Ancien Regime: Fancy synonym for "Old Regime"; France before 1789
Assembly of Notables: Mostly aristocratic selection of most prominent members of various French provinces who likewise rose in reaction against the monarchy.
assignat: originally a paper IOU for church land after the Civil Constitution, it came to used as currency and was over-printed leading to extreme inflation.
Bastille: Ancient fortress with very few prisoners in 1789 which was captured and later demolished by the Parisian populace in their search for weapons
Brunswick Manifesto: Extremely impolitic document issued by Austrian general Duke of Brunswick when his troops were stationed outside of Paris which said that if the populace harmed the royal family, the city of Paris would be leveled.
cahiers: grievances written by the common people in all the French provinces at the convening of the Estates-General in 1789 which called for various reforms usually dealing with less harsh taxation.
Champ de Mars Massacre: Popular name for the incident on the Champ de Mars on Bastille Day 1791 where Lafayette ordered his troops to fire on civilians after minor disruption costing around 100 lives.
Chouan: an insurgent in the smaller, federalist, Catholic, royalist rebellion in the Midi region of France. The name "Chouan" comes from a corruption of the word "hoot-owl" the supposed call of their priest leaders.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy: Decree that made the clergy a department of the French state thus stripping the Roman Catholic Church of its influence and nationalizing church land.
Committee of General Security:lower governing committee of 1793-1794 responsible for overseeing executions and police affairs.
Committee of Public Safety: governing committee that formed the war dictatorship of 1793-1794 consisting of 12 men and led by Robespierre. It was in charge of the war and general affairs of state in the Terror.
Constituent Assembly: 1789-1791 session of the National Assembly beginning with the declaration of the Third Estate that it was the National Assembly.
Consulate: Dictatorial form of government instituted by Napoleon after the coupe d'etat of 18 Brumaire, 1799. It consisted of three men ruling, two as puppets to Napoleon, and lasted until the declaration of the Empire in 1805
Convention: name for the legislative body of France after the declaration of the Republic (1792) until the consulate (1799)
Cordeliers:A radical political club founded by Danton that was somewhat more egalitarian than the Jacobins and later came to be used as the head quarters of the Hebertist movement.
Corvee: Enforced community service, usually on roads or the like, that a noble could force on his feudal subjects.
Cult of Reason: Hebertist atheistic "religious" movement celebrated in the Festival of the Cult of Reason in Notre-Dame Cathedral in November, 1793 which mocked Catholic ritual.
Dechristianization:1794 policy of some Jacobin clubs which included the disbanding and persecution of the Catholic faith in favor of atheism culminating in Hebert's Cult of Reason. Disapproved of and ended by the Committee of Public Safety
Directory: 1795-1799 government consisting of five directors led by Barras ruling more or less as an oligarchy over the upper house or Ancients and lower house or Council of the Five Hundred
Enrage: Often called the "Mad Dogs" because they walked the Paris streets "barking" for bread, they were led by Roux and demanded communistic government economic control and violent revenge against the rich.
Estates General: traditional legislative body of French monarchy which hadn't been called since 1614 and consisted of three estates with equal voting power. Called by the King in 1789 due to fiscal problems.
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First Estate: the clergy (1% of French population)
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Second Estate: the nobility (1% of French population)
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Third Estate: everybody else
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federalism: the exact opposite of US Federalist movement, it meant the demand for provincial cities to rule themselves in defiance of the Republic. Examples include Lyons and Marseilles.
Feuillants:Former Jacobin political group led by Lafayette that split from the Jacobins following the flight to Varennes in 1791 and was much more conservative.
Fleurus: 1794 victory at the Flemish border that was a direct result of the Committee of Public Safety's efficiency and a direct cause of its downfall the following month. Marked the turning point from a defensive to offensive war.
gabelle: much hated salt tax of pre-Revolutionary France
General Will: Rousseau's conception of body politic in which all individual wills negate each other to form a common will that has one morality and is always right.
Girondin: Political faction including Brissot, Roland and Verginaud, named for the Gironde region of Southern France where most of the deputies came from. They briefly dominated the Convention from late 1792 to May of 1793 and were afterwards persecuted by the Montagnards.
