Text displayed on a 1793 placard announcing thesale of expropriated property. Soon after the Revolution, the motto was often written as "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death." "Death" was later dropped for being too strongly associatedwith the excesses of the revolution.TheFrench Tricolour has been seen as embodying all the principles of the Revolution—Liberté, égalité, fraternité.[3]
Some claim thatCamille Desmoulins invented the phrase, in number 35 ofRévolutions de France et de Brabant, published on 26 July 1790.[4] However, it is not confirmed as this is only the first official mention of the phrase. Speaking of the July 1790Fête de la Fédération festival, he described "the citizen-soldiers rushing into each other's arms, promising each otherliberty, equality, fraternity." (French:les soldats-citoyens se précipiter dans les bras l’un de l’autre, en se promettant liberté, égalité, fraternité.)[5]
Several months later,Maximilien Robespierre popularized the phrase in his speech "On the organization of the National Guard" (French:Discours sur l'organisation des gardes nationales), on 5 December 1790, article XVI, which was disseminated widely throughout France by the popular Societies.
Discours sur l'organisation des gardes nationales Article XVI. They will wear these words engraved on their uniforms: THE FRENCH PEOPLE, & below: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY. The same words will be inscribed on flags which bear the three colors of the nation. (French:XVI. Elles porteront sur leur poitrine ces mots gravés : LE PEUPLE FRANÇAIS, & au-dessous : LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ. Les mêmes mots seront inscrits sur leurs drapeaux, qui porteront les trois couleurs de la nation.)
Credit for the motto has been given also toAntoine-François Momoro (1756–1794), a Parisian printer andHébertist organizer.[8][9][10] During theFederalist revolts in 1793, it was altered to "Unity, indivisibility of the Republic; liberty, equality, brotherhood or death" (French:Unité, Indivisibilité de la République; Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ou la mort).
In 1839, the philosopherPierre Leroux claimed it had been an anonymous and popular creation.[2][page needed] The historianMona Ozouf underlines that, althoughLiberté andÉgalité were associated as a motto during the 18th century,Fraternité wasn't always included in it, and other terms, such asAmitié (Friendship),Charité (Charity) orUnion were often added in its place.[2]
In 1791, the emphasis uponFraternité during the French Revolution, ledOlympe de Gouges, a female journalist, to write theDeclaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen as a response.[11][page needed] The tripartite motto was neither a creative collection, nor really institutionalized by the Revolution.[2] As soon as 1789, other terms were used, such as "la Nation, la Loi, le Roi" (The Nation, The Law, The King), or "Union, Force, Vertu" (Union, Strength,Virtue), aslogan used beforehand bymasonic lodges, or "Force, Égalité, Justice" (Strength, Equality, Justice), "Liberté, Sûreté, Propriété" (Liberty, Security, Property), etc.[2]
In other words,liberté, égalité, fraternité was one slogan among many others.[2] During theJacobin revolutionary period, various mottos were used, such asliberté, unité, égalité (liberty, unity, equality);liberté, égalité, justice (liberty, equality, justice);liberté, raison, égalité (liberty, reason, equality), etc.[2] The only solid association was that ofliberté andégalité, withfraternité being ignored by theCahiers de doléances as well as by the 1789Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.[2]
Fraternité was only alluded to in the 1791Constitution, as well as inRobespierre's draft Declaration of 1793, placed under the invocation of (in that order)égalité, liberté, sûreté andpropriété (equality, liberty, safety, property)—though it was used not as a motto, but as articles of declaration, as the possibility of a universal extension of the Declaration of Rights: "Men of all countries are brothers, he who oppresses one nation declares himself the enemy of all."[2][a]Fraternité did not figure in the August 1793 Declaration.[2]
Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.
Equality was defined by the Declaration in terms of judicial equality and merit-based entry to government (art. 6):
[The law] must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité actually finds its origins in a May 1791 proposition by theClub des Cordeliers, following a speech on the Army by the Marquis de Guichardin.[2] A British marine held prisoner on the French shipLe Marat in 1794, wrote home in letters published in 1796:[12]
The republican spirit is inculcated not in songs only, for in every part of the ship I find emblems purposely displayed to awaken it. All the orders relating to the discipline of the crew are hung up, and prefaced by the wordsLiberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort, written in capital letters.
