The Commune, the Paris sections, the Jacobin club and the sans culottes all denounced the Girondins as Royalists and Federalists (all terms that were, by this stage, anti-revolutionary slurs). They denounced the domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid and so fell under suspicion of "federalism". They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by first decreeing its abolition but withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition. The catalyst for this was the trial of Louis XVI. The Girondins supported democratic reform, secularism and a strong legislature at the expense of a weaker executive and judiciary as opposed to the populist authoritarian Montagnards, who supported public acknowledgement of a Supreme Being and a strong executive.
In January 1793, the National Convention found the king guilty and voted for his execution. When the Convention president sent a message of protest against this intimidation, National Guard commander François Hanriot replied “Tell your f–king president that he and his Convention can go f–k themselves. This French Revolution site contains articles, sources and perspectives on events in France between 17. In Revolutionary France, the Jacobin clubs produced a political class intent on the destruction of the ancien regime and the violent propagation of the ideas of the French Revolution throughout Europe. It was commonly contrasted with the stolid stocky conservative and well-meaning John Bull, dressed like an English country squire. They demanded the expulsion of the Girondin deputies, who complied to avoid a massacre.įive were lawyers: Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, Marguerite-Élie Guadet, Armand Gensonné, Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve and Jean Jay (who was also a Protestant pastor).