Girondins
Girondins | |
---|---|
Leader | |
Founded | 1791 |
Dissolved | 1793 |
Headquarters | Bordeaux, Gironde |
Newspaper | Patriote français Le Courrier de Provence La chronique de Paris |
Ideology | Abolitionism[1] Republicanism[2] Classical liberalism[2] Economic liberalism[2] |
Colors | Blue |
The Girondins (
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
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".[5]
They were never an official organization or political party.
History
Rise
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Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde and there were six who sat for this département in both the
A group of deputies from elsewhere became associated with these views, most notably the
Foreign policy
In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and patriotic defiance to the European powers.
Montagnards versus Girondins
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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,[13] 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.[4] 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.[14] From the first, the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the Assembly.[4]
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
When the National Convention first met on 22 September 1792, the core of like-minded deputies from the Gironde expanded as Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède, Jacques Lacaze and François Bergoeing joined five of the six stalwarts of the Legislative Assembly (Jean Jay, the Protestant pastor, drifted toward the Montagnard faction). Their numbers were increased by the return to national politics by former National Constituent Assembly deputies such as Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, Pétion and Kervélégan, as well as some newcomers as the writer Thomas Paine and popular journalist Jean Louis Carra.
Decline and fall
The Girondins proposed suspending the king and summoning of the National Convention, but they agreed not to overthrow the monarchy until
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
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.
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.
Reign of Terror
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.[17][22]
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
1793 trial of Girondins
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.[25]
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
Girondins as martyrs
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[
In her autobiography,
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.[29] The vagueness of who actually made up the Girondins led to the monument not having any names inscribed on it until 1989.[7] 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.[30]
Ideology
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This article is part of a series on |
Liberalism in France |
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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.[31]
Influenced by
In its early times of government, the Gironde supported a
They sat to the left of the centrist
The Girondins supported
Prominent members
- Jacques Pierre Brissot (leader)
- Jean-Marie Roland
- Madame Roland
- Maximin Isnard
- Jacques Guillaume Thouret
- Jean Baptiste Treilhard
- Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
- Armand Gensonné
- Marquis de Condorcet
- Pierre Claude François Daunou
- Marguerite-Élie Guadet
- Jacques Claude Beugnot
- Louis Gustave le Doulcet
- Claude Fauchet
- François Buzot
- Charles Jean Marie Barbaroux
- François Aubry
- Charles-Louis Antiboul
- Léger-Félicité Sonthonax
- Jérôme Pétion
Electoral results
Legislative Assembly | |||||
Election year | No. of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
No. of overall seats won |
+/– | Leader |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
National Convention | |||||
1792 | 705,600 (3rd) | 21.4 | 160 / 749
|
–
|
See also
References
Citations
- ^ David Barry Gaspar; David Patrick Geggus (1997). A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Indiana University Press. p. 262.
- ^ a b c "Girondin". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ "Girondin". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Phillips 1911, p. 49.
- ^ ISBN 978-0313334450.
- ^ Furet & Ozouf, p. 351.
- ^ ISSN 1756-0535.
- ^ a b Chris Cook; John Paxton (1981). European Political Facts 1789–1848. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 10.
- ^ Bosher, pp. 185–191.
- ^ a b c Fremont-Barnes 2007, p. 403.
- ^ Thompson, James Matthew (1932). Leaders Of The French Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 78.
- ^ 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.
- ^ JSTOR 1848434.
- ^ Bill Edmonds, "'Federalism' and Urban Revolt in France in 1793", Journal of Modern History (1983) 55#1 pp. 22–53,
- ^ Phillips 1911, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Alderson, p. 9.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Phillips 1911, p. 50.
- ^ Gabourd, Amédée (1859). Histoire de la révolution et de l'empire (in French). Vol. 3. Paris: Jacques Lecoffre et Cie. pp. 10–12.
- ]
- ^ Oliver, pp. 55–56.
- ^ "Mocavo and Findmypast are coming together | findmypast.com". www.findmypast.com.
- ^ Linton, pp. 174–175.
- ^ D.M.G. Sutherland, France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed. 2003) ch. 5.
- ^ Schama, ch. 18.
