Physical and emotional exhaustion set in. Millions of men died during these wars, with all of the consequent heartache and loss. But then, within fewer than a half dozen years, the chaos engendered by all of the changes created a kind of social and political vacuum and the Republic was unceremoniously discarded and replaced by a military dictatorship under the firm hand of Napoleon Bonaparte.įrance and Europe were then plunged into an endless cycle of wars ostensibly intended to spread (and impose) the new French system on France’s neighbors. However, in exchanges between “citizens,” the formalistic “vous” was replaced by the more informal “tu” to evidence the new equality.Ĭountless traditional components of French daily life were cast aside in the process of trying to create a new society. The old titles of nobility were, of course, abolished, but so were the traditional terms “Monsieur” and “Madame.” Instead, everyone was now “Citizen.” They did not go so far as to abolish gender terms, but likely only because gender is far too strongly embedded in the French language. 22, 1792, was designated as the beginning of time, with the following 12 months being Year 1.Įven the private interactions of individuals had to change. As a result, the day of the proclamation of the Republic: Sept. Since the young revolutionaries considered that they and their Revolution stood at the center of the universe, the numbering of the years also had to change. Late September and October became “Vendemiaire,” the month for the grape harvest, to be followed by “Brumaire,” the month of fog and then Frimaire, the cold month, and so on.
In an environmental spirit, all of the months were renamed, disposing of the old Roman names, and instead ascribing names reflecting the seasons and activities in relation to those seasons. The seven-day week was cast aside for the “decadie,” a new 10-day week.
Absolute purity was the only means of insuring the success of the new regime. These young men (virtually all of them were in their 30s) filled with righteous energy and conviction had determined that in order to safeguard the political benefits of the reforms created by the Revolution, everything that echoed the old order had to be removed and destroyed. Indeed, the changes wrought by the hard core revolutionaries of France in the second and very radical phase of the French revolution were very thorough.
FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY CALENDAR TO TODAY TRIAL
For good measure, the passerby could have invited the visitor to go to one of several public places where a guillotine was periodically erected for the convenient decapitation, without the benefit of trial or defense, of those who objected to the new order. Never mind that the statues were of the kings of Judah without any relation to the overthrown Bourbon monarchy, historical purity required the decapitation of all kings - alive or of stone.
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