Browse Primary Sources
Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.
Marat’s Impeachment
A leading voice on behalf of greater popular participation and for social policies that would benefit the poor, the journalist Jean–Paul Marat used his radical newspaper The Friend of the People to criticize moderation.
National Assembly Debate on Clubs (20 September 1791)
The "Champ de Mars Massacre" inaugurated a brief period of political repression directed at the popular movement and dramatized the growing tension between the claims of political activism and the desire of moderates to bring the Revolution to an orderly close.
Proceedings of the Quinze–Vingts Section
In late July and early August 1792, amid ongoing rancor over the King’s role in the government and fears that he would betray the nation to the invading Prussians, various Parisian sections began petitioning for Louis to be deposed. In the text below, the radical "Section of the 300" decides to join with other sections in a demonstration being organized against the King.
Clubs for the People
By creating a fictional man named Jacques who must go to his workshop every day so he can support his family, yet who also wants to do his patriotic duty by following political events, the Révolutions de Paris, in this article that appeared in late 1790, calls upon the government to create and to support popular political clubs.
Women at the Cordeliers
Popular clubs in Paris, unlike electoral assemblies, were not limited to men, at least in the early months of the Republic.
Women at the Jacobins
An observer of Jacobin club meetings in 1791, in the passage below, describes somewhat disorderly debates, in which speakers are shouted down from the rostrum and women participate openly. This is indicative of what this author sees as the "ungovernable" situation in Paris.
Police Report on a Session of the Cordeliers
In the passage below, a police observer of a Cordelier Club meeting notes the ongoing concern of the participants to identify and then to denounce "conspiracies" against the republic, even when the conspitators had been very recently integral to the club. In this case, the focus is on Hébert, editor of the Père Duchesne.
Activities of the Jacobins
The Englishman Arthur Young, who was in France during the early stages of the Revolution, recorded his observations. In this letter from mid–January 1790, he describes a Jacobin club meeting, which he depicts as being highly procedural in nature as it elects new leaders.
Rules of the Jacobins
In contrast to Le Chapelier’s fears that all clubs, even the Jacobins, actually subverted the political process, the Jacobins saw themselves as ensuring the proper functioning of the constitution and allowing full participation by patriotic citizens in the political process, as seen in this excerpt from the club’s rules drawn up in 1790.
Mercier, The New Paris: "Sections"
With the founding of the Republic, the forty–eight sectional assemblies of Paris declared themselves in "permanent session" so they could exercise constant vigilance over the Convention and over political events in general. In addition to their local administrative and judicial powers, the sections served as important forums for radical voices, such as Hébert and Marat.
The Eleventh of Thermidor
During the night of the 9th and 10th, with the outcome in doubt, deputies opposing Robespierre went to speak in the sections, hoping to convince the activists of the rightness of their cause.
The Ninth of Thermidor
Having carried the day in the Jacobin Club, Robespierre rose to speak the next day in the Convention, where he attacked members of the Committee of Public Safety and Committee of General Security, until now his closest collaborators, for their extreme use of the Terror. He also hinted that such "terrorists" should be purged from the Convention.
The Eighth of Thermidor
By the summer of 1794, Revolutionary Tribunals had tried over 200,000 suspects, of whom approximately 20,000 had been convicted of treasonous behavior and sent to the guillotine. Moreover, the work of the Terror was intensifying, although the worst threats to the Republic of invasion from without and anarchy within had subsided.
Prudhomme’s Description of the Coup against the Girondins (31 May–2 June 1793)
Throughout the spring of 1793, radicals in the Convention, in the Paris Commune, and in the sections struggled for power against Jean–Pierre Brissot and his allies, known as the "Girondins." They differed over how the revolution should be affected by popular pressure.
A British Observer of the September Massacres
A British diplomat in Paris here describes, in dispatches back to London, the goings–on in Paris in early September, in light of news of advances by the Duke of Brunswick’s Prussian forces toward the capital.
The September Massacres
In late summer 1792, news reached Paris that the Prussian army had invaded France and was advancing quickly toward the capital. Moreover, rumors circulated that the Prussians would find ready support from Parisians who secretly opposed the Revolution, especially refractory priests.
The "Second Revolution" of 10 August 1792
The popular demonstration of 10 August 1792, occurred because the Legislative Assembly could not decide what to do about the King, the constitution, the ongoing war, and above all the political uprisings in Paris.
The Massacre of the Champ de Mars [Parade ground], in the Révolutions de Paris
On 15 July 1791, the Jacobins held a demonstration on the Champ de Mars in Paris to gain signatures for their petition.
October Days: Deposition of a Marcher
The commission investigating the October Days took testimony from twenty–five women who had participated, including Marie–Rose Barré, a twenty–year old unmarried lace–worker, whose testimony is excerpted below. Barré had been one of the women chosen to meet directly with the King to present the women’s concerns.
October Days: An Alternate View
A Revolutionary activist named Fournier, known as "the American" because he had been born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, here recalls his own role as a National Guardsman in the October Days as being more important than that of the market women.