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Camille Desmoulins ( Day- Moo- Lahn) ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 JACOBIN FACTION Camille Desmoulins ( day- moo- lahn) Newspaper Editor ou are not a delegate in the National Assembly, though you are a leader of the Jacobin faction. You are 31 years old and from Guise, in the region of Picardy (department Aisne). Your father was a royal magistrate, and through patronage you received a Y scholarship to attend the most prestigious school in France: Louis-​­le-​­Grand, in Paris. It was here, when you were both students, that you met Maximilien Robespierre. You did extremely well, even when compared to such shining lights as Robespierre and Louis- ​­Marie Stanis- las Fréron. In fact, you did well enough to advance to the study of law, also in Paris. Not wishing to return to Picardy and energized by the environment in Paris, you remained in the city. You had trouble finding work in the law, however, due to your stammer and temper, so you have been living in poverty for a long time. You decided that writing might be a better career path, and, proceeding from your interest in public affairs, you tried your hand at journalism. Your father was elected to the Estates General for Guise, but couldn’t attend because of ill health. You attended as a spectator and wrote him with all the details. You also wrote a response to the procession of the Estates General, Ode aux Etats- Generaux, not your most scintillating work—​­that claim is reserved for some of your later journalism—​­but one of which you were proud, nevertheless. In fact, Mirabeau himself saw value in your work and asked you to write for his newspaper. This further cemented people’s sense of you as a serious journalist. On July 12, 1789, you heard the news of Jacques Necker’s dismissal. It sent you into a rage! You jumped up onto a table in the Palais Royal, an area frequented by political dissidents, and demanded that the people rise up against royal despotism. You were so charged up that, during your impassioned call to arms, your stutter vanished! You encouraged people to wear a green cockade as a symbol of liberty, a symbol by which patriots might know one another. Members of the crowd did indeed begin to wear the green cockade, though they soon replaced it with red and blue, the traditional colors of Paris; green is also the color of the Comte d’Artois, the king’s brother, who hates the Revolution. You published a pamphlet, Le France Libre, in which you criticized the Church, the monarchy, and all those with privilege and power. You called for a republic, announcing that “popular and democratic govern- ment is the only constitution which suits France, and all those who are worthy of the name of men.”1 You soon published more radical articles and became one of the most well- ​­known and well- ​­read revolutionary journalists in Paris. Your first newspaper, the extremely popular Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant, is still running and argues, vehemently, for a republic. Your agitation has only intensified following the king’s trip to Varennes, and you wish to rally the people around you in support of that cause. The Feuillants think of you as a hothead and you fear that even some of the Jacobins don’t respect you as a politician. However, you have a good working relationship with Danton, who listens to you and you to him. You are a leader among the members of your faction. Although you do not vote, your words— spoken and written—​­have great weight. On any matter in which you manage to give a speech to the National Assembly, forty-​­nine delegates will vote as you propose. (You will hold up a placard with forty-​­nine on it.) Again: if you do not speak on an issue, then you cannot (indirectly) “cast” votes on it. 1. Rachel Hammersley, “Camille Desmoulins’s Le Vieux Cordelier: A Link between English and French Republican- ism,” History of European Ideas 27, no. 2 (2001): 124. ROLE SHEET: Camille Desmoulins, Jacobin Faction 1 OF 12 214935_RS37_Camille_Desmoulins_001-012_r2_ma.indd 1 13/01/16 4:36 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 Faction Advisory JACOBINS ou are a member of the Jacobin faction. You seek to create an entirely new political order—​­a republic—​­based on the ideas of Rousseau. You oppose those who want to preserve the old order: King Louis XVI, the conservative nobility, and the Catholic Y clergymen who refuse to swear their loyalty to the National Assembly and its laws. You are also dismayed that in the past few weeks some delegates have resigned from the Jacobin Club and formed a rival club, the Feuillants, which seeks to blend elements of the old order with those of the new. They call this strange amalgam a “constitutional monarchy,” a nonsensical con- cept. You must push forward and finish the Revolution. Not only must you