Popular Company of Nantes

Under the French revolution the popular Company of Nantes were affiliated with the large clubs of Paris. They were charged to collect the denunciations and carried out the arrests of the suspects, they took the tax on the rich person, it carried out the monitoring and the purification of all the adminstrations. After the fall of Maximilien de Robespierre the Thermidor 9 Year II (July 28th 1794) these popular companies of Nantes like all the Companies and the revolutionary clubs of France underwent a deep purification. They disappeared under the Directoire.

The popular companies

What is the popular companies? A collection of men who, similar to the monks, choose themselves between them. (Bumblebee of Oise). Most committed of the popular companies were the heart of the Revolution. In Nantes, their role was dominating. One distinguishes inter alia three Nantes companies:

the Company of the friends of the constitution or club of the Market.
the company of the friends of the Revolution or club of the Port-Communeau.
Vincent-the-Mountain.

Cleavage enters the Company of the friends of the constitution and that of the friends of the Revolution

Between the two companies cleavage is not immediate. Admittedly, the club of the Market gathers the elites of the city; admittedly the club of Port-Communeau is most representative of the small trades, the shop, public employment subordinates. But until spring 1793, they grant their violins. Often even they compete in the most intransigent republicanism. The country insurrection of March 1793 causes immediate to reinforce the links between the two companies. " Adresses" , déclarations" are concerted and often published jointly. The fall of the Of Gironde (June 2nd, 1793) and the insurrection of their partisans through all the country precipitate the divorce. Very quickly the club of the Market loses of its influence. Once its principal speakers prevented from being expressed, the number of its members falls quickly. Many passes to Vincent-the-Mountain, club resolutely mountain. The majority of the defectors are the opportunist ones, a minority passes from one club to the other by conviction.

Company of the friends of the constitution

The Company of the friends of the constitution was the political coterie dominating until the summer of the 1792. Company of the friends of the constitution cotisent, sits and speaks, the " people of mérite" city. The tenors are called Pierre Coustard, Hugues, Hardouin, Mellinet the Elder one, Peccot wire, Villenave. The club " modéré" attract many people, with proof its changes successive of buildings: the convent of the capuchins, then the Mirabeau room and, finally, flow 1793, the market with the grains from where its name of " Club of Halle". If one sticks to the report/ratio of Pierre Philippeaux, the closing of the club of the Market had to take place on October 9th, 1793.

The Company of the friends of the Revolution

The Company of the friends of the Revolution is the rival of the Company of the friends of the constitution. It is of weak manpower and of small audience at its beginnings, swells little by little. It also pérégrine, room of the Port-Communeau, brood of Cordeliers, then the Saint-Vincent church secularized and bought by the club for 21.000 books. One finds there all the fine flower of without-culotterie Nantes, Pierre Chaux, Jean-Jacques Goullin, Forget, Pierre Robin, O' Sullivan, Aimable Joseph Meuris, Michel Black-Grandmaison… Fin at the end of 1793, the Company of the friends of the Revolution will take the name of Vincent-the-Mountain.

Vincent-the-mountain

At the end of 1793, Nantes has nothing any more but only one popular, pure and hard company: Vincent-the-mountain which, too with narrow in its small Saint-Vincent church, changes room and settles in the oldest district of Nantes, with two steps of the Prison of Bouffay, in the church Holy-Cross. The company does not preserve of it less its name and will keep it until its dissolution. Vincent-the-mountain played an important role in Nantes Terror. It was the seedbed of the terrorist executives; burning from the members went to populate the revolutionary committee, the criminal courts, the administrations; others were used scouts (infernal columns) or were used of opera hat for powerful of the moment. The majority of the henchmen, the simple executants employed by Jean-Baptiste Carrier or the Committee belonged to the popular company Vincent-the-Mountain.

Internal bonds

Club of the Jacobins
Club of Breaking into leaf the
Club of Cordeliers

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