The politician and journalist Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron , and eventually numbered 2,000-3,000. They, in fact, seem to have mostly consisted of the lower middle classes, the sons of "minor officials and small shopkeepers", and were quietly encouraged by the shaky new government, who had good reason to fear Jacobin mobs, and wider unrest as the hard winter of 1794-5 saw increasing hunger among

945-495: The previous Reign of Terror, which killed over 40,000. Many executions took place without a trial. On July 29 the victors of the 9th Thermidor condemned seventy members of the Paris Commune to death; thereafter the Commune was subject to the convention. As part of the reorganization of French politics, practitioners of the terror were called to defend their records; some such as Tallien , Barras , Fouché and Fréron rejoined

980-538: The radicals broke out culminating in an invasion of the convention by an insurrectionist mob on 20 May. On 22 May the Convention struck back, having troops under Pichegru surround the Faubourg St-Antoine and force the capitulation of the armed rebels. In May and June 1795, a " White Terror " raged in which Jacobins were victims and the judges were bourgeois "Moderates". Throughout France the events of

1015-569: The victims of prison massacres or put on trial without due process, which were overall similar conditions to those provided to the counter-revolutionaries during the Reign of Terror. At the same time, its economic policies paved the way for rampant inflation. Ultimately, power devolved to the hands of the Directory, an executive of five men who assumed power in France in November 1795, in year III of

1050-414: The waist. Colours are bright and violently contrasting, with stripes very popular – perhaps a parody of the sans-culottes , for whom stripes were also characteristic. However, more muted versions of some of these characteristics can be seen in the self-portrait painted in jail in 1794 by Jacques-Louis David after the fall of the Jacobins ; the Muscadins took to extremes elements of the shared fashions of

1085-472: Was clear that national events had overtaken them. Their equipment, and nickname, were transferred to the local Garde Nationale , and when Lyon was besieged by Jacobin armies in 1793, the term became known in Paris. In that year the term was used in the battle between the Jacobin publications Le Père Duchesne , written by Jacques Hébert , and Le Vieux Cordelier , written by Camille Desmoulins , with Hébert using it in criticising Desmoulins. The split among

Thermidorian Reaction - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-513: Was divided into three 10-day weeks called décades (decades). Every day had the name of an agricultural plant, except the 5th (Quintidi) and 10th day (Decadi) of every decade, which had the name of a domestic animal or an agricultural tool, respectively. The Thermidorian Reaction , Revolution of Thermidor , or simply Thermidor refers to the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) in which the Committee of Public Safety led by Maximilien Robespierre

1155-403: Was put down by troops led by general Napoleon Bonaparte with "a whiff of grapeshot". On 25 October the Convention declared itself dissolved and was replaced by the Directory on 2 November 1795. For historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership and a radical regime

1190-431: Was sidelined and its leaders arrested and guillotined , resulting in the end of the Reign of Terror . The new regime, known as The Directory , introduced more conservative policies aimed at stabilizing the revolutionary government. Consequently, for historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when the political pendulum swings back towards something resembling

1225-446: Was sometimes called Fervidor . Because of the Thermidorian Reaction —9 Thermidor Year II—the overthrow of revolutionary radical Maximilien Robespierre and his followers in that month, the word "Thermidor" has come to mean a retreat from more radical goals and strategies during a revolution, especially when caused by a replacement of leading personalities. Like all French Republican Calendar months, Thermidor lasted 30 days and

#415584