Insurrectionary Paris Commune: Founded on August 10, 1792 in order to attack the Tuilleries, it was composed of armed citizens from the Parisian sections (divisions of town) and became an influential force in Parisian politics in its own right
Jacobin : Today inaccurately identified with the bloodthirsty image of the sans-culotte, the Jacobins were a middle-class political club named for the monastery of St. Jacques where they first met. A rather generic term, covering revolutionaries from Mirabeau to Hebert, they became the dominant (only) party of the Terror and were afterwards persecuted in the Thermidorian Reaction.
jeunesse doree (muscadins):children of prosperous bourgeois who wore ridiculously foppish outfits, persecuted Jacobins, were sometimes royalist, and were blatantly hedonistic. Women were called marveiulles and men were termed incroyables after the outfits they wore.
Law of the Maximum: Law enacted by the Committee of Public Safety in 1793 under the pressure of the Commune which fixed prices and wages and helped to combat the hyperinflation of the assignat.
Law of 22 Prairal: Law that began the Great Terror in 1794 by not allowing the accused to defend themselves and giving more power to the Revolutionary Tribunals for expedience in executions.
Law of Suspects: Law that began the Terror in 1793 by basically saying that almost everybody was suspect in some way or another.
Laws of Ventose: 1794 laws which, some say, foreshadowed communism in their (never applied) attempt to divide the property of aristocrats among poor patriots.
Legislative Assembly:1791-1792 session of the National Assembly which ended with the declaration of the French Republic.
Levee en Masse: 1793 decree that ordered compulsory military service for all eligible male citizens.
La Marais (The Marsh, the Plain):Majority of Convention's deputies who sat in the flat middle area and who tended to be swayed by whomever appeared to be winning,
Montangard (Mountaineer): the most radical Jacobins of the Convention, including Marat, Danton, Robespierre and Saint-Just, who sat in the top seats (the Mountain) of the Convention.
Nobility of the Robe: Nobles who had bought there way into the nobility somewhere along the line.
Nobility of the Sword: Nobles who claimed descent from the soldiers of Charlemagne who conquered the area in the 9th century.
noyade: Carrier's expedient invention of mass drowning people by sinking boats the Loire at Nantes.
Oath of the Tennis Court: Locked out of the Hall of Mirrors in the rain in 1789, the unabashed Third Estate found shelter in the King's tennis courts and declared they would not return to their provinces until France had a constitution
parlement: Aristocratic liberal legislative bodies throughout the cities of France which had been suspended by Louis XV but were recalled by Louis XVI and rose in reaction against the monarchy.
representative en mission (proconsul): deputies of the Convention sent to the armies with almost unlimited power to enforce the Terror and improve the armies.
Revolutionary Tribunal: Started in 1789, it became responsible for the trial and execution of prisoners.
sans-culotte: Literally "without breeches", the name given to the small artisans and shop-keepers of Paris who influenced politics so dramatically in the Revolution. Stereotypically viewed as dirty and bloodthirsty devotees of the guillotine, they were volatile, violent, egalitarian and driven by the need for bread.
September Massacres: Bloody Parisian prison slaughters of September 1792 incited by Marat, carried out by Marseilles thugs, and costing an estimated 3,000 lives
Supreme Being: Official deity of France from June 8 (Festival of the Supreme Being), it was a pantheistic Enlightenment God first created by Rousseau and introduced by Robespierre.
taille: main direct tax to the government from which the aristocracy and clergy were exempt in pre-Revolutionary France.
Terror, Great: Most bloody part of Jacobin Terror beginning with the Law of 22 Prairal and ending 9 Thermidor 1794.
Terror, Red:the Jacobin Terror of 1793-1794 characterized by persecution of royalists and "traitors."
Terror, White: Thermidorian Reaction Terror of 1794-1795 led by the muscadins against Jacobins.
Thermidorian Reaction:9 Thermidor movement and the government (1794-1795) it established which overthrew Robespierre and his followers.
tithe: Heavy tax for the maintenance of the church levied on the peasants in pre-Revolutionary France which generally took up 8% of their income.
Tuilleries: Louis XV's former horse stables in Paris which became the residence of the royal family, then the seat of the revolutionary government and then Napoleon's Parisian headquarters.
Valmy: 1792 French victory that marked the beginning of French expansionist plans in Europe, European recognition of the French Revolution, and the formal end of the French monarchy.
Varennes: French town on the Austrian border where the royal family was suppose to flee on June of 1791 but never made it.
Vendee: poor, heavily Catholic, agricultural northwest corner of France that rose up in rebellion against the Republic in 1793 in a civil war marked by genocide and slaughter on both sides and was finally suppressed under the Directory.
Versailles: Traditional pleasure palace of French monarchy and fashionable nobility since Louis XIV.
vingtieme: Literally "twentieth", a progressive income tax in theory taxed 1/20th of one's income but most nobles and high clergymen escaped it.
