Girondins

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Girondins
Leader
Founded1791; 234 years ago (1791)
Dissolved1793; 232 years ago (1793)
Preceded byVonckists (Belgium)
HeadquartersBordeaux, Gironde
Newspaper
  • Patriote français
  • Le Courrier de Provence
  • La chronique de Paris
Ideology
Political positionCentre-left[nb 1]

The Girondins (

Jacobin movement. They campaigned for the end of the monarchy, but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution, which caused a conflict with the more radical Montagnards. They dominated the movement until their fall in the insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, which resulted in the domination of the Montagnards and the purge and eventual mass execution of the Girondins. This event is considered to mark the beginning of the Reign of Terror
.

The Girondins were a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from the

Madame Roland. They also had an ally in the English-born American activist Thomas Paine
.

Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland (who had gone into hiding) committed suicide when he learned about the execution. Paine was imprisoned, but he narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting The Death of Marat depicts the fiery radical journalist and denouncer of the Girondins Jean-Paul Marat after being stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer. Corday did not attempt to flee and was arrested and executed.

Identity

The collective name "Girondins" is used to describe "a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention".

Jean Marie Roland and François Buzot were among the most prominent of such deputies and contemporaries called their supporters Brissotins, Rolandins, or Buzotins, depending on which politician was being blamed for their leadership.[8] Other names were employed at the time too, but "Girondins" ultimately became the term favored by historians.[8] The term became standard with Alphonse de Lamartine's History of the Girondins in 1847.[12]

History

Rise

Madame Roland

Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde and there were six who sat for this département in both the

Jean François Ducos, was a tradesman. In the Legislative Assembly, they represented a compact body of opinion which, though not as yet definitely republican (i.e. against the monarchy), was considerably more "advanced" than the moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies.[7]

A group of deputies from elsewhere became associated with these views, most notably the

Comte de Kersaint, Henri Larivière and above all Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean Marie Roland and Jérôme Pétion, who was elected mayor of Paris in succession to Jean Sylvain Bailly on 16 November 1791.[7]

Jacobin Club,[citation needed] hence the name "Brissotins" for his followers.[14] The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention (20 September 1792). "Brissotins" and "Girondins" were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy.[7]

Foreign policy

In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and patriotic defiance to the European powers.

King Louis XVI.[16]

Montagnards versus Girondins

The Girondins in the La Force Prison after their arrest, a woodcut from 1845

Girondins at first dominated the Jacobin Club, where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted by Maximilien Robespierre and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry composed of their partisans, among them Roland, Charles François Dumouriez,[16] Étienne Clavière and Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey; and they forced a declaration of war against Habsburg Austria the same year. In all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage between La Gironde and The Mountain. Montagnards and Girondins alike were fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as republicans; and both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realise their ideals.[7] Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the central government ("federalism"), the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France.[17] From the first, the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the Assembly.[7]

Temperament largely accounts for the dividing line between the parties. The Girondins were doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action. They initially encouraged armed petitions, but then were dismayed when this led to the

Pétion de Villeneuve. Pétion was accused of conspicuous consumption by Desmoulins,[25] and finally rallied to Brissot.[26]

Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David

When the

Pétion de Villeneuve and Kervélégan, as well as some newcomers as the writer Thomas Paine
and popular journalist Jean-Louis Carra. The Girondins called on the local authorities to oppose the concentration and centralisation of power.

