Daily Life During the French Revolution (45 page)

The initial staunch supporters of the revolution, the urban
workers and the sans-culottes, had sacrificed much and gained little in
concrete benefits.

The system of the old regime was replaced by one in which
cash became the important ingredient between a new generation of capitalist
farmers and the workers they employed. Costly wars still took their money in
taxes and their sons off to battlefields, thwarting the farmers’ dreams of
self-sufficiency. Landless laborers remained the most vulnerable to depredation
and hunger.

Women emerged from the revolution with the right to inherit
equally with their brothers and to sign legal contracts if they were unmarried;
but precious little else changed. The divorce laws of 1792 were sharply
curtailed in 1804 and abolished in 1816.

The registry office for births, deaths, and marriage was
passed from church to state; the sale of offices ended. Administrators of the
old regime were largely maintained, but some official offices were eliminated,
including the one that oversaw collection of the salt tax (later reinstated).
The military changed little; the majority of the officers, once
émigres,
had
served the old regime.

In the coup d’état of November 9, 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte
joined a conspiracy against the government, seizing power and establishing a
new regime—the Consulate. Under the Consulate’s constitution, Bonaparte, as
first consul, had dictatorial powers. On February 16, 1800, he issued a decree
that effectively reduced local government councils to rubber stamps, and three
days later, he took up residency in the royal palace of the Tuileries.

Mayors and deputy-mayors of towns of more than 5,000
inhabitants were now to be directly appointed by the First Consul himself;
officials for other towns were appointed by the department administrator, the
prefect, who himself had been sanctioned by Napoleon. It was much the same as
under the old regime, when the king had appointed the intendant to administer
the districts. Candidates for local councils, appointed for 20 years, were
selected on the basis of property qualifications. Judges also were appointed
rather than elected.

Napoleon had himself crowned emperor in 1804; he
established a court and made counts, dukes, and even kings of his relatives and
friends. For many who had lived under the old regime, it must have seemed like
a case of
déjà vu.
The reform and codification of the diverse provincial
and local laws culminated in the Napoleonic Code. Press censorship was
reintroduced, along with a new salt tax, an efficient spy system, and a police
force. Custom houses at the gates of the cities were reestablished. The
revolution did not meet the high hopes of the working people that they would be
given power. It was not until 1848 that all men of age were given the vote, and
not until 1944 did women gain the franchise. Workers waited until 1864 for the
right to strike and twenty years beyond that for the right to form trade
unions. Free, secular, and compulsory education came only in the 1880s, and
welfare provisions for the infirm, the elderly, and the unemployed were not
instituted until the twentieth century. The new hierarchy under Napoleon, which
after 1799 was based on the criterion of wealth, retained many nobles of the
old regime. Those who had escaped the guillotine and others who returned from
exile again began to play a major economic and political role. Of the 281 men
Napoleon appointed to administrate the departments, nearly half were from old
aristocratic families. In 1815, after the downfall of Napoleon, a limited
monarchy was restored that endured until 1848.

Appendix 1

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF
MAN AND CITIZEN

The
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen adopted by the National Assembly
on August 26, 1789.

Articles:

1.
      
Men are
born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded
only upon the general good.

2.
      
The aim of
all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security,
and resistance to oppression.

3.
      
The
principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor
individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the
nation.

4.
      
Liberty
consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence, the
exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which
assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.
These limits can only be determined by law.

5.
      
Law can
only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented
which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not
provided for by law.

6.
      
Law is the
expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate
personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the
same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the
eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public
positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without
distinction except that of their virtues and talents.

7.
      
No person
shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to
the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or
causing to be executed any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen
summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as
resistance constitutes an offense.

8.
      
The law
shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously
necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in
virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.

9.
      
As all
persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest
shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of
the prisoner’s person shall be severely repressed by law.

10.
   
No one
shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views,
provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by
law.

11.
   
The free
communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights
of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom,
but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by
law.

12.
   
The
security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military
forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not
for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.

13.
   
A common
contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the
cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the
citizens in proportion to their means.

14.
   
All the
citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives,
as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know
to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and
of collection, and the duration of the taxes.

15.
   
Society has
the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.

16.
   
A society
in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers
defined, has no constitution at all.

17.
   
Since
property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof
except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and
then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably
indemnified.

Prepared
by Gerald Murphy (The Cleveland Free-Net—aa300). Distributed by Cybercasting
Services Division of NPTN.

Appendix 2

THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR

A
new calendar was introduced by the Convention on October 5, 1793, to date from
September 22, 1792, the day after the proclamation of the First Republic. It
replaced the Gregorian calendar and rejected the Christian view of reckoning
time and events from the birth of Christ. It was to represent a new start. The
new names of the months were inspired by nature, and although their aspirations
may have been universal, the revolutionary calendar was based on the seasons of
northern France. The first year under the new system was called An I (Year I),
the second An II, and so on.

The year was divided into 12 months, each of which had 30
days. Each season comprised three months, named according to their natural
characteristics. Thus, September 22, 1792, became the first day of the
Revolutionary Calendar, 1 Vendémiaire year I.

The names of the months were:

1.
      
Vendémiaire (vintage)

2.
      
Brumaire (fog)

3.
      
Frimaire (frost)

4.
      
Nivôse (snow)

5.
      
Pluviôse (rain)

6.
      
Ventôs (wind)

7.
      
Germinal (seed)

8.
      
Floréal (blossoms)

9.
      
Prairial (meadows)

10.
   
Messidor (harvesting)

11.
   
Thermidor (heat)

12.
   
Fructidor (fruit)

The month was divided into three decades, of which the final
day was a day of rest. This was an attempt to de-Christianize the calendar, but
it was unpopular because now there were now only three days of rest in a month
instead of four. The 10 days of each decade were called, respectively, Primidi,
Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, and Decadi.
The five or six remaining days following the last day of Fructidor at the end
of the year (September 17–21 in the Gregorian calendar) were designated
national holidays and called by these names:

1.
      
Fête de la vertu (virtue)

2.
      
Fête du génie (genius)

3.
      
Fête du travail (work)

4.
      
Fête de l’opinion (opinion)

5.
      
Fête des récompenses (rewards)

6.
      
Jour de la révolution
(leap-year day)

The conversion of a Republican date to a
Gregorian one is as follows:

Year 1: September 22, 1792

Year 2: September 22, 1793

Year 3: September, 1794

Year 4: September 23, 1795

Year 5: September 22, 1796

Year 6: September 22, 1797

Year 7: September 22, 1798

Year 8: September 23, 1799

Year 9: September 23, 1800

Year 10: September 23, 1801

Year 11: September 23, 1802

Year 12: September 24, 1803

Year 13: September 23, 1804

Year 14: September 23, 1805

A new clock was also
established according to which the day was divided into 10 hours, each
consisting of 100 minutes composed of 100 seconds.

GLOSSARY

Armée Révolutionnaire—
An armed force of Jacobins and
sans-culottes raised in late summer 1793 to propagate the revolution in the
countryside and to force farmers to release their stocks of grain for Paris and
other towns. Disbanded after the executions of the Hébertists.

Assignats—
Interest-bearing bonds based on the value of confiscated
church property that after April 1790 became paper money. They rapidly lost
value and by 1795 were almost worthless.

Bourgeoisie—
Term pertaining to the urban upper middle class of the
Third Estate; professionals such as lawyers, doctors, bankers, brokers,
manufacturers, and office holders in the royal bureaucracy. Other members of
the bourgeoisie lived on investments from property or other holdings.