Jacques Pierre Brissot

French revolutionary (1754–1793)

Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville

Portrait by François Bonneville, c. 1790

Member of the National Convention
for Eure-et-Loir
In office
20 September 1792 – 30 October 1793
Preceded by| Étienne Claye
Succeeded by| Claude Julien Maras
Constituency| Chartres
Member of the Legislative Assembly
for Seine
In office
1 October 1791 – 19 September 1792
Succeeded by| Antoine Sergent-Marceau
Constituency| Paris
Personal details
Born|

Jacques Pierre Brissot

(1754-01-15)15 January 1754
Chartres, Orléanais, France
Died| 31 October 1793(1793-10-31) (aged 39)
Paris, France
Cause of death| Execution by guillotine
Resting place| Chapelle expiatoire, Paris
48°52′25″N 2°19′22″E﻿ / ﻿48.873611°N 2.322778°E﻿ / 48.873611; 2.322778
Political party| Girondin
Spouse|

Félicité Dupont

(m. 1782)​

Children|

* Pierre Augustin Félix
* Edme Augustin Sylvain
* Jacques Jérôme Anacharsis

Alma mater| University of Orléans
Profession| Journalist, publisher
Signature|

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Jacques Pierre Brissot (French pronunciation: [ʒak pjɛʁ bʁiso], 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), also known as Brissot de Warville was a French journalist, abolitionist, and revolutionary leading the faction of Girondins (initially called Brissotins) at the National Convention in Paris. The Girondins favored exporting the revolution and opposed a concentration of power in Paris. He collaborated on the Mercure de France and the Courier de l'Europe, which sympathized with the insurgents in the American colonies.

In February 1788, Brissot founded the anti-slavery Society of the Friends of the Blacks. With the outbreak of the revolution in July 1789, he became one of its most vocal supporters. As a member of the Legislative Assembly, Brissot advocated for war against Austria and other European powers in order to secure France's revolutionary gains, which led to the War of the First Coalition in 1792. He voted against the immediate execution of Louis XVI which made him unpopular by the Montagnards. He was friendly with Jean-Paul Marat, but in 1793 they were the greatest enemies.

On 3 April 1793, Maximilien Robespierre declared in the Convention that the whole war was a prepared game between Dumouriez and Brissot to overthrow the First French Republic.[1] Conflicts with Robespierre, who accused him of royalism eventually brought about his downfall.[2] On 8 October, the Convention decided to arrest Brissot. Like Madame Roland and Pétion, Brissot was accused of organising (or taking part in) conspicuous dinners.[3] At the end of October 1793, he was guillotined along with 28 other Girondins by Charles-Henri Sanson.[4]

## Early life and family

[edit]

Brissot was born in Chartres, the 13th child of a wealthy traiteur; but nine of his siblings died at infancy.[5] Alongside his elder brother he was placed under the care of an uncle, residing in the countryside as priest. In 1762 he entered college, studying Latin and developing an admiration for the works of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. Transitioning to a career path, he began his tenure as a law clerk in 1769, initially in Chartres and later, from 1774, at the Parlement of Paris.[6] Despite his legal aspirations, Brissot found himself embroiled in controversy due to the critical nature of some of his pamphlets, which scrutinized the government and the church. In 1777 Madame du Barry introduced him to Voltaire. In the same year he briefly visited London upon invitation. He relocated to Boulogne-sur-Mer when he was appointed editor of "Courier de l'Europe", a periodical that did not do well and failed.[7] He decided to "anglicize" his last name by appending "Warville", after Ouarville, where his mother owned property.[8] Brissot inherited a substantial amount of livres when his father died.[9] In 1780 he moved to Reims to complete his studies.

His initial literary endeavors, including Théorie des lois criminelles (1781) and Bibliothèque philosophique du législateur (1782), delved into the philosophy of law, demonstrating a profound influence of the ethical principles championed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[10] During a month-long stay with the affluent sugar and coffee planter Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou, Brissot found himself immersed in intellectual discourse.[11] DuPeyrou, a Suriname native who relocated to Neuchâtel in 1747, had maintained a close relationship with Rousseau, providing financial support and overseeing the publication of his complete works. Brissot sent a summary to Voltaire, who praised his style and energy in a letter. Meanwhile, a law degree hardly charmed him, Brissot was more interested in linguistics and decided to become a journalist. In June he paid a visit to Clavière in Geneva.[7] In September he married Félicité Dupont, the governess of the Duke of Chartres. Brissot visited London where he got engaged in establishing an Academy of Arts and Sciences; he lived at Newman Street with his wife and younger brother.[12][6] Meanwhile, she translated English works, including those by Oliver Goldsmith and Robert Dodsley.

