The French Revolution: Girondin and Jacobin Conventions

The Democratic Republic and the Girondin Convention

The Republic was in the hands of the Girondins, who called for universal male suffrage elections for the new National Convention (the name designating the Assembly). The Convention held a trial against King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, who were charged with treason, convicted, and executed by guillotine. The King's death provoked an alliance of European monarchies, which formed a coalition against revolutionary France. In the spring of 1793, the Republic was in danger: inside the country, counterrevolutionary riots erupted, especially in La Vendée, and royalist plots multiplied. Outside, allied armies invaded France.

The Jacobin Convention

In June 1793, the Jacobins seized power and arrested the main Girondin political leaders. That same year, they enacted a new constitution based on social democracy, featuring:

• Popular sovereignty
• Universal direct suffrage
• Equality

The executive power was held by the Committee of Public Safety, which concentrated all authority in Robespierre. To meet the external threat, the Republic organized an army, decreed mass conscription, and implemented the Politics of Terror. The Committee suspended freedoms, and a revolutionary tribunal punished those suspected of being counter-revolutionaries with imprisonment or death (the Law of Suspects).

To meet the aspirations of the sans-culottes, the Committee of Public Safety approved a series of social laws:

• Control of prices and wages (the Maximum Law)
• Distribution of assets from counter-revolutionaries to the indigent
• Mandatory sale of clergy lands in small lots

Furthermore, churches were closed, and the Cult of the Goddess of Reason was established.

The Fall of the Jacobins

In the summer of 1794, risks decreased: internal revolts had been quelled, and French armies were imposing themselves on the foreign coalition. However, the radicalization of the Revolution, the Terror, and the Jacobin dictatorship provoked opposition from much of the population. Thus, through the Thermidorian Reaction in July 1794, Robespierre and other Jacobin leaders were overthrown and executed.