Early Modern (1450 CE - 1800 CE)
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.
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.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive
This archive houses a fantastic collection of source materials pertaining to the 160 women and men accused of witchcraft in the late 17th century in the Massachusetts Bay colony.
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 excer
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.
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.
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.
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.