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All 749 seats in theNational Convention | |||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 3,360,000 | ||||||||||||||||
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Legislative elections were held in France in August and September 1792 to elect deputies to theNational Convention.[1] Primary elections to elect members ofelectoral colleges were held in August,[2] with the electoral colleges subsequently voting from 2 to 19 September.[3] The elections established the nation's first government without the monarch,Louis XVI. On 20 September the Convention gathered for the first time.
From 26 August the candidates were elected by an electoral college; royalist andGirondin candidates were boycotted.[1] On the same day news reached Paris that the Prussian army had occupiedLongwy. On 28 August the assembly ordered a curfew for the next two days. The city gates were closed; all communication with the country was stopped. On 29 August the Prussians attackedVerdun. When this news arrived it escalated panic in the capital; the situation was highly critical.[4] In the afternoon of 2 September theSeptember Massacres began.[5]
The electoral colleges voted from 2 to 19 September and lasted three weeks. To be an elector a citizen had to be over 21, resident one year in his department and not a domestic servant. An elector could stand as a candidate in any constituency. To be a delegate or a deputy an elector had to be over 25. If at the first ballot no candidate received an absolute majority of votes cast, there was to be a second ballot at which only the top two candidates of the first could compete.[6]
According toMalcolm Crook, "Evidence of orchestrated attempts to intimidate rivals is not hard to find."[7][8] In Paris the sections accepted a proposal by Robespierre four a two stage screening process that was initially targeted at monarchists but ended up excluding all Girondins.[9]
Around 3,360,000 voters participated in the elections.[10]An absolute majority of the male deputies elected belonged to theMarais party, a political faction of vague but largely moderate policies. Although it is often stated that the Marais won around 389 seats, the leftistMontagnards led byMaximilien Robespierre won around 200 seats and the more moderate Girondin faction led byJacques Pierre Brissot around 160 seats, there was no clear delineation of political affiliation and seat totals cannot be considered to be hard facts.[11] Around 136 of the elected legislators joined theJacobin club.[11]
The Convention met for the first time on 21 September.[11]Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve of theGirondins was electedPresident of the Convention, while Girondins secured most of the posts in the secretariat.[11] However, the elections preceded the fall of the Girondins as a political faction, mainly because of the political and social unrest following the war started by the Girondin-dominated government in the spring of 1792.
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