persuade the Feuillants to return to sanity, but you must also win over the undecided or “indeterminate” delegates. And you must also defeat the conservatives within France and its enemies abroad. You must guide the nation into a modern world characterized by freedom and guided by the General Will. Depending on the size of the class, the Jacobin faction will consist of two to eight players, as follows: • Grégoire • Hérault • Pétion • Buzot • Saint- André • Saint- Just • Desmoulins • David VICTORY OBJECTIVES Your individual biography outlines the story of your life, including your own personal goals and objec- tives. But you must always remember that your foremost allegiance is to your faction. You win the game by ensuring that your faction’s philosophy prevails. For example, each player must advance particular arguments in speeches and essays; suggestions along these lines are included in the Assignments sec- tion of this role packet. But your faction must also work as a team, guided chiefly by the goals outlined below. In other words, if you do well individually but your faction does poorly, you lose. If one player stumbles or encounters fierce opposition, others in your team must come to that player’s assistance. Your Gamemaster may have further guidance on how to win, but this much is obvious: your fac- tion must persuade other players, especially those who are undecided or “indeterminate,” to support goals that uphold your faction’s philosophy. Your faction should schedule regular meetings outside of class to determine what exactly needs to be done and how best to accomplish it. Remember that other factions, intent on winning, are likely strategizing to ensure that your faction will lose! ROLE SHEET: Camille Desmoulins, Jacobin Faction 2 OF 12 214935_RS37_Camille_Desmoulins_001-012_r2_ma.indd 2 13/01/16 4:36 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 As a Jacobin, you seek to attain the following “victory objectives,” to be determined at the end of the game. 1 Draft a constitution depriving the monarchy of any real role in the government. Eliminate many of the existing provisions in Chapter II and the “Royal Sanction” (Chapter III). 2 Ensure that the General Will is sovereign, expressed through a unicameral ( single-​­house) elected legislature (the National Assembly). In the Declaration of the Rights of Man, you wish to eliminate the clause (#16) that ensures a separation of powers. No separate body, whether it be the nobility or the judiciary, should check the will of the people, as voiced by the National Assembly. The executive must not imagine that he (or she, or they) is a source of sovereignty divorced from the people. The executive must be an extension of the legis- lature, which represents the will of the people. The executive serves at the pleasure of the people, as manifested by the National Assembly. It cannot be otherwise. The proposed constitution contains other provisions that undermine the General Will. Eliminate them. 3 Protect the social contract by eliminating dissident groups and institutions— including anti- revolutionary elements in the Catholic Church. Rousseau explained the problem in The Social Contract: “It is important that there should be no partial society in the state,” for “when intrigues and partial associations [factions, political parties] come into being at the expense of the [social contract],” partisan ideas destroy the sense of community on which the General Will depends. So, you must ensure that there is only one nation in France, to which all citizens pledge their first and only loyalty. To that end, you must reaffirm the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which places the Catholic Church firmly under the General Will of the French people. You must also reaffirm the provisions eliminating noble privileges. (These are summarized in the intro- duction to the proposed constitution). Similarly, you should pass legislation declaring that all émigré noblemen must immediately return to France and affirm their allegiance to the nation; otherwise, they will be declared enemies of the nation, punishable by death, and their lands forfeit to the state. 4 Abolish slavery in Saint- Domingue. Slavery, as Rousseau has shown, is an outrage, a horrid refutation of Article 1 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” That some Frenchmen make money from the sugar and coffee plantations in this Caribbean island can never justify slavery. ROLE SHEET: Camille Desmoulins, Jacobin Faction 3 OF 12 214935_RS37_Camille_Desmoulins_001-012_r2_ma.indd 3 13/01/16 4:36 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 5 Eliminate all clubs and newspapers apart from the Jacobin Club and its newspaper. The Jacobin Club articulates the General Will; the others represent factions at war with the General Will.
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