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
ÉMIGRÉ
Those people who chose to or were forced to live outside France between 1789 and 1814. The fall of
the Bastille prompted the first wave, led by the King’s brother, the Count of Artois. Over 150,000 nobles,
clergy, and commoners became émigrés during the revolutionary era. The King’s brothers established a
royalist center at Coblentz, just across the German border, and set up a military force commanded by
the Prince of Condé that existed until 1801 with British, Austrian, and Russian support. However, the
émigrés spread far and wide in Europe and the Americas. Upon Louis XVI’s execution, the Count of
Provence recognized Louis XVI’s son as Louis XVII with himself as regent. When Louis XVII died in
1795, Provence proclaimed himself King as Louis XVIII with financial support from other European
powers. The existence of the émigrés was a major cause of the war that began in the spring of 1792.
The property of the émigrés was seized and later sold. Under the Directory, a huge number of émigrés
returned to France. Bonaparte promulgated a partial amnesty in October 1800, and in April 1802 all but
a thousand émigrés were allowed to return. Later, under the Restoration, Louis XVIII paid compensation
of 1 billion francs to émigrés who lost property.

ABBÉ
Literally translated, the word means abbot and in fact, abbé can refer to this church official. However,
the title abbé was also given to those who completed the ecclesiastical curriculum in the lycée. For
example, for the famous revolutionary abbé Sieyès, the title was merely a distinction as he was
definitely not an abbot.

ASSEMBLY
OF
NOTABLES
An old regime advisory body that met twice (February–May 1787 and November–December 1788) for
the purpose of approving royal reforms. The King created it to get around the obstreperous parlements.
Composed of some of the highest-ranking nobles, clergy, and public officials, the first Assembly refused
to endorse many reforms and, with the backing of public opinion, forced the monarchy to call for the
Estates-General. This move precipitated the outbreak of the Revolution.

ASSIGNAT
Paper money based on the confiscation of church lands to liquidate the national debt. Originally not
legal tender, the assignats were supposed to carry interest, but far too many assignats were issued,
thereby undermining the currency, jump- starting inflation, and encouraging the hoarding of specie. Only
in May 1797 were the assignats withdrawn from circulation in the hopes of returning to metallic currency
and greater economic stability.

BAILLIAGE
Old regime law court for civil and criminal cases as well as the jurisdiction under its control. In most of
the south, the equivalent institution was called the sénéchaussée. These jurisdictions elected deputies
to the Estates-General.

BASTILLE
A medieval fortress-prison in eastern Paris. Frequently used for the subjects/victims of arbitrary royal
authority, it held only seven prisoners in 1789. Yet, the Bastille remained a potent symbol of royal power.
It was seized by the Paris crowd on 14 July 1789; this event marked the end of the absolute monarchy
and the beginning of a new era. The date of the fall of the Bastille is a French national holiday.

BOURBON
The Bourbon dynasty governed France from 1589 to 1793 and from 1814 to 1830, creating an absolute
monarchy that reached its zenith under Louis XIV and was overthrown during the reign of Louis XVI.
Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X all served as constitutional monarchs. It was Charles X’s attempt
to institute a more absolutist monarchy that led to the fall of the Bourbons and their replacement by the
House of Orléans.

BOURGEOIS/BOURGEOISIE
Term with many meanings that must be determined from context. Under the old regime, anyone who
lived in an urban area was a bourgeois or member of the bourgeoisie, but the term was usually applied
only to wealthier people who did no manual labor. Bourgeois were also those who lived from their
invested income or property, thus “living nobly” and constituting a distinct social category that had its
own representation in municipal politics. In addition, the bourgeoisie often enjoyed certain privileges that
were called the “rights of the city.” After the Revolution, the term “bourgeoisie” became associated with
the concept of a capitalist social class. In the nineteenth century, most notably in the work of Karl Marx
and other socialist writers, the French Revolution was described as a bourgeois revolution in which a
capitalist bourgeoisie overthrew the feudal aristocracy in order to remake society according to capitalist
interests and values, thereby paving the way for the Industrial Revolution. Thus, when many nineteenth
and twentieth century commentators write about the bourgeoisie, they mean something quite different
from what contemporaries meant in the eighteenth century. Careful attention to the proper definition in
use is essential.

CAHIER
DE
DOLÉANCES
List of grievances written by each order (estate) for every bailliage and sénéchaussée (as well as a few
other institutions) in France as part of the electoral process of the spring of 1789. The cahiers were
intended to inform and instruct the deputies of local views and authorize reform. Cahiers of the third
estate were written at the parish level, then consolidated at the bailliage/sénéchaussée level by order,
providing a superb source for those interested in public opinion in the spring of 1789. Nobles and clergy
began on the bailliage/sénéchaussée level.

