Jacobinism

The Jacobinism is political doctrines which defend the popular sovereignty and the indivisibility of the French Republic. It holds its name of the Couvent of the Jacobins in Paris where its members, resulting from the movement of the parliamentary Jansénisme, had been established during the French revolution under the name of Club of the Jacobins.

Origin of the Club of the Jacobins

As of the very first days of June 1789, before the three orders are not still joined together in a deliberating body, a Société of thought gathering delegates of the Tiers state who meet during the drafting of the registers of grievances. It took the name of Breton Club because it is animated by several Député S resulting from the Parlement of Brittany, but also of Armand Camus, Guillotin, Isaac the Hatter, all three signatories of the register of grievances of Paris. The action of the Breton Club is limited to discuss the businesses in progress before the debates with the Assemblée and is characterized concretely in the homogeneity of which the deputies of the Third will vote which ceases its via being a mob to become a party.

After the Days of October (5 and 6), the Company settles with the Couvent of the Jacobins St Honore and takes the name of “Société of the friends of the Constitution”. Then begin truly the history of the Club. One with the practice to divide this history into three periods (according to Michelet), certain historians as Claude Mazauric refuses this periodisation because it corresponds to the three successive Assemblies too much (Constituante, Législative and Convention). What is important, it is to see the evolution of the Company in the time and how it came from there to direct the country politically.

When the Company settles in the convent of the Jacobins, it gathers 200 deputies of various tendencies. Its first president is the Breton deputy Isaac the Hatter, one also finds what will form the Triumvirat Barnave, Duport, the brothers Lameth and of the deputies of the left like Robespierre.

It sits behind closed doors in the library of the Jacobins. What will make the force of this Company, which will make it dangerous for the constituent Assembly, it is that from the start, she intends to behave as the cell mother of a whole swarm of similar groupings whose each provincial town must have its counterpart in an organization copied with nearest on his. She presents shortly after her foundation like centers development of ideas and the engine of action of timer inclinations of the constituent Assembly.

In August 1790, the affiliated Companies Provincial are 152, which creates a true network.

Evolutions of the term and the concept: Terror with the Centralism

The Jacobins and their ideology merge with the Terreur and the dictatorship of Public Hello (of 1793 in spring 1794). It is partly this adequacy between Jacobinism and dictatorship of Public Hello which maintained the legend jacobine after disappearance the Club at the time of the reaction thermidorienne. With 19th and 20th centuries, Jacobinism is synonymous with revolutionary dictatorship, dictatorship of freedom.

This ideology is rejected by the Libéraux while the republican S, on the contrary, will draw with this source and will always refer to the large ancestors Jacobins.

After the installation of the Republic in 1880, the Jacobinism enters the national heritage but it is nothing any more but one consensual adapted Jacobinism.

The Jacobinism belongs to the problematic concepts of the French revolution, one cannot include/understand this period if one does not study what was the Jacobinism, which was the Jacobins and which were their actions.

Later, and today still, the Jacobinism returns to a centralizing design of the French Republic, making Paris the essential place of exercise of the capacity, unlike what exists in the federalistic countries or which at least made strong devolutions be able with the regional entities and local. The Jacobinism term is thus usually used today, by shift in meaning, like synonym of Centralisme. See also Parisianisme

Doctrines

Their ideas are moderate at the beginning, indeed the members of the Company recommend a Constitutional monarchy liberal but not democratic (the Jacobins are all of the active citizens, of the middle-class which pay a high contribution: 24 francs). Their positions, however, tend to harden thereafter fine 1790 beginning 1791. Vis-a-vis a Counter-revolution (emigrated S and refractory priests) being done aggressive and to a constituent Assembly with too timorées measurements, the Jacobins present themselves more dynamic and accommodate the claims of the people.

Internal dissensions will appear, they burst at the time of the crisis which follows the escape of Louis XVI and its arrest to Varennes. Most moderate which fears the direct action, leave the Club for the convent of Breaking into leaf the. Robespierre and Pétion remain about the only elected officials street St Honore, but the affiliated companies testify a general fidelity at the Parent company. From now on the spirit of the Club will be radically transformed. Robespierre henceforth has an influence growing within the Company, it will make it more aggressive more alive, than ever by giving again strength to him by purifying it. In September 1791, one counts 1 000 affiliated companies. The action of the Club moves against the Constituent one which is choked by the ramifications of this power on all the territory.

The October 12th 1791 the Jacobins decided to install platforms in the room of the meetings, the introduction of spectators to the Club supports the most extreme solutions.

The Club plays an occult part in the day of the August 10th (a certain number of its members will sit in the revolutionary organizations: common of Paris, courts, etc). However from July to September 1792 the Club seems to lose a little its influence.

