The National Convention (sep 20, 1792 – nov 3, 1795)

Description:

24 deputies for Paris = many of the most militant Jacobins + Cordeliers (all tend to be known as
Jacobins now)

Results:
- Montagnards (Jacobins) — 200
- La Plaine (The Plain — Unaffiliated) — 389
- did not vote in a coherent patters, supported neither one nor the other
- Girondins — 160

These are clubs, not parties! —> very ambiguous, loose association

The deputies:
Many most militant Jacobins —> Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Desmoulins, Collot dʼHerbois (an
extreme radical popular with sans-culottes)
Brissot, Philippe Egailte (Duc dʼOrleans), Abbe Seiyes

Wide range of social classes —> at least one peasant + member of royal family (former prince
Philippe Egalite)

many were lawyers before — 47%

compared to assemblies before —> relatively young men

The division:
—> little to distinguish in terms of social composition, experience + both republican + both claimed to uphold true revolutionary values main difference in attitude towards sans-culottes

Jacobins
- more parisian
- saw actions of sans-culottes as a legitimate part of revolutionary process
- to them: people were the revolution

Girondins
- slightly more moderate
protectors of legal justice
opposing brutality + illegitimate actions of the ‘mobʼ

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