Paris Commune (1789-1795)

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Hôtel de Ville, Paris, on 9 Thermidor

The Paris Commune during the French Revolution was the government of Paris from 1789 until 1795. Established in the Hôtel de Ville just after the storming of the Bastille, it consisted of 144 delegates elected by the 60 divisions of the city. Before its formal establishment, there had been much popular discontent on the streets of Paris over who represented the true Commune, and who had the right to rule the Parisian people.[1] The first mayor was Jean Sylvain Bailly, a relatively moderate Feuillant who supported constitutional monarchy. He was succeeded in November 1791 by Pétion de Villeneuve after Bailly's unpopular use of the National Guard to disperse a riotous assembly in the Champ de Mars (17 July 1791).

By 1792, the Commune was dominated by those Jacobins who were not in the Legislative Assembly due to the Self-Denying Ordinance. The new Commune meant that there was a genuinely revolutionary challenge to the Legislative Assembly, though its practical victories were always limited and temporary. The violence provoked by the Jacobins and their excesses meant that the power of the Commune would end up being limited by increasing support for more moderate revolutionary forces until the Thermidorian Reaction and the execution of its leaders led to its disestablishment in 1795.[2]

Legislative origins and early history

When Louis XVI ascended to the throne, he initially sought to establish better relations with a Paris that had felt subordinated by Versailles. In 1774 he restored the Parlement of Paris - a court of nobles that had previously been abolished. However its powers were limited, and economic pressures meant that Versailles imposed austerity measures on the military and policing structures of Paris, incentivizing disloyalty to the crown among soldiers and the police.[3] These austerity measures together with the perceived frivolity of royal spending encouraged popular anger. Radical pamphleteering and meetings started to become a key part of the Parisian bourgeois intellectual culture. Amid this anger and the wider contemporary social upheavals in France, on June 25, 1789, 12 representatives from three different parts of the city voted in favor of creating a united Parisian municipality. Further reforms proposed by Nicolas de Bonneville aimed to create a Parisian Bourgeois Guard that would later become a National Guard (composed of 48,000 citizens) and a Commune that would have its own assembly which named itself L'Assemblée Générale des Électeurs de la Commune de Paris. It was established on July 11, just days before the Bastille was stormed on July 14.[4] On July 20, each district of Paris elected 2 representatives, creating an assembly of 120 representatives who primarily came from the Third Estate. In Spring 1790 the departments of France were reorganized; the Paris Commune was divided up into 48 revolutionary sections of Paris and allowed to discuss the election of a new mayor. Louis XVI himself gave permission on May 21, 1790. Each section was granted its own popular militia, civil committee, and revolutionary committee. These sections acted as intermediaries between local populations (largely sans-culottes) and the legislative Paris Commune. They initially tended to deal with legal and civil concerns, but the sections were becoming increasingly radicalized, focusing on political issues and struggles. On February 24, 1792 the Conseil Général de la Commune was installed. It consisted of 24 members, under whom were Etienne Clavière, Pierre-Joseph Cambon, Sergent-Marceau, René Levasseur and the King. Manuel was appointed as procureur of the commune, representing the King. He gave a speech warning against anarchy.[5] In early March the Paris Department was placed above the Commune in all matters of general order and security. According to Jan ten Brink it had the right to suspend the Commune's decisions and to dispose of the army against her in case of emergency.

The distinction between an active and passive citizen was abolished by the Commune on July 25, 1792 as the Commune became increasingly Jacobin in its orientation, and ideas of full citizenship were beginning to take root. The theoretical basis for the establishment of the Commune meant that administrative power could be brought closer to the people in a revolutionary manner, and Paris could achieve localization of revolutionaries to modernize the city and country, along with creating a rational framework or administration that could function efficiently without agents of the state.[6]

The insurrection on 10 August 1792

In the earlier days of the Commune, Feuillants and then Girondins bourgeois Republican forces were dominant, but an ascendant Jacobin presence amongst the Parisian political class became increasingly militant in its desire to establish control of the Commune. It succeeded in an organized seizure of power in August 1792. As a result, the Paris Commune became insurrectionary in the summer of 1792, essentially refusing to take orders from the Constitutional Cabinet of Louis XVI. On the night of August 9, 1792 (spurred by the issue of the Brunswick Manifesto on July 25) a new revolutionary Commune, led by Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Jacques Hébert took possession of the Hôtel de Ville. Antoine Galiot Mandat de Grancey, the commander of the Paris National Guard and in charge of defending the Tuileries where the royal family resided, was assassinated and replaced by Antoine Joseph Santerre.[7] The next day insurgents assailed the Tuileries. During the ensuing constitutional crisis, the collapsing Legislative Assembly of France was heavily dependent on the Commune for the effective power that allowed it to continue to function as a legislature. The insurrectionary commune had elected Sulpice Huguenin during the night as its first President.[8]

