Editing Jacobins (section)

{{short description|Political club during the French Revolution}}
{{other uses|Jacobin (disambiguation)}}
{{distinguish|Jacobean (disambiguation)|Jacobite (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox organization
| name                = Jacobin Club
| native_name         = Club des Jacobins
| native_name_lang    = fr
| logo                = Seal of Jacobins of Paris (Republican).svg
| logo_size           = 180px
| logo_caption        = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794)
| successor           = [[Panthéon Club]]
| formation           = 1789
| founding_location   = [[Palace of Versailles]], [[Kingdom of France|France]]
| founder             = Various deputies of the National Convention
| dissolved           = {{end date and age|1794|11|12|df=y}}
| type                = [[Parliamentary group]]
| status              = Inactive
| purpose             = Establishment of a [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin society]]
* 1789–1791: abolition of the [[Ancien Régime]], creation of a [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|parliament]], introduction of a [[French Constitution of 1791|Constitution]], and [[separation of powers]]
* 1791–1795: establishment of a [[republic]], [[fusion of powers]] into the [[National Convention]], and establishment of an [[Reign of Terror|authoritarian-democratic state]]
| headquarters        = [[Couvent des Jacobins de la rue Saint-Honoré|Dominican convent]], [[Rue Saint-Honoré]], [[Paris]]
| region              = [[France]]
| methods             = From democratic initiatives to public acts of [[political violence]]
| membership          = Around 500,000<ref name=Brinton1930>{{cite book|last= Brinton|first= Crane|author-link= Crane Brinton|title= The Jacobins: An Essay in the New History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s_ylOcbcAJUC&pg=PR19|date= 2011|orig-year= 1930|page= xix|publisher= [[Transaction Publishers]]|isbn= 9781412848107|access-date= 16 April 2015}}</ref>
| membership_year     = 1793
| language            = [[French language|French]]
| leader_title        = President
| leader_name         = [[Antoine Barnave]] (first)<br />[[Maximilien Robespierre]] (last)
| key_people          = [[Jacques Pierre Brissot|Brissot]], [[Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre]], [[Adrien Duport|Duport]], [[Jean-Paul Marat|Marat]], [[Camille Desmoulins|Desmoulins]], [[Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau|Mirabeau]], [[Georges Danton|Danton]], [[Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne|Billaud-Varenne]], [[Paul Barras|Barras]], [[Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois|Collot d'Herbois]], [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]]
| subsidiaries        = Newspapers
* ''Journal de la Montagne''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Journal de la Montagne|url=https://data.bnf.fr/fr/32798158/journal_de_la_montagne/|publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France|date=1 January 2021|location=Paris}} Retrieved 10 May 2021</ref>
* ''[[L'Ami du peuple]]''
* ''[[Le Vieux Cordelier]]''
| affiliations        = All groups in the [[National Convention]]
* [[The Mountain|Montagnards]]
* [[Girondins]]
}}
{{Radicalism sidebar}}
{{Liberalism in France}}
The '''Society of the Friends of the Constitution''' ({{langx|fr|Société des amis de la Constitution}}), renamed the '''Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality''' ({{lang|fr|Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité}}) after 1792 and commonly known as the '''Jacobin Club''' ({{lang|fr|Club des Jacobins}}) or simply the '''Jacobins''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|dʒ|æ|k|ə|b|ɪ|n|z}}; {{IPA|fr|ʒakɔbɛ̃|lang}}), was the most influential [[List of political groups in the French Revolution|political club]] during the [[French Revolution]] of 1789. The period of its political ascendancy includes the [[Reign of Terror]], during which well over 10,000 people were put on trial and executed in France, many for "[[political crime]]s".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Salinari |first1=Christy |title=Tyranny Plagued the French Revolution |url=https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1371&context=honors-theses |website=digitalcommons.coastal.edu |publisher=CCU Digital Commons |access-date=4 March 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Maximilien Robespierre and Injustice Narrative |url=https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/maximilien-robespierre-and-injustice-narrative |website=billofrightsinstitute.org |publisher=Bill of Rights Institute |access-date=5 March 2025}}</ref>

Initially founded in 1789 by [[Criticism of monarchy|anti-royalist]] deputies from [[Duchy of Brittany|Brittany]], the club grew into a nationwide [[Republicanism|republican]] movement with a membership estimated at a half million or more.<ref name="Brinton1930"/> The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s: [[The Mountain]] and the [[Girondins]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Montagnard {{!}} French history |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montagnard-French-history |date=2022 |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |language=en |access-date=29 March 2022}}</ref> In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France when they [[French Revolutionary Wars|declared war]] on [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and on [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], overthrew King [[Louis XVI]], and set up the [[French First Republic]]. In May 1793, the leaders of the Mountain faction, led by [[Maximilien Robespierre]], succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government featured high levels of political violence, and for this reason the period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is identified as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were [[guillotine]]d. The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide as a way to suppress the [[War in the Vendée|Vendée insurrection]] and the [[Federalist revolts]], and to deter recurrences. In July 1794, the [[National Convention]] pushed the administration of Robespierre and his allies out of power and had [[Fall of Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre and 21 associates executed]]. In November 1794, the Jacobin Club closed.

