The Days of the French Revolution (37 page)

loi agraire:
a policy favoured by some
Enragés
by which wealth would be more equally distributed by the enforced division of property.

Marais:
the group in the Convention, also known as the Plain, that occupied the middle ground between Girondins and Jacobins.

Marseillaise, La:
first called the
Chant de guerre pour l’armée du Rhin
when published at Strasbourg, became known by its present title when popularized by the Marseilles
fédéré’s
in Paris. It was banned for a time by Napoleon and after the Restoration.

maximum:
declaration of maximum prices. The
maximum des denrées
fixed the maximum for foodstuffs, the
maximum des salaries
for wages. The
maximum
of May 1793 imposed a limit on the price of grain only, that of September 1793 on most essential articles. The
maximum
was abolished in December 1794. Many shopkeepers had flagrantly dis
regarded it. ‘So much for fixed prices,’ butchers were heard to say as they flung bits of heads and hooves into the meat on the scales, ‘and if you don’t like it you can bloody well lump it’

menus plaisirs:
now pocket-money or pin-money, but in the context of Versailles those ‘small pleasures’ of the Court unconnected with hunting.

Messidor:
the tenth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 20 June to 18 July, from the Latin
messis
, harvest, and Greek
doron
, gift.

Montagnards:
Jacobin deputies, collectively known as the Mountain, who occupied the higher seats in the Convention. Originally led by Danton and Robespierre, they helped to form the government after the overthrow of the Girondins.

muscadins:
name given to
bourgeois
youth, particularly the
jeunesse dorée
, by the Jacobins.

Nivôse:
the fourth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 21 December to 19 January, from the Latin
nivosus
, snowy.

noblesse de robe:
magistrates of the
ancien régime
who had acquired the status of nobility either by buying or inheriting their office.

ouvriers:
urban citizens who worked with their hands, small manufacturers as well as workers.

péquin (pékiri):
epithet used by soldiers for a civilian.

Père Duchesne, Le:
Hébert’s notorious journal which appeared three times a week between 1790 and 1794 took its name from a stock character of the Théâtre de la Foire. He was depicted as a stove merchant in a vignette at the head of the front page with a pipe in his mouth and tobacco in his hand. Beneath the vignette were the words, ‘
Je suis le véritable père Duchesne, foutre
.’

philosophes:
the writers and philosophers of the middle of the eighteenth century who substituted for traditional beliefs an ideal of social well being based on a trust in the progress of humanity and science. Their ideas influenced many of the revolutionary leaders, as Robespierre was, for instance, influenced by Rousseau and his
Contrat social
.

physiocrates:
writers on economics who believed that the source of national wealth was agriculture and advocated free trade.

Plain:
See
Marais
.

Pluviôse:
the fifth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 20 January to 18 February, from the Latin,
pluvial
, rain.

Poissarde:
fishwife, but also applied to other market-women.

Prairial:
The ninth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 20 May to 19 June, from pré, meadow.

rentier:
person whose income comes from investments, man or woman of property.

répresentants en mission:
delegates sent out by the Convention to the army and the provinces to explain and enforce its policies.

sans-culottes:
literally meaning without breeches, a form of dress associated with aristocrats and the well-to-do; workers wore trousers. The term had political as well as economic significance. Santerre, the brewer, who was rich, liked to consider himself a
sans-culotte
; so did numerous shopkeepers and master craftsmen who read revolutionary newspapers and pamphlets and influenced their illiterate workmen. But
sans-culottes
were generally poor, if not so poor that they were more concerned with getting enough to eat than with politics. Pétion defined them, cierks as well as artisans, petty traders and craftsmen as well as labourers, as the ‘have-nots as distinct from the haves’. ‘A great many
sans-culottes
did
not
work with their hands,’ Professor Richard Cobb has written, ‘could
not
tile a roof, did
not
know how to make a pair of shoes, were
not
useful. The trouble was that there was a vast range of disagreement about what constituted a
sans-culotte
, and as in the Year II it was a good thing to be, if one could not get in under one count – social origin, economic status, category of employment – one could go round to the back and get in under quite another – moral worth, revolutionary enthusiasm, simplicity of dress or of manner, services rendered to the Revolution…past sufferings at the hands of various oppressors…The
sans-culotte
is not an individual with an independent life of his own. It could not be said of him “once a
sans-culotte
, always a
sans-culotte
”; for, apart from the difficulties of an exact definition of the status…he exists at all only as a unit within a collectivity, which itself exists only in virtue of certain specific, unusual, and temporary institutions: once the sectionary institutions have been destroyed, or tamed, the
sans-culotte
too disappears; in his place, there is what there had been before – a shoemaker, a hatter, a tailor, a tanner, a wine merchant, a clerk, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker, an engraver, a miniaturist, a fan-maker, a fencing-master, a teacher. There is nothing left save perhaps the memory of militancy and a hankering after Brave Times, that appear all the braver when remembered under very hard ones. The
sans-culotte
then is not a social or economic being, he is a political accident.’

sans-culottides:
the five days of the Revolutionary Calendar left over after the year had been divided into twelve months of thirty days each. The Convention agreed that they would be feast days celebrating respectively Virtue, Intelligence, Labour, Opinion, Rewards. The sixth extra day in leap year was to be the
sans-culottide
on which Frenchmen were to come ‘from all parts of the Republic to celebrate liberty and equality, to cement by their embraces national fraternity, and to swear, in the name of all on the altar of the country, to live and die as brave
sans-culottes
’.

séance-royale:
a royal session of the Estates General.

sections:
Before the Revolution, Paris was divided into sixty districts. The Commune redivided it into forty-eight
sections
. Each
section
had its own particular flavour, its own revolutionary committee and armed force upon which it could rely in times of trouble.

septembriseurs:
those responsible for the prison massacres of September 1792, later, like
bouveur de sang
, a term of opprobrium.

taille:
basic tax of the French monarchy during the
ancien régime
which varied from province to province, being paid in the north on total income and in the south on income from landed property only (
taille réelle
). The privileged and influential managed to escape paying it so that in practice it was paid almost entirely by the poor, principally the peasants.

taxation populaire:
the enforced sale by bakers, grocers and other food merchants of goods at lower prices by mobs that invaded their premises.

Terreur, la:
method of revolutionary government by intimidation during which the powers of the state – economic, judicial and military – were used to direct the life of the nation and draconian punishments were inflicted on those who opposed it. Also applied to those periods from October to December 1793 and March to July 1794 when the Jacobins imposed such a government upon France.

Thermidor:
the eleventh month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 19 July to 17 August, from the Greek
therme
, heat, plus
doron
, gift.

tricoteuse:
a woman who sat and knitted during the sessions of the Revolutionary Tribunal and around the guillotine.

Vainqueurs de la Bastille:
title bestowed upon those who were able to satisfy the authorities that they had taken an active part in the storming of the Bastille. As they enjoyed a pension and uniform as well as an honoured title, applications to join their number were numerous; and it
seems that many
Vainqueurs
may well have been present in spirit rather than in person.

Vendémiaire:
first month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 22 September to 21 October, from the Latin
vindemia
, vintage.

Ventôse:
the sixth month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 19 February to 20 March, from the Latin
ventosus
, windy.

vingtième:
originally intended as a five per cent tax on income, it had either been compounded for a lump sum by the privileged orders and by various corporate organizations of the bourgeoisie or had been largely evaded by them by the concealment of their real income. By the time of the Revolution it was mostly paid by the peasants.

Table of principal events