Girondins | |
|---|---|
| Leader | |
| Founded | 1791; 234 years ago (1791) |
| Dissolved | 1793; 232 years ago (1793) |
| Preceded by | Vonckists (Belgium) |
| Headquarters | Bordeaux,Gironde |
| Newspaper |
|
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-left[nb 1] |
TheGirondins (US:/(d)ʒɪˈrɒndɪnz/,[6]French:[ʒiʁɔ̃dɛ̃]ⓘ), also calledGirondists, were a political group during theFrench Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in theLegislative Assembly and theNational Convention. Together with theMontagnards, they initially were part of theJacobin movement. They campaigned for the end of themonarchy, but then resisted the spiraling momentum of theRevolution, which caused a conflict with the more radical Montagnards. They dominated the movement until their fall in theinsurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, which resulted in the domination of the Montagnards and the purge and eventual mass execution of the Girondins. This event is considered to mark the beginning of theReign of Terror.
The Girondins were a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from thedépartement ofGironde in southwest France.[7] Girondin leaderJacques Pierre Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, therefore the Girondins were the war party in 1792–1793. Other prominent Girondins includedJean Marie Roland and his wifeMadame Roland. They also had an ally in the English-born American activistThomas Paine.
Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland (who had gone into hiding) committed suicide when he learned about the execution. Paine was imprisoned, but he narrowly escaped execution. The famous paintingThe Death of Marat depicts the fiery radical journalist and denouncer of the GirondinsJean-Paul Marat after being stabbed to death in his bathtub byCharlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer. Corday did not attempt to flee and was arrested and executed.
The collective name "Girondins" is used to describe "a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention".[8] They were never a formal organization or political party.[9][10] The name itself was bestowed not by any of its alleged members but by theMontagnards, "who claimed as early as April 1792 that a counterrevolutionary faction had coalesced around deputies of the department of theGironde".[8][11]Jacques-Pierre Brissot,Jean Marie Roland andFrançois Buzot were among the most prominent of such deputies and contemporaries called their supportersBrissotins,Rolandins, orBuzotins, depending on which politician was being blamed for their leadership.[8] Other names were employed at the time too, but "Girondins" ultimately became the term favored by historians.[8] The term became standard withAlphonse de Lamartine'sHistory of the Girondins in 1847.[12]
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Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde and there were six who sat for this département in both theLegislative Assembly of 1791–1792 and theNational Convention of 1792–1795. Five were lawyers:Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud,Marguerite-Élie Guadet,Armand Gensonné, Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve and Jean Jay (who was also a Protestant pastor). The other,Jean François Ducos, was a tradesman. In the Legislative Assembly, they represented a compact body of opinion which, though not as yet definitely republican (i.e. against the monarchy), was considerably more "advanced" than the moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies.[7]
A group of deputies from elsewhere became associated with these views, most notably theMarquis de Condorcet,Claude Fauchet,Marc David Lasource,Maximin Isnard, theComte de Kersaint, Henri Larivière and above all Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean Marie Roland andJérôme Pétion, who was elected mayor of Paris in succession toJean Sylvain Bailly on 16 November 1791.[7]
Madame Roland, whosesalon became their gathering place, had a powerful influence on the spirit and policy of the Girondins with her "romantic republicanism".[13] The party cohesion they possessed was connected to the energy of Brissot, who came to be regarded as their mouthpiece in the Assembly and in theJacobin Club,[citation needed] hence the name "Brissotins" for his followers.[14] The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention (20 September 1792). "Brissotins" and "Girondins" were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy.[7]
In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and patriotic defiance to the European powers.[7] They supported an aggressive foreign policy and constituted the war party in the period 1792–1793, when revolutionary France initiated a long series of revolutionary wars with other European powers. Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, one thatNapoleon later pursued aggressively.[15] Brissot called on the National Convention to dominate Europe by conquering theRhineland,Poland and theNetherlands with a goal of creating a protective ring of satellite republics inGreat Britain,Spain andItaly by 1795. The Girondins also called for war againstAustria, arguing it would rally patriots around the Revolution, liberate oppressed peoples from despotism, and test the loyalty of KingLouis XVI.[16]