On August 10 and the following days, all 48 districts of Paris decided to elect representatives with unlimited powers (28 districts jointly made this decision on the eve of the assault on the Tuileries, while the remaining 20 joined them over the days that followed). The 11th district, covering an area which included Place Vendôme, elected Maximilien Robespierre as its representative.[9] At this time, 52 representatives formed the Departmental Council of the Commune. On August 16, Robespierre presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly from the Paris Commune to demand the establishment of a provisional Revolutionary Tribunal that had to deal with the "traitors" and "enemies of the people." On August 21, it succeeded in dissolving the separate départment of Paris; the Commune took its place, combining local and regional power under one body.[10] The all-powerful Commune demanded custody of the royal family, imprisoning them in the Temple fortress. A list of "opponents of the Revolution" was drawn up, the gates to the city were sealed, and on August 28 the citizens were subjected to domiciliary visits, ostensibly in a search for muskets. A sharp conflict developed between the Legislative and the Commune and its sections.[11][12] On August 30 the interim minister of Interior Roland and Guadet tried to suppress the influence of the Commune because the sections had exhausted the searches. The Assembly, tired of the pressures, declared the Commune illegal and suggested the organization of communal elections.[13] On Sunday morning September 2 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 Rolland and Brissot arrested.[14][15]

The September Massacres of 1792

One of the bloodiest consequences of the Paris Commune was the September Massacres. Their exact origins continue to be a source of historical debate around the internal politics of the Paris Commune. A culture of fear had emerged amidst the ongoing wars with Austria and Prussia, and the Jacobins had propagated a culture of conspiracy and revenge which singled out a potentially disloyal prison population; fearing that political prisoners and the many Swiss prisoners in Parisian jails would side with either an advancing foreign or counter-revolutionary army.[16] Furthermore, the culture of revolutionary terror also prompted an opportunistic desire for revenge, and all of this coupled with the instability of the state and location of power, and the precarity of ordinary Parisian life fueled a culture of extreme fear and paranoia that would eventually fuel the mass violence which was rationalized as a pre-emptive act.[17]

On September 2, Danton gave a speech in the Legislative Assembly specifically singling out internal enemies, and called for volunteers to take arms against them and assemble together in Paris immediately. He insisted "any one refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death", and claimed that the salvation of France rested upon ordinary citizens taking up arms against potential traitors.[18] The very next day the massacres began, and within 24 hours, 1,000 people had been killed. Between September 2 and 6, an estimated 1,100 - 1,600 people were killed by around 235 forces loyal to the Commune who had been responsible for guarding the prisons of Paris.[19] It is estimated that half of the prison population of Paris was massacred by the evening of September 6.[20]

Jean-Paul Marat, heading the surveillance committee of the Commune, immediately started the mass dissemination of a notice imploring all patriots to eliminate counter-revolutionaries themselves as soon as possible.[21] Jean-Lambert Tallien, the secretary of the commune, called for an expansion of the mass action beyond Paris as a patriotic duty. A huge wave of violence followed, often organized through revolutionary sections. The prison population was halved through the massacres. However, for all the rhetoric of dangerous political prisoners posing a threat to Paris, only a minority were political prisoners. The vast majority who were murdered were not political prisoners (72%). The victims included some children.[22]

The impact of the massacres were severe, culminating in the assassination on 13 July 1793 of Marat by Charlotte Corday (a Girondin sympathizer), who blamed him for the violence. This triggered an even further wave of radicalization amongst Jacobins, as a cult of martyrdom emerged around him. Blame for the massacres remains contested. Some focus on Danton and his inflammatory rhetoric. However, Gwynne Lewis emphasizes the "sanguinary outbursts in the press" promoted by Marat and notes that the massacres marked a watershed in a troubled history between the people and the political elite in a new combination of forces unleashed by revolution, counter-revolution, and the support of both among conflicting popular and elite forces.[23] William Doyle further argues that Danton's irresponsibility in provoking the violence served to devalue the popularity of the revolution on a local, domestic, and international level.[24]

