The Days of the French Revolution (36 page)

R
IVAROL
. Emigrated in 1792 and lived at first in London, then in Hamburg and Berlin where he died in 1801.

R
OCHAMBEAU
. Arrested during the Terror but managed to escape execution. Pensioned by Bonaparte, he died at Thoré in 1807.

R
OEDERER
. Went into hiding after 10 August 1792. He appeared again after
Thermidor
and was appointed to a chair in political economy. Created a senator by Napoleon, he became Joseph Bonaparte’s Minister of Finance at Naples and a peer of France during the Hundred Days. He was deprived of his offices on the Restoration, but his title of peer of France was restored in 1832. He died three years later.

R
OLAND
. Went into hiding at Rouen but, on learning of his wife’s execution, he walked out into the countryside, pinned a paper to his coat declaring that since her murder he could ‘no longer remain in a world stained with enemies’, and stabbed himself to death with a swordstick.

R
OSSIGNOL
. Achieved high rank in the war against the Vendéens. Involved in the Babeuf conspiracy, he was tried and acquitted but exiled in 1800 to the Seychelles where he died two years later.

R
OUGET DE
L
ISLE
. Although he wrote a few songs other than the
Marseillaise
, for which he composed the words and perhaps the music – though this has been disputed – none was to achieve much success. A less than ardent republican he was cashiered and imprisoned for a time. He died at Choisy-le-Roi in 1836, and his ashes were transported to the Panthéon.

R
OUX
. Condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 15 January 1794, he stabbed himself with a knife and was carried away to Bicêtre where he died.

S
ANSON
, Charles. Remained the public executioner of Paris until 1795 when he handed over to his son, Henri, who died in 1840.

S
ANTERRE
. Relieved of his command of the Paris National Guard in 1793, he was sent to command a force in the Vendée. Blamed for the failure of this expedition and accused of having written a prejudiced report upon it, he was sent to prison where he remained until
Thermidor
. He then resigned his command and returned to his business. The brew
ery, however, was not the prosperous concern it had been and he died in poverty in 1809.

S
ÈZE
. Retired to a house he owned in the hamlet of Brevannes in the spring of 1793. Created a count by Louis XVIII, he lived on until 1828.

S
IEYÈS
. Lived in retirement during the Empire but prudently left France at the time of the Restoration. He returned after the 1830 revolution and died in Paris six years later.

T
ALLEYRAND
. ‘Treason,’ said Talleyrand ‘is merely a matter of dates.’ Foreign Minister under the Directory and Napoleon, he also served Louis XVIII in that office. After representing France at the Congress of Vienna he became King Louis Philippe’s ambassador to the Court of St James’s. He died in Paris in 1838.

T
ALLIEN
. He was elected to the Council of Five Hundred, but, distrusted by the moderates as a former terrorist and by the Left as a reactionary, he made little mark. He sailed to Egypt with Bonaparte in 1798 and edited the official journal, the
Décade Egyptienne
. He then became consul at Alicante. Having contracted yellow fever and lost the sight of an eye he returned to Paris where, having failed to obtain a pension, he died in poverty in 1820. He had married the fascinating Comtesse de Fontenay in 1794 but obtained a divorce from her in 1802. She married the Comte de Caraman, later Prince de Chimay, in 1805.

T
ARGET
. Having disappeared from view during the Terror, he emerged to become a member of the Institute and of the Court of Cassation. He died in 1807.

T
HURIOT
. After 18
Brumaire
became
juge au tribunal criminel
of the
département
of the Seine. Replaced at the first Restoration, he took up his functions again during the Hundred Days. Banished as a regicide in 1816, he obtained permission to practice law in Liège where he died in 1829.

T
OURZEL
. When the royal family were imprisoned at the Conciergérie she asked to be taken there with them. This request and a subsequent one to share Madame Royale’s imprisonment were both refused. She was imprisoned for five months but survived the Terror and died at her château at Abondant in 1832 at the age of eighty-two.

T
RONCHET
. A deputy of the Council of the Ancients during the Directory and president of the Court of Cassation during the Consulate. He died in March 1806.

V
ADIER
. Condemned to deportation under the Directory, he escaped and remained in hiding in Paris until May 1796. Tried with the Babeuf conspirators, he was acquitted but kept in prison for four years at Cherbourg. Released after 18
Brumaire
, he went to live in Toulouse where he was kept under police surveillance. Exiled as a regicide in 1816, he died at Brussels in 1828.

V
ILATE
. Executed 7 May 1795.

Glossary

aides:
excises on various goods such as wines, playing cards and soap.

ami du peuple, L’:
founded by Marat in September 1789 and, like
Le Père Duchesne
, circulated widely among the people. Often suppressed, it changed its name to
Publiciste de la République française
in March 1793. The last issue appeared the day after Marat’s murder.

armée révolutionnaire:
armed force of Jacobins and
sans-culottes
raised in several places in the late summer of 1793. Its principal purpose was to force farmers to release their stocks for Paris and other towns. It was disbanded after the execution of the Hébertists.

