The year is 1793, and the King of France, Louis XVI has just been executed. Marie Antoinette, the King’s wife would soon follow, both of whom condemned to death on charges of treason. Treason against France – accused of conspiring against France in what would become known as the War of the First Coalition, when France declared war on Austria after rising tensions following its movement towards republicanism. But now, France has become a republic – the first of its kind in Europe.
The sovereign of France was suddenly and dramatically gone, and a scramble for power ensued. Many of us in western society are lucky enough to see the peaceful transferral of power as, essentially, a given. Arguably we take this for granted, but you don't have to look too far to see what can happen when the order of succession has been muddied. France had the dilemma of having no clear successor to King Louis.
The National Convention was the representative legislature of France when the King was killed, and after the office of the King was widely seen as the next highest authority in the land. This was particularly so after the predecessor to the Convention – the Constituent Assembly - brought about of the Constitution of 1791. In this constitution feudalism was abolished and limitations were applied to the King’s power and a system of constitutional monarchy was established. In 1793, there was no clear leader amongst the deputies who made up the legislature. The chamber was divided up until the most recent elections between royalists who sat to the right of the speaker, republicans who sat to the left, and independents who sat in between.1
But in the most recent election, the royalists were wiped out of the legislature, and the Convention became stacked with some moderate republicans or constitutionalists and more radical republicans. The republican influence was clearly seen in the vote on the king’s life, where not a single person voted against the execution order, although over 100 abstained. This vote was taken after a debate where a leading republican deputy stated that the vote on the King’s life would be taken publicly, so that traitors in the Assembly are known.
Jean-Paul Marat was a journalist in the early stages of the French Revolution, in his own self-published newspaper – L’Ami du Peuple (The People’s Friend), although before this, he enjoyed a very colourful life. Around 1770, Marat took the decision to move to Newcastle at 26 years old, where, according to his own accounts, he lived on black coffee for months, and produced his first political work – Chains of Slavery.2 He would go on to be a scientist, conducting studies on light, fire, and electricity. He dipped into the medical field, publishing an essay on gonorrhoea and gaining an MD from St. Andrews. By the time Louis was executed, Marat had become a staunch radical republican, whose journalism had taken on fiery criticism of right wing republicans, and he had become part of the Jacobin Club.3
The Jacobin Club began as a broad republican movement within France, and picked up steam following the Flight to Varennes, where the King was caught trying to flee, and marched back to Paris under the National Guard. Despite this, the Jacobins saw splinter groups within it – the more moderate Girondins and the radical Montagnards (The Mountain). The former dominated the party at the time of the execution of the King, but also sought to resist the momentum the revolution had on French society, believing that Europe simply would not accept radical republicanism, as seen with the declaration of Pillnitz, and later, the Brunswick Manifesto. They would come into conflict with the left-wing branch of the party – the Montagnards over these conflicting views. Marat aligned himself with the Montagnards, and criticised the Girondins in The People’s Friend.
He made his beliefs clear – that the death of Louis would have a generally positive effect on France and her people. And so he declared on that fateful night in the Convention, a public vote, so that traitors may be known. But when Marat said this, it was less of an attempt to convince people in the Convention to vote in favour of execution – he could be generally assured of that. In the context of the approaching power struggle, it was more of a threat. Here not only does Marat make it clear that he is one of the leading republican figures to his political rivals, he threatens those he saw as wolves in sheep’s clothing. It was a republican group within the Convention whom he believed to be counter-revolutionary – the Girondins.4
The Girondins were the moderate arm of the Jacobins, although they were becoming increasingly challenged by the rebellious, radical Montagnards. Marat was not the only figure with his crosshairs over the Girondins though; the entire Montagnard faction saw opportunity in the death of the King, and many were afraid of what would happen to the republic if it fell into Girondin hands. But the Montagnards were not about to move their political plans forwards without resistance. The Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot was one of the most formidable politicians in the French legislature.
Brissot himself had been aligning himself with the Girondins and became a leading figure as the revolution progressed. Although he began life as a law clerk, his works became increasingly critical of the monarchy. He was even imprisoned for his Theorie des lois criminelles in the Bastille, which advocated for penal reform. He founded an anti-slavery group, and became popular for his speeches in the Jacobin club. Brissot curried support in the Legislative Assembly after the Declaration of Pillnitz to take a war footing against Austria, and they eventually did declare war in April of 1792, which we will touch on later. In this the Girondins earned the reputation of being the ‘war party’.5 It should be stressed, though, that there were no parties in the Legislative Assembly. In fact the idea of political parties was frowned upon – seen as ‘pursuing the selfish interests of members rather than the common good of the nation’. They were seen as putting party above country. Rather, these two rival groups were loosely associated deputies, but largely remained loyal to their causes.6
The Girondins and Montagnards were, at their core, similar in their devotion to the republic, being anti-clerical, and wanting a more ‘enlightened and humane France’. But the Montagnards pushed for a powerful central government and tight control over economics. By contrast, Brissot spearheaded the Girondin support of a federal France, with a more liberal economic policy. Their power struggle would be all but decided in two main junctures – the decision for war, and the trial of the King.7
Brissot was instrumental in the Girondin position during the trial of the King. Despite voting for the King’s execution in the end, Brissot and the Girondins were still branded as royalist counter-revolutionaries by the Montagnards. He suggested various alternatives to executing Louis, hoping that his life would be spared. But this would cost Brissot and his faction dearly in the ongoing power struggle. The Montagnards secured the King’s death – and began to find their voice in the Convention.
