September Massacres - Citizendia

The September Massacres

The September Massacres^[1] were a wave of mob violence which overtook Paris in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Year 1792 ( MDCCXCII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an By the time it had subsided, half the prison population of Paris had been executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys. Sporadic violence, in particular against the Roman Catholic Church, would continue throughout France for nearly a decade to come. ^[2]

1 Overview
2 See also
3 Notes
4 External links
5 Further reading

Overview

On September 2, 1792, news reached Paris that the Duke of Brunswick's Prussian army had invaded France, that the fortress of Verdun had quickly fallen, that perhaps its own aristocratic officers had capitulated too easily, and that the Prussians were advancing quickly toward the capital. Events 44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. Year 1792 ( MDCCXCII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Charles William Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel-Bevern ( Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg Fürst von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern Prussia ( Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Prūsija Prūsija Prusy Old Prussian: Prūsa) was most recently a historic state Verdun (medieval Wirten official name before 1970 Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city and commune On July 25 Brunswick had circulated his bombastic "Brunswick Manifesto" from Coblenz: his avowed aim was

"to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and the liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him. Events 285 - Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler The Brunswick Manifesto was a proclamation issued by Charles William Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick, commander of the Allied Army (principally Austrian and Prussian on 25 Koblenz (also Coblenz in pre-1926 German Spellings French Coblence) is a city situated on both banks of the Rhine "

Additionally, the Manifesto threatened the French public with instant punishment should they resist the Imperial and Prussian armies, or the reinstatement of the monarchy. Such information fueled this first wave of mob hysteria of the Revolution. By the end of August rumours circulated that many in Paris - such as non-juring priests - who secretly opposed the Revolution would support the First Coalition of foreign powers allied against it. The First Coalition ( 1792 – 1797) was the first major concerted effort of multiple European powers to contain Revolutionary France. Furthermore, Paris lacked extensive food stocks.

The political situation in Paris on the eve of the September Massacres was dire. No individual or organised body could truly claim exclusive sovereignty. Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself The monarchy and short-lived Constitution of 1791 had been overthrown with the bloody journée of 10 August 1792, in which the Tuileries was stormed by the mob and the royal family fled for their lives. The short-lived French Constitution of 1791 was the first written Constitution of France. The Palais des Tuileries was a royal Palace in Paris. It stood on the right bank of the River Seine until 1871, when it was destroyed The Legislative Assembly had been left impotent after a large number of deputies had fled, and its successor, the National Convention, had not yet met. During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from October 1 1791 to September 1792. During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the Constitutional and legislative assembly To further complicate this matter, the insurrectionary Paris commune established 9 August 1792 incorporated some of the most radical revolutionary elements, including the sans-culottes, and briefly contended for the role of de facto government of France. The Paris Commune during the French Revolution was the government of Paris from 1789 until 1795 and especially from 1792 until 1795 Sans-culottes ( French for "without Knee-breeches " was a term created around 1790 - 1792 by the French Aristocracy to describe the Lacking a sovereign power, the Parisians' fear, hatred, and prejudice proved to be the seeds of the September Massacres.

When news of the collapse of defenses at Verdun reached the Convention, they ordered the tocsin rung and alarm guns fired, which doubtless added to the sense of panic. An army of 60,000 was to be enlisted at the Champ de Mars, the British ambassador reported;

"A party at the instigation of some one or other declared they would not quit Paris, as long as the prisons were filled with Traitors (for they called those so, that were confined in the different Prisons and Churches), who might in the absence of such a number of Citizens rise and not only effect the release of His Majesty, but make an entire counterrevolution. The Champ de Mars (ʃɑ̃ də maʁs is a large public green-space in Paris, France, located in the 7th ''arrondissement'', between the Eiffel "

The first attack occurred when twenty-four non-juring priests being transported to the prison of the prison of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés which had become a national prison of the revolutionary government. The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, just beyond the outskirts of early medieval Paris, was the burial place of Merovingian kings of They were attacked by a mob that quickly killed them all as they were trying to escape into the prison, then mutilated the bodies, "with circumstances of barbarity too shocking to describe" according to the British diplomatic dispatch. Of 284 prisoners, 135 were killed, 27 were transferred, 86 were set free, and 36 had uncertain fates. ^[3] On September 3 and September 4, crowds broke into other Paris prisons, where they murdered the prisoners, who some feared were counter-revolutionaries who would aid the invading Prussians. Events 36 BC - In the Battle of Naulochus, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Admiral of Octavian, defeats Sextus Pompeius Events 476 - Romulus Augustus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with Malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries

Most notably, the crowds are said to have raped, killed and grotesquely mutilated the Princesse de Lamballe, friend of Marie Antoinette and sister-in-law to the Duc d'Orleans. Princess Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy-Carignan princesse de Lamballe ( September 8, 1749 &ndash September 3, 1792) was an Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen (November 2 1755 &ndash October 16 1793 known to history as Marie Antoinette ( pronounced /maʀi ɑ̃ntwanɛt/ Louis Philippe II Joseph Duke of Orléans ( 13 April 1747 at Château de Saint Cloud, Saint-Cloud, France &ndash 6 November It was said that her head was paraded atop a pike under the captive Queen's windows at the Temple. The Temple was a medieval Fortress in Paris, located in what is now the IIIe arrondissement. Religious figures also figured prominently among the victims: the massacres occurred during a time of great and rising resentment against the Roman Catholic Church, which eventually led to the temporary dechristianisation of France. The Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of the results of a number of separate policies conducted by various governments of France between Over a forty-eight hour period beginning on September 2, 1792, as the French Legislative Assembly (successor to the National Constituent Assembly) dissolved into chaos, angry mobs massacred three bishops, including the Archbishop of Arles, and more than two hundred priests. Events 44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. Year 1792 ( MDCCXCII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from October 1 1791 to September 1792. The National Constituent Assembly (Assemblée nationale constituante was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight The former French Catholic Archbishopric of Arles had its episcopal see in the city of Arles, in southern France. A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites in particular rites of sacrifice to and propitiation of a deity or deities

Restif de la Bretonne saw the bodies piled high in front of the Châtelet and witnessed atrocities that he recorded in Les Nuits de Paris (1793). Nicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif ( October 23, 1734 &ndash February 2, 1806) called Rétif de la Bretonne, was

Notes

^ The classic modern account of the legends and traditions that have accrued, and an appraisal of the sources on which a narrative account can be based, is Pierre Caron, Les Massacres de Septembre (Paris) 1935. The French Revolution was a period in the History of France covering the years 1789 to 1799 in which republicans overthrew the Bourbon monarchy Caron was curator of modern archives at the Archives nationales.
^ Caron 1935, part IV is confined to comparable events in provincial cities that transpired from July to October 1792.
^ Saint-Germain-des-Prés et son faubourg, p. 40, Dominique Leborgne, Editions Parigramme, Paris 2005, ISBN 284096189X

Contents

Overview

See also

Notes

External links

Further reading