Decline and fall

See also:
Days of 31 May and 2 June 1793

The Girondins proposed suspending the king and summoning of the National Convention, but they agreed not to overthrow the monarchy until

Louis XVI became impervious to their counsels. Once the king was overthrown in 1792 and a republic was established, they were anxious to stop the revolutionary movement that they had helped to set in motion. Girondins and historian Pierre Claude François Daunou argues in his Mémoires that the Girondins were too cultivated and too polished to retain their popularity for long in times of disturbance, and so they were more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would mean the guarantee of their own power. The Girondins, who had been the radicals of the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792), became the conservatives of the Convention (1792–1795).[27][28]

The Revolution failed to deliver the immediate gains that had been promised and this made it difficult for the Girondins to draw it to a close easily in the minds of the public. Moreover, the Septembriseurs (the supporters of the

Danton, Marat and their lesser allies) realised that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the Girondins, had proposed to include them in the proscription lists of September 1792: The Mountain Club to a man who desired their overthrow.[29] A group including some Girondins prepared a draft constitution known as the Girondin constitutional project, which was presented to the National Convention in early 1793. Thomas Paine
was one of the signers of this proposal.

The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondins, who had a majority in the Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministries, believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in the hostile camp—their system was established in mere reason, but the Montagnards made up for what they lacked in talent or in numbers through their boldness and energy.

Paris Commune, the Revolutionary Sections (mass assemblies in districts) and the National Guard of Paris and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. At the trial of Louis XVI in 1792, most Girondins had voted for the "appeal to the people" and so laid themselves open to the charge of "royalism".[citation needed] They denounced the domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid and so fell under suspicion of "federalism" as on September 25, 1792.[30] They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by first decreeing its abolition but withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition.[29]

In the suspicious temper of the times, their vacillation was fatal. Marat never ceased his denunciations of the faction by which France was being betrayed to her ruin and his cry of Nous sommes trahis! ("We are betrayed!") was echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris.

Jacques René Hébert, controlled the armed militias of the 48 revolutionary Sections of Paris and prepared to turn this weapon against the Convention.[32] The abortive émeute of 10 March warned the Girondins of their danger and they responded with defensive moves. They unintentionally increased the prestige of their most vocal and bitter critic Marat by prosecuting him before the Revolutionary Tribunal, where his acquittal in April 1793 was a foregone conclusion. The Commission of Twelve was appointed of on 24 May, including the arrest of Varlat and Hébert and other precautionary measures.[33] The ominous threat by Girondin leader Maximin Isnard, uttered on 25 May, to "march France upon Paris" was instead met by Paris marching hastily upon the Convention. The Girondin role in the government was undermined by the popular uprisings of 27 and 31 May and finally on 2 June 1793, when François Hanriot, head of the Paris National Guards, purged the Convention of the Girondins[29] (see Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793
).

Reign of Terror

Main article: Reign of Terror
See also: Federalist revolts

A list drawn up by the Commandant-General of the Parisian National Guard François Hanriot (with help from Marat) and endorsed by a decree of the intimidated Convention, included 22 Girondin deputies and 10 of the 12 members of the Commission of Twelve, who were ordered to be detained at their lodgings "under the safeguard of the people". Some submitted, among them Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion, Birotteau and Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Larivière and François Bergoeing, escaped from Paris and, joined later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organise a movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up civil war made the wavering and frightened Convention suddenly determined. On 13 June 1793, it voted that the city of Paris deserved well of the country and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the filling up of their places in the Assembly by their suppléants and the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the provinces. The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday on 13 July 1793 only served to increase the unpopularity of the Girondins and seal their fate.[29][34]

The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of the

Revolt in the Vendée and the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war. On 28 July 1793, a decree of the Convention proscribed 21 deputies, five of whom were from the Gironde, as traitors and enemies of their country (Charles-Louis Antiboul, Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrêde, Brissot, Carra, Gaspard-Séverin Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Jean Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Claude Romain Lauze de Perret, Lehardi, Benoît Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, the Marquis de Sillery, Vergniaud and Louis-François-Sébastien Viger). Those were sent to trial. Another 39 were included in the final acte d'accusation, accepted by the Convention on 24 October 1793, which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their "federalism" and above all their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped colleagues to provoke civil war.[29][35][36]

1793 trial of Girondins

Brissot et 20 de ses complices condamnés à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire (Brissot and 20 of his accomplices are sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal)