The Insurrection of May 31 - June 2, 1793

The Commune called for the reinstatement of the Revolutionary Tribunal to try political opponents. On March 10, 1793, the tribunal was restored. On April 18 the Commune announced an insurrection against the convention after the arrest of Jean-Paul Marat. In mid-May Marat and the Commune supported Robespierre publicly and secretly.[25] On May 25, the Commune demanded that Hébert be released. The president of the Convention Maximin Isnard, who had enough of the tyranny of the Commune, threatened the total destruction of Paris. "If the Commune does not unite closely with the people, it violates its most sacred duty," Robespierre said.[26] In the afternoon the Commune demanded the creation of a Revolutionary army of sans culottes in every town of France, including 20,000 men to defend Paris.[27]Schama, 722.</ref> The next day the Commune decided to create a revolutionary army of 20,000 men to protect and defend Paris.[28] On Saturday, June 1 the Commune gathered almost all day. Unsatisfied with the result the Commune demanded and prepared a "Supplement" to the revolution for the next day. Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard from the town hall to the National Palace.[29] "The armed force", Hanriot said, "will retire only when the Convention has delivered to the people the deputies denounced by the Commune."[30] The insurrection was organized by the Paris Commune and supported by Montagnards.

The tribunal presided over the arrest, trial, and execution of the Girondins (see Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793), and the enactment of the law of General Maximum on September 29, 1793. It played an essential role in the revolutionary wars following 1793, forming militias and providing weaponry to many of the revolutionary armies during the Reign of Terror.[31]

The Defeat of the Girondins

The Commune took charge of routine civic functions but is best known for mobilizing the people towards direct democracy and insurrection when it deemed the Revolution to be in danger, as well as for its campaign to dechristianize the country. This campaign of dechristianization was spearheaded by many prominent figures within the Commune, such as the minister of war Jean-Nicolas Pache who sought to disseminate the profoundly anti-clerical work of Jacques Hébert by purchasing thousands of copies of his books and his radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne for free distribution to the public.[32] The Hébertists amongst the Communards managed to successfully transform Notre-Dame and numerous other churches into Temples of Reason, further entrenching the Commune's political commitment to the Cult of Reason. As the Commune became increasingly radicalized and Jacobin-dominated it aligned itself with radical left Montagnard ideas and policies. It was headed by Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and Hébert himself from November 1792. They were some of the most extreme voices within the Commune [33] until their overthrow and eventual execution, along with 91 other members of the Commune, as part of the Thermidorian coup in July 1794.

The internal politics of the Commune and its political culture impacted the Insurrection of 31 May - 2 June 1793 and the fall of the Girondins. The Jacobin dominance of the Commune put them in conflict with the much more moderate Girondins, who dominated the Legislative Assembly. When the National Convention effectively replaced the Assembly in September 1792, the Girondins remained more powerful than the radical left Montagnards. The Convention's power and control over most of France remained in their hands. But by 1793, massive challenges to the legitimacy and reputation of the Girondins, brought on the wars with Austria and Prussia and the insurrectionary War in the Vendée, began to undermine their popular support. The massacres of tens of thousands of people in the royalist Vendée uprising exposed just how deep the divides between urban and rural France were, how little practical control the Girondins had over a unified French republic, and how ineffective they were at holding true to democratic principles.[34] France was effectively moving into the Civil War, and republicans were increasingly switching loyalty to the Montagnards. Amid this crisis, in the Paris Commune, Marat sent a letter to throughout the provincial societies encouraging them to demand the recall of the appellants, which resulted in the Convention demanding he be put before a Revolutionary Tribunal.

Outraged by this, most of the Parisian sections sent a petition threatening the Girondins with an effective insurrection. In response the Girondins launched a political assault on the Paris Commune as an institution, arresting Hébert for an inflammatory article he had published in his paper, and two other Jacobin Communards. This then triggered the declaration of an open Jacobin uprising, with Robespierre calling upon the people to join in the revolt. A popular revolutionary army of around 20,000 men inside the Commune was formed, and the sections formed an insurrectionary committee. On May 31 an uprising attempt began unsuccessfully, as the smaller than expected forces who gathered were unable to take the Convention in any meaningful way. Jean-Francois Varlet accused Hébert and Dobson of weakness at the evening meeting of the Commune for the poorly-planned attempt at ousting the Girondins. The Commune gathered all day on June 1 with the understanding that a Sunday uprising would allow for a much better attendance of sans-culottes.