The takeover

Any exchange when Robespierre, once removed from Brissot in October 1792 takes in hand the destiny of the Club. The Jacobins become a dominant power then. The September 22nd 1792, the Company of the Friends of the constitution had been débaptisée before solemnly and had decided to name “Société of the friendly Jacobins of freedom and the equality”. The Club of the Jacobins thus seized again plays a part of opposition in the majority of Convention (Girondins, Modérés). For that, Robespierre and the Club are pressed more still on the people. In 1793, the Jacobins recognize themselves little by little as the infallible people. They become increasingly irreducible and solved, which increases their radiation and their influence. They contribute to dead of the King, they mark the policy of intimidation to tear off crucial votes whereas the parliamentary majority remains acquired with the chiefs of the Gironde. It is them which organize the day of June 2nd 1793 causing the fall of the Girondins deputies thus.

After the disappearance of Of Gironde, the Jacobins exert a supervision on Convention and it is them which control. The members of the Comité of public hello are Jacobins just as all the members of the committees of government. Most of the Montagnards form also part of the Company. The only wheel in the Year II which still escapes to them is the Commune of Paris but after the elimination of the Hébertistes in Germinal An II, the Commune from now on is cored by the Jacobins. At the end of Germinal, they exert without counterweight their authority on the Parliament where the end of the Factions (Hébertistes, Dantonnistes) ensures the unit of the legislative action.

End of the Club

Beginning 1794, one thinks that the Company counts 5 000 subsidiary companies in all France. It forever be as powerful, it seems to arrive at the point of unit as Robespierre hopes so much, but soon oppositions appear within the Club that the semi-retirement of Robespierre in Fructidor supports.

The 9 Thermidor, the Club is impotent to defend its leader. He did not know to rejoin the masses. The executions of Thermidor 10-11-12 decimated the Staff of the Club. It will not go back from there, the Réaction thermidorienne will be given the responsability to put a term at the action of the Club. Jacobins being regarded as the single instigators of the Terror.

The November 12th 1794, the Club definitively closes its doors on decision of National Convention.

Analyzes

Of 1792 with 1794, the Jacobins exerted the functions of command and were the craftsmen of the victory. The Jacobins could dominate politically the country only because they had an ideology which was copied with the needs for the moment. This ideology, Robespierre was made the speaking pipe of them.

It is necessary to note contrast between the doctrines of the Jacobinism and its acts. One often speaks about the Jacobins like acting minority, sometimes fanatic which uses Terror (purifications, executions). But his heroism as much is rented when it had to face the united forces and when it knew to overcome. A whole series of paradoxes mark out the history of the Jacobinism.

Politically, they are democrats, they include/understand the need for a political revolution intended to ensure all the men a mode whose charter fits in the Déclaration of the Human rights and the Citizen and that the slogan Freedom-Equality-Fraternity summarizes. In 1789 the Jacobins were monarchists, in 1793 they became enthusiastic republicans. The Club is always with the political avant-garde even if the political personnel Jacobin changes. The Jacobins of the An II have as a reference Rousseau and Of the social contract and the idea of Direct democracy.

Socially, they remain respectful middle-class democrats of the property (even in the An II, their social composition will remain primarily middle-class and artisanal). They wish over all the establishment of the small property, they refuse the agrarian law but they condemn as much the very great property looked as being a factor of oppression. They are ardently patriotic, they observe an enthusiastic worship with the Fatherland inseparable from the freedom which one must defend if it is attacked: “The French Republic does not treat with an enemy on his territory”, such is the maxim jacobine.

Purgings

It is true however that the history of the Jacobinism is also the history of the polls épuratoires. One often defined the Club as a kind of prompt enquiry to eliminate in the name of orthodoxy. Indeed, the aggravation of the interior and external dangers, the violence of the economic convulsions show to the Jacobins the need for obedience to the doctrines, only safeguard of the unit, itself only able to face the dangers. To safeguard the unit, purification appears necessary to them.

Purification is always made same manner, whoever moves away from the line jacobine is announced soon like suspect to the Club. They transform these adversaries, these suspects as public enemies and prepare in first authority if one can say, the file which will send them to the scaffold.

The Company exerts magistère of orthodoxy on Convention on the one hand and the whole of the revolutionary opinion on the other hand.

The doctrines jacobine imply a will of individual sacrifice to principles which exceed for the good of all the interest of each one. “To be Jacobin” a man with principle ready remains being to sacrifice his happiness and his life even to the triumph of the political and social ideas which the Declaration of the Human rights and the Citizen proclaims, and with the Hello of the Fatherland.

Gaston-Martin considers the Jacobins as fanatics who admitted the need to overcome “despotism of freedom”.

Many authors forgot the doctrines jacobine to see in the Jacobinism only one vast machine to be purified. The Jacobins are nothing any more but one militant oligarchy substituted for the people and speaking on his behalf. They constitute the temple of an orthodoxy where the unit and the unanimity are of setting. Nobody is with the shelter of the suspicion and purification.

Other historians, perhaps fewer, recognize with the Jacobins of the size and without forgetting poured blood, they regard them as the savers of the fatherland.

These two opposite versions of the Jacobinism show at which point it is difficult to have an impartial vision of the problem. The Jacobinism is the most radical ideology of the Revolution. Being radical by its means if not its doctrines, it is logical that it had its admirors and its detractors and that until our days.

