22.4.2: Politics within the Revolutionaries

Factions at the Legislative Assembly

The National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on September 30, 1791. Upon Robespierre’s motion, it decreed that none of its members would be eligible to the next legislature. Its successor body, the Legislative Assembly operating under the Constitution of 1791, lasted until September 20, 1792. The Legislative Assembly first met on October 1, 1791, and consisted of 745 members, mostly from the middle class. The members were generally young, and since none had sat in the previous Assembly, they largely lacked national political experience. They tended to be people with successful careers in local politics.

The rightists within the assembly consisted of about 260 Feuillants, whose chief leaders, Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette and Antoine Barnave, remained outside the House because of their ineligibility for re-election. They were staunch constitutional monarchists, firm in their defense of the King against the popular agitation. The leftists were of 136 Jacobins (still including the party later known as the Girondins or Girondists) and Cordeliers (a populist group, whose many members would later become the radical Montagnards).

The left drew its inspiration from the more radical tendency of the Enlightenment, regarded the émigré nobles as traitors, and espoused anticlericalism. They were suspicious of Louis XVI, some favoring a general European war, both to spread the new ideals of liberty and equality and to put the king’s loyalty to the test.

The remainder of the House, 345 deputies, belonged to no definite party. They were called “the Marsh” (Le Marais) or “the Plain” (La Plaine). They were committed to the ideals of the Revolution, generally inclined to side with the left but would also occasionally back proposals from the right. Some historians dispute these numbers and estimate that the Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (the right), about 330 Jacobins (including Girondins; the left), and about 350 deputies, who did not belong to any definite party but voted most often with the left. The differences emerge from how historians approach data in primary sources, where numbers reported by the clubs do not overlap with analyses of club membership conducted independently by name.

 

The illustration depicts a session at the Jacobin Club. Alexandre de Lameth presides while Mirabeau gives a speech.

The Feuillants came into existence when the Jacobins split between moderates (Feuillants), who sought to preserve the position of the king and supported the proposed plan of the National Assembly for a constitutional monarchy, and radicals (Jacobins), who wished to press for a continuation of direct democratic action to overthrow Louis XVI. Labelled by their opponents as royalists, they were targeted after the fall of the monarchy. In August 1792, a list of 841 members was published and all were arrested and tried for treason. The name survived for a few months as an insulting label for moderates, royalists, and aristocrats.

Factions at the National Convention

The National Convention was a single-chamber assembly in France from September 20, 1792, to October 26, 1795, succeeding the Legislative Assembly. It was fractured into factions even more extreme than those of the Legislative Assembly. The Jacobin Club, gathering members with republican beliefs and aspiring to establish a French democratic republic, experienced political tensions beginning in 1791 .There were conflicting viewpoints in response to several revolutionary events and how to best achieve a democratic republic. A result of the increasing divide within the Jacobins was the split between the more radical Montagnards and the Girondins.

The Jacobin Club was one of several organizations that grew out of the French Revolution, distinguished by its left-wing, revolutionary politics. Because of this, the Jacobins, unlike other sects like the Girondins, were closely allied to the sans-culottes, a popular force of working-class Parisians that played a pivotal role in the development of the revolution. The Jacobins had a significant presence in the National Convention and were dubbed “the Mountain”  (French: la montagne)for their seats in the uppermost part of the chamber. In addition to siding with sans-culottes, the Montagnards aimed for a more repressive form of government that would institute a price maximum on essential consumer goods and punish all traitors and enemies of the Republic. The Montagnards also believed war and other political differences required emergency solutions. They had 302 members in 1793 and 1794, including committee members and deputies who voted with the faction. Most members of the club came from the middle class and tended to represent the Parisian population. Its leaders included Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, and Georges Danton. This faction eventually gained overwhelming power in the Convention and governed France during the Reign of Terror.

Possibly the two most significant factors in the consequential split between the Montagnards and the Girondins were the September Massacres and the trial of Louis XVI, both in 1792. The official fall of the monarchy came on August 10, 1792, after Louis XVI refused to rescind his veto of the National Assembly’s constitution. The Montagnards argued for immediate execution of the king by military court-martial, insisting that he was undermining the Revolution. Because a trial would require the “presumption of innocence,” such a proceeding would contradict the mission of the National Convention. The Girondins, in contrast, agreed that the king was guilty of treason but argued for his clemency and favored the option of exile or popular referendum as his sentence. However, the trial progressed and Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in January 1793.

The second key factor in the split between the Montagnards and the Girondins was the September Massacres of 1792. Radical Parisians and members of the National Guard were angry with the poor progress in the war against Austria and Prussia and the forced enlistment of 30,000 volunteers. On August 10, radicals went on a killing spree, slaughtering roughly 1,300 inmates in various Paris prisons, many of whom were simply common criminals, not the treasonous counter-revolutionaries condemned by the Montagnards. The Girondins did not tolerate the massacres, but neither the Montagnards of the Legislative Assembly nor the Paris Commune took any action to stop or condemn the killings. Members of the Girondins later accused Marat, Robespierre, and Danton of inciting the massacres to further their dictatorial power. The conflict between the Montagnards and the Girondins eventually led to the fall of the Girondins and their mass execution.

The Girondins campaigned for the end of the monarchy but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution. They came into conflict with The Mountain (Montagnards), a radical faction within the Jacobin Club. The Girondins comprised a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party.

Left v. Right

The terms “left” and “right” to refer to political parties is one of the lasting legacies of the French Revolution. Members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However, the right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.

When the National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by the Legislative Assembly comprising entirely new members, the divisions continued. “Innovators” sat on the left, “moderates” gathered in the center, and the “conscientious defenders of the constitution” found themselves sitting on the right, where the defenders of the Ancien Régime had previously gathered. When the succeeding National Convention met in 1792, the seating arrangement continued, but following the arrest of the Girondins, the right side of the assembly was deserted, and any remaining members who had sat there moved to the center.

 

Attributions

• Politics within the Revolutionaries
  • “National Convention.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Girondins.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girondins. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Sans-culottes.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-culottes. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Jacobin (politics).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin_(politics). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Feuillant (political group).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuillant_(political_group). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Left–right politics.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Cordeliers.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordeliers. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Legislative Assembly (France).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Assembly_(France). Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “History of France.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_France. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “The Mountain.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mountain. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “GirondistsForce.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GirondistsForce.jpg. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.
  • “800px-Club-des-jacobins.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Club-des-jacobins.jpg. Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0.