Like many political societies in the 18th century, the Jacobin Club united to discuss ideas. Contemporaries little dreamed that four years after the club’s inception, this group of politicians and orators would unleash the Reign of Terror.
The Robespierre Faction
Although the “Friends of the Constitution,” as Jacobins called themselves, agreed that France needed a Constitution, they agreed about little else. From the beginning the club developed factions. Maximilien Robespierre and his supporters like Saint-Just, were considered left-wing radicals, while members like the Duc d’ Orleans and Mirabeau favored a government with some form of monarchy.
The year following the storming of the Bastille marked the complete radicalization of the Jacobin Club. Conservatives, in an effort to distance themselves from the intrigue and violence associated with the Jacobins, transferred to a rival society called the Feuillants. This secession left the Jacobins united under Robespierre.
Political Propaganda in the Eighteenth Century
Abbé Sieyès is credited with the manifesto of the Revolution. Addressing a message to the King in 1788, he asked, “What is the Third Estate?” His pamphlet answered the question in a bold assertion of the rights of the common Frenchman. This political leaflet was the first of approximately 10,000 that would flood Paris between 1789 and 1792.
Jean-Paul Marat was another famous pen associated with the Jacobin Club. His Parisian paper, “The Friend of the People,” reported his perspective on current events from the assembly of the Estates-General, in June of 1789, until his murder in 1793. He wrote fiery diatribes, striking out at those in power, from the King’s Minister of Finance to his fellow revolutionaries. For the universal scope of his attacks, he earned the title “The Wrath of the People.”
Political cartoons of the day also reflected Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary sentiments and rallied support for the Jacobins.
Jacobins in the French Republic
The Jacobin Club grew rapidly. Yet it maintained centralized power. Within a year of its founding, Jacobins swelled from a handful of political delegates in Paris to 900 affiliated clubs spread across every corner of France. The network of provincial groups linked to one central assembly in Paris strengthened the Jacobins. It helped them consolidate their platform while other societies of the day, like the Cordeliers, remained disorganized.
Originally members and sympathizers held a wide range of political viewpoints. Political theory ran the gamut from loyal monarchist Mirabeau to fiery republican Marat. This diversity vanished after the tumultuous summer of 1790. Jacobin club membership became synonymous with extreme republicanism. Dating from the first of that year, the club established rules of order and membership, which it issued to every local chapter. Jacobins were expected to:
- Debate current political topics discussed at the National Assembly
- Support the new Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man
- Encourage the spread of democracy.
One of the duties of club members was to inform against any other member suspected of “disloyalty” to the Constitution. Traitors faced instant expulsion from club membership. In this way the Jacobins intimidated and controlled dissident members.
From 1789 to 1791, the Jacobins represented a minority in the evolving French government. Yet they out-maneuvered the moderate party, the Girondins, by superior oratory and identification with the sans-cullotte. By 1792 the Jacobins held influential positions in every branch of government.
Violence and the Reign of Terror
In the beginning the Club did not endorse the use of violence to reach their goals. By insidious degrees, however, a Machiavellian mindset dominated. Public speeches urging universal suffrage were insufficient. Demonstrations became necessary. If the blood of a few hundred nobles was the cost of liberty and equality then, as Marat urged in his paper, the guillotine must fall.
Soon it was not merely nobles but anyone who disagreed with the Jacobins that faced a tribunal. After Robespierre secured his position in the provisional government in 1792, he began calling for the death of “enemies of the Republic.”
Thus the Jacobins silenced their own club member Mirabeau as well as rival revolutionaries like Georges Danton.
In the provinces local Jacobin members took their cue from the Parisian club. Small scaffolds rose in marketplaces for the execution of “traitors.” Jacobins could arrest anyone on the pretext of protecting the Republic. The excused raid on a landowner escalated to public massacres. Peasants and nobles, priests and republicans alike met their deaths in the brutal epoch known as the Reign of Terror.
Legacy
The Jacobins had indeed gained power: at the cost of becoming the very tyrants they once berated. The Jacobin Club officially disbanded in 1794. Yet its infamy endures. Once a political society dedicated to democratic ideals, the term Jacobin persists to this day as a pejorative for extreme reactionary tactics.
Sources
Belloc, Hilaire. The French Revolution. London: Williams and Norgate, 1915.
Dowd, David L. The French Revolution. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1965.
Exhibition of French Revolution Documents and Images. University of Maryland Libraries: Marylandia and Rare Books Department. Accessed online October 13, 2009.
Ploetz, Karl Julius. Ploetz’s Manuel of Universal History. Editor William H. Tillinghast. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1925.
“What is the Third Estate?” Sieyès, Emmanuel. Modern History Sourcebook. Accessed online. October 12, 2009.
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