National Convention
The National Convention met on 20 September 1792, abolished the monarchy the next day, and governed France for three years. It was elected by universal male suffrage in a two-stage ballot with a turnout of about ten per cent, in the weeks after the storming of the Tuileries and during the September massacres, which is a fair indication of the conditions. Its first act was to declare royalty abolished; its second was to date the new republic from that day, and a calendar was later devised with the year I beginning retrospectively. The Convention divided almost immediately. The Girondins were provincial, favoured the war and distrusted Paris; the Montagnards sat on the upper benches, were closely tied to the Paris sections, and included Robespierre, Danton and Marat; and between them sat the Plain, which decided everything by going with whoever was winning. The king's trial was the first test. He was convicted unanimously and sentenced to death by 387 votes to 334, with his own cousin voting for it. The Girondins were expelled by an armed demonstration in June 1793 and most were executed that autumn. The Convention then governed through the Committee of Public Safety, ran the Terror, defeated the invasion, abolished slavery in the colonies in 1794, established the metric system and the grandes écoles, and turned on Robespierre in July 1794. It wrote three constitutions, one of which was never applied. It dissolved itself in October 1795 in favour of the Directory. Some 750 men were elected and a great many did not survive the assembly. Around a hundred were executed, imprisoned or driven to suicide by their own colleagues, which is a mortality rate no other legislature in Europe has matched.
- Year: 1792 CE
- Category: Political
