Jacobin/Sandbox

The Jacobin movement, centered on the Jacobin Club (more properly, Société Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l’égalité, (Schama; 1989; 693) were one of the most influential (and among the most radical) factions in the French Revolution until their downfall on July 27, 1794 unleashed the Thermidorian reaction. They worked and fought for their vision of revolution on the social, political and cultural fronts. Socially, they were the enemies of privilege, epitomized by their embrace of the writings of Jean-Paul Marat (himself never formally a member of the Jacobin Club). Politically, they were epitomized by the unwavering and unmerciful revolutionary rectitude of Maximilien de Robespierre. Culturally, they focused on the "Creation of the Citizen" (Schama; 1989; 123), modeled on the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had died a decade before the revolution.

Social Influence

The Jacobin Club was established in 1789 at Versailles shortly after the opening of the Estates-General, and were originally dedicated to a cause simultaneously liberal and elitist: "the defeat of the aristocracy, the triumph of the bourgeoisie, the fragmentation and subjugation of the popular movement" (Soboul; 1977; xii), that is, of the sans-culottes and peasantry. Over time, the Jacobin Club developed as an increasingly leftist movement, opening its ranks and losing its elite character as it embraced "militant egalitarianism" (Schama; 1989; pg. 527).

In the early years, the Jacobins were part of the liberal mainstream of "the definitive model of all bourgeois revolutions" (Soboul; 1977; 1). The first notable Jacobin voice was that of the intellectual revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. Marat first appeared on the public scene in 1788 where he published several political works, such as Offrande, La Constitution, and the Tableau des vices de la constitution d'Angleterre, which focused on the progress of French infrastructure. Marat began his own newspaper, briefly called Moniteur patriote ("Patriotic Monitor"), then Publiciste parisien ("Parisian Publicity Agent"), but which became famous as L'Ami du peuple ("The Friend of the People"). Marat criticized the failure of governing bodies such as the National Constituent Assembly to deliver freedom and rights to the common man. Marat soon became known as "The wrath of the people" encouraging social revolt against the state to assert the basic rights of man.

This social influence culminated in the August insurrection of 1792, a :phenomenon of such uncontrollable power that is swept away an entire universe of traditional customs, mentalities and institutions" (Schama; 1989; xiv). Embracing the revolutionary ideal of Libertè, Ègalitè, Fraternitè, Marat (who was murdered July 13, 1793) prophesied and advocated the downfall of the Monarchy and the continued radicalization of the Revolution.

Political Influence

If the influence of the Jacobins had been only social, they would rank only as one of many clubs and factions in the Revolution. Their rise to pre-eminent political power, their bloody use of that power in the Reign of Terror, and their sudden and drastic fall made Jacobinism a byword for revolutionary extremism that is still used today.

The Jacobin movement encouraged sentiments of patriotism and liberty amongst the populace. The movement's contemporaries, such as King Louis XVI, located the effectiveness of the revolutionary movement not "in the force and bayonets of soldiers, guns, cannons and shells but by the marks of political power" (Schama; 1989; 279). Ultimately, the Jacobins were to control several key political bodies, in particular the Committee for Public Safety and, through it, the National Convention, which was not only a legislature but also took upon itself executive and judicial functions. The Jacobins as a political force were seen as "less selfish, more patriotic, and more sympathetic to the Paris Populace" (Bosher; 1989; 186). This gave them a position of charismaticy authority that was effective in generating and harnessing public pressure, generating and satisfying sans-culotte pleas for personal freedom and social progress.

The Jacobin Club developed into a bureau for French Republicanism and revolutionary purity, and abandoned its original laissez faire economic views in favor of coordinatorism. In power, they completed the abolition of feudalism that had been formally decided August 4, 1789, but had been held in check by a clause requiring compensation for the abrogation of the feudal privileges.

Maximilien Robespierre entered the political arena shortly after the September Massacres, elected as first deputy for Paris to the National Convention in 1792. Robespierre was viewed as the quintessential political force of the Jacobin Movement, thrusting ever deeper the dagger of liberty within the despotism of the Monarchy. As a disciple of Rousseau, Robespierre's political views were rooted in Rousseau's notion of the social contract, which promoted "the rights of man" (Schama; 1989; 475), but his was a vision of collective rights, rather than the rights of each individual. Robespierre expressed this view in the December 1792 condemnation of Louis XVI to death for treason:"It is with regret that I pronounce, the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die, that the country may live." (Britannica, 1911)

The ultimate political vehicle for the Jacobin movement was the Reign of Terror overseen by the Committee of Public Safety, who were given executive powers to purify and unify the Republic. The Committee instituted requisitioning, rationing, and conscription to consolidate new citizen armies. They instituted the Terror as a means of destroying those they perceived as enemies within: "Terror", said Robespierre, "is only justice that is prompt, severe and inflexible".

Cultural Influence

The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement during the French Revolution revolved around the creation of the Citizen. As commented in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 book The Social Contract, "Citizenship is the expression of a sublime reciprocity between individual and General will" (Schama; 1989; 354). This view of citizenship and the General Will , once empowered, could simultaneously embrace the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and adopt the liberal French Constitution of 1793, then immediately suspend that constitution and all ordinary legality and institute Revolutionary Tribunals that did not grant a presumption of innocence.

The Jacobins saw themselves as constitutionalists, dedicated to the Rights of Man, and, in particular, to the Declaration's principle of "preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression" (Article II of the Declaration). The constitution reassured the protection of personal freedom and social progress within French society. The cultural influence of the Jacobin movement was effective in reinforcing these rudiments, developing a milieu for revolution. The Constitution was admired by most Jacobins as the foundation of the emerging republic and of the rise of citizenship.

Foes of both the Church and of atheism, advocating deliberate government-organized terror as a substitute for both the rule of law and the more arbitrary terror of mob violence, inheritors of a war that, at the time of their rise to power, threatened the very existence of the Revolution, the Jacobins in power completed the overthrow of the Ancien Régime and successfully defended the Revolution from military defeat. However, to do so, they brought the Revolution to its bloodiest phase, and the one with least regard for just treatment of individuals. Although they doubtless consolidated republicanism in France and contributed greatly to the secularism and the sense of nationhood that have marked all French republican regimes to this day, their methods discredited the Revolution in the eyes of many who had previously supported it. Despite the fact that there were Jacobins among those who brought down Robespierre and the rest of The Mountain, the resulting Thermidorian reaction shuttered all of the Jacobin clubs, removed all Jacobins from power, and condemned many, well beyond the ranks of the Mountain, to death or deadly exile.

References

• —, "Robespierre, Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de", in Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (1911).
• Bosher, J.F., The French Revolution (Norton, 1989). ISBN 0-393-95997-X.
• Schama, Simon, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (Knopf, 1991). ISBN 0-394-55948-7.
• Soboul, Albert, ed., Contributions a l'histoire paysanne de la revolution francaise (Paris : Editions Sociales, 1977). ISBN 2-209-05273-4.