Girondins at first dominated the Jacobin Club, where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted byMaximilien Robespierre and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry composed of their partisans, among them Roland,Charles François Dumouriez,[16]Étienne Clavière andJoseph Marie Servan de Gerbey; and they forced adeclaration of war againstHabsburg Austria the same year. Following the veto of key pieces of legislation proposed by the Girondins (primarily relating to the deportation of refractory priests and the stationing of 20,000 soldiers in Paris[17]) by the King and a critical letter penned by Roland in response to these vetoes, Louis XVI dismissed the Girondin Ministers on 13 June 1792.[18] This dismissal is one of the factors that led to theémeute (riot) of 20 June 1792 as one of the aims of the rioters was for the King to reinstate the Girondist ministers.[18]
In all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage betweenLa Gironde andThe Mountain. Montagnards and Girondins alike were fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as republicans; and both were prepared toappeal to force in order to realise their ideals.[7] Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the central government ("federalism"), the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France.[19] From the first, the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the Assembly.[7]
Temperament largely accounts for the dividing line between the parties. The Girondins were doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action. They initially encouraged armed petitions, but then were dismayed when this led to theémeute (riot) of 20 June 1792. Jean-Marie Roland was typical of their spirit, turning the Ministry of the Exterior into a publishing office for tracts on civic virtues while riotous mobs were burning the châteaux unchecked in the provinces. Girondins did not share the ferocious fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future Montagnard organisers of theReign of Terror. On 25 July, according to theLogographe, Carnot promoted the use of pikes (seven feet long) and provided to every citizen.[20] (On this day the points of view between Robespierre and Brissot split.[21]) On 29 July Robespierre called for the deposition of the King and the election of a Convention.[22][23] Early August Brissot urged the preservation of the constitution, advocating against both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly.[24] As the Revolution developed, the Girondins often found themselves opposing its results; the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792 and theSeptember Massacres of 1792 occurred while they still nominally controlled the government, but the Girondins tried to distance themselves from the results of the September Massacres.[7] At the end of August Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot andRoland. On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the National Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Roland and Brissot arrested.[25][26] According toCharlotte Robespierre, her brother stopped talking to his former friend, mayorPétion de Villeneuve. Pétion was accused ofconspicuous consumption by Desmoulins,[27] and finally rallied to Brissot.[28]
When theNational Convention first met on 22 September 1792, the core of like-minded deputies from theGironde expanded asJean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède, Jacques Lacaze and François Bergoeing joined five of the six stalwarts of theLegislative Assembly (Jean Jay, the Protestant pastor, drifted toward the Montagnard faction). Their numbers were increased by the return to national politics by formerNational Constituent Assembly deputies such asJean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne,Pétion de Villeneuve and Kervélégan, as well as some newcomers as the writerThomas Paine and popular journalist Jean-Louis Carra. The Girondins called on the local authorities to oppose the concentration and centralisation of power.
The Girondins proposed suspending the king and summoning of the National Convention, but they agreed not to overthrow the monarchy untilLouis XVI became impervious to their counsels. Once the king was overthrown in 1792 and a republic was established, they were anxious to stop the revolutionary movement that they had helped to set in motion. Girondins and historianPierre Claude François Daunou argues in hisMémoires that the Girondins were too cultivated and too polished to retain their popularity for long in times of disturbance, and so they were more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would mean the guarantee of their own power. The Girondins, who had been the radicals of the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792), became the conservatives of the Convention (1792–1795).[29][30]
The Revolution failed to deliver the immediate gains that had been promised and this made it difficult for the Girondins to draw it to a close easily in the minds of the public. Moreover, theSeptembriseurs (the supporters of theSeptember Massacres such as Robespierre,Danton, Marat and their lesser allies) realised that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the Girondins, had proposed to include them in theproscription lists of September 1792: The Mountain Club to a man who desired their overthrow.[31] A group including some Girondins prepared a draft constitution known as theGirondin constitutional project, which was presented to theNational Convention in early 1793.Thomas Paine was one of the signers of this proposal.
