I've made the point that this year July 1793, July 1794, is the most extraordinary period of the French Revolution and one of the most extraordinary periods of modern history in general, in my view. What I want to do in, in this lecture is to say something more about the ideology and the culture of the terror. What with the motivating beliefs and principles behind this extraordinary year. And the first point that I'd want to make is that this is a national phenomenon. We know, of course, that in much of the Northwest and West, that counter revolution, hostility to the revolution was endemic. But across much of the risk of the country, there was a network of people who were fundamentally committed to the success of the revolution, to the success of the revolutionary armies and without that fundamental commitment those armies would have failed. The French Revolution succeeds in it's war against counter-revolution Europe because it can draw on extraordinary reserves not only of manpower in the armies, but also reserves of support for the goals of the revolution. Across France, there is something like 6,000 revolutionary clubs, societies of the friends of the constitution, linked with Jacobin club, in Paris - a network of pro revolutionaries. What I want to do in this lecture is explore five dimensions of the ideology and the culture that these people shared. The Jacobins and sans-culottes, who together fought for the Republic in the year two. The first of those themes would be to emphasize that these people are bonded together by a belief in participation, in the reality of popular sovereignty, if you like. That whether people participated through their local Jacobin club, an example of one here in the Southern Port of Toulon, another one in the second city of the republic, the Jacobin club of Lyon or in the popular societies of which there are about 40 in Paris during the year two. But one of the core ideological commitments of the Jacobin-sans-culottes alliance, is the idea of the sovereign people in permeance, participating, directing the goals of the revolution. A second dimension has to do with their militant republicanism and there are various ways in which they manifest this. One of them, for example, is the way that they celebrate the first anniversary of the overthrow of the monarchy on the 10th of August 1793, when there's a massive festival in the heart of Paris on what is today the Place de la Concorde, where the symbols of royalty, of the monarchy are publicly burnt. By the way, this is an extraordinary festival, when there are delegates sent to Paris from every area of France. People who make their way across the weeks beforehand, to come to the capital to participate in a Republican ceremony which would celebrate what has been achieved. After that burning, by the way, the deputies of the National Convention, the 750 deputies, filed down to where there had formerly been a statue of Louis the 15th, only this time it's a statute of the Republic and she is spouting the milk of freedom from her breasts, and the deputies of the National Convention fill the cup of liberty and drink to the solidarity of the Republic, their commitment to the Republic. It's an ideology of which a third key element is that of regeneration, that France is in the process of being reborn as a virtuous republic of citizens, that a new era of human history has begun. And there's no better demonstration of this, it seems to me, than the adoption of the new revolutionary calendar in September 1793, the first anniversary of the proclamation of the republic in 1792. An attempt to actually rework in the most radical way, the ways in which people measure time. One of the most radical, conceptual changes there could possibly be. An attempt to redefine the way in which people mark the passage of time. It's reflected by the way not just in the names that people now give to the ten day week and to the months of the year, it's reflected in the names that they give to their children, because committed Republican families, during the year two are very likely to give their children names that don't bear any of the hallmarks of the old order, of Christian names. They're much more likely to choose names from the Revolutionary calendar, of the virtues, to give their children names such as Liberty or Equality or Courage or Strength or to give them names of heroes - Jean-Paul Marat, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, George Washington, names of heroes, names of the virtues, names drawn from nature. It's at this time it becomes very common to call your infant boys and girls after plants- Olive, Apricot, Rosemary, Jasmine, and so on. One rather unfortunate little boy in the Paris basin is given the first name of Work. But the idea is that, there is a fundamental rebirth, regeneration, which is occurring. It's taking place in the arts as well. Before the revolution, the annual exhibition of paintings was by invitation only. An aristocratic-dominated, academy of art chose the painters, who were to be invited to exhibit their work. Maybe just 1,000 paintings would be on exhibition