French First Republic

French RepublicRépublique française (French)

1792–1804

Top: Flag
(1794-1804)
Bottom: Flag
(1790-1794) Coat of arms of the Republic

Motto: Liberté, égalité, fraternité
("Liberty, Equality, Fraternity")

Anthem: "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin"
("War Song for the Army of the Rhine")

The French First Republic in 1799

Directly administered
Sister republics and occupied territories

Louisiana as part of the French colonial empire from 1800 until 1803

Capitaland largest city

Paris

Common languages

French (official)
Occitan, German, Dutch, Breton, Basque

Religion

Constitutional Church
(until 15 July 1801)
Cult of Reason
(October 1793 – March 1794)
Cult of the Supreme Being
(7 May 1794 – 28 July 1794)
Decadary Cult
(4 August 1798 – 9 November 1799)
Catholicism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Judaism
(15 July 1801 – 18 May 1804)

Demonym

French

Government

1792–1795: Unitary radical authoritarian revolutionary republic
1795–1799: Unitary directorial oligarchical republic
1799–1804: Unitary Bonapartist autocratic republic under a military dictatorship

Governments

• 1792

National Convention

• 1792–1795

Committee of Public Safety

• 1795–1799

End of the monarchy in France

Under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged in war with Prussia and Austria. In July 1792, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commanding general of the Austro–Prussian Army, issued his Brunswick Manifesto, threatening the destruction of Paris should any harm come to King Louis XVI and his family.

This foreign threat exacerbated France's political turmoil amid the French Revolution and deepened the passion and sense of urgency among the various factions. In the insurrection of 10 August 1792, citizens stormed the Tuileries Palace, killing six hundred of the King's Swiss guards and insisting on the removal of the king.^[4]

A renewed fear of counterrevolutionary action prompted further violence, and in the first week of September 1792, mobs of Parisians broke into the city's prisons. They killed over half of the prisoners, including nobles, clergymen, and political prisoners, but also common criminals, such as prostitutes and petty thieves. Many victims were murdered in their cells: raped, stabbed, and/or slashed to death. This became known as the September Massacres.^[5]

National Convention (1792–1795)

As a result of the spike in public violence and the political instability of the constitutional monarchy, a party of six members of France's Legislative Assembly was assigned the task of overseeing elections. The resulting Convention was founded with the dual purpose of abolishing the monarchy and drafting a new constitution.

The convention's first act was to establish the French First Republic and officially strip the king of all political powers. Louis XVI, by then a private citizen bearing his family name of Capet, was subsequently put on trial for crimes of high treason starting in December 1792. On 16 January 1793 he was convicted, and on 21 January, he was executed.^[6]

Throughout the winter of 1792 and spring of 1793, Paris was plagued by food riots and mass hunger. The new Convention did little to remedy the problem until late spring of 1793, occupied instead with matters of war. Finally, on 6 April 1793, the Convention created the Committee of Public Safety, and was given a monumental task: "To deal with the radical movements of the Enragés, food shortages and riots, the revolt in the Vendée and in Brittany, recent defeats of its armies, and the desertion of its commanding general."^[7]

Most notably, the Committee of Public Safety instated a policy of terror, and perceived enemies of the republic began to be executed by guillotine at an ever-increasing rate. This began a period which is known today as the Reign of Terror.^[8]

Despite growing discontent with the National Convention as a ruling body, in June the Convention drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was ratified by popular vote in early August. However, the Committee of Public Safety was seen as an "emergency" government, and the rights guaranteed by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the new constitution were suspended under its control.

The constitution of the republic did not provide for a formal head of state or a head of government. It could be discussed whether the head of state would have been the president of the National Convention under international law. However, this changed every two weeks and was therefore not formative.

Directory (1795–1799)

After the arrest and execution of Robespierre on 28 July 1794, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were reinstated. A year later, the National Convention adopted the Constitution of the Year III. They reestablished freedom of worship, began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated elections for a new legislative body.

On 3 November 1795, the Directory was established. Under this system, France was led by a bicameral Parliament, consisting of an upper chamber called the Council of Elders (with 250 members) and a lower chamber called the Council of Five Hundred (with, accordingly, 500 members), and a collective Executive of five members called the Directory (from which the historical period gets its name). Due to internal instability, caused by hyperinflation of the paper monies ("Assignats"),^[9] and French military disasters in 1798 and 1799, the Directory lasted only four years, until overthrown in 1799.

Consulate (1799–1804)

The French Consulate era began with the coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Members of the Directory itself planned the coup, indicating clearly the failing power of the Directory. Napoleon Bonaparte was a co-conspirator in the coup and became head of the government as the First Consul.

On 18 May 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French by the Sénat conservateur. He would later proclaim himself Emperor of the French, ending the First French Republic and ushering in the First French Empire.^[10]

In conjunction with this powerful executive authority, four assemblies were established:

The Council of State, with members appointed by the First Consul, was the body responsible for preparing draft laws and assisting the head of state in adjudicating administrative disputes, a role formally defined in Article 52 of the Constitution of Year VIII (22 Frimaire, Year VIII) as being tasked with drafting proposed laws and regulations of public administration under the direction of the consuls, as well as resolving administrative difficulties.
The Tribunate, officially established on 11 Nivôse Year VIII (January 1, 1800), comprised one hundred deputies (reduced to fifty after the Constitution of Year X) appointed by the Senate for five-year terms, with one-fifth of its membership subject to renewal annually. The Tribunate assumed some of the functions of the Council of Five Hundred, its role being limited to deliberating on proposed laws before their adoption by the Legislative Body.
The Legislative Body, established concurrently with the Tribunate, served as the successor to the Council of Ancients. Its membership consisted of three hundred individuals, appointed by the Senate for five-year terms with one-fifth of the body subject to renewal annually. The primary function of the Legislative Body was to vote on proposed laws without the provision for debate or amendment.
The Conservative Senate, whose primary role is to ensure the preservation of the Constitution, hence its name, and to elect the members of the Legislative Body and the Tribunate, the judges of the Court of Cassation, and the accounting commissioners, comprised sixty irremovable members, at least forty years of age, appointed by Bonaparte, who in turn co-opted twenty additional senators; progressively, the power of this assembly would expand, as it would later be tasked with drafting legislative texts, the sénatus-consultes, established by the Constitution of Year X.

Leading members of the First Republic (and factions)

References

Cite error: The named reference Lyon_Bloomsbury_1994 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Nicole Dockès, emeritus professor, agrégé des universités, and Annie Héritier, lecturer at the law faculty of the University of Corsica, Genèse de la notion juridique de patrimoine culturel – 1750–1816, 2003, 70.
Everdell, William R. (2000). The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-22482-1.
Censer, Jack R.; Hunt, Lynn (2004), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press
Doyle (1989), pp. 191–192.
Doyle (1989), p. 196.
The French Revolution [videorecording]: liberté, egalité, fraternité, a new republic is born in blood / produced & directed by Doug Shultz; written by Doug Shultz, Hilary Sio, Thomas Emil. [New York, N.Y.]: History Channel: Distributed in the U.S. by New Video, 2005.
"Robespierre and the Terror | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Archived from the original on 30 September 2018.
"J.E. Sandrock: 'Bank notes of the French Revolution' and First Republic" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 December 2013.
"Paris: Capital of the 19th Century". library.brown.edu. Archived from the original on 11 May 2020.

Bibliography

Doyle, William (1989). The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978-0199252985.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

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