The compatibility ofliberté andégalité was not in doubt in the first days of the Revolution, and the problem of the antecedence of one term on the other not lifted.[2]Abbé Sieyès considered that only liberty ensured equality, unless equality was to be the equality of all, dominated by adespot, while liberty followed equality ensured by the rule of law.[2] The abstract generality of law, theorized byJean-Jacques Rousseau in his 1762 bookThe Social Contract, thus ensured the identification of liberty to equality, liberty being negatively defined as an independence from arbitrary rule, and equality considered abstractly in its judicial form.[2]
This identification of liberty and equality became problematic during the Jacobin period, when equality was redefined, for instance, byFrançois-Noël Babeuf, asequality of results, and not only a judicial equality of rights.[2] Thus,Marc Antoine Baudot considered that the French temperament was inclined towards equality than liberty, a theme which was re-used byPierre Louis Roederer andAlexis de Tocqueville.Jacques Necker considered that an equal society could only be found on coercion.[2]
AnAlsatian sign, 1792: Freiheit Gleichheit Brüderlichk. od. Tod (Liberty Equality Fraternity or Death) Tod den Tyranen (Death to Tyrants) Heil den Völkern (Long live the Peoples)
The third term,fraternité, was the most problematic to insert in the triad, as it belonged to another sphere, that of moral obligations rather than rights, links rather than statutes, harmony rather thancontract, and community rather than individual liberty.[2] Various interpretations offraternité existed. The first one, according to Mona Ozouf, was one of "fraternité de rébellion" (Fraternity of Rebellion),[2] that is the union of the deputies in theJeu de Paume Oath of June 1789, refusing the dissolution ordered by the KingLouis XVI: "We swear never to separate ourselves from theNational Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations." Fraternity was thus issued from Liberty, and oriented by a common cause.[2]
Another form offraternité was that of the patriotic Church, which identified social links with religious links and based fraternity on Christian brotherhood.[2] In this second sense,fraternité preceded bothliberté andégalité, instead of following them as in the first sense.[2][page needed] Thus, two senses of Fraternity: "one, that followed liberty and equality, was the object of a free pact; the other preceded liberty and equality as the mark on its work of the divine craftsman."[2]
Another hesitation concerning the compatibility of the three terms arose from the opposition between liberty and equality asindividualistic values, and fraternity as the realization of a happy community, devoid of any conflicts and opposed to any form ofegotism.[2] This fusional interpretation of Fraternity opposed it to the project ofindividual autonomy and manifested the precedence of Fraternity on individual will.[2]
In this sense, it was sometimes associated with death, as inFraternité, ou la Mort! (Fraternity or Death!), excluding liberty and even equality, by establishing a strong dichotomy between those who were brothers and those who were not, in the sense of "you are with me or against me", brother or foe.[2][page needed]Louis de Saint-Just thus stigmatizedAnacharsis Cloots'cosmopolitanism, declaring "Cloots liked the universe, except France."[2]
With theThermidor and the execution of Robespierre,fraternité disappeared from the slogan, reduced to the two terms of liberty and equality, re-defined again as simple judicial equality and not as the equality upheld by the sentiment of fraternity.[2] In 1799, theFirst Consul (Napoleon Bonaparte) established the mottoliberté, ordre public (liberty, public order).
Following Napoleon's rule, the triptych dissolved itself, as none believed it possible to conciliate individual liberty and equality of rights withequality of results and fraternity.[2] The idea ofindividual sovereignty and ofnatural rights possessed by man before being united in the collectivity, contradicted the possibility of establishing a transparent and fraternal community.[2]Liberals accepted liberty and equality, defining the latter as equality of rights and ignoring fraternity.[2]
Early socialists rejected an independent conception of liberty, opposed to the social, and also despised equality, as they considered, asFourier, that one had only to orchestrate individual discordances, to harmonize them, or they believed, asSaint-Simon, that equality contradictedequity, by a brutal levelling of individualities.[2] Utopian socialism thus only valued fraternity, which was, inCabet'sIcarie, the sole commandment.[2]
This opposition between liberals and socialists was mirrored in rival historical interpretations of the Revolution, with liberals admiring 1789, and socialists admiring 1793.[2] TheJuly Revolution of 1830, establishing a constitutional monarchy headed byLouis-Philippe, substitutedordre et liberté (order and liberty) to the Napoleonic mottoLiberté, Ordre public.[2]
Despite this apparent disappearance of the triptych, the latter was still being thought in some underground circles, in Republicansecret societies, masonic lodges such as the "Indivisible Trinity," far-left booklets or during theCanuts Revolt in Lyon.[2] In 1834, the lawyer of theSociety of the Rights of Man (Société des droits de l'homme),Dupont, a liberal sitting in the far-left during theJuly Monarchy, associated the three terms together in theRevue Républicaine, which he edited:
Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he can not achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity[2][b]