In the years and decades after the revolution, the term ''[[Jacobin (politics)#United Kingdom|Jacobin]]'' was used in an extended sense to denote political positions perceived as similar to those of the historical Jacobins and the Mountain in the [[National Convention]]. It was popular among conservative publicists as a pejorative to deride [[Progressivism|progressive politics]], and among [[Anglophone]] progressives likewise as a pejorative denoting the violent excesses of the revolution, whereas they associated its positive features and principles with the [[Girondin]]s.<ref name="brown">{{cite book |first=Charles Brockden |last=Brown |editor1-first=Philip |editor1-last=Barnard |editor2-first=Stephen |editor2-last=Shapiro |title=Ormond; or The Secret Witness: with Related Texts |publisher=Hackett Publishing |location=Indianapolis |year=2009 |orig-year=1799 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=UuD5Vge4mTwC&pg=PA360 360] |isbn=978-1-6038-4126-9}}</ref> In Britain, the term faintly echoed{{fact|date=August 2024}} negative connotations of [[Jacobitism]], the pro-Catholic, monarchist, rarely{{fact|date=August 2024}} [[Battle of Culloden|insurrectional]] political movement that faded out decades earlier tied to deposed King [[James II of England]] and his descendants. The term ''[[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin]]'' reached obsolescence and supersedence before the [[Russian Revolution]], when the terms (Radical) [[Marxism]], [[anarchism]], [[socialism]], and [[communism]] had overtaken it.{{fact|date=August 2024}}<!--This arguably isn't a case of different ''terms'' (for the same thing) replacing each other, but about actual different ideological currents and programmes becoming relevant at different points in time. Marxism, anarchism, socialism and communism aren't the same thing as Jacobinism, not to mention that they aren't even the same thing as each other - and the main thing that they all have in common is that the reactionary/right-wing/conservative side of the respective period hates them, but that doesn't make them identical. The suggestion to the contrary should be sourced.-->

In modern France, the term ''[[Jacobin (politics)#In the French Revolution|Jacobin]]'' generally denotes a position of more equal formal rights, centralization, and moderate [[authoritarianism]].<ref>{{cite book|editor-last= Rey|editor-first= Alain|editor-link= Alain Rey|title= Dictionnaire historique de la langue française|publisher= [[Dictionnaires Le Robert]]|date= 1992|isbn= 978-2321000679|language= fr}}</ref>{{quotation needed|date=August 2024}}<!--Specifically for 'moderate authoritarianism', whatever that means. I doubt that any of the people in question identify as 'moderate authoritarians', so the term should at least be qualified and not presented as a neutral description.--> It can be used to denote supporters of a role of the state in the transformation of society.<ref name="Furet2007P243">{{cite book|last1= Furet|first1= François|author-link= François Furet|last2= Ozouf|first2= Mona|title= Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française: Idées|date= 2007|series=Champs| volume = 267 | location= Paris|publisher= Flammarion|page= 243|language= fr|isbn= 978-2081202955 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Odm3QgAACAAJ}}</ref> It is, in particular, used as a self-identification by proponents of a state education system that strongly promotes and inculcates civic values. It is more controversially used by or for proponents of a strong [[Nation state|nation-state]] capable of resisting undesirable foreign interference.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Furet|first1=François|author-link1=François Furet|translator1-last=Goldhammer|translator1-first=Arthur|translator-link=Arthur Goldhammer|year=1988|chapter=Jacobinism|editor1-last=Furet|editor1-first=François|editor1-link=François Furet|editor2-last=Ozouf|editor2-first=Mona|title=A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution|trans-title=Dictionnaire critique de la révolution française|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bGxiE6jvzOcC|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=Harvard University Press|publication-date=1989|page=710|isbn=9780674177284|access-date=17 February 2019|quote=The semantic elasticity of the term in late twentieth-century French politics attests to the work of time. 'Jacobinism' or 'Jacobin' can now refer to a wide range of predilections: indivisible national sovereignty, a state role in the transformation of society, centralization of the government and bureaucracy, equality among citizens guaranteed by uniformity of the law, regeneration through education in republican schools, or simply an anxious concern for national independence. This vague range of meanings is still dominated, however, by the central figure of a sovereign and indivisible public authority with power over civil society [...].}}</ref>