After a full day of Communard planning, in the evening 40,000 troops surrounded the Convention, trapping the Girondins inside. The Girondins spent much of June 2 fiercely denouncing the Jacobins and the Paris Commune itself through speeches, arguing for its suppression, but as the Vendée fell to rebels, inspiring revolutionary outrage, Francois Hanriot ordered the National Guard to march on the Convention and join those Communard forces to oust the Girondins who had lost the faith of republicans. The Convention, now surrounded by the National Guard, demanded that the ousting of the Girondins be blamed for France's disintegration. Girondin deputies attempting to leave were arrested as the Convention was stormed, and the President of the Convention came out to plead with Hanriot to remove the troops, but he refused. Under pressure the Convention ended up voting for the arrest of those 22 leading Girondins, effectively destroying them as a political force. Marat and Couthon hailed Hanriot as a hero of the revolution, and he became seen as a hero of the Commune itself. This insurrection sparked by the Jacobins led to a new Montagnard governing force, the defeat of their Girondin enemies, and a completely new revolutionary government for France.

The Defeat of the Hébertists

From December 4, 1793 the Commune of Paris and the revolutionary committees in the sections had to obey the law, the two Committees, and the Convention.[35] Within three weeks the majority of the Committee of Public Safety decided that the ultra-left Hébertists would have to perish or their opposition within the committee would overshadow the other factions due to its influence in the Commune of Paris.

In Summer 1794 the commune had to solve serious problems in the cemeteries because of the smell. On July 23 the Commune published a new maximum, limiting the wages of employees (in some cases by half) and provoking a sharp protest in the sections.[36] On July 27 the Paris Commune gave orders to close the gates (and to ring the tocsin), and summoned an immediate meeting of the sections to consider the dangers threatening the fatherland.[37] The Paris Commune was working with the Jacobins to bring off an insurrection, asking them to send over reinforcements from the galleries, "even the women who are regulars there."[38] At around 10 p.m., the mayor Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot appointed a delegation to go and convince Robespierre to join the Commune movement.[39] After a whole evening waiting in vain for action by the Commune, the armed sections, without supplies or instructions, began to disperse.

The Thermidorian reaction and decline of the commune

It was not until 1792 that the government had a formal cabinet in place, with the appointment of the Ministers of the French National Convention and the decision of the Commissioners of the Committee of Public Safety in 1794 to take charge of administrative departments, but the increased and consolidated power of the National Convention by 1794 now meant that they could challenge the insurrectionary and often hostile power of the Paris Commune.

The ousting of Robespierre on July 27, 1794 (or 9 Thermidor year II in the revolutionary calendar), marked a huge organized counter-revolution against the radical left and Robespierre himself from the National Convention, and ultimately for the Paris Commune. When he was detained, the troops of the Paris Commune under Hanriot who were largely loyal to him organized an attempt to liberate him, which was in turn met by a counter-attack from Convention forces.[40] They barricaded themselves into the Hotel de Ville, and on July 28 the Convention forces succeeded in capturing Robespierre and the supporters who remained with him. They were executed on the same day. Almost half of the Paris Commune (70 members) were executed on July 29, as were many members of Jacobin club who had supported Robespierre. It marked the beginning of the White Terror.[41][42] With the execution of most of its members, the Commune effectively became a proxy of the National Convention, and subject to its direct rule. In response Francois-Noel Babeuf, and democratic militants associated with him organized through a newly created Electoral Club, unsuccessfully demanded the restoration of the Commune.[43] The government of the republic was then succeeded by the French Directory in November 1795, formally ending the Commune, but its after-effects remained strong in the Parisian imagination, and the memory of the 18th Century Commune provided inspiration for the later Communards of the Paris Commune of 1871.[44]

Hippolyte Taine, writing in L'Origine de la France Contemporaine, criticized the similarities between the earlier Commune and the 1871 Paris Commune for restoring institutions such as the Committee of Public Safety of 1793-1794.[45]

