THE FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN CAEN DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION x

BY A. GOODWIN, M.A. PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

TRUE understanding of the federalist insurrection in the A north-west of France in 1793 depends upon a close study of political attitudes and events in and around Caen. It was there, after all, that the standard of revolt in the north against the dominating influence of the Paris commune was first raised. It was the departmental officials of the Calvados at Caen who set the example of flouting and then rejecting the authority of the National Convention. The local authorities in Caen not only took this initiative, but supplied the effective political leadership of the rising as it spread to other departments. As is well known, Caen became the chief refuge for several of the Girondin leaders who escaped from Paris after their expulsion from the Convention on 2 June 1793, and it thus became a focus of anti-Jacobin opinion, and an object of general interest in the country at large. As I shall show later, one of the decisive reasons for the collapse of federalism in the north-west was that Caen withdrew its sup­ port from the movement, instead of continuing the struggle after Brecourt. Quite obviously, the role played by Caen in the Northern insurrection was of the same order of importance as that played by Marseilles, Bordeaux or Lyons in the South. It is somewhat strange, therefore, to find that we still lack a scholarly study of the federalist movement in the Calvados.2

1 A lecture delivered in the Library series of public lectures. 2 The movement in the adjacent departments of the Orne and the Eure has, however, been studied and incidental light on the situation in Calvados thus provided. See for example, P. Nicolle, " Le mouvement federaliste dans 1'Orne en 1793 ", Annales Historiques de la Revolution Franfaise, xiii (1936), 481-512 ; xiv (1937), 215-33 ; xv (1938), 12-53, 289-313 and 385-410. A. Montier, " Le department de 1'Eure et ses districts en Juin 1793 ", La Revolution Franfaise, xxx (1896), 128-55, and L. Dubreuil, " Evreux au temps du federalisme ", Ibid. Ixxviii (1925), 244-63 and 318-48. 313 314 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY This is because the sources for such a study are so fragmentary and so difficult to interpret. The main collection of printed and manuscript material in the departmental archives of the Calvados dealing with the risings the L series has had an unfortunate history and is only now in course of classification.1 Some of the original records which survived remained in private hands and one of the most important of such collections was broken up and sold in 1895.2 More recently, however, the sources for the study of Norman federalism have become more accessible for study partly by the publication of such indispensable documents as the contemporary reports of the secret agents of the Minister of the Interior, and partly through the return to the departmental archives of the Calvados of important manuscript collections formerly in private possession.3 Some progress in the study of these documents has already been made, notably by Mademois­ elle J. Grail, but no satisfactory general account of the rising has yet been written.4 Before turning to my first problem that of the origins of the political hostility of Caen towards the so-called " anarchists " in the capital I need to say a word or two about the city itself at the end of the eighteenth century. Just before the revolution, Caen had a population of about 35,000 inhabitants.5 It was an important commercial and industrial centre where, as Arthur Young tells us, silk lace, cotton goods and worsted stockings were

1 Part of the series was destroyed as " useless " and another part (affaires militaires depuis 1792) was sold in 1862. Inventaire Sommaire des Archives Departmentales posterieures a 1790 (Calvados), Serie L, i (Caen, 1906), ed. A. Benet, pp. iv-v. 2 Ibid. 3 P. Caron, Rapports des agents du Ministre de Vlnie.rie.ur dans les departements, 2 vols. (Paris, 1951). In 1923 M. T. Genty, Vice-President of the Society des Bibliophiles Normands, restored to the archives fourteen bundles of manuscripts which had belonged to Pierre-Jean 1'Eveque, president of the departmental executive in 1793. My attention was drawn to these papers by Mile. Grail, who has greatly assisted me in guiding me through the collection. 4 See, in particular, Mile. Grail's study of Bougon-Longrais in Bulletin de la societe des Antiquaires de Normandie, liii (1956), 422-34 and of the Administrative Council of the army of the Cotes de Cherbourg in Annales de Normandie (1958), pp. 353-63. 5 In 1775 the population of Caen was estimated at 35,371. Inventaire' Sommaire des Archives Departmentales Anterieures a 1790 (Calvados), Archives Civiles, Serie C, i (1877), 46.