The King's trial and the sans-culottes

After the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792, a republic was declared. The National Legislative Assembly was dissolved and replaced by the National Convention. It was tasked with drafting a new constitution. But the multiple crises France faced -- war, civil strife, economic meltdown and political chaos -- the Convention found itself having to deal with matters at hand. Two crucial matters included the Trial of the King and the sans-culotte movement, which was seen as responsible for the September Prison Massacres in Paris and around France.

This week is focused on exploring who the sans-culottes were. It is also focused on the debates over the king: should he be tried? Could he be tried constitutionally? And if so, how should he be tried? The latter issue was further complicated by the constitutional void. In the absence of a new republican constitution, did the Constitution of 1791, which set out the terms of a constitutional monarchy, hold? Was 'revolution' itself justification for punishing the king? These questions divided revolutionaries and the Jacobins. The fallout over condemning and executing the king would persist for many decades to come.

 

Core primary readings

* Mason & Rizzo, FRDC, on September Massacres (174-176); on King's Trial (p. 177-187); on sans-culottes and radicals (p. 197-208)

Core secondary readings

T.E. Kaiser, ‘From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror’, French Historical Studies, 26 (2003), 579-617

P. Hanson, ‘From Faction to Revolt’ in Andress (ed.), OHFR (2015), 436-45.

 

Questions

1. What was a sans-culotte? What was their historical significance?

2. What arguments were given for trying the King?

3. What argument were given against trying the King?

4. What problems did the fall of the monarchy present, beyond whether or not the king was to be tried for treason?

Further Reading

The Royal Couple in Context

J. Cuno, (ed.), French Caricature and the French Revolution, 1789-99 (1989)

S. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Pre-Revolutionary France (1993), esp. ch. 4

M. Price, The Fall of the Monarchy (2002)

J. Felix, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (2006)

D. Andress, Massacre at the Champ de Mars: Popular Dissent and Popular Culture in the French Revolution (2000)

D. Andress, ‘The denial of social conflict in the French Revolution: discourses around the Champ de Mars massacre’, French Historical Studies, 22 (1999)

G.A. Kelly, ‘Bailly and the Champ de Mars massacre of 1791’, Journal of Modern History (1980)

A. Patrick, The Men of the First Republic (1972)

L. Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution (1984)

L. Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (1992)

C. Jones, ‘A Fine “Romance” with No Sisters’, French Historical Studies, (1995)

A. Baecque, The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in Revolutionary France (1997)

P. Caron, Les Massacres de Septembre (1936)

P. Higonnet, Goodness beyond Virtue: Jacobins in the French Revolution (1999)

 

Louis XVI

J. Hardman, Louis XVI (1994)

J. Hardman, Louis XVI (2000)

J. Hardman & M. Price (eds), Louis XVI and the comte de Vergennes: correspondence 1774-87 (1998)

M. Price, Preserving the Monarchy: the comte de Vergennes, 1774-87 (1995)

P.R. Campbell, ‘Louis XVI king of the French’, French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2.

 

Marie-Antoinette

D. Goodman, T. Kaiser (eds.), Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen (2003)

C. Weber, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (2007)

C. Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France (2013)

L. Hunt, ‘The many bodies of Marie-Antoinette’, in Hunt (ed.), Eroticism and the Body Politic (1991)

T. Kaiser, ‘Who’s afraid of Marie-Antoinette? Diplomacy, Austrophobia and the queen’, FH, 14 (2000)

T.E. Kaiser, ‘From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror’, French Historical Studies, 26 (2003)

E. Lever, Marie-Antoinette (2001)

A. Fraser, Marie-Antoinette (2001)

C. Berly, Marie-Antoinette et ses biographes. Histoire d’une écriture de la Révolution française (2006).

V.R. Gruder, ‘The Question of Marie-Antoinette: The queen and public opinion before the Revolution, French History, 16 (2002)

D. Hosford, ‘The Queen's Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 38 (2004).

 

The Trials

M. Walzer, Regicide and Revolution (1974)

D.P. Jordan, The King’s Trial: The French Revolution vs Louis XVI (1979)

A. Soboul, Le Procès de Louis XVI (1966)

M. Walzer, ‘The king’s trial and the political culture of the Revolution’, French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2.

E. Colwill, ‘Just another citoyenne? Marie-Antoinette on trial, 1790-3’, History Workshop, 28 (1989)

 

Crowds, Clubs, Sans-culottes

C. Lucas, ‘The crowd and politics’, FRMPC 2.

G. Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959)

G. Rudé, Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century : Studies in Popular Protest (1970)

R. Cobb, Paris and the Revolution (1998)

G. Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959)

R. Cobb, The Police and the People: French Popular Protest, 1789-1820 (1970)

R.B. Rose, Tribunes and Amazons: Men and Women of Revolutionary France, 1789-1871 (1998)

H. Burstin, Le Faubourg Saint-Marcel à l’époque révolutionnaire (1983)

R. Monnier, Le Faubourg Saint-Antoine (1789-1815) (1981)

R. Monnier, L’espace public démocratique: Essai sur l’opinion à Paris de la Révolution au Directoire (1994)

M. Genty, Paris 1789-95: l’apprentissage de la citoyenneté (1987)

P. Higonnet, Goodness beyond Virtue: Jacobins during the French Revolution (1998)

M. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution (3 vols., 1982-99)

D. Andress, The French Revolution and the People (2004)

 

Especially Year II (1793-4)

A. Soboul, The Parisian sans-Culottes and the French Revolution (1964)

R.B. Rose, The Making of the Sans-Culottes (1983)

R.B. Rose, ‘Nursery of sans-culottes: the société patriotique of the Luxembourg section, 1792-5’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 64: 1 (1982-3), 218-245

R. Cobb, Paris and its Provinces, 1792-1802 (1975)

R. Cobb, The People’s Armies (1987)

M. Slavin, ‘The French Revolution in Minaiture: the Section Droits-de-l’hommem 1789-95 (1984)

M. Slavin, The Making of an Insurrection: Parisians Sections and the Gironde (1986)

M. Slavin, The Hébertistes to the Guillotine (1994)

G. Williams, Artisans and Sans-culottes (1968)

J.M. Gourden, Gens de métiers et sans-culottes. Les artisans dans la Révolution (1988)

W. Sewell, ‘The sans-culotte rhetoric of subsistence’, FRMPC 4.

C. Lucas, ‘Revolutionary violence, the people and the Terror’, FRMPC 4

R.M. Andrews, ‘The Justices of the Peace in Revolutionary Paris, 1792-4’, P&P, 52 (1971)

R.M. Andrews, ‘Social structures, political elites and ideology in Revolutionary Paris, 1792-4’, JSH, 19 (1985)

M. Sonenscher, ‘Artisans, sans-culottes and the French Revolution’ in A. Forrest & P.M. Jones (eds), Reshaping France (1991)

J. Guilhaumou, ‘Les milles langues du Père Duchesne: la parodie de la culture populaire pendant la Révolution’, Dix-huitième siècle, 18 (1986)

C. Jones & R. Spang, ‘Sans-culottes, sans-café, sans tabac: realms of necessity and luxury in eighteenth-century France’, in M. Berg & H. Clifford (eds), Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe, 1650-1850 (1999)

R. Wrigley, ‘Transformations of a Revolutionary emblem: the liberty cap in the French Revolution’, FH, 11 (1997)

H. Burstin, ‘Problèmes de travail à Paris sous la Révolution’, RHMC, 44 (1997)