CHAMP
DE
MARS
A military parade ground in southwestern Paris. Many large revolutionary festivals were held there, and
in July 1791 one such demonstration sponsored by the Cordeliers Club resulted in the death of several
republicans at the hands of the National Guard. This “massacre” pushed a further wedge between the
more conservative constitutional monarchists and democratic republicans and split many of the clubs
down the middle, but they emerged more united and more radical.

CHAMPART
A seigneurial tax levied on cultivated land and any other income-producing property. Paid with a fraction
of what the land produced, this tax has been likened to a tithe of the Roman Catholic Church.

COMMISSAIRE
Agent of the central government to local administrations. Each municipality, district, and department had
a locally elected agent who was to represent and report to the central state. Under the Directory (see
Council of Five Hundred and Directory), these agents were named by the central state rather than
locally.

COMMITTEE
OF
PUBLIC
SAFETY
This provisional group was created by the Legislative Assembly after the fall of the monarchy on 15
August 1792. Composed of government ministers, this council was given executive power. After the
start of the war in April 1792 and the initial series of reverses, a Committee of General Defense was
created on 1 January 1793, to coordinate military matters. In March 1793 this committee formalized the
older committee, the Committee of Public Safety, which was dominated by moderates and Girondins
named by the National Convention. From 10 July 1793 to 27 July 1794, the Committee of Public Safety
had a stable membership of twelve deputies and was delegated the authority to conduct the war and
govern France. Working together and sharing responsibility, the so-called Great Committee initiated a
number of radical measures to ensure France’s survival ranging from the institution of “Maximums” on
wages and prices to a systematic use of Terror to cow opponents. The most notable members of the
committee were Maximillien Robespierre, Georges Couthon, Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, and Lazare
Carnot, the “organizer of victory.” Ultimately, fears of the continuing Terror, and of Robespierre’s
personal power, led to a coup on 9 Thermidor (27 July), which broke the power of the Great Committee.
The institution lasted another seventeen months until November 1795, but its powers were restricted to
war and diplomacy.

COMMUNE
Most famously, that of Paris, but “commune” was the name given to every municipal government under
French control after 14 July. Although new municipal governments arose throughout France in the
summer of 1789, the law establishing the new municipalities was not passed until 14 December 1789.
Elected through the forty-eight sections (see section), the Paris Commune emerged as a center of
radical thought and action. In command of the National Guard of the city, the Commune came to be
dominated by the sans-culottes. The Commune precipitated most of the revolutionary journées (days),
most notably 10 August 1792, which overthrew the monarchy, and 31 May–2 June 1793, which led to
the expulsion of the Girondins from the National Convention. The Paris Commune was a major factor in
pushing the central government toward a policy of Terror. Brought under the control of the Committee of
Public Safety in December 1793, it throttled back the popular movement. After the Terror, the Paris
Commune was stripped of its political role and disappeared completely under Napoleon Bonaparte.

CONSTITUENT
ASSEMBLY
The National Assembly took this name on 9 July 1789, to reflect its self-appointed mission to write a
constitution for France. The Constituent faced numerous crises until it disbanded at the end of
September 1791. Not only did the King attempt to undermine the government, he even sought to flee
the country for which he was suspended and eventually reinstated. This body also wrote the Declaration
of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Constitution of 1791 and tried to face up to the fiscal crisis by
issuing new legal tender, the assignats. The results of these important efforts were quite mixed, but the
Constituent Assembly was the first real legislature in French history.

CONSUL
In the aftermath of the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November), the Constitution of the Year VIII (1799) gave
executive power to three “consuls” who also exercised almost all legislative authority. Provisionally, the
first consul was Napoléon Bonaparte; the second, Roger Ducos; and the third, Emannuel- Joseph
Sieyès. Later, Ducos and Sieyès were replaced by Jean-Jacques-Réné Cambacérès and CharlesFrançois Lebrun, who did much of the legislative work of government under the Consulate. The
Consulate was replaced by the Empire in 1804.

CONTROLLER
GENERAL
OF
FINANCES
This post had control over the royal budget, tax collection, and many other aspects of administration. In
the eighteenth century, the Controller- General of Finances was almost a prime minister. Under Louis
XVI, many reform efforts emanated from this office.