Two interpretations had attempted to conciliate the three terms, beyond the antagonism between liberals and socialists. One was upheld by Catholic traditionalists, such asChateaubriand orBallanche, the other by socialist and republican such asPierre Leroux.[2] Chateaubriand gave a Christian interpretation of the revolutionary motto, stating in the 1841 conclusion to hisMémoires d'outre-tombe:
Far from being at its term, the religion of the Liberator is now only just entering its third phase, the political period, liberty, equality, fraternity[2][c]
Neither Chateaubriand nor Ballanche considered the three terms to be antagonistic. Rather, they took them for being the achievement of Christianity. On the other hand, Pierre Leroux did not disguise the difficulties of associating the three terms, but superated it by considering liberty as the aim, equality as the principle and fraternity as the means.[2] Leroux ordered the motto as Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,[2] an order supported byChristian socialists, such asBuchez.[2]
Against this new order of the triptych,Michelet supported the traditional order, maintaining the primordial importance of an original individualistic right.[2] Michelet attempted to conciliate a rational communication with a fraternal communication, "right beyond right",[2][page needed] and thus the rival traditions of socialism and liberalism.[2] Therepublican tradition would strongly inspire itself from Michelet's synchretism.[2]
With the1848 February Revolution, the motto was officially adopted,[13] mainly under the pressure of the people who had attempted to impose thered flag over thetricolor flag. The 1791 red flag was the symbol of martial law and of order, not of insurrection.[2]Lamartine opposed popular aspirations, and in exchange of the maintaining of the tricolor flag, conceded the Republican motto ofLiberté, Égalité, Fraternité, written on the flag, on which a red rosette was added.[2] It also appeared for the first time on coins.
Fraternity was then considered to resume, and to contain both Liberty and Equality, being a form of civil religion, which, far from opposing itself to Christianity, was associated with it in 1848[2][page needed] establishing social links, as called for by Rousseau in the conclusion of theSocial Contract.[2]
Fraternity was not devoid of its previous sense of opposition between brothers and foes, with images of blood haunting revolutionary Christian publications, taking inLamennais' themes.[2] Thus, the newspaperLe Christ républicain (The Republican Christ) developed the idea of the Christ bringing forth peace to the poor and war to the rich.[2][14]
On 6 January 1852, the futureNapoleon III, first President of the Republic, ordered allprefects to erase the triptych from all official documents and buildings, conflating the words with insurrection and disorder.[2]Auguste Comte applauded Napoleon, claiming equality to be the "symbol of metaphysical anarchism", and preferring to it his diptych "ordre et progrès", "order and progress", which became the motto of Brazil,Ordem e Progresso.[15]Proudhon criticized fraternity as an empty word, which he associated with idealistic dreams ofRomanticism.[2] He preferred to it the sole term of liberty.
Pache, mayor of theParis Commune, painted the formula "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la mort" on the walls of the commune. It was under theThird Republic that the motto was made official. It was then not dissociated with insurrection and revolutionary ardours,Opportunist Republicans such asJules Ferry orGambetta adapting it to the new political conditions.[16]Larousse'sDictionnaire universel deprived fraternity of its "evangelistic halo" (Mona Ozouf), conflating it with solidarity and thewelfare role of the state.[2]
Some still opposed the Republican motto, such as the nationalistCharles Maurras in hisDictionnaire politique et critique, who claimed liberty to be an empty dream, equality an insanity, and only kept fraternity.[2]Charles Péguy, renewing with Lamennais' thought, kept fraternity and liberty, excluding equality, seen as an abstract repartition between individuals reduced to homogeneity, opposing "fraternity" as a sentiment put in motion by "misery", while equality only interested itself, according to him, to the mathematical solution of the problem of "poverty."[2]
Péguy identified Christian charity and socialist solidarity in this conception of fraternity.[2] On the other hand,Georges Vacher de Lapouge, the most important French author ofpseudo-scientific racism and supporter ofeugenism, completely rejected the republican triptych, adopting another motto, "déterminisme, inégalité, sélection" (determinism, inequality, selection). According to Ozouf, the sole use of a triptych was the sign of the influence of the republican motto, despite it being corrupted in its opposite.[2]
Following the Liberation, theProvisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) re-established the Republican mottoLiberté, égalité, fraternité, which was incorporated into the 1946 and the 1958 French constitutions.[1]
In 1956, the Algerian woman militantZohra Drif, who during theAlgerian War planted a bomb in theMilk Bar Cafe in which three French women were killed, justified this and other violent acts by theFLN, by asserting that the French Authorities did not see their dedication to the principles of Equality and Liberty as relevant in Algeria.
Many other nations have adopted the French slogan of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" as an ideal.