## Writer on social causes

[edit]

In the preface of Théorie des lois criminelles, a plea for penal reform, Brissot explains that he submitted an outline of the book to Voltaire and quotes his answer from 13 April 1778. Brissot had a falling out with Catholicism, and wrote about his disagreements with the church's hierarchical system.[13] Brissot became known as a writer and journalist who was engaged on the Mercure de France, the Courier de l'Europe and other facilitating the distribution of libelles. Devoted to the cause of humanity, he proposed a plan for the collaboration of all European intellectuals. His newspaper Journal du Lycée de Londres, was to be the organ of this commercial enterprise starting at Pall Mall in January 1784.[14] He was in conflict with Charles Théveneau de Morande. The plan was unsuccessful and Brissot lost his investments.[10] In May he was arrested and put in jail at Gray's Inn Road; a friend paid the printer for the prospectus.[15] Soon after his return to Paris, Brissot was on the charge of having published a pornographic pamphlet Passe-temps de Toinette against the queen of France Marie Antoinette. The pamphlet was considered extremely provocative as it was perceived as opposing the queen. On 12 July Brissot was imprisoned in the Bastille but was released after two months as he was not the author.[16][6][17][18] He read Confessions six times and a popular account of the New World, Letters of an American Farmer by Jean de Crèvecoeur.

After gaining release, Brissot returned to pamphleteering, most notably his 1785 open letter to emperor Joseph II of Austria, Seconde lettre d'un défenseur du peuple a l'Empereur Joseph II, sur son règlement concernant, et principalement sur la révolte des Valaques, which supported the right of subjects to revolt against the misrule of a monarch (in Bulgaria). Because of the controversy, this generated, he went to London for a time.[19] He was influenced by the dissenters Richard Price and Joseph Priestley.[20]

In 1785, the Duc d'Orléans, admirer of the British parliamentary system and the constitutional monarchy, the main opposition to the French absolute monarchy, approved Brissot's plan to dispatch the fencer Chevalier de Saint-Georges to London. He believed it was a way to ensure the Regent-in-waiting's support of Philippe as the future "Regent" of France. But Brissot had a secret agenda as well. He considered Saint-Georges, a "man of color", the ideal person to contact his fellow abolitionists in London and ask their advice about Brissot's plans for Les Amis des Noirs (Friends of the Blacks) modeled on the English Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It is supposed Saint Georges delivered Brissot's request to translate the publications of the abolitionists MPs William Wilberforce, John Wilkes, and Reverend Thomas Clarkson into French. On his first trip Saint-Georges passed Brissot's request to the British abolitionists, they complied by translating their publications into French for his fledgling Société des amis des Noirs. Banat assumes Saint-Georges met with them again,[21] but Adam Hochschild in Bury the Chains did not find any trace of this.

In collaboration with Clavière, Brissot published De la France et des Etats-Unis ou de l'importance de la révolution de l'Amérique pour le bonheur de la France, an important advocacy of possible economic benefits to France stemming from the American Revolution.[22] In summer 1787 he and Clavière visited Utrecht, then a "democratic eldorado" to study the resistance against the House of Orange and Habsburg. Just before the Prussian invasion of Holland they travelled to Rotterdam, where they met Abbé Sièyes, and then to Amsterdam where they met with a Dutch banker Pieter Stadnitski.[23][24][25] By the end of September they were back in Paris.[26] At some time Stadnitsky decided sent Brissot as an undercover asset scout to Philadelphia.[27][28][29]

## Abolitionists

[edit]

Clavière and Brissot lived at 10 rue d'Amboise in 1789.[30]

On a second visit to London, accompanied by Charles-Louis Ducrest, the brother of Madame de Genlis, he became acquainted with some of the leading abolitionists. After returning to Paris on 19 February 1788, he and Clavière founded an anti-slavery group known as Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des amis des Noirs) and was their secretary. In 1788, Choderlos de Laclos, who replaced Brissot as Philippe's chief of staff, intensified Brissot's campaign to promote Philippe as an alternative to the monarchy.