Finally the Club accentuated the Centralisation already largely started under the Absolute monarchy via its militants members of the revolutionary government or representatives in the departments or with the armies. Parisian dictatorship being appeared necessary to the Hello of the Fatherland.

These doctrines are not without contradiction as shows it Claude Mazauric in the Dictionnaire of the Revolution , contradiction which is responsible partly for its failure. On the economic plan in particular, contradiction between its will to support the access to the property for the greatest number and the respect of the private property. Contradiction between its will to preserve a certain freedom of trade and the temporary need for taxation.

The oppositions in the people come from a certain social disappointment. The doctrines jacobine being moderate if one compares it with certain movements like Hébertistes or the Mad ones which are unquestionably more close to the small people.

Between the Reaction thermidorienne and the preliminaries of the Revolution of 1848, the Jacobinism practically ceased existing. It entered the legend. The Jacobins during the monarchies censitaires remain conspirators, they are not legal. They will take share with the revolution of 1848, as they took part in all the insurrections of 1830 to the Second Republic. The Jacobinism passed quickly in the republican heritage via a former friend of Babeuf, Buonarroti which published in 1828 a book on the Conjuration of Equal the which was the bible of the revolutionary republicans (like Blanqui, Raspail, Louis Blanc, etc), the Jacobinism has bad press in the liberal historians of the Restauration who are also, such Guizot or Thiers, the politicians of the Régime of July.

Heritage

1793 and the Jacobinism represents for the “Good Thinking” of the time the memory of an attack of the property. The fear of the “Reds” during the Second Republic is significant. To the Parliament, very sharp debates opposed Tocqueville, a liberal, and Ledru-Rollin, a radical, on what it is necessary to take as heritage of the French revolution. The first limits to the heritage of 1789, the second asserts that of 1793 and thus the Jacobinism. This fear of the “Reds” and the Jacobinism associated with Terror will lead the liberals to approach Bonaparte.

All the political life at the 19th century is marked by these oppositions, the policies are obsessed by the Revolution. The fear of the “Dictatorship jacobine” will still reappear at the time of the Commune of Paris of 1871 repressed in blood. But the heritage Jacobin will pass in the inheritance of the Third Republic removed however of blood and violence, consensual Jacobinism essential to found the Republic by rejoining the Orléanistes.

The January 29th 1891, Georges Clémenceau puts everyone of agreement by regarding the Revolution as a block, the Jacobinism thus makes integral part of the revolutionary heritage (“the revolution is a block which one can nothing distract” marked at the time of a speech at the Parliament).

Today still, exists always this dissociation 1789 - 1793 since the Jacobinism still fell under the ideological stakes of the 20th century, (the Russian Révolution for example, which one knows at which point its authors were inspired at least partly by the tradition jacobine). Certain authors saw the capacity Jacobin in the political structures which it set up. The Jacobinism for them is at the origin of the totalitarian States .

The Jacobinism is thus at the center of an ideological debate which has not ceased for soon two centuries. It is the first Party made up (its members cotisent, its leaders are powerful in the opinion, and it has a program) and a political clout of first order during the Revolution. Therefore it marked the memories and which there remains today still an object of polemic. It is revealing that at the time of the bicentenary of the Revolution, the France celebrated with such an amount of glare 1789 but not the events of 1793 where the Jacobins played a so great part.

Jacobinism against the Cultural diversity and linguistics

The tradition jacobine of the Monolinguisme against the other languages goes back to the speech of Barère at the Committee of Public Hello. Below quotations of its speech founder:

Among the idioms old, welches, Gascons, Celtic, visigoths, phocéens or Eastern, {…} we observed that the idiom called low-Breton, the Basque idiom, the languages German and Italian perpetuated the reign of fanaticism and the superstition, ensured the domination of the priests, of noble and of the patricians, prevented the revolution from penetrating in nine important departments, and can support the enemies of France.

the federalism and the superstition speak low-Breton; the emigration and the hatred of the Republic speak German; the counter-revolution speaks Italian and fanaticism speaks Basque. Glass fragments these instruments of damage and error.

the despotism maintained the variety of the idioms.

D'ailleurs how much expenditure do not have not make for the translation of the laws of the first two National Assemblies in the various idioms spoken in France! How if were with us to maintain these coarse jargons cruel and these idioms which can serve only the fanatics and the counter-revolutionaries!

To leave the citizens in the ignorance of the national language, it is to betray the fatherland; it is to leave the torrent of the lights poisoned or blocked in its court; it is to ignore the benefits of printing works, because each printer is a public teacher of language and legislation.

Citizens, the language of free people must be one and the same one for all.

{…} While the foreign people learn on all the sphere the French language {…} it would be said that there exists in France six hundred and thousand French which is unaware of absolutely the language of their nation {…} it rests only on it {the French language} to become universal.

This tradition is found in certain political directors French souverainists, like Chevènement, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, opposed to the practice as with the linguistic teaching of the regional or minority Langues.

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