Notes

  1. ↑ François Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), p. 519
  2. ↑ Furet and Ozouf, 520-522.
  3. ↑ Alfred Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris (Paris, FR: Bouquins, 1996, ISBN 978-2221078624), 87.
  4. ↑ Charles-Louis Chassin, Les Élections et les Cahiers de Paris en 1789: L'Assemblée des trois ordres et l'Assemblée générale des électeurs au 14 juillet (Paris, FR: Jouaust et Sigaux, 1889), 447.
  5. ↑ Municipalité de Paris. Installation du Conseil général de la commune, 24 février 1792
  6. ↑ Alan Forest, "Reimagining Space and Power" in A Companion to the French Revolution Peter McPhee, ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, ISBN 978-1118977521), Chapter 6.
  7. ↑ Éric Hazan Une histoire de la révolution française (Paris, FR: La Fabrique, 2012, ISBN 978-1781685891), 161.
  8. ↑ Hazan, 167.
  9. ↑ Hazan, 168.
  10. ↑ Hazan, 169.
  11. ↑ Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution: How freedom of the theater promised to be a major extension of liberty (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014, ISBN 9780691169712), 267.
  12. ↑ Norman Hampson, The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre (London, UK: Duckworth Books, Ltd., 1974, ISBN 0715607413), 121.
  13. ↑ Israel, 268.
  14. ↑ John Hardman, Robespierre 2nd, (Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge Publishing, 1999, ISBN 978-0582437555), 56–57.
  15. ↑ Hampson, 126.
  16. ↑ Georges Lefebvre, The French Revolution: From its Origins to 1793 2nd ed. (Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge, 2001, ISBN 978-0415253932), 236.
  17. ↑ Timothy Tackett "Rumor and Revolution: The Case of the September Massacres," French History and Civilization Vol. 4, 2001, 54–64.
  18. ↑ Georges Jacques Danton, "I. "Dare, Dare Again, Always Dare"" Continental Europe (380-1906). Vol. VII. Bryan, William Jennings, ed. 1906. The World's Famous Orations|website=www.bartleby.com}}
  19. ↑ Furet and Ozouf, 139.
  20. ↑ Frédéric Bluche Septembre 1792 : logiques d'un massacre. (Paris: Robert Laffront 1986)
  21. ↑ Furet and Ozouf, 521.
  22. ↑ Gwynne Lewis The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate (London, UK: Routledge, 1993, ISBN 978-0415054669), 38.
  23. ↑ Lewis, 38.
  24. ↑ William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, pg. 189-192
  25. ↑ Mémoires de B. Barère, membre de la Constituante, de la Convention, du Comite de salut public, p. 96
  26. ↑ Alison, Archibald (1848). History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution ... , pp. 288–291.
  27. ↑ Davidson, Ian. The French Revolution, p. 160
  28. ↑ Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 4 juin 1793, p. 1/4
  29. ↑ Jeremy D. Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d4qTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA66 |date=1 July 2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-50892-4 |pages=66–67}}
  30. ↑ Emile de LaBédollière, Histoire de la Garde nationale: récit complet de tous les faits qui l'ont distinguée depuis son origine jusqu'en 1848 |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6487209z |year=1848 |publisher=H. Dumineray et F. Pallier |oclc=944662819 |language=fr}}
  31. ↑ Jean-Clément Martin, Les échos de la Terreur. Vérités d'un mensonge d'état: 1794-2001. (Paris, FR: Belin, 2018, ISBN 978-2410002065).
  32. ↑ John Thomas Gilchrist The Press in The Press in the French Revolution (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1971, ISBN 978-0602219222), 21.
  33. ↑ Lewis, p. 47
  34. ↑ Furet, pg. 175
  35. ↑ Le Moniteur Universel de 5 décembre 1793, p. 4
  36. ↑ Rude, George (1967) The crowd in the French Revolution, p. 136. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  37. ↑ Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 212
  38. ↑ Shusterman, N. C. (2014). "All of His Power Lies in the Distaff: Robespierre, Women and the French Revolution". Past & Present. 223 (1): 129–160. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtu001 – via www.academia.edu.
  39. ↑ Hazan, E. (2014) A People's History of the French Revolution.
  40. ↑ Marshall Dill Paris in Time (New York: Putnam, 1975), p. 167
  41. ↑ Will Durant The Story of Civilization: The age of Napoleon; a history of European civilization from 1789 to 1815(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), p. 84
  42. ↑ OCR A Level History: The French Revolution and the rule of Napoleon 1774–1815 by Mike Wells
  43. ↑ Laura Mason, "The Thermidorian Reaction" in A Companion to the French Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell Companions to European History, 2021), pg. 317
  44. ↑ Ernest Belford Bax, A Short History of the Paris Commune, (London: 20th Century Press, 1885), p. 7
  45. ↑ Pascal Dupuy The Revolution in History, Commemoration, and Memory in A Companion to the French Revolution (2012), pg. 488

Sources

  • Hampson, Norman, The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre. Duckworth, 1974, ISBN 978-0715607411.
  • Israel, Jonathan, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1400849994
  • Schama, Simon, Citizens : a Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989, ISBN 978-0394559483


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