As an agent of the newly formed society, Brissot travelled to the United States from June 1788 to January 1789 to visit abolitionists there. The country had gained independence several years before but was still a slave state. He also met with members of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia to find out what he could about the domestic debt of the United States and researching investment opportunities in Scioto Company. Brissot launched a plan to promote emigration to the United States. At one point, he was interested in emigrating to America with his family. Thomas Jefferson, the American ambassador in Paris when he returned, was familiar enough with him to note, "Warville is returned charmed with our country. He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there."[31] However, such an emigration never happened. In 1789 he published a pamphlet arguing that French deputies owed any black Frenchman and any enslaved people in the French colonies their "sacred rights" as much as any white man.[32] In 1789 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[33] Brissot was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789.[34]

He was president of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks during 1790 and 1791. The rising ferment of revolution engaged Brissot in schemes for progress through political journalism that would make him a household name.[31] In 1791 he published his Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale (3 vol.). Brissot believed that American ideals could help improve the French government. In 1791, Brissot along with Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine, and Étienne Dumont created a newspaper promoting republicanism titled Le Républicain.[35]

## The French Revolution

[edit]

Portrait de Brissot

From the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Brissot became one of its most vocal supporters. He edited the Patriote français from 1789 to 1793 and took a prominent part in politics.[36] Famous for his speeches at the Jacobin Club, he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, then of the Legislative Assembly. He witnessed at the marriage of Camille and Lucile Desmoulins in December 1790, together with Pétion de Villeneuve and Robespierre.[37][38][31]

### Champ de Mars Massacre involvement

[edit]

Leading up to this event, France was in political turmoil following the attempted escape of King Louis XVI and his family. The escape attempt heightened tensions and divisions within French society, particularly among the Third Estate. Brissot, a leading republican in the Girondin faction and a leading voice of the republican movement, was involved in drafting a petition demanding the removal of King Louis XVI. He along with other members managed to get approximately 6,000 signatures for the petition they circulated on 17 July 1791, during the gathering at the Champ de Mars. This petition, backed by the Cordeliers Club and other parties, argued that the king, by attempting to flee, had effectively abdicated his throne. The petition called for a national referendum on the future of the monarchy and was essentially a republican manifesto.[39] In 1791 Robespierre persuaded the Jacobin clubs not to support the petition by Danton and Brissot.[40]

### Foreign policy

[edit]

News of the Declaration of Pillnitz (27 August 1791) reached France shortly before the convening of the new Legislative Assembly, which Brissot rapidly came to dominate. The declaration was from Austria and Prussia, warning the people of France not to harm Louis XVI or these nations would "militarily intervene" in the politics of France. Threatened by the declaration, Brissot rallied the support of the Assembly, which subsequently declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. They wanted to fortify and secure the revolution.[41] This decision was initially disastrous as the French armies were crushed during the first engagements, leading to a major increase in political tensions within the country.

During the Legislative Assembly, Brissot's knowledge of foreign affairs enabled him as a member of the diplomatic committee to control much of France's foreign policy during this time. Brissot was a key figure in the declaration of war against Leopold II, the Habsburg monarchy, the Dutch Republic, and the Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 February 1793. It was also Brissot who characterized these wars as part of revolutionary propaganda.[42][10]

On 26 March 1792, Guadet accused Robespierre of superstition, relying on divine providence.[43] Shortly after Robespierre was accused by Brissot and Guadet of trying to become the idol of the people.[44] Being against the war Robespierre was also accused of acting as a secret agent for the "Austrian Committee".[45] The Girondins planned strategies to out-maneuver Robespierre's influence among the Jacobins.[46] On 27 April, as part of his speech responding to the accusations by Brissot and Guadet against him, he threatened to leave the Jacobins, claiming he preferred to continue his mission as an ordinary citizen.[47]

On 17 May, Robespierre released the first issue of his weekly periodical Le Défenseur de la Constitution (The Defender of the Constitution). In this publication, he criticized Brissot and expressed his skepticism over the war movement.[48][49]

### Election

[edit]

Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville

In August 1792 Brissot urged the preservation of the constitution, advocating against both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly.[50] Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot, who promoted the Duke of Brunswick, and Roland. On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the National Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Rolland and Brissot arrested.[51][52]