CORDELIER
CLUB
A Paris political society that had a more popular orientation than the Jacobins. Officially named the
Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and Citizen, it met in a former Franciscan monastery on the
rue des Cordeliers. Although expelled from the building, the club kept the nickname. The Cordeliers
section, led by Georges-Jacques Danton, Jean- Paul Marat, and Camille Desmoulins, spearheaded
democratic agitation in Paris in 1789–90. When the sections were created, the club soon dominated
them. Women played a prominent role in the club. In the summer of 1791, the Cordeliers again
championed democratization, this time of the new French constitution. Delegates met with a crowd on
17 July 1791, on the Champ de Mars, but the crowd was dispersed by the National Guard. Subsequent
repression focused on the club. Restored to prominence by the summer of 1792, the Cordeliers were at
the heart of the movement that overthrew the monarchy on 10 August, called for the election of the
National Convention and the widening of the suffrage to include all men. The Cordeliers also played an
important role in the expulsion of the Girondins from the National Convention in May–June 1793 as they
came under the influence of first the Enragés and then Jacques-Réné Hébert. In Ventôse, Year II
(March 1794), the club was purged and the Hébertistes sent to the guillotine. The club then submitted to
the Jacobins, and a few members continued to meet until the spring of 1795, but by this point the club
had little influence.

CORVÉE
Old regime unpaid labor service. The royal corvée was levied for the construction and upkeep of royal
roads and the seigneurial corvée was for local labor needs. The former was newer and heavier than the
latter, which almost never averaged more than four days a year. Both were primary targets of the
cahiers de doléance, written in the spring of 1789 as part of the election to the Estates-General, and
were abolished that summer.

COUNCIL
OF
ELDERS
The upper house of the legislature established by the Constitution of 1795. The Council of Five Hundred
was the lower house. Deputies were elected (indirectly) to three-year terms. There was a major shift in
the political views of the deputies selected in each election. Royalists did well in the Year V (1797), and
the Jacobins recovered in the Year VI (1798). Each time the executive, known as the Directory, moved
to arrest or exclude significant numbers of deputies. The councils staged their own coup in June 1799.
Dissatisfied, a group led by Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in turn planned their own coup, which took place
on 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 November 1799) that put Napoleon Bonaparte in power.

COUNCIL
OF
FIVE
HUNDRED
The lower house of the legislature established by the Constitution of 1795. The Council of Elders was
the upper house. Deputies were elected (indirectly) to three-year terms. There was a major shift in the
political views of the deputies selected in each election. Royalists did well in the Year V (1797), and the
Jacobins recovered in the Year VI (1798). Each time, the executive, known as the Directory, moved to
arrest or exclude significant numbers of deputies. The councils staged their own coup in June 1799.
Dissatisfied, a group led by Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, in turn planned their own coup, which took place
on 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 November 1799) that put Napoleon Bonaparte in power.

COUNT
OF
ARTOIS
Charles-Philippe, the youngest brother of Louis XVI who later reigned as Charles X (1824–30). A
prominent spendthrift and playboy, Artois helped undermine reform efforts in the years before 1789.
Artois was the first member of the royal family to emigrate to foreign lands. He sought to convince the
crowned heads of Europe to restore Louis XVI’s authority. Intransigent and hotheaded, Artois joined his
brother Provence at Coblentz and participated in various royalist conspiracies and military adventures.
Upon his brother’s assumption of power in 1814, Artois headed the ultraroyalist faction, and, when he
became king, his policies were so extreme that they led to the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty.

COUNT
OF
PROVENCE
Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, younger brother of Louis XVI, later ruled as Louis XVIII (1814–24). More liberal
than his brothers, Provence was no friend to reform before 1789. He left the country in June 1791,
establishing a royalist center at Coblentz. He fomented conspiracies in and outside of France against
the revolutionary government and slowly gathered a military force of émigrés. When Louis XVI was
executed, Provence declared the dauphin Louis-Charles King as Louis XVII, assuming the post of
regent. When the imprisoned Louis XVII died in 1795, Provence declared himself Louis XVIII.
Perpetually in exile, he moved from Italy to Poland to England to Germany. In January 1814, he
declared himself willing to accept some of the revolution’s changes, paving the way for the Charter of
1814 and the Restoration of the Bourbons.

CREOLE
A person born in a European colony of either European or African parentage. The term was used to
distinguish those born in the colonies from both aboriginal peoples and those who came directly from
Europe or Africa. The word was also used to refer to languages developed in the New World out of a
mixture of European and African roots.