The trial of the 22 began before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 24 October 1793. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. On 31 October, they were borne to the guillotine. It took 36 minutes to decapitate all of them, including Charles Éléonor Dufriche de Valazé, who had committed suicide the previous day upon hearing the sentence he was given.[37]

Of those who escaped to the provinces, after wandering about singly or in groups most were either captured and executed or committed suicide. They included

Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai, whose Mémoires give a detailed picture of the sufferings of the fugitives.[29][38]

Girondins as martyrs

The Last Meal of the Girondins (François Flameng, c. 1850) — the body of Charles Éléonor Dufriche-Valazé, who stabbed himself in the courtroom, is in the foreground.
Execution of the Girondins, woodcut from 1862

The survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after the fall of Robespierre on 27 July 1794, but it was not until 5 March 1795 that they were formally re-instated[

the Directory.[11] On 3 October of that same year (11 Vendémiaire, year IV), a solemn fête in honour of the Girondins, "martyrs of liberty", was celebrated in the Convention.[29][39]

In her autobiography,

Jean-Marie Roland was Interior Minister. The book echoes such popular novels as Rousseau's Julie or the New Héloise by linking her feminine virtue and motherhood to her sacrifice in a cycle of suffering and consolation. Roland says her mother's death was the impetus for her "odyssey from virtuous daughter to revolutionary heroine" as it introduced her to death and sacrifice—with the ultimate sacrifice of her own life for her political beliefs. She helped her husband escape, but she was executed on 8 November 1793. A week later he committed suicide.[40]

A monument to the Girondins was erected in Bordeaux between 1893 and 1902 dedicated to the memory of the Girondin deputies who were victims of the Terror.[41] The vagueness of who actually made up the Girondins led to the monument not having any names inscribed on it until 1989.[10] Even then, the deputies to the Convention who were memorialized were only those hailing from the Gironde department, omitting notable people like Brissot and Madame Roland.[42]

Ideology

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Related topics

The words Girondin and Montagnard are defined as political groups—more specific definitions are the subject of theorizing by historians. The two words were much tossed about by partisans with various understandings of what they were intended to represent. The two groups lacked formal political structures, and the differences between them have never been satisfactorily explained. It has been suggested that the word Girondin as a useful term be abandoned.[43]

Influenced by classical liberalism and the concepts of freedom, liberty, equality, brotherhood, democracy, human rights, rule of law and Montesquieu's separation of powers, the Girondins were republicans, Like the Jacobins, they were also influenced by the writings of David Hume, Edward Gibbon, Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[44]

In its early times of government, the Gironde supported a

political equality
.

They sat to the left of the centrist

democratic reform, secularism and parliamentary sovereignty at the expense of a weaker executive and judiciary as opposed to the authoritarian left-wing Montagnards, who supported public acknowledgement of a Supreme Being and a strong executive.[48]

Prominent members

Electoral results

National Convention
Election year No. of
overall votes 		% of
overall vote 		No. of
overall seats won 		+/– Leader
1792 705,600 (3rd) 21.4
160 / 749
–
Jacques Pierre Brissot