In Paris suspected Girondin and Feuillant candidates were boycotted; Robespierre made sure Brissot (and his fellow Brissotins Pétion and Condorcet) could not be elected in Paris.[53] Mayor Pétion de Villeneuve, ("Roi Pétion") finally rallied to Brissot.[54] Brissot refrained from further visits to the Jacobin club. Madame Roland wrote to a friend: "We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat, those who would agitate the people."[55]

In September 1792 he was eleced deputy in the National Convention.[10] where he represented Eure-et-Loir.[6] On 24 October 1792, Brissot published another pamphlet,[56] in which he declared the need for a coup against anarchists and the decentralized, populist element of the French Revolution, going so far as to demand the abolition of the Paris Commune.[57] In December he published an account on the trial of the King.[58] In March 1793, Robespierre was convinced Brissot and Dumouriez wanted to overthrow the First French Republic.[59] Dumouriez's defection on the next day changed the course of the events for the Brissotins. On 6 April the Committee of Public Safety was installed; Philippe Égalité was arrested. Robespierre accused Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné as infidel deputies.[60]

### Arrest and execution

[edit]

On 6 April 1793 the Committee of Public Safety was installed on the proposal of Maximin Isnard, supported by Georges Danton. The Committee was composed of nine deputies from the Plaine and the Dantonists, but no Girondins or Robespierrists.[61] As one of the first acts of the Committee, Marat, president of the Jacobin club, called for the expulsion of twenty-two Girondins. Robespierre, who was not elected, was pessimistic about the prospects of parliamentary action and told the Jacobins that it was necessary to raise an army of Sans-culottes to defend Paris and arrest infidel deputies, naming and accusing Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné.[60]

The end of Brissot appeared in sight when, on 26 May 1793, Brissot authored "To His Constituents", in which he demanded the guillotining of "the anarchists", and tried to rouse the middle classes to resist the decentralized departments, which had not taken the lead from Robespierre but rather from The Mountain and largely local organizers and agitators.[62] Brissot was condemned and then escaped from Paris, going to Normandy and Brittany, where he and other Girondists, such as Pétion, Gaudet, Barbaroux, Louvet, Buzot, and Lanjuinais, had planned to organize Counter-Revolutionary Vendée Uprising.[63] Here Brissot had seized the delegates of the convention, having them arrested, but the uprising was short-lived, as the masses marched through the streets and overthrew Brissot and his clique.

The Last Meal of the Girondins (François Flameng, c. 1850) — the body of Charles Éléonor Dufriche-Valazé, who stabbed himself in the courtroom, is in the foreground.Execution of Brissot, 31 October 1793 = 10 Brumaire, l'an II

On 28 May a weak Robespierre excused himself twice for his physical condition but attacked in particular Brissot of royalism. He referred to 25 July 1792 where their points of view split.[64][65] In late May 1793, the Montagnards in the convention, meeting in the Salle du Manège, called for the removal of the Commission of Twelve. The convention was further radicalized by the call for the removal and arrest of Brissot and the entire Girondin faction made by the sans-culottes in the Parisian National Guard, which had armed with cannons and surrounded the convention.[66] When the refusal of the convention to make such a hasty decision was delivered to the National Guard, François Hanriot, its leader, replied: "Tell your stupid president that he and his Assembly are doomed and that if within one hour he doesn't deliver to me the twenty-two, I'm going to blast it!"[67] Under this threat of violence, the Convention capitulated and on 2 June 1793, Brissot and the other Girondins were arrested.[68]

Brissot was one of the first Girondins to escape but was also one of the first captured. Passing through his hometown Chartres on his way to the city of Caen, the centre of anti-revolutionary forces in Normandy, he was caught travelling with false papers on 10 June and taken back to Paris.[69] On 3 October, the trial of Brissot and the Girondins began. They were charged with being "agents of the counter-revolution and the foreign powers, especially Britain."[70] Brissot, who conducted his own defence, attacked point by point the absurdities of the charges against him and his fellow Girondins.