DAUPHIN
Heir of the body to the King of France. Successively in this period: Louis-Auguste (1769–74), grandson
of Louis XV who became Louis XVI; and Louis-Charles (1785–95), declared King as Louis XVII in
January 1793.

DENIER
Unit of copper money during the old regime and equal to 1/240th of a livre. Twelve deniers made up a
sou and 20 sous made up a livre. Prior to the Revolution, journeymen outside of Paris might make
around 200 livres annually while provincial attorneys earned around 2,000 livres.

DIRECTORY
This five-member group functioned as the executive for the governmental system created by the
Constitution of 1795. As its most visible component, the Directory gave its name to the entire
government. It existed from October 1795 to November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoléon
Bonaparte with the assistance of one of the directors, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. The directors staged a
series of coups in Fructidor Year V (August-September 1797) and Floréal Year VI (April-May 1798) to
overturn electoral results that they did not like, and the legislature purged the directors in Prairial Year
VII. The Directory consolidated many of the gains of the first years of the Revolution and prosecuted the
war successfully with the help of its brilliant young general Napoléon Bonaparte, but proved incapable
of protecting the republic.

ESTATES-GENERAL
An old regime representative body that last met in 1614, which grouped together the three orders or
estates of the kingdom: clergy, nobility, and everybody else. This “Third Estate” made up 95 percent of
the population. Each order had one vote. The powers of the body were vague, but contemporaries
believed they had the right to deny new tax appropriations. When the monarchy’s fiscal problems left it
with almost no other choices, Louis XVI called for the convening of the Estates-General in May 1789.
He also asked that each order meet at the parish level and draw up cahiers [notebooks] that would
express their grievances. This request to consult public opinion and the protracted electoral process
were crucial to politicization. At the same time, as the parlements inveighed for the “forms of 1614,” the
Third Estate would always be outvoted by the two privileged orders that paid few taxes. Reformers
called for both the “doubling of the third,” meaning that this group would comprise half the assembly and
for “voting by head.” The King granted the former but not the latter, which deadlocked the EstatesGeneral in May and June until a group of deputies declared themselves the “National Assembly” on 17
June 1789, in the belief that this was where sovereignty truly lay.

FEUILLANT
A political club founded in the summer of 1791, officially known as the Society of the Friends of the
Constitution and sitting at the Feuillant (convent). After the Champ de Mars “massacre” of 17 July 1791,
those deputies who had been members of the Jacobins withdrew and formed their own club, the
Feuillants, which dominated political affairs in Paris that summer. Slowly the rump of the Jacobins
recovered the initiative by developing their popular appeal. By the spring of 1792, the club had dwindled
into insignificance.

FREE
BLACK
A non-white person who was free and not slave in legal status. The categories of free black and mulatto
overlapped but were not identical. Mulatto referred to racial background; free black referred to legal
status. Included among free blacks were all those with any African blood who were free. Thus free
mulattos would be counted among free blacks but slave mulattos would not. Some free blacks were not
mulattos but rather the offspring of two African parents who had gained their freedom.
 FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY CALENDAR
A method of dating set up by the Jacobin government in October 1793 to give France a time system
reflective of the new political realities. The Jacobins retrospectively set the first day of the first year as 22
September 1792, the day the French national government abolished the monarchy. Each year thus began in
September, and the calendar endured into the Napoleonic era before it was abandoned.Revolutionary
Calendar years were divided into 12 months of 30 days, followed by five or six additional days. The
additional days at the end of the year (sans culottides) were Virtue Day, Genius Day, Labor Day, Reason
Day, Rewards Day, and Revolution Day (the leap day). Leap years (with a sixth additional day) occurred on
years III, VII, and XI.Vendémiaire, the month of vintage, mid-September through mid- October
Brumaire, the month of fog, mid-October through mid- November
Frimaire, the month of frost, mid-November through mid- December
Nivôse, the month of snow, mid-December through mid-January
Pluviôse, the month of rain, mid-January through mid-February
Ventôse, the month of wind, mid-February through mid-March
Germinal, the month of budding, mid-March through mid-April
Floréal, the month of flowers, mid-April through mid-May
Prairial, the month of meadows, mid-May through mid-June
Messidor, the month of harvest, mid-June through mid-July
Thermidor, the month of heat, mid-July through mid-August
Fructidor, the month of fruit, mid-August through mid- September, Year I (1792), Year II (1793-94), Year III
(1794-95), Year IV (1795-96), Year V (1796-97), Year VI (1797-98), Year VII (1798- 99), Year VIII (17991800), Year IX (1800-01), Year X (1801-02), Year XI (1802-03), Year XII (1803-04), Year XIII (1804-05),
Year XIV (1805)
GIRONDIN
A political faction of the Legislative Assembly and National Convention. The Girondins’ name derived
from the fact that many prominent deputies in the faction came from the region around Bordeaux, which
was the department of the Gironde. However, the term was not commonly used by contemporaries,
who denoted this group by the various leaders, most of whom supported liberal economics and
representative democracy, not the direct democracy favored by the Paris sections and the Mountain
(see Montagnard and Mountain). Some have questioned the coherence of this group, but current
scholarship supports the notion of a loose collaboration. The Girondins championed war against Austria
in the fall of 1791. As France moved toward war in April 1792, the journalist-deputy Jacques-Pierre
Brissot, a prominent Girondin, became the most powerful figure in the Legislative Assembly, and his
faction dominated the ministries. After the declaration of the republic, the Girondins slowly fell out of
favor in Paris, particularly during the trial of the King in the late fall of 1792. They also lost control of the
Convention to the growing “Montagnard” faction. In the spring the Paris sections provoked a crisis in
which they forced the National Convention to expel twenty-nine Girondins between 31 May and 2 June
1793, and to destroy the movement politically. During the Terror many more were guillotined, and the
faction was suppressed. Many Girondins returned to the Convention after 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794)
and contributed to the vindictive divisions of the republicans that ultimately allowed Bonaparte to seize
power.