One of the biggest coups the Montagnards achieved prior to the death of the King was the appointment of Georges Jacques Danton as Minister of Justice. Danton had a bourgeois background, but in 1792 was a champion of the sans-culottes (without-breeches, simply, the common people), as one of the most powerful orators in the Assembly. Danton was an imposing figure, and David Lawday tells us about his role in the early stages of the republic:
“His fate was to take charge of the revolution at a critical moment, when it stumbled and risked collapsing, so that France faced a return to the failed old order from which passionate reformers and an angry populace had torn it free.”8
Although originally operating in support of the Girondinist government, he eventually sat side by side with Marat in the legislature, yet he was more measured in his speech than Marat tended to be. Despite this, he was still a brilliant orator. After the Assembly voted to kill the king, Danton emphatically declared:
“The kings of Europe would dare challenge us? We throw them the head of a king!”
Danton came to see the Girondins as not able to fully recognise the threat that counter-revolutionaries posed to the republic. Next to Marat, Danton also sat with Maximilien Robespierre, another of the most important Montagnards in the Assembly. Robespierre had been part of the Montagnards since 1792. Another law student, like Danton and Brissot, but Robespierre actually became a judge. Yet he resigned a few years later, after the guilt he felt became too great for sentencing one man to death. After this incident he became an advocate for the poor – taking up the cases of poorer clients so they can have strong legal representation without ruining themselves financially.9
Robespierre was an admirer of the ancient Roman Republic, and fell in love with the great upholders of the republic in its death throes like Cicero and Cato the Younger. Robespierre made his position clear during the trial of King Louis:
“Louis must die so that the nation may live.”10
Robespierre would become one of the most controversial figures of the revolution. Much like the other prominent Montagnards, Robespierre had opposed war with Austria. Brissot had claimed that the war would help spread revolutionary ideals abroad, and rouse support for the revolution in France. Brissot even argued France had a great chance of victory because the oppressed masses of other European kingdoms would support the invading French armies. By contrast, France suffered in the early parts of the war, as Prussia and Austria brushed aside resistance as they invaded – seizing Longwy and Verdun in July of 1792. As the invading armies marched further and further into France, it became apparent that Brissot had seemingly made the wrong call. The republic was under dire threat when the Brunswick Manifesto was published, saying that Brunswick intended to restore Louis to his position prior to the revolution, as absolute monarch. This had the opposite effect though. It led to an almost immediate overthrow of the King, when Tuiliers Palace was stormed, and the King taken prisoner, before being deposed by the Convention in September. Almost on the same day as the deposition, the French Revolutionary Army met the Austrian army, and decisively defeated them at the Battle of Valmy, bringing the offensive to a halt. Brissot sighed in relief.
Alongside Brissot as leading Girondins in the Convention was Jean-Marie Roland, an economist who worked closely with Marie-Jeanne Phillipon, his wife. They worked in Lyon during the earlier stages of the revolution and pleaded with the central government for some relief, with the city’s debts and silk business suffering. He often wrote to Paris to negotiate concessions for the city he represented, and in this began regularly corresponding with a young and ambitious Brissot.
The Rolands took the decision to travel to Paris in February of 1791, and met deputies of the convention who would also make up the Girondins later on. The eventually settled on staying in Paris and Marie opened up a salon, which made the Roland name all the more famous in the French capital. Marie’s salon would become a common meeting place for Jacobins, after Jean joined the club. They would entertain various figures crucial to the revolution in Marie’s salon, who would go on to be their bitter political enemies, like Robespierre, or their closest allies, like Brissot. Around a year after arriving in Paris, Jean found himself appointed Minister of the Interior, when Brissot and the Girondins were at the height of their power, pushing the republic forwards.
Yet they suffered a setback in political power after the near-disastrous decision to declare war on Austria, despite the Austrians being likely to invade either way. The course of the war was enough of a setback for the Girondins, particularly following the Montagnards opposition to the war, and Roland, who had become the most prominent Girondin bar Brissot as the Minister of the Interior only helped them to losing the high ground in the convention further.