before the revolution. Largely, under the influence of this man, Jacques-Louis David, who himself is a committed Jacobin - he's a member of the Committee of General Security, the police committee during the year two - David ensures that the Salon is thrown open to anybody. There are 3,000 painters who put their work on exhibition in 1793. A fourth dimension of this, ideology and culture, which David himself plays a key role in generating, has to do with the symbols of authority, the symbols of inspiration. That now, of course, the old symbols, which before the revolution were, of monarchy, of aristocracy, of the church, are gone - they're all in opposition to the republic. And the symbolic world, which people used to make sense of the world around them, has to be fundamentally remade. One of the most common elements of that remaking is the substitution of Marianne, the symbol of the Republic, the symbol of liberty and equality, here in the Jacobin club in Paris with her liberty cap on the end of a pike, as opposed to Marie, the Virgin Mary of the old regime's Christian tradition. But the revolution, and particularly this period, is replete with examples of the attempt to recreate, to redo, to redraw, to reimagine a symbolic world. This image of the goddess of Equality for example, from the year two as well, and here a very common symbol from classical antiquity, the fasces the symbol of authority in the ancient Roman republic, very common classical image that's used during the French Revolution. Notice on her breasts, the all-seeing eye of vigilance - counter revolutionaries, suspects, you are being watched. This image of equality, where again you can see the republican image from classical Rome as well as the scales of liberty the carpenters measure. Liberty, with the red cap, represented by the new constitution, which once enacted, when the war crisis is over, will bring liberty to the French people. New symbols of the sorts of examples that people should follow - that instead of school children being taught the lives of the saints as exemplars of the good life, now remember that the Church is effectively in the counter-revolution, and the Pope is blessing counter- revolutionary forces, new heroes need to be found. Who better than this 14-year-old boy, pictured here by Jacques-Louis David? A boy, Joseph Bara, who at the age of 14, was holding some horses for Republican troops in the west of France, troops engaged in suppressing the counter-revolution in the Vendee, when he was surrounded by Vendean royalists rebels, who goaded him into shouting long live the king. He refused repeatedly, and finally they stabbed him to death. For the Jacobins, Bara exemplifies the virtues of courage, of love of the homeland, of commitment to the Republic, that all children should seek to emulate, and there are thousands of copies of this image of Bara which is circulated through the schools of the new Republic. Or this image of a market woman, a market gardener, someone who makes a living by growing vegetables to sell in the nearby town of Maraichere. We don't know who did this, but it's the sort of image that could not have been done in the old regime, where portraits are commissioned by the well-to-do of themselves, and here we have a revolutionary painter who has decided to picture a woman of the people, marked by extraordinary dignity, looking us straight in the eyes- I'm a woman of the people and proud to be so. Perhaps the best visual example of all, of this culture of the terror comes from this extraordinary painting by Jeaurat, done in 1794, which is a really a wonderful kaleidoscope of Jacobin, sans-culottes, republican imagery. With Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the top, a man who is more popular by 1794 than he had ever been before the revolution. The soldiers in the republican armies are given pocket sized versions of the social contract, for example, to read in their moments of leisure. Underneath Rousseau, you can obviously see the all-seeing eye of vigilance, again, the symbol from classical Rome, of the the fasces, the rods, representing authority and republican unity crowned by the liberty cap. But all sorts of images in the background - just to have a look at a few close ups of some of those. This one for example which shows the rays of enlightenment shining down on the French Republican, it's constitution, and you can just make out in the background very dimly a guillotine, implying that while the threat of the guillotine is there, it will fade into obscurity one day. We will no longer need it once the reign of peace and virtue has been achieved. Extraordinary close ups in that painting of a republican soldier but also a sans-culotte, a peasant sowing seeds in his fields. The Republic will be a land of plenty, one which women will tend as well as men, that the Republic promises prosperity and peace in the future. And on the plinth behind, a reminder that it's courage that makes republics but it's virtue which sustains them. These are the values which millions, of French people adhere to across this extraordinary year of 1793, 1794.