Assignats:
interest-bearing bonds which – with a face value of 1,000
livres
each – were intended to be used in payment for
biens nationaux
. Further issues were made from time to time to ensure a regular flow of money, and in this way France was given a new paper currency.
Assignats
stopped bearing interest in May 1791; and, by the time of the Directory, 100
livres
in
assignats
were worth no more than fifteen
sous
.

banalités:
the exclusive rights of a
seigneur
to maintain a mill, an oven or a winepress, often exacted by a
fermier
. They were renounced on the famous night of 4 August 1789 and declared subject to redemption.

barrières:
customs posts surrounding Paris.

biens nationaux:
‘national lands’, the former properties of the Church.

bourgeoisie:
generally used to define the fairly well-to-do urban middle class, the families of both professional and businessmen.

Brissotins:
the name by which the Girondins were at first more usually known.

Brumaire:
the second month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 22 October to 20 November, from
brume
, mist.

cahiers de doléances:
lists of grievances drawn up by each of the three orders before the meeting of the Estates General in 1789. The clergy and nobility drew up their lists in assemblies in the towns which were the centres of their electoral districts. The more numerous Third Estate usually met in parish churches where preliminary
cahiers
were prepared and written down by some respected lawyer, schoolmaster or
coq du village
. Delegates were then selected; and the preliminary
cahiers
were absorbed into general
cahiers
at electoral assemblies. Model
cahiers
were circulated to suggest lists of grievances and how to frame them.

ça ira!:
Revolutionary song sung to the tune of a country dance by Bécourt,
Le carillon national
. First heard in Paris during the preparations for the
Fête de la Fédération
of 14 July 1790. The refrain, which was said to have been written by a street-singer named Ladre, originally ran:

The words were altered during the Terror to:

Bonaparte prohibited the song when he became First Consul.

capitation:
a kind of poll-tax levied in rough correspondence to income. Established in 1701, it was originally intended to be levied on all Frenchmen who were divided into twenty-two classes, the Dauphin, at at the top of the first class, being assessed at 2,000
livres
, soldiers and day-labourers, at the bottom of the last class, at only one
livre
. The clergy bought themselves out in 1710 for 24,000,000
livres
. The nobility had also become exempt by the time of the Revolution when the
capitation
, levied only on commoners, had become a supplement of the
taille
.

carmagnole:
originally, perhaps, a short jacket with metal buttons intro
duced into France by workers from Carmagnola in Piedmont. It became popular in Marseilles and was brought to Paris by the Marseillais
fédérés
. Worn with black woollen trousers, red or tricolour waistcoats and red caps it was taken up by the Jacobins. It was also the name of a dance and of a popular Revolutionary song – the words of which were constantly being altered – that accompanied it. Like the
Ça ira
, it was banned by Bonaparte when he became First Consul.

certificats de civisme:
documents issued during the Terror as proof of political orthodoxy by the vigilance committees of the sections. Passports could not be obtained without them.

Chouans:
royalist insurgents who took their name from four brothers named Cottereau, known more often as Chouan, a corruption of
chat-huant
, screech-owl, because they imitated that bird’s cry in order to recognize each other in the woods at night. Three of the four brothers were killed in battle.
Chouans
were active in La Vendée, Brittany and Normandy.

comités de surveillance:
watch-committees formed in each commune in March 1793 to assist the police, keep an eye on officialdom and supervise public security and order. They were usually controlled by extreme Jacobins and often took the place of local government. They later became known as
comités revolutionnaires
and after Thermidor as
comités d’arrondisements
.

Commune:
the revolutionary local government authority of Paris. It was formed in July 1789 and disbanded after
Thermidor
. The official Commune was displaced by an Insurrectionary Commune on 9 August 1792, the day before the attack on the Tuileries.

Cordeliers:
the Parisian district that today includes the Odéon and the Hôtel de la Monnaie. It was inhabited by many actors and playwrights (Fabre d’Églantine and Collot d’Herbois both lived here) and by many booksellers, publishers, printers and journalists, Marat and Camille Desmoulins among them. Danton also lived here and became a powerful figure in the area. So did Fréron, Billaud-Varenne, Chaumette, Momoro and Loustalot.

Cordeliers’ Club (Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen):
Formed when the Commune redivided Paris and the Cordeliers’ District was absorbed into the
section
Théâtre François. It took as its model the Jacobin Club and styled itself the ‘elixir of Jacobinism’. Its emblem was an open eye, representative of its aim to keep a close watch on the government. Its members met first in the church of the monastery of the Cordeliers (Franciscan Observantists), then in a hall
in the Rue Dauphine. After 10 August 1792 the more moderate members such as Danton and Desmoulins stopped attending, and the
Enragés
began to dominate it.

corvées royales:
direct taxes paid in service rather than money. They consisted of
corvées royales
, by which peasants were called upon to lend carts for the transportation of troops and military supplies, and
corvées des routes
, by which peasants who lived within ten miles of main roads were required to supply not only carts but labour and animals to keep these roads in repair.

décade:
the ten-day week of the Revolutionary Calendar introduced in October 1793.

décadi:
the tenth day of a
decade
.

département:
territorial and administrative sub-division of France. By a decree of 15 January 1790, the Assembly created eighty-three of them. They were named after their geographical features.

droits de colombier:
feudal rights which enabled the seigneur’s pigeons to be fed at the peasants’ expense.

