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army formed in Marseilles, but city falls to troops of the Republic (August).
Leveé en masse
declared by Convention; general conscription of bachelors aged 18 to 25. Royalist rebels in Toulon hand the city to the British (August). Sardinian forces enter France in support of rebels but are driven back (September). Responding to pressure from Sections, Convention declares that “La terreur à l’ordre du jour”; revolutionary armies established, Law of Suspects passed and wage and price controls (the
maximum)
put in place (September). Revolutionary calendar renames months, introduces ten-day week and dates the Year 1 from 22 September 1792.
Adoption of metric system. Lyons falls to republicans and revolt ruthlessly suppressed (October). Execution of Marie Antoinette. Execution of Brissot and 30 Girondists (October); others, including Roland, Condorcet, and Pétion, commit suicide. Women’s political societies banned. Government led by Committe of Public Safety, Robespierre, Collot d’Herbois, Barère and Saint-Just among the most prominent members. Dechristianization campaign by Paris extremists including Jacques Hébert. By the end of the year, Vendéan revolt crushed, though the region remains in a state of civil war until 1796. Toulon retaken for the Republic by the young Bonaparte (December). Law on local government of 14 frimaire (4 December): Committe of Public Safety moves to control provinces by assuming direct rule; national agents placed in each district, to report every ten days to the government. David’s
Death of Marat
.
    DATE: 1794
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: BS had ridden across the border to Switzerland, making his way to Lausanne where he had arranged to meet an
émigré
friend, Jean-Antoine de Rostaing. Spends time with his maternal grandparents in Moudon. Deciding to go the United States, the two men travel up through Germany to Holland, setting sail from Rotterdam on 12 July. They arrive in New York on 30 September. BS earns a living by teaching French – styling himself
Professeur
, a title by which he humorously refers to himself for the rest of his life – and by playing principal violin at the city’s only theatre, a ramshackle building in John Street.
    LITERARY CONTEXT: Mme Merigot:
La Cuisinière Républicaine
.
Restif de la Bretonne:
Monsieur Nicolas
(to 1797).
Mrs Radcliffe:
The Mysteries of Udolpho
.
Coleridge and Southey:
The Fall of Robespierre
.
Execution of Chénier and Lavoisier.
    HISTORICAL EVENTS: Robespierre eliminates enemies to both left and right, sending Hébert and his followers to the guillotine in March and Danton, Desmoulins and friends, who had been campaigning for a relaxation of the Terror, in April. Grandiose pageants organized to promote new regime, e.g. Fête of the Supreme Being (June) and the anniversary of revolution of 10 August.
Unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Collot d’Herbois and suspected attempt on life of Robespierre prompt law of 22 prairial (10 June) reorganizing Revolutionary Tribunal. Intensification of the Terror, which is no longer justified by military situation after French victory at Fleurus (26 June) and reoccupation of Belgium. Robespierre denounces his enemies at the Convention and is in turn denounced and arrested (9 thermidor: 27 July); Paris Commune fails to rally to him and he and his associates are guillotined (28 July). 71 of his supporters in the Commune are executed the following day.
“Thermidorean Reaction”: White Terror begins in Paris where so-called
jeunesse dorée
carry out revenge attacks on Jacobins. Jacobin Club closed (November). Terror spreads to provinces, particularly Lyons and the south where massacres carried out by the
Compagnies de jéhu
continue until mid-1795. Price controls abandoned (December).
    DATE: 1795
    AUTHOR’S LIFE: Enjoys the food and the company, male and female, in New York, and, in the autumn, Boston, where the theatre is evacuated during a yellow-fever epidemic. En route, BS shoots wild turkey outside