The importance of social clubs in the fabric of revolutionary politics in Lyon
As I have deep-dived into the French Revolution – its causes, its public opinion and how it developed over the years, one of the things that has struck me most is the way political opinion divided. And not just from the outset but throughout the whole period. My research deals predominantly with the early years from 1789 to 1793 (when the Reign of Terror struck) and it is fascinating to see how the country devolved from an absolute monarchy into the bloodlust anarchy of the guillotine years. Rather than set political parties as we recognise today, politics at the start of the French Revolution developed through meetings of societies and clubs.
At the beginning, as I noted in my last blog about the bougeoisie, France was ruled by the king and his power was absolute. This meant that there was no governing body to protect the needs of the general public – there was no democracy. The first step to revolution, whilst popularly considered to be the peasant storming of the Bastille, was in fact the branching off of select intellectual bourgeoisie who formed their own government body called the National Assembly with which they declared the right to form a new constitution – a clear challenge to the king’s absolute power. When, a few days after the formation of The National Assembly, the Third Estate found themselves locked out of their usual meeting place in Versailles, they met instead on a nearby unused tennis court where they made an oath not to disband until constitutional reform was complete: “not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the Constitution of the kingdom is established.”
Paris Clubs
Following that, in Paris, certain political clubs arose – starting with The Breton Club. From these, new clubs were formed during their lifetime that branched off with either more or less radical views than the original. It is important to stress, when we talk about the political clubs that these were not all born simultaneously and what was once considered radical, in many cases became viewed as a counter-revolutionary movement.
Constitutional Monarchy
Let’s break this down. In the early days of the Revolution, those newly arrived in power looked predominantly at the English model of parliament where a central elected government ruled and a monarch presided with executive powers, ie the charge to oversee goverment and enforce laws that have been discussed and agreed upon at a democratic level, but not to make one’s own laws or judgments, independant of that ruling body. In other words the first National Assembly did not want to get rid of the king, they merely wanted him to remove himself from sole power and instead give an authority to their laws and decisions. This is known as a Constitutional Monarchy.
However, simultaneously America had recently undergone its own revolution in which they had created a democratic society without any monarch at all, but instead had a president of the new governing body. There were a number of people in France who believed in this system and wished the king to have much more limited power than the Assembly intended to give him.
Added to this variation of views within upper level politics was the fact that voters rights were awarded according to age and property so only males over 25 years old who owned sufficient property to afford the high annual taxes, equivilent to three days work, could vote. These were called “active” citizens, while those not eligible to vote were known as “passive” citizens. This obviously caused tension among the poorer members of the Third Estate who felt that the new goverment did not represent their needs.
The Jacobin Club
Now around this time, social clubs were already a dominant theme of society. Even women were a part of this scene as many high-class women hosted “salons” where gentlemen and philosophers could meet to discuss important topics of the day. The first political clubs were really an extension of these social clubs. As mentioned previously, the first of these was the Breton Club – so called because it was founded by Third Estate representatives from Brittany. It began by meeting in a café at Versailles but when the National Assembly meetings shifted to Paris in October 1789, so too did the Breton Club. It opened its doors to members outside Brittany, and renamed itself the Society of the Friends of the Constitution. Its new meeting place was in a Dominican monastery, from which they became known as the Jacobins – a coloquial name for Dominican monks.
The early Jacobin Club, whilst leftist, was still predominantly made up of upper bougeoisie, in view of their high membership fees and requirement for members to be active citizens. However, by May 1790 it had around 1500 members and by October, it allowed entry to a public, passive audience. Throughout 1790 and into early 1791, the Jacobins remained consitutional, in other words they were still monarchists as they favoured a constitutional monarchy.
The Jacobins Split
However, there were those within the Jacobin Club who were decidedly more radical. A group of members who were unhappy with this more radical voice within the club, split off in April 1790 and formed a new, more right-wing club which they called the Society of 1789. This retained the monarchist values previously aligned in the Jacobin Club and included famous names such as Mirabeau, Lafyette and Le Chapelier. By breaking away from the Jacobins, this meant that the previously “outlier” radical voices within the Jacobin Club became ever more prominent. However, there still remained an element of monarchist opinion within it at this stage. The Jacobins despised the Society of 1789 as an elite club of rich and powerful men, not unalike the Ancien Regime (old regime) that they were attempting to get away from.
In view of the high membership fees to the Jacobin Club, another club also emerged around April 1790. This was the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and Citizen, also known as the Cordeliers Club, on account of the location of its meetings. Due to their low entrance fees and open door policy, it attracted many more working class members of society. It quickly became the most populist and radical group of 1790/91. The well-known French Revolution slogan of “liberty, equality, fraternity” was adopted as the Cordeliers Club slogan, although it is widely believed that the phrase was coined by Maximillian Robespierre who was the president of the Jacobin Club from March 1790.