- ^ Schama, pp. 803–805.
- ^ Oliver, pp. 83–89.
- ISBN 978-0195113693.
- ^ Lesley H. Walker, "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland", Eighteenth-Century Studies (2001) 34#3 pp 403–419
- ^ "Monument élevé à la mémoire des Girondins". POP : la plateforme ouverte du patrimoine, Ministère de la Culture.
- ^ Doyle 2013, pp. 37–38.
- ^ Fremont-Barnes 2007, pp. 307–309.
- ^ Fremont-Barnes 2007, p. 307.
- ISBN 0-394-55948-7.
- ^ Guadet, J (1889). Les Girondins; leur vie privée, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort. Paris: Perrin et Cie. p. 30.
- ^ Israel, Jonathan (2014). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton University Press. p. 222.
- ^ Luca Einaudi (2020). "The Early Symbols of Political Parties During the French revolution". University of Cambridge.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - doi:10.2307/40267833. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.
- ^ Jonathan Israel (2015). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. [ISBN missing]
General bibliography
- Alderson, Robert J. (2008). This Bright Era of Happy Revolutions: French Consul Michel-Ange-Bernard Mangourit and International Republicanism in Charleston, 1792–1794. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1570037450.
- Bosher, John F. (1989) [1988]. The French Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 039395997X.
- ISBN 0674177282.
- ISBN 978-0199576302.
- Oliver, Bette W. (2009). Orphans on the Earth: Girondin Fugitives from the Terror, 1793–94. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0739140680.
- ISBN 0679726101.
Attribution:
- public domain: Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). "Girondists". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 49–51. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Brace, Richard Munthe. "General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792–1793", American Historical Review (1951) 56#3 pp. 493–509. JSTOR 1848434.
- de Luna, Frederick A. "The 'Girondins' Were Girondins, After All", French Historical Studies (1988) 15: 506–518. JSTOR 286372.
- DiPadova, Theodore A. "The Girondins and the Question of Revolutionary Government", French Historical Studies (1976) 9#3 pp. 432–450 JSTOR 286230.
- Ellery, Eloise. Brissot De Warville: A Study in the History of the French Revolution (1915) excerpt and text search.
- François Furet and Mona Ozouf. eds. La Gironde et les Girondins. Paris: éditions Payot, 1991.
- Higonnet, Patrice. "The Social and Cultural Antecedents of Revolutionary Discontinuity: Montagnards and Girondins", English Historical Review (1985): 100#396 pp. 513–544 JSTOR 568234.
- Thomas Lalevée, "National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution", French History and Civilisation (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.
- Lamartine, Alphonse de. History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution (1847) online free in Kindle edition; Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3.
- Lewis-Beck, Michael S., Anne Hildreth, and Alan B. Spitzer. "Was There a Girondist Faction in the National Convention, 1792–1793?" French Historical Studies (1988) 11#4 pp.: 519–536. JSTOR 286373.
- Linton, Marisa, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Loomis, Stanley, Paris in the Terror. (1964).
- Patrick, Alison. "Political Divisions in the French National Convention, 1792–93". Journal of Modern History (Dec. 1969) 41#4, pp. 422–474. JSTOR 1878003; rejects Sydenham's argument & says Girondins were a real faction.
- Patrick, Alison. The Men of the First French Republic: Political Alignments in the National Convention of 1792 (1972), comprehensive study of the group's role.
- Scott, Samuel F., and Barry Rothaus. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution 1789–1799 (1985) Vol. 1 pp. 433–436 online Archived 2020-05-05 at the Wayback Machine.
- Sutherland, D. M. G. France 1789–1815: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed., 2003) ch. 5. [ISBN missing]
- Sydenham, Michael J. "The Montagnards and Their Opponents: Some Considerations on a Recent Reassessment of the Conflicts in the French National Convention, 1792–93", Journal of Modern History (1971) 43#2 pp. 287–293 JSTOR 1876547; argues that the Girondins faction was mostly a myth created by Jacobins.
- Whaley, Leigh Ann. Radicals: Politics and Republicanism in the French Revolution. Gloucestershire, England: Sutton Publishing, 2000. [ISBN missing]