The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondins, who had a majority in the Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministries, believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in the hostile camp—their system was established in mere reason, but the Montagnards made up for what they lacked in talent or in numbers through their boldness and energy.[31] This was especially fruitful since uncommitted delegates accounted for almost half the total number, even though the Jacobins and Brissotins formed the largest groups.[citation needed] The more radical rhetoric of the Jacobins attracted the support of the revolutionaryParis Commune, theRevolutionary Sections (mass assemblies in districts) and theNational Guard of Paris and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. At thetrial of Louis XVI in 1792, most Girondins had voted for the "appeal to the people" and so laid themselves open to the charge of "royalism".[citation needed] They denounced the domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid and so fell under suspicion of "federalism" as on September 25, 1792.[32] They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by first decreeing its abolition but withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition.[31]
In the suspicious temper of the times, their vacillation was fatal. Marat never ceased his denunciations of the faction by which France was being betrayed to her ruin and his cry ofNous sommes trahis! ("We are betrayed!") was echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris.[33] The growing hostility of Paris to the Girondins received a fateful demonstration by the election on 15 February 1793 of the bitter ex-GirondinJean-Nicolas Pache to the mayoralty. Pache had twice been minister of war in the Girondins government, but his incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism and on 4 February 1793 he had been replaced as minister of war by a vote of the Convention. This was enough to secure him the votes of the Paris electors when he was elected mayor ten days later. The Mountain was strengthened by the accession of a significant ally whose one idea was to use his new power to avenge himself on his former colleagues.[31] Mayor Pache, withprocureur of the CommunePierre Gaspard Chaumette and deputyprocureurJacques René Hébert, controlled the armed militias of the 48revolutionary Sections of Paris and prepared to turn this weapon against the Convention.[34] The abortiveémeute of 10 March warned the Girondins of their danger and they responded with defensive moves. They unintentionally increased the prestige of their most vocal and bitter critic Marat by prosecuting him before theRevolutionary Tribunal, where his acquittal in April 1793 was a foregone conclusion. TheCommission of Twelve was appointed of on 24 May, including the arrest of Varlat and Hébert and other precautionary measures.[35] The ominous threat by Girondin leaderMaximin Isnard, uttered on 25 May, to "march France upon Paris" was instead met by Paris marching hastily upon the Convention. The Girondin role in the government was undermined by the popular uprisings of 27 and 31 May and finally on 2 June 1793, whenFrançois Hanriot, head of the Paris National Guards, purged the Convention of the Girondins[31] (seeInsurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793).
A list drawn up by the Commandant-General of the Parisian National GuardFrançois Hanriot (with help from Marat) and endorsed by a decree of the intimidated Convention, included 22 Girondin deputies and 10 of the 12 members of theCommission of Twelve, who were ordered to be detained at their lodgings "under the safeguard of the people". Some submitted, among them Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion,Birotteau and Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Larivière and François Bergoeing, escaped from Paris and, joined later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organise a movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up civil war made the wavering and frightened Convention suddenly determined. On 13 June 1793, it voted that the city of Paris deserved well of the country and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the filling up of their places in the Assembly by theirsuppléants and the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the provinces. The assassination of Marat byCharlotte Corday on 13 July 1793 only served to increase the unpopularity of the Girondins and seal their fate.[31][36]
The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of theFirst Coalition (Austria, Prussia and Great Britain) on the west by the RoyalistRevolt in the Vendée and the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war. On 28 July 1793, a decree of the Convention proscribed 21 deputies, five of whom were from the Gironde, as traitors and enemies of their country (Charles-Louis Antiboul, Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrêde, Brissot, Carra, Gaspard-Séverin Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Jean Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Claude Romain Lauze de Perret, Lehardi, Benoît Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, the Marquis de Sillery, Vergniaud and Louis-François-Sébastien Viger). Those were sent to trial. Another 39 were included in the finalacte d'accusation, accepted by the Convention on 24 October 1793, which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their "federalism" and above all their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped colleagues to provoke civil war.[31][37][38]