On 8 October the Convention decided to arrest Brissot and the Girondins. Robespierre called for the dissolution of the Convention; he believed they would be admired by posterity. Pierre-Joseph Cambon replied that was not his intention; applause followed and the session was closed.[71]

He was unsuccessful, and on 30 October the death sentence was delivered to Brissot and the 21 other Girondins.[72][73] The next day, the convicted men were taken by tumbrel to the guillotine, singing La Marseillaise as they travelled, and embracing the role of martyred patriots.[74] Brissot was executed on 31 October 1793 at age 39. His corpse was buried in the Madeleine cemetery or the Chapelle expiatoire alongside his guillotined associates.[75]

The Chevalier de Saint-Georges was suspected of having been friendly with Marie-Antoinette, Brissot, and Philippe Égalité, executed in the following weeks.[76] In early December, 73 Girondins were allowed to take their seats back in the Convention.[77]

## Spying allegations

[edit]

Robespierre and Marat were among those who accused Brissot of various kinds of counterrevolutionary activity, such as, Orléanism, "federalism", being in the pay of Great Britain, having failed to vote for the immediate death of the former king, and having been a collaborator with General Dumouriez, widely considered a traitor following his April 5 defection to the Austrians.[78]

Brissot's activities after the siege of the Bastille have been closely studied. While enthusiasts and apologists consider Brissot to be an idealist and unblemished, philosophe revolutionary, his detractors have challenged his credibility and moral character. They have repeated contemporary allegations that during the mid-1780s, he defrauded his business partner, was involved in the production and dissemination of libelles – pornographic and otherwise – and spied for the police.[79] The accusations were led by Jean-Paul Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Maximilien Robespierre, and above all the notorious scandal-monger, extortioner, and perjurer Charles Théveneau de Morande, whose hatred, Brissot asserted, 'was the torment of my life'. Brissot was accused of organizing (or taking part in) conspicuous dinners.[80]

In 1968 historian Robert Darnton affirmed some of these accounts,[81] and reaffirmed them in the 1980s, holding Brissot up as a case-study in the understanding of the difficult circumstances many philosophes encountered attempting to support themselves by their writing.[82] Brissot's life and thinking are so well documented, from his early age through to his execution, many historians have examined him as a representative figure displaying the Enlightenment attitudes that drove many of the leading French revolutionaries. Thus, he undoubtedly exemplified the beliefs of many supporters of the Revolution. Darnton sees him in this way, but also argued that he was intimately tangled in the business of "Grub Street", the scrappy world of publishing for profit in the eighteenth century, which was essential to the spread of Enlightenment ideas. Thus, Darnton explores his relationship to his business partners, to the libellistes who wrote scandalous accusations against the crown and other leading figures, and to the police, arguing that based on suggestive evidence it is probable that when Brissot fell on hard financial times in the mid-1780s he agreed to operate as a police spy. Historian Frederick Luna has argued that the letters and memoirs from which Darnton drew his information were written fifteen years after his supposed employment and that the timeline does not work out because Brissot was documented as having left Paris as soon as he was released from the Bastille (where he was held on suspicion of writing libelles) and therefore could not have talked with the police as alleged.[83] More convincing still is the work of historian Simon Burrows who, drawing on the Brissot papers (deposited in the Archives Nationales in 1982), comprehensively engages each of Darnton's speculations demonstrating that Brissot's financial problems were not evidence of fraud, that while – like many others – he traded in books and may have transported libelles, there is no evidence that he wrote them, and that while like many others he collected and collated general information on contemporary opinion in France for royal officials, there is no evidence that he operated as a paid police spy. As Burrows further notes, Darnton has progressively retreated from his earlier speculations, and he argues Brissot's behaviour in the 1780s and after, while it demonstrates his willingness to compromise with authority to advance his career, also demonstrates him to be "a committed philosophe and reformer, keen to avoid unnecessary entanglements in illegal activities, who despite his political radicalism, aspired to advise the regime and serve like-minded patrons."[79]

## Legacy

[edit]

Through his writings, Brissot made important contributions to "pre-revolutionary and revolutionary ideology in France".[84] His early works on legislation, his many pamphlets, speeches in the Legislative Assembly and the convention, demonstrated dedication to the principles of the French Revolution. Brissot's idea of a fair, democratic society, with universal suffrage, living in moral as well as political freedom, foreshadowed many modern liberationist ideologies.[85]

Brissot was also very interested in science. He was a strong disciple of Sextus Empiricus and applied those theories to modern science at the time in order to make knowledge well known about the enlightenment of Ethos.[86]

The varying actions of Brissot in the 1780s also helped create a key understanding of how the Enlightenment Republic of letters was transformed into a revolutionary Republic of Letters.[87]

The Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition, remarked: "Brissot was quick, eager, impetuous, and a man of wide knowledge. However, he was indecisive, and not qualified to struggle against the fierce energies roused by the events of the Revolution."[6] Brissot's stance on the King's execution and the war with Austria, and his moderate views on the Revolution intensified the friction between the Girondins and Montagnards, who allied themselves with disaffected sans-culottes. Brissot ultimately attempted to rein in the violence and excesses of the Revolution by calling for the reinstatement of the constitutional monarchy that had been established by the French Constitution of 1791, a ploy that landed on deaf ears.