After Tuiliers Palace had been stormed, an armoire de fer (iron chest) had been found, which contained letters, documents, and general correspondence between King Louis and the leadership of Austria. This discovery damned the King almost certainly to death – and he was charged with high treason. Jean Roland was reinstated as Minister for the Interior after the storming of Tuiliers – he had been dismissed for reading a letter in the King’s presence (written by Marie) that was deemed disrespectful and inconsistent with the position of minister. It had criticised the King’s vetoes of decrees passed by the then Legislative Assembly. Nonetheless, after the storming of the palace and arrest of the King, Roland was in charge of the iron chest. He was to have it be investigated and eventually present the findings to the convention, as evidence for the King’s trial. But Jean, for whatever reason, did something that would cost him dearly. Whether it was a mistake or deliberately, you wonder whether he would have given it a second thought if he knew the consequences.
Roland didn’t seal the chest.
The chest containing crucial evidence proving the King’s treachery of the nation. Roland was quickly accused of tampering with the evidence, destroying some, or attempting to guide the charge of treason away from Louis.
The Montagnards saw this as just another Girondin plot to betray the revolution, but the Girondins believed the Montagnards’ desires to centralise a powerful government was simply a plot to seize power for themselves and betray the revolution. This clash became bitter and divisive in the Convention, where speeches were made from both sides condemning the other. Marat published anti-Girondin articles in The People’s Friend, and Robespierre spoke of Girondin treachery. In protest, Roland resigned as Minister of the Interior when the King was executed. After the debate over the war with Austria and Prussia, and the trial of the King, power had turned away from the Girondins. The Montagnards had the high ground.
No-one was more pleased than Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. Another key Montagnard figure, Saint-Just was a political firebrand – a radical revolutionary republican, with the tongue of a serpent. He became close friends with Robespierre after only arriving in Paris in 1786 at the age of 18. In his home town, Saint-Just had fallen in love with a young woman by the name of Therese Gelle. Tragically for Saint-Just – Therese married the son of a prominent local official while he was out of town, and tradition has it that he was heartbroken. Not two weeks later he set off for the capital, but was stopped by police after his mother reported him. In 1789 he ventured into poetry – writing Organt, poem in twenty cantos, a fantasy medieval epic, it was somewhat juvenile and politically extreme. Satirical, pornographic and attacking the clergy, nobility and monarchy, Saint-Just made his political position clear. It was banned.11
His rise came after a shakeup in his home town’s leadership. It had long been led by the Gelle family (the same Gelle that Therese had come from) but this was challenged when the revolution began in 1789. In the elections of 1790, many of Saint-Just’s friends who had been challenging the Gelle were elected to prominent political positions in the town, and Saint-Just himself joined the National Guard.12
But one thing Saint-Just had above all else was flair. He had a skill for showmanship in the town council – he set a counter-revolutionary leaflet on fire and held his hand in the flame – declaring his love for France and the republic. Saint-Just finally reached the minimum age to be a deputy in the French legislature just in time for the election following the attack on Tuiliers Palace. The arrest of the King saw most of his political rivals resign and retire, and he was elected to the Convention in 1792.13
At the convention he was quiet at first. He didn’t make any speeches or make any declarations. He joined the Jacobins but was part of the Plain (deputies aligned with neither the Girondins nor the Montagnards). Saint-Just was patient, waiting for the right time to step forward and make his position clear. Finally, on the 13th of November 1792, Saint-Just stood up in the Convention, and delivered his first speech:
“As for me, I see no middle ground: this man must reign or die! He oppressed a free nation; he declared himself its enemy; he abused the laws: he must die to assure the repose of the people, since it was in his mind to crush the people to assure his own.”14
His speech was met with applause throughout. Robespierre was impressed with the youngest member of the National Convention and spoke later with a similar message. In this Saint-Just almost instantly became one of the most prominent figures of the Jacobin Club, as his and Robespierre’s views became the official policy of the Jacobins. In his conclusion he delivered one of the most telling sentences of the revolution.
“No one can reign innocently.”15
Saint-Just was a politician who could utilise simple action to devastating effect, as would become evident over the next phase of the revolution, which would simply become known as The Terror. But after the king died, on the 21st of January 1793, it remained unclear who would lead France into this new age. Brissot and the Girondins, or those simply known as The Mountain – the Montagnards? The stage was set for the two factions to clash, but the opening move would come from someone who wasn’t a politician. In fact, he wasn’t even in France.
A second part will be posted on Friday.
1 Access to History: France in Revolution
2 Les Chaines de l’Esclavage, 1793 (ed. Goetz et de Cock) p4167
3 de Cock, J. & Goetz, C., Œuvres de Jean-Paul Marat, 10 volumes, Éditions Pôle Nord, Brussels, 1995
4 Access to History: France in Revolution
5 Encyclopaedia Britannica
6 Access to History, France in Revolution
7 Ibid
8 David Lawday, Danton
9 Ruth Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution
10 Maximilien de Robespierre, Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre, 1958
11 R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled, 1969
12 Norman Hampson, Saint-Just, 1991, P. 18
13 Ibid, P.26
14 Eugene Newton Curtis, Saint-Just, colleague of Robespierre, P. 38
15 Ruth Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, P.221
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