The trial of the 22 began before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 24 October 1793. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. On 31 October, they were borne to the guillotine. It took 36 minutes to decapitate all of them, includingCharles Éléonor Dufriche de Valazé, who had committed suicide the previous day upon hearing the sentence he was given.[39]
Of those who escaped to the provinces, after wandering about singly or in groups most were either captured and executed or committed suicide. They includedBarbaroux,Buzot,Condorcet, Grangeneuve,Guadet,Kersaint,Pétion,Rabaut de Saint-Etienne andFrançois Rebecqui. Roland killed himself atRouen on 15 November 1793, a week after the execution of his wife. A very few escaped, includingJean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai, whoseMémoires give a detailed picture of the sufferings of the fugitives.[31][40]
Marie-Thérèse Marinette Dupeyrat, also known as Madame Bouquey, sister in law ofMarguerite-Élie Guadet was executed by guillotine on 20 July 1794 for her roles in sheltering a number of the Girondins.[41]
The survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after the fall of Robespierre on 27 July 1794, but it was not until 5 March 1795 that they were formally re-instated[citation needed] forming theCouncil of Five Hundred underthe Directory.[11] On 3 October of that same year (11Vendémiaire, year IV), a solemnfête in honour of the Girondins, "martyrs of liberty", was celebrated in the Convention.[31][42]
In her autobiography,Madame Roland reshapes her historical image by stressing the popular connection between sacrifice and female virtue. HerMémoires de Madame Roland (1795) was written from prison where she was held as a Girondin sympathizer. It covers her work for the Girondins while her husbandJean-Marie Roland was Interior Minister. The book echoes such popular novels as Rousseau'sJulie or the New Héloise by linking her feminine virtue and motherhood to her sacrifice in a cycle of suffering and consolation. Roland says her mother's death was the impetus for her "odyssey from virtuous daughter to revolutionary heroine" as it introduced her to death and sacrifice—with the ultimate sacrifice of her own life for her political beliefs. She helped her husband escape, but she was executed on 8 November 1793. A week later he committed suicide.[43]
Amonument to the Girondins was erected in Bordeaux between 1893 and 1902 dedicated to the memory of the Girondin deputies who were victims of the Terror.[44] The vagueness of who actually made up the Girondins led to the monument not having any names inscribed on it until 1989.[10] Even then, the deputies to the Convention who were memorialized were only those hailing from the Gironde department, omitting notable people like Brissot and Madame Roland.[45]
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The words Girondin and Montagnard are defined as political groups—more specific definitions are the subject of theorizing by historians. The two words were much tossed about by partisans with various understandings of what they were intended to represent. The two groups lacked formal political structures, and the differences between them have never been satisfactorily explained. It has been suggested that the word Girondin as a useful term be abandoned.[46]
Influenced byclassical liberalism and the concepts offreedom,liberty,equality,brotherhood,democracy,human rights,rule of law andMontesquieu'sseparation of powers, the Girondins wererepublicans, Like the Jacobins, they were also influenced by the writings ofDavid Hume,Edward Gibbon,Voltaire andJean-Jacques Rousseau.[47]
In its early times of government, the Gironde supported afree market, opposing price controls on goods (e.g., a 1793 maximum on grain prices),[48] supported by aconstitutional right topublic assistance for the poor andpublic education.[citation needed] With Brissot, they advocated exporting the Revolution through aggressive foreign policies includingwar against the surrounding European monarchies.[13] The Girondins were also one of the first supporters ofabolitionism in France with Brissot leading the anti-slaverySociety of the Friends of the Blacks.[49] Certain Girondins such as Condorcet supportedwomen's suffrage andpolitical equality.
They sat to the left of the centristFeuillants.[50] The Girondins supported democratic reform, secularism and parliamentary sovereignty at the expense of a weaker executive and judiciary, in contrast to the more radicalMontagnards, who drew support from thesans-culottes, favored centralized emergency government through theCommittee of Public Safety, enacted coercive economic measures such as theMaximum, and oversaw the policies of surveillance and repression that marked theReign of Terror.[2][51][52][53]
| Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | No. of overall seats won | +/– | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1792 | 705,600 (3rd) | 21.4 | 160 / 749 | – |
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). "Girondists". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 49–51.
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