Daily Life During the French Revolution (47 page)

National Guard—
Citizens’ militia formed in the spring and
summer of 1789 in the Paris districts and other cities to maintain order,
protect property against mob violence, and guard against counterrevolutionary
plots.

Nobility of the Robe —
Magistrates and bureaucrats, mostly
wealthy, who acquired their aristocratic status by service to the king from the
seventeenth century onward.

Nobility of the Sword —
The oldest aristocratic families, who traced
their lineages back to the Middle Ages and owed their status and privileges to
their service to the crown on the field of battle.

Paris Commune—
Revolutionary municipal government of Paris formed in July
1789 by an insurrectional committee composed of 144 delegates— three from each
of the 48 sections of the city. It was challenged by the Girondins, who tried
to curb its growing influence in the political affairs of the Assembly. The
Commune and the Jacobins then ousted Girondin members from the Assembly.

Parlements—
The function of the parlements was the administration of
justice. The 13 parlements of France were the highest courts of justice in
their areas. They had wide-ranging powers of police and administration and some
political clout, in that they had to register any edicts from the king in order
to make them into law.

Père Duchesne—
Hébert’s impious popular journal, which appeared three
times a week between 1790 and his death in 1794. It catered to the
sans-culottes, using foul language of the street. The government had the paper
sent to soldiers in the field. After the death of Marat (see
L
’
Ami du
Peuple)
, the paper became the mostly widely distributed in France, with a
readership of some 50,000.

Philosophers (Philosophes)—
The rationalist writers of the eighteenth
century, such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, and d’Alembert, who advocated
the use of reason instead of custom, tradition, faith, or superstition as the
basis for the organization of society and state.

Plain or Marais—
Name of the center-aligned group in the
Convention, which sat in the flat middle area of the chamber and generally
remained uncommitted to the opposing Montagnards and Girondins. It comprised
about 250 deputies. Sometimes they did hold the balance of power; by opposing
Robespierre, they made it possible for his enemies to isolate, arrest, and
execute him and his followers.

Représentant-en-Mise (Representatives on Mission) —
Agents sent out by the National
Convention who were entrusted with considerable powers of repression in the
provinces, especially during the Terror. Their job was to recruit men for the
army. After June 1793, they were appointed by the Committee of Public Safety.
One of their tasks became the suppression of the Federalist revolt.

Sans-Culottes—
Revolutionaries who made a virtue of their plain dress, in
contrast to that of the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie. They were workers,
shopkeepers, petty traders, crafsmen, and the poor and wore trousers instead of
the breeches and stockings of the higher classes.

Sections—
Forty-eight areas into which Paris was divided for political
purposes, replacing the former 60 Districts. Each was run by a revolutionary
watch committee and was able to organize armed men (sectionnaires), mostly
sans-culottes. Other cities also had their sections. Section assemblies played
a major role in shaping uprisings and influencing the government. They were
instrumental in the uprising of August 10, 1792 (the attack on the king’s
residence at the Tuileries that toppled the monarchy) and in the campaign that
led to the downfall of the Girondins.

September Massacres—
Between September 2 and September 6, 1792,
sans-culottes and Federalists stormed a number of prisons in Paris and
indiscriminately massacred more than 1,000 prisoners, some after summary
trials, some with no trials.

Sociétés Populaires—
Term applied to local clubs and societies
after the summer of 1791. Many were affiliated with the Jacobin club. Because
of their independent and radical policies, many were disapproved of by the revolutionary
government of the year II. Some were closed after the fall of Hébert, others
after Thermidor. A few survived into 1795.

Sou—
(Earlier, sol) See money.

Surveillance Committees—
Watch committees formed in each commune in
March 1793 to observe officialdom and maintain public security and order. They
often took the place of local government in the districts and were controlled
by extreme Jacobins. Later they became known as
Comités Révolutionnaires
and,
after Thermidor, as
Comités d
’
Arrondissements.

Taille—
The basic direct tax of the old regime, paid by the commoners and
peasants. The amount due varied between provinces.

Terror—
The term describes the period from September 1793 to July 1794,
during which the Jacobin government imposed its authority through terror by
economic, military, and judicial means. It was a reaction to war, both foreign
and civil, and to the threat of antirevolutionary conspiracies. The guillotine
was kept busy eliminating real or imaginary revolutionary dissenters. The
Terror ended when it claimed the head of Robespierre.

Thermidorians—
The politicians who took power after the fall of
Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794), ending the Reign of Terror.

Third Estate—
The common people, as opposed to the clergy (First Estate)
and the nobility (Second Estate).

Tuileries—
A royal palace and gardens in Paris that had not been used
by the royal family for nearly a century. Louis XVI and the queen occupied the
Tuileries palace after they were forced to move to Paris from Versailles. After
their death, it was occupied by the National Convention for its meetings, by
the Committee of Public Safety, by the Council of Ancients, and, in 1800, by
Napoleon.

Vendée—
A mostly rural department in western France with no major cities;
residents of the Vendée were loyal to the monarchy and to local priests, most
of whom refused to swear the civil oath of the clergy. The peasants revolted
against the government in March 1793 when recruitment began to fill a levy of 3
million men for the army. The revolt spread and turned into full-scale
rebellion and civil war, which was not crushed completely until 1801.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAMES
M. ANDERSON is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has
spent many years in Spain, Portugal and France both as a Fulbright Scholar and
as the recipient of Canada Council and SSHRC grants, contributing numerous
articles and books to the field of European studies. He is author of 13 books,
including
The History of Portugal
(Greenwood, 2000),
Daily Life
during the Spanish Inquisition
(Greenwood, 2002) and
The Spanish Civil
War
(Greenwood, 2003).