Encyclopédie:
one of the great masterpieces of the eighteenth century, a dictionary of the arts, sciences and trades. It was conceived when two publishers approached Denis Diderot for a translation of Ephraim Chamber’s
Cyclopaedia
of 1728. Diderot persuaded them to bring out a more ambitious work. Seventeen volumes of text and eleven of plates appeared between 1751 and 1772. Seven additional volumes were published 1776–80.

Enragés:
extremist revolutionaries, led by Jacques Roux and Jean Varlet, who became a powerful force in Paris in 1793. They were particularly antagonistic to those whom they suspected of hoarding or speculating.

faubourgs:
these former suburbs originally lay outside the walls of the old city but by the time of the Revolution they had all been enclosed within the city’s boundaries.

Fédéralisme:
a movement, supported by the Girondins, which sought to grant provincial areas the running of their own affairs.

fédérés:
the citizen soldiers who came to Paris from the provinces for the Festival of the Federation on 14 July 1792. Prominent among them were units from Brest and the men from Marseilles who popularized the
Marseillaise
.

fermier:
an agent contracted to collect dues.
Fermiers généraux
paid large sums for the right to collect various indirect taxes and made fortunes by exploiting them.

Feuillants:
constitutional monarchists who resigned from the Jacobin
Club in July 1791 in protest against moves by certain Jacobins to have the King deposed.

Floréal:
the eighth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 20 April to 19 May, from the Latin
florens
, flowery.

Frimaire:
the third month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 21 November to 20 December, from
frimas
, hoar-frost.

Fructidor:
the twelfth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 18 August to 16 September, from the Latin
fructus
, fruit, plus
doron
, Greek gift.

gabelle:
the government salt monopoly by which people were made to buy specific amounts of salt at prices far higher than they would have fetched on an open market. Several rich noblemen bought shares in the Tax Concession which managed the monopoly and collected customs duties.

Garde Nationale:
the citizens’ militia which was formed by the Paris districts in 1789. Originally a predominantly bourgeois institution, it gradually changed its character – as did so many other institutions and terminologies – as the Revolution progressed.

Gardes-françaises:
royal troops stationed in the capital when the Revolution began. Most of them proved sympathetic towards the
Vainqueurs de la Bastille
. ‘While the rabble hacked, tore up, threw down and burnt the barriers of the Chausée d’Antin and the railings, offices and registers of the customs officers,’ wrote an eye-witness of an attack on a
barrère
in July 1789, ‘the
Gardes-françaises
came up to stand between the fire-raisers and the spectators, leaving the former free to act.’

générale:
drum-beat;
battre la générale
, to beat to arms.

Germinal:
the seventh month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 21 March to 19 April, from the Latin
germen
, bud.

Indulgents:
those, mostly Dantonists, who advocated a policy of clemency during the height of the First Terror.

insoumis:
men who evaded conscription.

intendants:
local agents of the King during the
ancien régime
.

Jacobin Club:
founded at Versailles in 1789 and then known as the Breton Club as most of its members came from Brittany. On the removal of the Assembly to Paris it became known as the Jacobin Club because it met in the convent of the Jacobin friars, Dominican friars who were called Jacobins since their first house in Paris was in the Rue
Saint-Jacques. In 1791 the Club was named
Société des amis de la constitution, séante aux Jacobins
and, after the fall of the monarchy
Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l’égalité
. Fairly moderate at first, the Club became increasingly revolutionary. It was closed in November 1795.

jeunesse dorée:
gangs of young anti-Jacobins, armed with whips and weighted sticks, who were encouraged by Fréron to attack left-wing agitators and recalcitrant workers. They were mostly drawn from that class of youth to whom the
sans-culottes
referred as
muscadins
.

journée:
an important day, particularly one upon which some violent action of revolutionary significance occurred.

lanterne:
a lamp-post which served as a gibbet in the early part of the Revolution, such as that upon which Foullon was hanged in the Place de Grève. ‘
À la lanterne!
’ was consequently an earlier version of the threatening cry
‘À la guillotine!
’

lettre de cachet:
a royal decree, in the form of a sealed letter, by which the King could have a person imprisoned without explanation or trial.

levée en masse:
the mobilization of the country’s total human and material resources. It was approved reluctantly by the Convention on 23 August 1793.

lit de justice:
a special session of the Paris
parlement
in which the King could force its members to register his decree.

livre:
unit of weight and monetary value. 4
liards
= 1
denier
, 12
deniers
= 1
sou
, 20
sous
= 1
livre
, 3
livres
= 1
ecu
, 8
ecus
= 1
louis
. The journalist, Linguet (1736–1794) said that a man needed 300
livres
a year to live in reasonable comfort.