The Flight to Varennes and The Feuillants
In June 1791, the King attempted to escape with Marie-Antoinette, their children and certain loyal members of their household. At the time they were being held in what amounted to an effective house-arrest within Paris. They got as far as Varennes before they were discovered, arrested and brought back to Paris.
The flight to Varennes (as it became known) split the Jacobins further. Those monarchists that still remained broke off again and formed the Feuillant Society. They were joined by previous members of the Society of 1789 whose club had disbanded by this time. This left the Jacobins a highly Republican club. The Feuillants were unnerved at the growing radical republican nature of the Jacobin Club and attempted to attract the attention of a more moderate political group that was revolutionary yet still supported a constitutional monarchy. However, the Feuillants failed to garner as much support in Paris as hoped.
By 1792, influential figures like Jacques Brissot and Maximillian Robespierre had joined the Jacobin Club which then became the mouthpiece for the radical bloodshed of the Reign of Terror in 1793. Within the Jacobin Club two factions later developed – the Girondins headed by Brissot and the Montagnards headed by Robespierre.
Lyon Clubs
Lyons politics followed a rather different path to that of Paris. As a highly mercantile city, it had a large proportion of upper bourgeoisie and property owners. Its financial and commercial success was also built on the trade of silk which was considered a fabric worn by the Court and nobility. It therefore suited the merchants’ needs to remain royalist. At the beginning of the revolution a man called Jacques Imbert-Colomes was acting mayor. He was fiercely loyal to the king and a staunch royalist. He was forced out of town in February of 1790 but was able to gain entry over the next few months and was responsible for a series of plots and conspiracies that went nowhere but created fear among the patriot groups in the city.
The Rolandins
One of those patriots was Jean-Marie Roland, whose wife Manon Roland became a famous figure of the salon society in Paris during the French Revolution and was probably responsible for most of her husband’s rise to power. The Rolands were a prime example of radical later being viewed as counter-revolutionary. From the outset, they were against the royalist leadership of Imbert-Colomes and the mercantile views of Lyon. Rather, they favoured a constitutional monarchy whilst still wishing to keep their property rights safe. They were responsible for a number of pamphlets both in Lyon and in Paris that stirred up radical thought. Their supporters were known as Rolandins. In December 1790, a Rolandin called Vitet became mayor of Lyon and Roland was among other patriots that now found themselves on the town council.
Although Lyon was, on the face of it, more royalist and less revolutionary than Paris, the topographical and commercial nature of the town made it lend itself to internal divisions. Geographically it was subdivided several times by hills and rivers. Commerically there had been a long-standing friction between the silk-merchants and the silk-weavers. The latter, constantly fighting to keep guild (master) status within the silk industry rather than being reduced to the paid labour of the silk-merchants. As early as September within Lyon, social clubs were formed in each district that aligned themselves with the values of the people.
The Central Club
There were around 30 clubs in total and these were inclusive with fees as low as those of the Cordeliers Club in Paris, which meant that they were favoured by the lower bourgeoisie and working classes. These sectional clubs were known as the Popular Societies of the Friends of the Constitution. There was a Central Club that met at the end of the day on a Sunday in the games room of the Grand College, but this was more a coming together of the smaller clubs than a controlling body over them. It was thanks to these clubs that the Rolandins were successful in gaining seats on the local council and the mayoral office.
Although the sectional clubs were inclusive, it is worth noting that even the low fees could not cater to the very poor and unemployed. Women, for the most part, were also not permitted membership, though some clubs did allow female attendance. In August 1791, there was a short-lived women’s society. Despite being a strongly revolutionary movement, the Central Club, like the Rolandins, was still monarchist as evidenced on 25th March 1791 when they held a Te Deum (short religious service based on a Gregorian hymn) on behalf of the king’s health.
The Concert (political club)
There was also another club in Lyon that was aligned with the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, or Jacobins. This was locally known as the Concert. There was a sense of contention among the popular clubs that they could not affilate themselves with the Parisian Jacobins because the Concert was already affliated to them, and their own social standing was far below that of the affluent Concert. However, in July 1791 the Concert abandoned its links with the Jacobins and aligned instead with the Feuillants.
The Rolandins allowed rumours of Feuillant royalist plots to spread. The constant threat of royalist conspiracy, kept the sectional clubs closely aligned with the Rolandins, and the Rolandins held onto this link for fear of radical violence errupting in the club if they did not have a voice in the Council. They used the threat of royalist conspiracy and counter-revolution as a means to keep the popular clubs on side which gave Lyon a, possibly unfair, reputation as being a royalist, anti-revoutionary city.