2.5 The Jacobin republic

The Jacobins moved quickly to try and remedy the dire military problems confronting France. In August 1793 they announced that all French men of military age would be conscripted into the army and that for the duration of the war the republican constitution was suspended. This was effectively the declaration of total war. Henceforth the entire energies and resources of the nation would be directed to the war effort and the Jacobin faction would rule the republic directly. Internal enemies had to be dealt with severely. The Jacobins passed laws establishing committees of surveillance in every region of the country. The committees were to arrest opponents of the regime and encourage the war effort. Former aristocrats were particularly under suspicion and the property of those who had fled the country was sold. In addition a further measure, the maximum, was introduced. Farmers were compelled to sell grain at fixed prices, which could not go above a level set by the government. When farmers refused to co-operate, groups of revolutionary volunteers were sent out to the countryside to confiscate food directly. The government hoped this would satisfy the basic demands of the sans-culottes, particularly in Paris.

At the head of the dictatorship sat the Committee of Public Safety. Each month this group of twelve men was elected from the remaining deputies of the Convention. Their role was to direct the various government ministries and to implement the policies of the Jacobin Convention. From a very early stage the most prominent member of the Committee was Maximilien Robespierre. He was a lawyer with a background not untypical of the revolutionaries who had led the formation of the National Assembly in 1789. In the rest of the country the government exercised only a limited control and so they sent out deputies from the Convention to various regions, contacting the Jacobin club members in each district. These clubs effectively became the government of the republic outside Paris. They organised tribunals against enemies of the republic and operated the committees of surveillance.

Optional activity: Revolutionary violence

James Gillray was probably the pre-eminent caricaturist of the era and we will encounter many examples of his work in this course. You might like to read more about him in the entry on James Gillray in the Dictionary of National Biography. Then consider the cartoon above and answer the following questions

1. What do you think that James Gillray’s cartoon suggests about the British attitude to the events in France?
2. How did this differ from the original international reaction to the revolution in 1789?

Post your thoughts in the Revolutionary wars forum.