Since its founding, "Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood" has been the lemma of the Social Democratic Party of Denmark. In theUnited Kingdom the political party theLiberal Democrats refer to "the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community" in the preamble of the party's Federal Constitution, and this is printed on party membership cards.[18]
The Czech slogan"Rovnost, volnost, bratrství" was a motto of the Czech national gymnastics organizationSokol at the end of the 19th century. Liberal values of the fraternal organization manifested themselves in the Czech independence movement duringWorld War I, when many Sokol members joined armies of the Allies and formed theCzechoslovak Legion to form independentCzechoslovakia in 1918.[19]
ThePhilippine National Flag has a rectangular design that consists of a white equilateral triangle, symbolizing liberty, equality, and fraternity; a horizontal blue stripe for peace, truth, and justice; and a horizontal red stripe for patriotism and valor. In the center of the white triangle is an eight-rayed golden sun symbolizing unity, freedom, people's democracy, and sovereignty.
Some former colonies of the French Republic, such asChad,Niger, andGabon, have adopted similar three-wordnational mottos.Haiti has used it on its coins since 1872, having used "Liberte Egalite" on earlier coinage since 1828.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[20]
Since 1848, the motto has been present on the throne of theGrand masters of LatinFreemasonry.[21] Freedom also alludes to the inner freedom from spiritual chains that are broken with the initiatory work.[22] Lodovico Frapolliit, formerGrand Master of theGrand Orient of Italy, suggested to substitute "fraternity" with "solidarity".[23]
^French: "Les hommes de tous les pays sont frères, celui qui opprime une seule nation se déclare l'ennemi de toutes."
^French: "Tout homme aspire à la liberté, à l'égalité, mais on ne peut y atteindre sans le secours des autres hommes, sans la fraternité."
^French: "Loin d'être à son terme, la religion du Libérateur entre à peine dans sa troisième période, la période politique, liberté, égalité, fraternité."
^Hervé Leuwers, Camille et Lucile Desmoulins, Un rêve de république, p. 162
^Camille Desmoulins,Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Number 35, p. 515
^Robespierre, Maximilien (1950).OEUVRES DE MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE. Vol. Tome VI. PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE. p. 643. Retrieved19 September 2014.
^From Robespierre's speech to the National Assembly on 5 December 1790. Cited in Triomphe et mort du droit naturel en Révolution, 1789–1795–1802, Florence Gauthier, éd. PUF/ pratiques théoriques, 1992, p. 129
^de Barante, Amable Guillaume P. Brugière (1851).Histoire de la Convention nationale [History of the National convention] (in French). Langlois & Leclercq. p. 322. Retrieved31 August 2011.
^Le Christ républicain n°7, quoted by Mona Ozouf: "Nous, pauvres prolétaires, nous sommes rouges, parce que le Christ a versé son sang pour nous racheter, son sang par lequel nous voulons nous régénérer. Nous sommes rouges, parce que l'ange exterminateur a marqué le haut de nos portes avec le sang de l'agneau, pour distinguer, au jour de la vengeance, les élus d'avec les réprouvés.
^"Papa Bergoglio. Il Grande Oriente d'Italia lo ricorda".Grand Orient of Italy (in Italian). 21 April 2025.Archived from the original on 23 April 2025. Retrieved23 April 2025. Quote: "For over 300 years, the principle of Brotherhood has been indelibly inscribed in the Masonic triad placed in the East in temples alongside those of Liberty and Equality.".
^Frapolli, Lodovico,La franc-maçonnerie réformée essai de philosophie naturelle, Typography V. Vercellino, Torino 1864, 62 pp. Quote: "What has become of equality in Nature? It is limited by diversity and, given that this diversity is found everywhere, it follows that equality does not exist anywhere. We must therefore be content to recognise it in law and we must replace it, in formulas as well as in aspirations, with solidarity, which is truer, more charitable and more fruitful. Because – we must repeat it – equality does not exist in Nature, while solidarity is found everywhere in the organism of the world. In human societies, equality, considered not as a law but as a principle, is envy, jealousy, hatred – solidarity, on the other hand, is the aspiration to perfection, and charity, love. Equality is revolt and destruction: solidarity and reconstruction on the basis of justice is the future."
Mathijsen, Marita. "The emancipation of the past, as due to the Revolutionary French ideology of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité."Free Access to the Past ed Lotte Jensen (Brill, 2010). 20–40.
Roth, Guenther. "Durkheim and the principles of 1789: the issue of gender equality."Telos 1989.82 (1989): 71–88.
Sénac, Réjane. "The Contemporary Conversation about the French Connection "Liberté, égalité, fraternité": Neoliberal Equality and "Non-brothers."Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies 21.XXI-1 (2016).online