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Gaspar, David Barry; Geggus, David Patrick (1997). A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Indiana University Press. p. 262.
  2. ^ a b c "Girondin". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  3. ^ Bertaud, Jean-Claude (1986). Camille et Lucile Desmoulins (in French). Paris: Presses de la Renaissance. p. 157.
  4. ^ Vovelle, Michel (1999). La Chute de la Royauté, 1787-1792. Nouvelle histoire de la France contemporaine (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Le Seuil. pp. 270–271.
  5. ISBN 978-0-429-78041-7
    . Retrieved 26 December 2024 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ "Girondin". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Phillips 1911, p. 49.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0313334450
    .
  9. ^ Furet & Ozouf, p. 351.
  10. ^
    ISSN 1756-0535
    .
  11. ^ a b Chris Cook; John Paxton (1981). European Political Facts 1789–1848. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 10.
  12. ^ Bosher, pp. 185–191.
  13. ^ a b Fremont-Barnes 2007, p. 403.
  14. ^ Thompson, James Matthew (1932). Leaders Of The French Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 78.
  15. ^ Thomas Lalevée, "National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution Archived 2017-05-17 at the Wayback Machine", French History and Civilisation (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.
  16. ^
    JSTOR 1848434
    .
  17. ^ Bill Edmonds, "'Federalism' and Urban Revolt in France in 1793", Journal of Modern History (1983) 55#1 pp. 22–53,
  18. ^ Le Logographe, 27 juillet 1792; 1 aôut 1792; Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 2 août 1792
  19. ^ Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 30 mai 1793, p. 3
  20. ISBN 978-1-84765-936-1. Archived
    from the original on 30 December 2023. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  21. ^ N. Hampson (1988) Prelude to Terror. The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789–1791, p. 113–114
  22. ^ Hampson 1974, p. 114.
  23. ISBN 978-0-582-43755-5. Archived
    from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  24. ^ Hampson 1974, p. 126.
  25. ^ Linton, Marisa (2015) 'Come and dine': the dangers of conspicuous consumption in French revolutionary politics, 1789–95. European History Quarterly, 45(4), pp. 615–637. ISSN (print) 0265-6914
  26. ^ "Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 76" (PDF). Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
  27. ^ Phillips 1911, pp. 49–50.
  28. ^ Alderson, p. 9.
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h i Phillips 1911, p. 50.
  30. ^ Gabourd, Amédée (1859). Histoire de la révolution et de l'empire (in French). Vol. 3. Paris: Jacques Lecoffre et Cie. pp. 10–12.
  31. ISBN 978-1568580630.[permanent dead link
    ‍]
  32. ^ Oliver, pp. 55–56.
  33. ^ "Mocavo and Findmypast are coming together | findmypast.com". www.findmypast.com.
  34. ^ Linton, pp. 174–175.
  35. ^ D.M.G. Sutherland, France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed. 2003) ch. 5.
  36. ^ Schama, ch. 18.
  37. ^ Schama, pp. 803–805.
  38. ^ Oliver, pp. 83–89.
  39. ISBN 978-0195113693
    .
  40. ^ Lesley H. Walker, "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland", Eighteenth-Century Studies (2001) 34#3 pp 403–419
  41. ^ "Monument élevé à la mémoire des Girondins". POP : la plateforme ouverte du patrimoine, Ministère de la Culture.
  42. ^ Doyle 2013, pp. 37–38.
  43. ^ Fremont-Barnes 2007, pp. 307–309.
  44. ^ Fremont-Barnes 2007, p. 307.
  45. ISBN 0-394-55948-7
    .
  46. ^ Guadet, J (1889). Les Girondins; leur vie privée, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort. Paris: Perrin et Cie. p. 30.
  47. ^ Israel, Jonathan (2014). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton University Press. p. 222.
  48. ^ Jonathan Israel (2015). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. [ISBN missing]

Footnotes

  1. ^ On 1 October 1791, the Girondins sat alongside the other Jacobins on the left side of the National Assembly. Parliamentary groups never had any official status and thus historians generally tend to estimate that the 1791 French legislative election had resulted in a majority of around 350 moderate constitutional deputies (the Plain), a right-wing made up of more than 250 Feuillants (divided into Fayettists and Lametists), and a left-wing where around 136 deputies were registered with the Jacobins (even if the Girondin general staff was not very assiduous, preferring the salons), among which several provincials (including Armand Gensonné, Marguerite-Élie Guadet, and Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, originally from Gironde, hence the name of the Girondins), with a small group of more advanced democrats (Lazare Carnot, Georges Couthon, and Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet).[3][4] Deputies of the Plain managed to keep some speed in the debates while the Girondins and the Montagnards were mainly occupied with nagging the opposite side.[5]

General bibliography

Attribution:

Further reading

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