Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution From the Rights of Man to Robespierre (138 page)

Tallien, Jean Lambert
(1767–1820), corrupt Montagnard leader, directed the Terror at Bordeaux until March 1794 when, being less ruthless than other representatives-on-mission, was denounced for modérantisme. A leader of the coup of Thermidor and subsequent Thermidorian reaction, systematically betrayed first the Jacobins, then the Republic, then Napoleon, then Louis XVIII, dying in disgrace, sickness, and misery.

Toussaint-Louverture, François Dominique
(1743–1803), black slave born on Saint-Domingue who obtained his freedom and some education before the Revolution. A military leader of the black rising on Haiti from September 1791, allied first with royalist Spain but then, from 1793, with Sonthonax and the French Revolution. Helping to end slavery in Haiti, succeeded in 1796–97 in driving back the British and Spanish royalist invasions. By 1799, was virtual master of Haiti and subsequently introduced a constitution with himself as governor-general for life. In 1802, Napoleon sent an army to reconquer Haiti and reintroduce slavery (initially successful), capturing Toussaint who died a prisoner in France, in 1803.

Treilhard, Jean-Baptiste
(1742–1810), lawyer elected to the Estates-General of 1789, played a leading part in the National Assembly as head of the committee
for ecclesiastical affairs, in confiscating the Church’s property and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Uninvolved in the Terror, was prominent in the Thermidorian reaction as a firm republican, replacing François de Neufchâteau among the five directors in May 1798. After Brumaire, abandoned republicanism for Napoleon.

Vadier, Marc Guillaume
(1736–1828), corrupt Montagnard leader, son of an ecclesiastical tithe collector, voted onto the Committee of General Security by the Convention in September 1793. Instrumental in Danton’s downfall and the coup of Thermidor. Evaded deportation to Cayenne for promoting the Terror, in 1795, by managing to hide. Joined Babeuf’s Conspiracy of Equals.

Varlet, Jean
(1764–1837), postal employee who became a prominent Enragé leader. Detested by Marat and Robespierre, was popular among the sansculottes of the faubourgs, haranguing crowds in the streets from his stand. Among the main crowd organizers of the coups d’état of 31 May and 2 June. Publicly criticized Robespierre, defended the rights of the section assemblies to gather and petition, and urged the mandating of deputies by their electors. Briefly imprisoned under the Terror, was held for much longer by the Thermidorians (from September 1794 to October 1795). Avoided Babeuf’s conspiracy; after Brumaire, became a staunch Bonapartiste.

Vatar, René
(1773–1842), Breton printer, journalist, and owner of the
Journal des Hommes Libres de tous les pays, ou le Républicain
(1796–97), a democrat and prominent opponent of the Directory associated with the Babeuf conspiracy. Acquitted in 1797, was later banished to Cayenne for opposing Napoleon’s dictatorship, but escaped and stayed some years in the United States.

Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien
(1753–1793), prominent in the legislature from October 1791 as a republican orator, delivered powerful radical speeches denouncing émigré aristocrats and refractory priests. Allied to Brissot, among the leaders of the 20 June and 10 August 1792 risings and main advocates of political rights for free blacks and mulattoes. Refused to flee from Paris after the coup of 2 June. Guillotined with Brissot on 31 October 1793.

Villette, Charles, marquis de
(1736–1793), protégé of Voltaire, leading promoter of Voltaire’s reputation during the Revolution, and renowned antagonist of priests and parlementaires. Advocated admitting women, married and unmarried, to the primary assemblies and was publicly ridiculed for championing what today would be called gay rights, as well as those of the illegitimate. Vehement opponent of the Montagne in Paris, died before the Terror; his famously beautiful wife remained imprisoned throughout the Terror and Thermidorian reaction.

Vincent, François-Nicolas
(1767–1794), son of a Paris jailer, a lawyer’s clerk before the Revolution, among the Cordeliers’ leading orators and a principal ally of Hébert, Momoro, and Ronsin. Appointed general secretary of the war ministry, turned the ministry into a bastion of Hébertisme during 1792–93. A vigorous advocate of de-Christianization. Guillotined with Hébert on 24 March 1794.

Volney, Constantin François de Chasseboeuf, comte de
(1757–1820), atheist, materialist and philosophe, a leader of the antiaristocratic agitation in Brittany in 1788–89, and the antiaristocratic offensive in the Estates-General in 1789. His
Les Ruines
(1791) figured among the chief Radical Enlightenment philosophical
works written during and about the Revolution. Director-general of commerce and agriculture in Corsica in 1792–93, was imprisoned under the Terror. Among the leading Idéologues during the late 1790s.

Wedekind, Georg Christian
(1761–1831), court physician of the Elector of Mainz, leading German republican and revolutionary journalist, a founder of the Mainz Jacobins and of the 1792–93 Rhenish Republic. Prominently contributed to the propagation of revolutionary values, among the first outspoken advocates of democracy and general emancipation in Germany.

Notes

PROLOGUE

1
.  Roe,
Wordsworth and Coleridge
, 81–82; Erdman,
Commerce des Lumières
, 305.

2
.  Buel,
Joel Barlow
, 177–81.

3
.  The account of the toasts in Girey-Dupré,
Patriote français
1199 (21 Nov. 1792), 588, and Alger, “British Colony,” 673, 678, is incomplete; for a fuller account, see
Journal de Perlet
2, no. 61 (21 Nov. 1792), 485–87.

4
.  Grenby,
Anti-Jacobin Novel
, 30–32; Bindman,
Shadow of the Guillotine
, 173; Erdman,
Commerce des Lumières
, 230, 305.

