58 Politics within the Revolutionaries
22.4.2: Politics within the Revolutionaries
Over the course of the Revolution, the original revolutionary movement known as the Jacobins split into more and less radical factions, the most important of which were the Feuillants (moderate; pro-royal), the Montagnards (radical) and the Girondins (moderate; pro-republic).
Learning Objective
Distinguish between the different blocs within the new government
Key Points
- The Legislative Assembly consisted of 745 members, mostly from the middle class. The rightists within the assembly consisted of about 260 Feuillants, who were staunch constitutional monarchists firm in their defense of the King against the popular agitation. The leftists were about 136 Jacobins and Cordeliers. They favored the idea 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 committed to the ideals of the Revolution and thus inclined to side with the left but would also occasionally back proposals from the right.
- The Feuillants came into existence when the Jacobins split between moderates, 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). Labelled by their opponents as royalists, they were targeted after the fall of the monarchy.
- The National Convention was a single-chamber assembly in France from September 20, 1792, to October 26, 1795, that succeeded the Legislative Assembly. It fractured into even more extreme factions than its predecessor. A result of the increasing divide within the Jacobins was the split between the more radical Montagnards and the Girondins.
- The Jacobin Club was distinguished by its left-wing revolutionary politics. They were thus 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 were dubbed “the Mountain” (French: la montagne) for their seats in the uppermost part of the chamber and aimed for a more repressive form of government.
- 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 terms “left” and “right” used 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.
Key Terms
- Feuillants
- A political group that emerged during the French Revolution and consisted of monarchists and reactionaries who sat on the right of the Legislative Assembly of 1791. It came into existence when the left-wing Jacobins split between moderates, who sought to preserve the position of the king and supported the proposed plan of the National Assembly