The Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ( ), mainly known as Cordeliers Club ( ), was a populist political club during the French Revolution from 1790 to 1794, when the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...

ended and the Thermidorian Reaction began. The club campaigned for universal male suffrage and

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without legislator, elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy m ...

, including the referendum. It energetically served as a watchdog looking for signs of abuse of power by the men in power. By 1793, it was challenging the centralization of power by

Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre fer ...

and his

Committee of Public Safety The Committee of Public Safety () was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General D ...

. They responded by arresting the leadership, charging them with conspiring to overthrow the Convention. The leaders were guillotined, and the club disappeared.

History

The club had its origins in the Cordeliers district, a famously radical area of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

called, by Camille Desmoulins, "the only sanctuary where liberty has not been violated".Rachel Hammersley, ''French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordeliers Club 1790–1794,'' p 19. Under the leadership of Georges Danton, this district had played a significant role in the

Storming of the Bastille The Storming of the Bastille ( ), which occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, was an act of political violence by revolutionary insurgents who attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armoury, fortress, and political prison k ...

and was home to several notable figures of the Revolution, including Danton himself, Desmoulins and

Jean-Paul Marat Jean-Paul Marat (, , ; born Jean-Paul Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes ...

—on whose behalf the district placed itself in a state of civil rebellion, when in January 1790 it refused to allow the execution of a warrant for his arrest that had been issued by the Châtelet. Having issued in November 1789 a declaration affirming its intent to "oppose, as much as we are able, all that the representatives of the Commune may undertake that is harmful to the general rights of our constituents",Hammersley, 25. the Cordeliers district remained in conflict with the Parisian government throughout the winter and spring of 1790. In May and June 1790, the previous division of Paris into 60 districts was by decree of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

replaced by the creation of 48 sections. This restructuring abolished the Cordeliers district. Anticipating this dissolution, the leaders of the Cordeliers district founded in April 1790 the ''Société des Amis des droits de l’homme et du citoyen'', a popular society which would serve as an alternative means of pursuing the goals and interests of the district. This society held its meetings in the Cordeliers Convent and quickly became known as the ''Club des Cordeliers''. It took as its motto the phrase ''

Liberté, égalité, fraternité (; French for , ), is the national motto of France and the Republic of Haiti, and is an example of a tripartite motto. Although it finds its origins in the French Revolution, it was then only one motto among others and was not institutio ...

'', and because its aim was to keep an eye on the government its emblem was an open eye. The membership fees of this society were fixed low and thus affordable to a more diverse range of citizens than those of many other political clubs at the time, including the

Jacobin Club The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential List of polit ...

. There were no other restrictions on membership. The Cordeliers presented themselves as exceptionally populist and they prided themselves on counting working men and women among their members. A contemporary account describes one meeting:

About three hundred persons of both sexes filled the place; their dress was so unkempt and so filthy that one would have taken them for a gathering of beggars. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was stuck on the wall, crowned by crossed daggers. Plaster busts of Brutus and
William Tell William Tell (, ; ; ; ) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for shooting an apple off his son's head. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, ...
were placed on each side, as if expressly to guard the Declaration. Facing, behind the tribune, as supporters, there appeared busts of Mirabeau and Helvétius, with Rousseau in the middle.Rose, 97.

However, the preponderance of Cordeliers were members of the bourgeoisie and its leadership was largely drawn from the educated middle classes.Rose, 106. From 1791 the Cordeliers met in a hall in the Rue Dauphine. On 21 June of that year, following an attempt by the royal family to flee Paris, the Cordeliers moved to draft a petition which offered the National Assembly a choice between the immediate deposition of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...

or a national referendum on the future of the monarchy. The Cordeliers actively moved against the majority interests in this case. Large demonstrations in support of this and similar petitions led to civil unrest, and culminated in the Champ de Mars massacre on 17 July. The National Guard, led by the Marquis de Lafayette, fired on the protestors, resulting in the deaths of at least dozen of them. Subsequent action taken against the Cordeliers included the closing of the Cordeliers Convent to them and the issuing of arrest warrants for Danton and Desmoulins. Despite these measures, the society remained a highly influential force in Parisian politics. The Cordeliers participated significantly in the planning and execution of the 10 August 1792 insurrection. Danton, at this time perhaps the most powerful figure within the Cordeliers Club, acted—in Hilaire Belloc's words—as "the organizer and chief of the insurrection"Belloc, 167. and was appointed Minister of Justice in the government that resulted, with Desmoulins and Fabre d'Églantine—both prominent members of the Cordeliers Club—as his secretaries. Subsequent to this insurrection and to the September Massacres that followed closely on its heels, the Cordeliers Club became increasingly the province of ultra-revolutionary factions, particularly the Hébertists, who advocated extreme measures to intensify the Terror. In December 1793, Desmoulins began publishing a journal entitled '' Le Vieux Cordelier'' or "The Old Cordelier", which attempted to reclaim the title of the society from those who had associated it with extremism. In the seven numbers of the journal, Desmoulins attacked the Hébertists and called for an end to the Terror, comparing revolutionary Paris to Rome under the tyrants. The Hébertists were arrested and, on 24 March 1794, executed, but the less extreme Desmoulins, Danton and the "Old Cordeliers" of the Dantonist faction quickly followed them to the guillotine. Their execution took place on April 5. The Cordeliers Club, deprived of its most important members, initially played no role in the further course of the revolution. After the Jacobin Club closed in November 1794, its most vehement representatives (so-called '' crêtois'') joined the Cordeliers. In response, the Thermidorians arranged for its final closure on the 20th of Pluviose III (February 20, 1795).

Bibliography

The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in Jean Maurice Tourneux, ''Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution'' (1894), i. (on the trial of the Hébertists) Nos. 4204–4210, ii. Nos. 9795–9834 and 11,813. See also A. Bougeart ''Les Cordeliers, documents pour servir a l'histoire de la Révolution'' (Caen, 1891); G. Lenotre, ''Paris révolutionnaire'' (Paris, 1895); G. Tridon, ''Les Hébertistes, plainte contre une calomnie de l'histoire'' (Paris, 1864). The last-named author was condemned to four months' prison; his work was reprinted in 1871. The inventory of the pictures found in 1790 in the Cordeliers Convent was published by J. Guiffrey in ''Nouvelles archives de l’art français'', viii., 2nd series, iii. (1880).

Factions and members

* Hébertists or Exaggerateds ( radicalism) ** Jacques-René Hébert (leader) ** Antoine-François Momoro ** Charles-Philippe Ronsin ** Pierre Gaspard Chaumette ** Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel ** Marie-Joseph Chénier ** François-Nicolas Vincent ** Jean-Baptiste Noël Bouchotte * Dantonists or Indulgents ( moderatism) ** Georges Jacques Danton (leader) ** Camille Desmoulins ** Pierre Philippeaux ** Bertrand Barère ** Fabre d'Églantine ** Pierre-François-Joseph Robert **

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (; 18 October 1741 – 5 September 1803) was a French novelist, official, Freemason and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel '' Les Liaisons dangereuses'' (''Dangerous Liaisons ...

* Non-affiliated extremists **

(leader) ** Jean-Baptiste Carrier ** François Chabot ** Stanislas-Marie Maillard ** Théroigne de Mericourt

Notes

{{Authority control 1790 establishments in France 1794 disestablishments in France Groups of the French Revolution Left-wing populism in France Populist parties Political parties disestablished in 1794 Political parties established in 1790 Far-left politics in France Radical parties in France

History

Bibliography

Factions and members

See also

Further reading

Notes