HABSBURG
The Habsburg dynasty was the royal family of Austria and its dependencies. The head of the family was also
the customary emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a grouping of several hundred principalities in central
Europe. Marie Antoinette married Louis-Auguste, the dauphin (heir) of France in 1770 and became Queen in
1775. Her brothers reigned as Emperor and fought a series of five wars against revolutionary and
Napoleonic France between 1792 and 1815.

INTENDANT
Chief local representative of the crown administering a généralité which was either a province or a part of a
province. Beginning in the 1640s, they oversaw all aspects of royal authority. There were thirty-four in 1789,
many of whom were active reformers. Their power was undermined in 1787, paving the way for the
provincial unrest and uprisings of 1789.

JACOBIN
CLUB
The most influential of the political clubs that emerged during the French Revolution. Originally known as the
Breton Club, which grouped “patriot” deputies, and renamed “Society of the Friends of the Constitution,” it
met at a former convent of the Jacobins on the rue Saint-Honoré that gave them their name. Affiliated clubs
sprung up all over France. Initially, the Jacobins had a mostly middle-class membership, but as the
Revolution radicalized, the membership reached further down the social scale to include many artisans and
shopkeepers. During the trial of the King, moderates who opposed violence were excluded from the Paris
club, which became a staunch supporter of the use of terror in defense of the revolutionary government.
Despite this embrace of very advanced notions, this association with the government came to distance the
club from the popular movement. Increasingly isolated from the sections and the sans-culottes, and even
from the National Convention, the Jacobin Club suffered from the fate that befell Robespierre, one of its
leading lights on 9 Thermidor (27 July). Public opinion blamed the Jacobins for the Terror, and the club was
suppressed on 22 Brumaire Year III (12 November 1794). The meeting place was even abolished and a
“White Terror” against former Jacobins emerged in many places. However, the spirit of the Jacobins and
Jacobinism survived. A Jacobin movement reemerged under the Directory in defense of the republic and did
well in the elections of the Year VI (1798), but this movement was a shadow of its former self and soon
faced renewed proscription, first under the Directory and then definitively under Bonaparte. Still today the
term “Jacobinism” has meaning as a political commitment to small-propertied ownership of farms and shops.

JANSENISM
A sect within Roman Catholicism named after Cornelius Jansenius, bishop of Ypres in the early seventeenth
century. Jansenius advocated predestination based on the ideas of Saint Augustine and strict adherence to
moral standards. During the reign of Louis XIV, Jansenism also came to include Gallican ideas, which
advocated independence from the primacy of decisions made in Rome. Jansenism challenged that primacy
and Roman control over the French church, as well as the strict authority of hierarchical subordination of
parish to higher clergy. Jansenists also came to support the constitutional ideas of the judges of the
parlements who tried to protect them from the “despotism” of the high clergy and ministers who wanted to
stamp out any resistance to the absolute authority of King and altar. Jansenism provided religious
justifications for criticism of the monarchy and was used by many who opposed the King or wanted to limit
his authority. Thus was undermined part of the consensus that helped maintain the stability of the old regime.

LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY
This body met from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792. The deputies were chosen via indirect election
and had to face continuing popular unrest and the fact that the executive—Louis XVI—could not be trusted.
Since the King appointed ministers and exercised a suspensive veto regularly, the government was often
deadlocked, swinging hazardously between dismissed ministers and vetoed initiatives, a fact that added an
important impetus to the club movement. The assembly and the King ultimately shared only a desire to go to
war with Austria and Prussia, although for different reasons. The assembly wanted to punish monarchs for
their support of counterrevolutionaries. Louis XVI was hoping for a war that would enhance his position,
either by destroying the Revolution or by showing his skill as commander in chief. War was declaredin
March 1792. The continuing obstructions of the King led to the insurrection of 10 August and the overthrow
of the monarchy. The Legislative Assembly then called for new elections and voted to disband, leaving a
rump of newly appointed ministers to run the war and the government.

LIVRE
The old regime French pound, roughly equivalent to the franc, divided into 20 sous. See denier.

MAÎTRE
DES
REQUÊTES
Magistrates holding a venal office responsible for dealing with correspondence and complaints addressed to
the King. The maîtres des requêtes were frequently used as recruiting grounds for higher office by the King
and his ministers.

MONTAGNARD
Name of a political faction during the Terror. See Mountain.

MOUNTAIN
Name of a political faction during the Terror. The Mountain, or Montagnards, competed during the Terror
against the Girondins, with both trying to attract the Plain. The Mountain was a group of deputies from Paris
to the National Convention who sat together on the high benches to the left of the chair’s podium. During the
fall of 1792 and particularly during the trial of the King, this group emerged as a faction allied with the
Commune of Paris and the popular movement that demanded radical measures, among them the death of
the King. The Montagnards fought the Girondins for power in Paris and in the Convention. In between the
two factions in the meeting hall of the Convention sat the uncommitted “Plain,” who comprised the majority
of deputies. During the trial of the King in which the Mountain led the fight to put the King to death, the
Montagnards slowly won influence from the Girondins, and over the course of the spring of 1793, they
became the dominant group in the Convention. The term has since been applied to anyone willing to use
political terror in the name of a revolutionary cause.

MULATTO
A person born of mixed race parentage, usually a white European father and a black African mother.
Mulattos could be either slave or free in status, and if free could themselves own slaves.

NATIONAL
ASSEMBLY
This body came into being on 17 June 1789, with the renaming of the Estates-General on the motion of the
abbé Sieyès. The renaming was effectively a claim that this new body was now sovereign. Initially, it
comprised the members of the Third Estate and a few liberal nobles and clergy. When Louis XVI rejected
the use of violence and ordered recalcitrant deputies to meet with the National Assembly on 27 June, the
National Assembly became legal without resorting to violence. However, just a fortnight later the people of
Paris had to rally to save it, ending with the 14 July assault on the Bastille. This body was to function as the
legislative branch of government until the end of September 1791 and charged itself with writing a
constitution. To reflect that mission, it called itself the National Constituent Assembly.

NATIONAL
CONVENTION
Elected in September 1792 to write a constitution that would not include the King, this body held power until
5 Brumaire Year IV (27 October 1795). Elected via universal manhood suffrage, this assembly functioned as
both the executive and legislative branches of government. It tried the King, executed him after a lengthy
and divisive trial, prosecuted a war with most of Europe, faced enormous fiscal problems and two internal
rebellions. In addition, a constitution written and submitted to the public in 1793 was suspended “until the
peace.” The depth of these crises led it to resort to a systematic use of Terror as a method of facing the
situation. The Convention also delegated much of its power to a twelve-member Committee of Public Safety
headed by Maximillien Robespierre for nearly a year in 1793–94, until after the coup of 9 Thermidor (27
July). It took more than a year after the end of the Reign of Terror for the Convention to submit once again to
the will of the voters, but it tried to limit continuing factionalism by promulgating a new constitution—that of
1795—and requiring that two-thirds of the deputies to the new legislature be current members of the
Convention. Despite concrete achievements, the Convention failed to dampen factional violence and place
the republic on secure footing.

NATIONAL
GUARD
This organization of citizen-soldiers was created in early July 1789 on the suggestion of the electors of the
city of Paris. They wanted to replace the traditional bourgeois militia with an organization that would allow
them to resist the massing of regular troops by the King. After 14 July, the Marquis de Lafayette was named
the organization’s commander. In July and August, cities and towns throughout France imitated Paris,
setting up their troops of the National Guard. The guard chose to “federate” and through an invitation of the
Paris Commune, representatives of the regular army and municipal National Guards met in Paris on 14 July
1790. This festival of the federation was one of the high points of the early years of the Revolution.

