Christopher Hibbert - The Days of the French Revolution

ROUGET DE LISLE. Although he wrote a few songs other than the Marseillaise , for which he composed the words and perhaps the music – though this has been disputed – none was to achieve much success. A less than ardent republican he was cashiered and imprisoned for a time. He died at Choisy-le-Roi in 1836, and his ashes were transported to the Panthéon.

ROUX. Condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 15 January 1794, he stabbed himself with a knife and was carried away to Bicêtre where he died.

SANSON, Charles. Remained the public executioner of Paris until 1795 when he handed over to his son, Henri, who died in 1840.

SANTERRE. Relieved of his command of the Paris National Guard in 1793, he was sent to command a force in the Vendée. Blamed for the failure of this expedition and accused of having written a prejudiced report upon it, he was sent to prison where he remained until Thermidor . He then resigned his command and returned to his business. The brewery, however, was not the prosperous concern it had been and he died in poverty in 1809.

SÈZE. Retired to a house he owned in the hamlet of Brevannes in the spring of 1793. Created a count by Louis XVIII, he lived on until 1828.

SIEYÈS. Lived in retirement during the Empire but prudently left France at the time of the Restoration. He returned after the 1830 revolution and died in Paris six years later.

TALLEYRAND. ‘Treason,’ said Talleyrand ‘is merely a matter of dates.’ Foreign Minister under the Directory and Napoleon, he also served Louis XVIII in that office. After representing France at the Congress of Vienna he became King Louis Philippe’s ambassador to the Court of St James’s. He died in Paris in 1838.

TALLIEN. He was elected to the Council of Five Hundred, but, distrusted by the moderates as a former terrorist and by the Left as a reactionary, he made little mark. He sailed to Egypt with Bonaparte in 1798 and edited the official journal, the Décade Egyptienne . He then became consul at Alicante. Having contracted yellow fever and lost the sight of an eye he returned to Paris where, having failed to obtain a pension, he died in poverty in 1820. He had married the fascinating Comtesse de Fontenay in 1794 but obtained a divorce from her in 1802. She married the Comte de Caraman, later Prince de Chimay, in 1805.

TARGET. Having disappeared from view during the Terror, he emerged to become a member of the Institute and of the Court of Cassation. He died in 1807.

THURIOT. After 18 Brumaire became juge au tribunal criminel of the département of the Seine. Replaced at the first Restoration, he took up his functions again during the Hundred Days. Banished as a regicide in 1816, he obtained permission to practice law in Liège where he died in 1829.

TOURZEL. When the royal family were imprisoned at the Conciergérie she asked to be taken there with them. This request and a subsequent one to share Madame Royale’s imprisonment were both refused. She was imprisoned for five months but survived the Terror and died at her château at Abondant in 1832 at the age of eighty-two.

TRONCHET. A deputy of the Council of the Ancients during the Directory and president of the Court of Cassation during the Consulate. He died in March 1806.

VADIER. Condemned to deportation under the Directory, he escaped and remained in hiding in Paris until May 1796. Tried with the Babeuf conspirators, he was acquitted but kept in prison for four years at Cherbourg. Released after 18 Brumaire , he went to live in Toulouse where he was kept under police surveillance. Exiled as a regicide in 1816, he died at Brussels in 1828.

VILATE. Executed 7 May 1795.

aides: excises on various goods such as wines, playing cards and soap.

ami du peuple, L’: founded by Marat in September 1789 and, like Le Père Duchesne , circulated widely among the people. Often suppressed, it changed its name to Publiciste de la République française in March 1793. The last issue appeared the day after Marat’s murder.

armée révolutionnaire: armed force of Jacobins and sans-culottes raised in several places in the late summer of 1793. Its principal purpose was to force farmers to release their stocks for Paris and other towns. It was disbanded after the execution of the Hébertists.

Assignats: interest-bearing bonds which – with a face value of 1,000 livres each – were intended to be used in payment for biens nationaux . Further issues were made from time to time to ensure a regular flow of money, and in this way France was given a new paper currency. Assignats stopped bearing interest in May 1791; and, by the time of the Directory, 100 livres in assignats were worth no more than fifteen sous .

banalités: the exclusive rights of a seigneur to maintain a mill, an oven or a winepress, often exacted by a fermier . They were renounced on the famous night of 4 August 1789 and declared subject to redemption.

barrières: customs posts surrounding Paris.

biens nationaux: ‘national lands’, the former properties of the Church.

bourgeoisie: generally used to define the fairly well-to-do urban middle class, the families of both professional and businessmen.

Brissotins: the name by which the Girondins were at first more usually known.

Brumaire: the second month of the Revolutionary Calendar which corresponded with the days from 22 October to 20 November, from brume , mist.

cahiers de doléances: lists of grievances drawn up by each of the three orders before the meeting of the Estates General in 1789. The clergy and nobility drew up their lists in assemblies in the towns which were the centres of their electoral districts. The more numerous Third Estate usually met in parish churches where preliminary cahiers were prepared and written down by some respected lawyer, schoolmaster or coq du village . Delegates were then selected; and the preliminary cahiers were absorbed into general cahiers at electoral assemblies. Model cahiers were circulated to suggest lists of grievances and how to frame them.

ça ira!: Revolutionary song sung to the tune of a country dance by Bécourt, Le carillon national . First heard in Paris during the preparations for the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790. The refrain, which was said to have been written by a street-singer named Ladre, originally ran:

Ah! Ça ira, ça, ira, ça ira!

Le peuple, en ce jour, sans cesse répète:

Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!

Malgré les mutins, tout réussira

The words were altered during the Terror to:

Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!

Les aristocrates à la lanterne!

Bonaparte prohibited the song when he became First Consul.

capitation: a kind of poll-tax levied in rough correspondence to income. Established in 1701, it was originally intended to be levied on all Frenchmen who were divided into twenty-two classes, the Dauphin, at at the top of the first class, being assessed at 2,000 livres , soldiers and day-labourers, at the bottom of the last class, at only one livre . The clergy bought themselves out in 1710 for 24,000,000 livres . The nobility had also become exempt by the time of the Revolution when the capitation , levied only on commoners, had become a supplement of the taille .

carmagnole: originally, perhaps, a short jacket with metal buttons introduced into France by workers from Carmagnola in Piedmont. It became popular in Marseilles and was brought to Paris by the Marseillais fédérés . Worn with black woollen trousers, red or tricolour waistcoats and red caps it was taken up by the Jacobins. It was also the name of a dance and of a popular Revolutionary song – the words of which were constantly being altered – that accompanied it. Like the Ça ira , it was banned by Bonaparte when he became First Consul.