Cordeliers
Cordeliers Club Club des Cordeliers | |
---|---|
Radicalism | |
Political position | Left-wing to far-left |
National affiliation | The Mountain (1792–1794) |
Colours | |
Slogan | Liberté, égalité, fraternité ("Liberty, equality, fraternity") |
Party flag | |
Part of Radicalism |
The Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Société des Amis des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), mainly known as Cordeliers Club (French: Club des Cordeliers), was a populist political club during the French Revolution from 1790 to 1794, when the Reign of Terror ended and the Thermidorian Reaction began.
The club campaigned for
History
The club had its origins in the Cordeliers district, a famously radical area of Paris called, by Camille Desmoulins, "the only sanctuary where liberty has not been violated".[2] Under the leadership of Georges Danton, this district had played a significant role in the Storming of the Bastille and was home to several notable figures of the Revolution, including Danton himself, Desmoulins and Jean-Paul Marat—on whose behalf the district placed itself in a state of civil rebellion, when in January 1790 it refused to allow the execution of a warrant for his arrest that had been issued by the Châtelet.
Having issued in November 1789 a declaration affirming its intent to "oppose, as much as we are able, all that the representatives of the
Anticipating this dissolution, the leaders of the Cordeliers district founded in April 1790 the Société des Amis des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, a popular society which would serve as an alternative means of pursuing the goals and interests of the district. This society held its meetings in the Cordeliers Convent and quickly became known as the Club des Cordeliers. It took as its motto the phrase Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and because its aim was to keep an eye on the government its emblem was an open eye.[4]
The membership fees of this society were fixed low and thus affordable to a more diverse range of citizens than those of many other political clubs at the time, including the
However, the preponderance of Cordeliers were members of the bourgeoisie and its leadership was largely drawn from the educated middle classes.[6]
From 1791 the Cordeliers met in a hall in the
The Cordeliers participated significantly in the planning and execution of the 10 August 1792 insurrection. Danton, at this time perhaps the most powerful figure within the Cordeliers Club, acted—in Hilaire Belloc's words—as "the organizer and chief of the insurrection"[8] and was appointed Minister of Justice in the government that resulted, with Desmoulins and Fabre d'Églantine—both prominent members of the Cordeliers Club—as his secretaries.
Subsequent to this insurrection and to the September Massacres that followed closely on its heels, the Cordeliers Club became increasingly the province of ultra-revolutionary factions, particularly the Hébertists, who advocated extreme measures to intensify the Terror.
In December 1793, Desmoulins began publishing a journal entitled Le Vieux Cordelier or "Old Cordelier", which attempted to reclaim the title of the society from those who had associated it with extremism. In the seven numbers of the journal, Desmoulins attacked the Hébertists and called for an end to the Terror, comparing revolutionary Paris to Rome under the tyrants. The Hébertists were arrested and, on 24 March 1794, executed, but less extreme Desmoulins, Danton and the "Old Cordeliers" of the Dantonist faction quickly followed them to the guillotine. Their execution took place on April 16 (April 5). The Cordeliers Club, deprived of its most important members, initially played no role in the further course of the revolution. After the Jacobin Club closed in November 1794, its most vehement representatives (so-called Cretans) joined the Cordeliers. In response, the Thermidorians arranged for its final closure on the 20th of Pluviose III (February 20, 1795).
Bibliography
The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in
Factions and members
- radicalism)
- Dantonists or Indulgents (moderatism)
- Georges Jacques Danton(leader)
- Camille Desmoulins
- Pierre Philippeaux
- Bertrand Barère
- Fabre d'Églantine
- Pierre-François-Joseph Robert
- Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
- Non-affiliated extremists
See also
Further reading
- Belloc, Hilaire. Danton: A Study. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899.
- Castelot, André & Decaux, Alain. Le Grand Dictionnaire d'Histoire de la France. Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1979 (in French).
- Hammersley, Rachel. French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordeliers Club 1790–1794. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer Inc., 2005.
- Hammersley, Rachel. "English Republicanism in Revolutionary France: The Case of the Cordelier Club." Journal of British Studies 43.4 (2004): 464-481. online
- Hammersley, Rachel. "Camille Desmoulins's Le Vieux Cordelier: a link between English and French republicanism." History of European ideas 27.2 (2001): 115-132.
- Rose, Robert Barrie. The Making of the Sans-Culottes. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983.
Notes
- ISBN 9781847659361.
He was a sometime cabin boy and medical apprentice who had acquired a certain celebrity as an ultra-revolutionary speaker in the populist Cordeliers Club and had established his Revolutionary credentials as an enthusiastic participant in the preparations for the demonstrations of June 20 and August 10, 1792.
- ^ Rachel Hammersley, French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordeliers Club 1790–1794, p 19.
- ^ Hammersley, 25.
- ^ a b c d public domain: Anchel, Robert (1911). "Cordeliers, Club of the". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 138. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Rose, 97.
- ^ Rose, 106.
- ^ Woodward, W. E. Lafayette.
- ^ Belloc, 167.