ORDER
Old regime France has frequently been described as a society of orders in which individuals and families
had certain status in a hierarchy of social categories. Although used interchangeably here and elsewhere
with the three estates— clergy, noble, and Third—orders also referred to divisions within the estates. Further,
social strata often transcended all these categories, in part because of blurred boundaries between them,
making a strict classification by “order” or “estate” difficult. By insisting on electing deputies by estates in the
calling of the Estates-General, the government highlighted the tensions between the legal definitions and the
actual situation.

PÈRE DÛCHESNE
A newspaper published most notably by Jacques- René Hébert from 1790 to March 1794, when he was
executed. The paper was named after Père Dûchesne, a fictional character who claimed to speak for the sansculottes of Paris and the popular movement more generally. The paper died with its author, but the figure lived
on in French popular culture.

PARLEMENT
The thirteen parlements functioned as the supreme courts of appeal. The Parlement of Paris had by far the
largest area of competency, with one-third of the territory and perhaps two-thirds of France’s 26 million in
1789, but each of the provinces added to France since the fifteenth century had one. The judges owned
their offices, which by the eighteenth century also conferred nobility upon the holder. This ownership, or
“venality,” made them very difficult to dismiss. Throughout the eighteenth century, the judges of the
parlements sought to limit or overturn those initiatives of the monarchy that they thought impinged upon the
system of privileges characteristic of the old regime. Their main weapon in this battle was the remonstrance
by which the parlements could refuse to register a royal edict and explain why they refused to do so.
Ultimately the King could force registration in a lit de justice, but this was particularly costly.

PLAIN
Name of a political grouping of uncommitted deputies. See Mountain. The Mountain, or Montagnards,
competed during the Terror against the Girondins, with both trying to attract the Plain. The Mountain was a
group of deputies from Paris to the National Convention who sat together on the high benches to the left of
the chair’s podium. During the fall of 1792 and particularly during the trial of the King, this group emerged as
a faction allied with the Commune of Paris and the popular movement that demanded radical measures,
among them the death of the King. The Montagnards fought the Girondins for power in Paris and in the
Convention. In between the two factions in the meeting hall of the Convention sat the “Plain” who comprised
the majority of deputies. During the trial of the King in which the Mountain led the fight to put the King to
death, the Montagnards slowly won influence from the Girondins, and over the course of the spring of 1793,
they became the dominant group in the Convention. The term has since been applied to anyone willing to
use political terror in the name of a revolutionary cause.

PREFECT
Representative of the central government in each department. Created by the law of 28 Pluviôse, Year VIII
(17 February 1800), the prefects exercised nearly despotic power in almost every aspect of administration;
as an institution, they remain in existence to this day.

REMONSTRANCE
The parlements’ complaints about a royal edict that explained why they refused to register it.
Remonstrances were an important means of publicizing the judges’ resistance to the monarchy and a
method of delaying the implementation of measures they opposed.

SÉNÉCHAUSSÉE
Old regime law court for civil and criminal cases in southern France as well as the jurisdiction under its
control. In northern France, the equivalent institution was called the bailliage. These jurisdictions elected
deputies to the Estates- General.

SACRAMENT
The sacraments of Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, were very much at issue during the
1750s, when the Archbishop of Paris Christophe de Beaumont ordered the clergy not to administer the
sacraments to Jansenists. The “refusal of sacraments” controversy between the King and clergy on the one
hand and the more popular parlements on the other was instrumental in undermining the theoretical
foundations of the absolute monarchy and augmenting the willingness of French elites to resist the demands
of crown and altar.

SANS-CULOTTES
A social designation for a political position. Based primarily in the working class areas of Paris, the sansculottes, composed of a wide range of artisans from masters to journeymen, opposed themselves to the
educated, well-to-do. Their name, literally without breeches, indicates the commitment to trousers worn by
the lower classes. Beyond this oppositional stance, these groups opted for controlled bread prices, small
business, and revolutionary justice if necessary. By 1792 they were a powerful force on the Parisian scene
and politicians required their support. Eventually they were kingmakers, thrusting the Jacobins into office in
1793. But as the latter exercised power over the next year, they abandoned the sans-culottes, eventually
repressing them. Thus they were not available when Robespierre, their closest ally, needed their help as he
was being overthrown in 1794. Though weakened, the sans-culottes, reemerged and played a role in the
Directory and, as a social ideal, well into the future.

