The Jacobin Republic Under Fire The Jacobin Republic Under Fire the federalist revolt in the french revolution paul r. hanson the pennsylvania state university press university park, pennsylvania Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hanson, Paul R., 1952– The Jacobin republic under fire : the Federalist Revolt in the French Revolution / Paul R. Hanson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-271-02281-7 (cloth :alk. paper) 1. Girondists. 2. Montagnards. 3. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799. I. Title. DC179 .H36 2003 944.04Ј2—dc21 2003004788 Copyright ᭧ 2003 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Acknowledgments One of the lessons I learned from Lynn Hunt, many years ago when social history was most in vogue, is that politics do matter. The political process may not always work, the views of the electorate may not always be heeded, votes may not always be accurately counted, but politics do still matter. They mat- tered intensely to French revolutionaries. This book is, above all, an effort to understand the debates and battles that raged from late 1792 through 1793 over how democratic politics were to be practiced. Here at the dawn of the twenty- first century most Americans seem to view politics as either irrelevant or ineffi- cacious, even as our nation touts itself as a defender of democracy worldwide. I find that disjunction troubling. One of my hopes in writing this book, as in all of my teaching about the French Revolution, is that by studying the passion that French men and women brought to their engagement in democratic politics we might rekindle some of that passion today. It goes without saying that books do not write themselves, nor do authors write them alone. Over the past dozen years, my research and writing has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Hu- manities, the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, and Butler University, and I am deeply appreciative of that support. In spring 1995 I spent a month at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and during that stay I first conceptualized the book. I completed most of the writing while on sabbatical in 1998–99, in a quiet office generously provided by Christian Theological Seminary, one of Butler University’s near neighbors. In subsequent summers I was able to find solitude for writing in a space in the Butler library, arranged for me by Lewis Miller, the dean of the library. A number of colleagues have generously read portions of the manuscript and offered feedback and advice. I would like to thank in particular David Andress, John Burney, Alan Forrest, Gary Kates, Michael Sydenham, and of course Lynn Hunt. I would also like to thank the then anonymous (now revealed) readers for Penn State Press, David Troyansky and John Merriman. Both are good friends and valued colleagues, and I have tried to respond to their suggestions and criti- ix Contents List of Maps vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 One Girondins on Trial 13 Two Girondins versus Montagnards 33 Three Revolt in the Provinces 57 Four The Federalist Program 99 Five The Local Context of Federalism 123 Six Contemporary Perspectives on the Revolt 165 Seven Prelude to the Terror 193 Conclusion 233 Appendix: Demands of the Central Committee of Resistance to Oppression 245 Bibliography 249 Index 257 v Maps Departmental Alignment in June 1793 65 Bordeaux with Its Twenty-eight Sections 129 The Parishes and Sections of Caen 133 Lyon and Its Sections, 1789–1793 144 The Plan of Marseille 156 vii for Laura xacknowledgments cisms as fully as possible. Each can at least take some satisfaction in helping to correct my errant sense of geography. I could not have written this history of the federalist revolt without relying on the work of other historians. I have read, and reread, the books of Alan Forrest, William Scott, and Bill Edmonds and have profited greatly from their careful research and insightful analysis. Alan and I have talked about federalism many times over the years, though not often enough. I corresponded with Bill Edmonds early in my career and regret that I never had the opportunity to meet the man whose work I greatly admire. I have also learned a great deal from the work of Antonio De Francesco and Jacques Guilhaumou, and each has been generous enough to discuss my own work with me. I must also acknowledge the work of Malcolm Crook, even if in the end I reached the conclusion that Toulon was more royalist than federalist. Finally, a special note of thanks to my wife, Betsy Lambie, for her loving support over the years and her discerning eye as I struggled through the final editing process. We have been married for twenty-five years, and federalism has been there in one way or another for all of them. Having conquered federalism, we can now look forward to another twenty-five years of unity and indivisibility. introduction More than twenty years have passed since my first trip to France to do research on the French Revolution, but I still remember vividly a conversation in the Calvados archives, where I had gone to learn more about the federalist revolt in Caen. As a young, inexperienced historian I frequently had questions about ar- chival citations or eighteenth-century handwriting, and more often than not I turned to Monsieur Le Petit, a gentle and amiable archivist whose family had lived in Normandy for generations. He answered my questions patiently, some- times more than once, and eventually asked me just what I was working on. When I told him that I hoped to write a history of the federalist revolt in Caen he offered a simple but deeply felt observation: ‘‘It is too bad that the Girondins did not win.’’ Now Monsieur Le Petit could be expected to believe that history mat- ters—he was after all an archivist. But he cared about the defeat of the Girondins not because he was an archivist (his specialty, in fact, was in early modern civil records), but rather because he was a Frenchman. Moreover, his comment sug- gested not only that the political struggles of the French Revolution still mat- tered, but also that the victory of the Montagnards over their Girondin opponents was not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, in Monsieur Le Petit’s view, had the Girondins prevailed in their struggle with the Montagnards in 1793, the first French republic might have endured much longer. Some fourteen years later, having written that first book, I had another con- versation that reminded me of the enduring relevance of the French Revolution. In 1992 I traveled in Russia with a group of Butler University faculty, on a study tour related to a comparative world cultures course that we all taught together. Just one year before Boris Yeltsin had succeeded Mikhail Gorbachev in power, and the Soviet Union was in the process of falling apart. Our final stop was St. Petersburg, where one morning we met with members of the city council. I was not looking forward to what I expected to be a rather boring session involving the ritual exchange of formulaic greetings and souvenir pins. I could not have been more wrong. We did get pins (I still treasure mine!), but our conversation with four members of the St. Petersburg municipal council was fascinating, and as we sat with them in a room of the Maryinski Palace, redolent with its own rich history, I felt as if I could as easily have been back in the 1790s in Paris or Marseille. 1 2 introduction The four deputies, like their forebears in the French National Convention, were all young and all men, but they represented diverse groups and interests. One was a liberal socialist, one a computer specialist, another an environmental activist, and the fourth ardently devoted to the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. There were 500 deputies on the St. Petersburg municipal council, and as with the members of the National Convention, 750 in number, these men often felt overwhelmed by the difficulty of accomplishing anything in so large an assembly, even as they felt exhilarated by the opportunity to enact real change in their city. They were faced by enormous, concrete problems, but they also confronted more abstract issues of political theory: ‘‘Are we,’’ one asked us, ‘‘the representatives of our constituents, or have we been elected to vote our con- science as free agents?’’ Another observed, ‘‘In the midst of so many crises, it is a good thing that the people are at present apathetic, or we would all be out on our ears.’’ The Girondins should have been so lucky, I thought. Parisians were scarcely apathetic in 1793, and most of the Girondin leaders met their fate on the guillotine. As with my earlier exchange with Monsieur Le Petit, this conversation re- minded me that revolutionary politics still matter in the world today. Revolu- tions are moments when people claim their most fundamental rights and proclaim the principle of popular sovereignty. This was true of the French and American revolutions of the eighteenth century, and it was true of the revolu- tions that swept across central and eastern Europe in 1989.