5
.  
Journal de Perlet
2, no. 61 (21 Nov. 1792), 486–87.

6
.  Ibid.

7
.  Volney,
Œuvres complètes,
1:267–75; Israel,
Democratic Enlightenment
, 30, 749–50.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1
.  Campbell, introduction to
Origins of the French Revolution
, 9.

2
.  Stone,
Genesis of the French Revolution
, 86–88, 93–95; Colin Jones,
Great Nation
, 324–33.

3
.  Spang, “Paradigms and Paranoia,” 122.

4
.  Goldstone, “Social Origins,” 70–72.

5
.  Kaiser and Van Kley,
From Deficit to Deluge
, 5.

6
.  P. Jones,
Peasantry
, 1–2, 15–16, 31, 33, 40–41; C. Jones,
Great Nation
, 404–5.

7
.  Doyle,
Oxford History
, 5–6.

8
.  Ibid., 18–28; Goldstone, “Social Origins,” 73–76; Doyle,
Officers, Nobles
, 101–3.

9
.  Campbell, introduction to
Origins of the French Revolution
, 18; Goldstone, “Social Origins,” 84.

10
.  Doyle,
Origins of the French Revolution
, 133–34.

11
.  Ibid.; Goldstone, “Social Origins,” 90–91.

12
.  Hunt,
Politics, Culture
, 178; Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, 7; Desan, “What’s after Political Culture,” 164.

13
.  Goldstone, “Social Origins,” 93.

14
.  Desmoulins,
France Libre
, 10.

15
.  Cobb,
The French
, 33; Van Kley, “From the Lessons,” 76; Kaiser, “From Fiscal Crisis,” 140, 162–64; Hunt, “Global Financial Origins,” 32–33, 42–43.

16
.  Kaiser and Van Kley,
From Deficit to Deluge
, 5.

17
.  Applewhite,
Political Alignment
, 4–5; C. Jones,
Great Nation
, 377.

18
.  Fajn, “Attitude,” 232.

19
.  Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, 6–7; Spang, “Paradigms and Paranoia,” 120–21.

20
.  Heuer, “Family Bonds,” 53–54, 61, 68.

21
.  Swenson,
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, 16.

22
.  Necker,
Révolution française
, 1:14; Linton,
Politics of Virtue
, 199–200.

23
.  E. Badinter and R. Badinter,
Condorcet, 1743–1794
, 258–62.

24
.  Bailly,
Mémoires de Bailly
, 1:51–53; Roland,
Memoirs
, 250; Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, 50.

25
.  Roederer,
Spirit of the Revolution
, 5.

26
.  Garat,
Mémoires historiques
, 2:230, 2:315.

27
.  Desmoulins,
France libre
, 10.

28
.  Brissot,
Examen
, 127.

29
.  Desmoulins,
France libre
, 11; Lachappelle,
Considérations philosophiques
, 109.

30
.  Ginguené,
Lettres
, 64–65.

31
.  Ravitch, “Abbé Fauchet,” 254; Swenson,
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, 9.

32
.  Feller,
Journal historique et littéraire
(1792), 22–23.

33
.  Portalis,
De l’usage
, 15:119–21, 15:124–25, 15:130–31, 15:361; Barnave,
Power, Property
, 123-4.

34
.  Ibid., 226–27; Mallet du Pan,
Considérations
, 6–7.

35
.  Ibid., 277.

36
.  La Harpe,
Philosophie du dix-huitième siècle
, 1:3 and 2:192–95, 2:268; Strugnell,
Diderot’s Politics
, 207, 228.

37
.  Brissot,
Le Patriote français
, 145 (31 Dec. 1789), 4; Rasmussen, “Burning Laws,” 90–91.

38
.  Roederer,
De la philosophie moderne, et de la part qu’elle a eue à la Révolution française
. Paris, 1799, 24; [Prudhomme],
Les Révolutions de Paris
, 1:35.

39
.  Ibid.; Mounier,
De l’influence
, 125.

40
.  La Harpe,
Philosophie du dix-huitième siècle
, 1:107–8; La Harpe,
Réfutation du livre
, 156.

41
.  La Harpe,
Réfutation du livre
, 158.

42
.  La Harpe,
Philosophie du dix-huitième siècle
, 1:126.

43
.  Swenson,
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, 172.

44
.  Mirabeau,
Courrier
20 (14/27 July 1789), 20.

45
.  Ibid., 28 (17/18 Aug. 1789), 1–2; Brissot,
Le Patriote français
1 (28 July 1789), 382.

46
.  Brissot,
De la vérité
, 109–12, 178, 185, 196–97, 212, 216–17.

47
.  Ibid., 253, 257–58; Mercier,
De J. J. Roussseau considéré
, 1:60–61 and 2:12, 2:32–34, 2:173; Furet, “Rousseau,” 173–75; Swenson,
On Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, 173, 175, 180, 191–92; Villaverde, “Spinoza, Rousseau,” 96, 100; Israel,
Democratic Enlightenment
, 645–47.

48
.  Cobb,
The French
, 178–79.

49
.  Culoma,
Religion civile
, 189–93.

50
.  Desmoulins,
France libre
, 23–25, 31–41.

51
.  Ibid., 43–46.

52
.  Ibid., 13, 16, 20; Volney,
Œuvres complètes,
1:255, 1:273–74.

53
.  Israel,
Democratic Enlightenment
, 633–47.

54
.  Thouret,
Vérités philosophiques
, 16–17; Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, 112.