SECTION
The section was the basic unit of municipal government in France. The forty-eight sections of Paris were the
subunits of the Commune and were known for their militancy. The general assemblies of the sections were
the strongholds of the sans-culottes and the club movement. They went into permanent session in July 1792
as a result of the war crisis and met more or less continuously until September 1793, when the number of
meetings was limited to two every ten days. It was through the sections that most of the revolutionary
journées (days) were organized and executed.

SEIGNEUR
Owner of a property or legal right with certain other rights attached to it, divided into useful rights: notably the
right to command days of labor from those living on the land, to levy taxes or payments in kind, or to have
exclusive access to a hunting ground, and honorific rights. Seigneurs did not have to be nobles. The
seigneur could be a member of the clergy or a commoner without any change in the rights that went with the
land.

SENATE
Set up by the Constitution of the Year VIII (1800), and serving for life, the Senate chose the members of the
Legislative Body and Tribunate. In 1802 Bonaparte set up “senatorships” that came with land and a manorial
house. The Senate was Bonaparte’s favored organ of government because it was agreeable to his demands.
For example, it promulgated the decrees that established first the Consulate for Life and then the Empire.

SOU(S)
An old regime copper coin. It was divided into twelve deniers and twenty sous made a livre. See denier.

SUSPENSIVE
VETO
Under the constitution of 1791, Louis XVI could refuse to sign a decree passed by the legislature. If the
measure passed the two consecutive subsequent legislatures, it would automatically become a law. The
issue of what kind of veto power the King would have in the constitution—absolute or suspensive—had been
divisive, but the King’s use of the veto in defense of refractory clergy and émigrés helped undermine his
popular support and greatly facilitated the fall of the monarchy on 10 August 1792.

TITHE
A fraction of the harvest paid (before all other taxes) to the Roman Catholic Church for the maintenance of
the clergy, poor relief, and to support services. In existence for almost a millennium, the weight of tithe
varied, but generally it was between one-fifteenth and one-tenth. Often paid to higher and nonresident clergy,
the tithe was an important subject of the cahiers de doléances, which often called for its revision or abolition.

TREATY
OF
CAMPO-FORMIO
Signed 27 October 1797, between France and Austria after Napoleon Bonaparte’s Italian campaign.
Following a truce agreed on in March and a preliminary agreement with the Habsburgs signed at Leoben,
this treaty went against the Directory’s wishes for gains in Belgium and along the Rhine in exchange for
Italy. Leoben gave Belgium to France and recognized the republican governments set up by France in
Italy, giving compensation to Austria at Venice’s expense. Bonaparte seized Venice to make the treaty
possible. The Directory accepted the treaty to avoid giving a fresh impetus to royalism, which played on
French war-weariness. This treaty was little more than an armed truce, though, since Austria was only
awaiting a more favorable moment to resume its war against France.

TRIBUNATE
Was set up by the Constitution of the Year VIII (1800) to debate legislation proposed by other institutions,
notably the Council of State and the Legislative Body that proposed bills. Members of the Legislative Body
and Tribunate were chosen by the Senate. The site of a small liberal opposition to Bonaparte, the
Tribunate unsuccessfully fought some of his innovations. As a result, the Tribunate was purged of its more
vocal members in 1802 and then abolished in 1804.

TUILERIES
In October 1789 the French royal family took up residence at this palace with extensive gardens located in
central Paris, next to the Louvre. Despite one escape attempt, they remained there as virtual hostages
until 10 August 1792, when the Paris masses stormed the palace and overthrew the monarchy. The
remaining defenders were massacred.

UNIGENITUS
A papal proclamation of 1713 solicited by Louis XIV, which condemned many of the central ideas of the
Jansenists. It touched off a serious conflict between the judges of the parlements who resented the
interference of the pope, preferring to assert “Gallican liberties,” meaning that the French church did not
have to submit to papal requirements. By adopting the Jansenist cause, the judges set the stage for a
century-long conflict with the royal and ecclesiastical hierarchy.

VENALITY
Ownership and heritability of an office. Sold by the state to raise money, these offices, mostly in the
judicial apparatus and the administration, were retained in exchange for an annual tax of one-sixtieth of
the value (the Paulette). These offices provided access to power and opportunities for profit. The more
important offices, and thus the most expensive, also conferred personal noble status on the holder that
became hereditary, generally after three generations. Through venality of office many bourgeoisie could
hope for eventual noble status, which provided an important avenue of social mobility; yet as a
governmental system it was inefficient because it made it very difficult to administer government policy
consistently. Venal officeholders, treating their posts as property, could better resist general directives.