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French Revolution Assignment

The National Convention was the governing body of France from 1792-1795 during the French Revolution. It was dominated by two main factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins (also called Montagnards). The Girondins favored a bourgeois republic while the Jacobins supported more power for the poorer classes. Conflict between these factions led to the purge of the Girondins from the Convention in 1793. The Montagnards then established a Committee of Public Safety to deal with the war, food shortages, and uprisings, instituting a Reign of Terror. After military victories, Robespierre was overthrown in 1794, ending the Committee's dominance and the Convention's

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84 views7 pages

French Revolution Assignment

The National Convention was the governing body of France from 1792-1795 during the French Revolution. It was dominated by two main factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins (also called Montagnards). The Girondins favored a bourgeois republic while the Jacobins supported more power for the poorer classes. Conflict between these factions led to the purge of the Girondins from the Convention in 1793. The Montagnards then established a Committee of Public Safety to deal with the war, food shortages, and uprisings, instituting a Reign of Terror. After military victories, Robespierre was overthrown in 1794, ending the Committee's dominance and the Convention's

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Nadeem Khan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Session: 2020-

21

Department of
History

French
Revolution

Assignment III

Topic: The
National
Convention (
The Jacobins
and The
Girondins)
Name Nadeem Ahmad
Khan
Roll Number 18HSB001
Enrolment GL0019
Number
Subject French Revolution
Class BA hons 6th
Semester
Submitted to Ms Sana Aziz

The National Convention

The National Convention was a single-chamber assembly in France from


September 20, 1792, to October 26, 1795, during the French Revolution. It
succeeded the Legislative Assembly and founded the First Republic after
the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. The Legislative Assembly decreed the
provisional suspension of King Louis XVI and the convocation of a National
Convention which was to draw up a constitution. At the same time, it was
decided that deputies to that convention should be elected by all
Frenchmen ages 25 and older domiciled for a year and living by the product
of their labor. The National Convention was therefore the first French
assembly elected by universal male suffrage, without distinctions of class.

The election took place in September 1792. Owing to the abstention of


aristocrats and anti-republicans and the fear of victimization, the voter
turnout was low – 11.9% of the electorate. The universal male suffrage had
thus very little impact and the voters elected the same sort of men that the
active citizens had chosen in 1791. 75 members sat in the National
Constituent Assembly and 183 in the Legislative Assembly. The full number
of deputies was 749, not counting 33 from the French colonies, of whom
only some arrived in Paris.

According to its own ruling, the Convention elected its President, who was
eligible for re-election, every fortnight. For both legislative and
administrative purposes, the Convention used committees, with powers
regulated by successive laws.

Girondins and the Jacobins

Most historians divide the National Convention into two main factions: the
Girondins and the Mountain or the Montagnards (in this context, also
referred to as Jacobins). The Girondins represented the more moderate
elements of the Convention and protested the vast influence held in the
Convention by Parisians. The Montagnards, representing a considerably
larger portion of the deputies, were much more radical and held strong
connections to the sans-culottes of Paris. Traditionally, historians have
identified a centrist faction called the Plain, but many historians tend to
blur the line between the Plain and the Girondins.

The struggles between two opposing Revolutionary factions, the


Montagnards and the Girondins, dominated the first phase of the
Convention (September 1792 to May 1793). The Montagnards favoured
granting the poorer classes more political power, while the Girondins
favoured a bourgeois republic and wanted to reduce the power of Paris over
the course of the Revolution. Discredited by a series of defeats in the war
they promoted against the anti-Revolutionary European coalition, the
Girondins were purged from the Convention by the popular insurrection of
May 31 to June 2, 1793.

The Montagnards controlled the Convention during its second phase (June
1793 to July 1794). Because of the war and an internal rebellion, a
revolutionary government with dictatorial powers (exercised by the
Committee of Public Safety) was set up. As a result, the democratic
constitution approved by the Convention on June 24, 1793, was not put into
effect, and the Convention lost its legislative initiative; its role was reduced
to approving the Committee’s suggestions.

Within days, the Convention was overtaken by factional conflicts.


Girondins were convinced that their opponents aspired to a bloody
dictatorship, while the Montagnards believed that Girondins were ready for
any compromise with conservatives and royalists that would guarantee
their remaining in power. The bitter enmity soon paralyzed the Convention.
The political deadlock, which had repercussions all over France, eventually
drove both major factions to accept dangerous allies, royalists in the case of
Girondins and the sans-culottes in that of the Montagnards. In June 1792,
80,000 armed sans-culottes surrounded the Convention. After deputies
who attempted to leave were met with guns, they resigned themselves to
declare the arrest of 29 leading Girondins. Thus, the Girondins ceased to be
a political force.

Throughout the winter of 1792 and spring of 1793, Paris was plagued by
food riots and mass hunger. The new Convention, occupied mostly with
matters of war, did little to remedy the problem until April 1793 when they
created the Committee of Public Safety. Eventually headed by Maximilien
Robespierre, this committee was given the monumental task of dealing with
radical movements, food shortages, riots and revolts (most notably in the
Vendée and Brittany), and recent defeats of its armies. In response, the
Committee of Public Safety instated a policy of terror and perceived
enemies of the republic were persecuted at an ever-increasing rate. The
period of the Committee’s dominance during the Revolution is known today
as the Reign of Terror.

“La Marseillaise” is the national anthem of France. The song was written in
1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration
of war by France against Austria. The National Convention adopted it as the
Republic’s anthem in 1795. It acquired its nickname after being sung in
Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching on the capital.

Despite growing discontent with the National Convention as a ruling body,


in June the Convention drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was ratified
by popular vote in early August. However, the Committee of Public Safety
was seen as an “emergency” government and the rights guaranteed by the
1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the new constitution
were suspended under its control. The Committee carried out thousands of
executions against supposed enemies of the young Republic. Its laws and
policies took the revolution to unprecedented heights—they introduced the
revolutionary calendar in 1793, closed churches in and around Paris as a
part of a movement of dechristianization, tried and executed Marie
Antoinette, and instituted the Law of Suspects, among others. Members of
various revolutionary factions and groups were executed including the
Hébertists and the Dantonists.

Shortly after a decisive military victory over Austria at the Battle of Fleurus,
Robespierre was overthrown in July 1794 and the reign of the standing
Committee of Public Safety was ended.After the arrest and execution of
Robespierre, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were
reinstated (Thermidorian Reaction). A year later, the National Convention
adopted the Constitution of 1795. They reestablished freedom of worship,
began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated
elections for a new legislative body. On November 3, 1795, the Directory – a
bicameral parliament – was established and the National Convention
ceased to exist.

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