## Works

[edit]

Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur, du Politique, du Jurisconsulte, 1782

* Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété considéré dans la nature, pour servir de premier chapitre à la "Théorie des lois" de M. Linguet, Paris, 1780, 128 p., in-8°.
* Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur, du Politique et du Jurisconsulte, Berlin et Paris, 1782–1786, 10 vol. in-8°.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 1\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 3\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1783.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 4\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 5\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 6\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 7\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 8\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 9\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1782.
* Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte (in French). Vol. 10\. Berlin : Desauges; Lyon : Grabit & Rosset. 1785.
* Moyens d'adoucir la rigueur des lois pénales en France sans nuire à la sécurité publique, Discours couronné par l'Académie de Châlons-sur-Marne en 1780, Châlons, 1781, in-8°.
* Théorie des lois criminelles, Paris, 1781, 2 vol. in-8°.
* De la Vérité des Méditations sur les moyens de parvenir à la vérité dans toutes les connaissances humaines, Neufchâtel et Paris, 1782, in-8°.
* Discours sur la nécessité de maintenir le décret rendu le 13 mai 1791, en faveur des hommes de couleur libres, prononcé le 12 septembre 1791, à la séance de la Société des Amis de la Constitution, séante aux jacobins.
* Discours sur la nécessité politique de révoquer le décret du 24 septembre 1791, pour mettre fin aux troubles de Saint Domingue; prononcé à l'Assemblée nationale, le 2 mars 1792. Par J.P. Brissot, député du département de Paris, Paris : De l'Imprimerie du patriote françois, 1792.
* Correspondance universelle sur ce qui intéresse le bonheur de l'homme et de la société, Londres et Neufchâtel, 1783, 2 vol. in-8°.
* Journal du Lycée de Londres, ou Tableau des sciences et des arts en Angleterre, Londres et Paris, 1784.
* Tableau de la situation actuelle des Anglais dans les Indes orientales, et Tableau de l'Inde en général, ibid., 1784, in-8°.
* L'Autorité législative de Rome anéantie, Paris, 1785, in-8°, réimprimé sous le titre : Rome jugée, l'autorité du pape anéantie, pour servir de réponse aux bulles passées, nouvelles et futures du pape, ibid., 1731, m-g.
* Examen critique des voyages dans l'Amérique septentrionale, de M. le marquis de Chatellux, ou Lettre à M. le marquis de Chatellux, dans laquelle on réfute principalement ses opinions sur les quakers, sur les nègres, sur le peuple et sur l'homme, par J.-P. Brissot de Warville, Londres, 1786, in-8°.
* Discours sur la Rareté du numéraire, et sur les moyens d'y remédier, 1790, in-8°.
* Mémoire sur les Noirs de l'Amérique septentrionale, 1790, in-8°.
* Voyage aux États-Unis, 1791.
* De la France et des Etats-Unis; ou Vlmportance de la Revolution de VAmerique pour le Bon- heur de la Fran, 1787

His Mémoires and his Testament politique (4 vol.) were published in 1829–1832 by his sons with François Mongin de Montrol:

* Mémoires de Brissot... sur ses contemporains, et la révolution française; publ. par son fils; notes et éclaircissements hist. par M.F. de Montrol, 1830–1832; Vol. I (1830); Vol. II (1830); Vol. III (1832); Vol. IV (1832).

## See also

[edit]

On 30 November 1789, Brissot suggested a scheme of municipal constitution for Paris, working in collaboration with the National Assembly and the Assembly of Representatives of the Paris commune, but this plan had to be abandoned when it was refused by the local, decentralized districts of Paris, who had always been more revolutionary than their leaders.[88] Historian and political theorist Peter Kropotkin suggested that Brissot represented the "defenders of property" and the "states-men", which would become the Girondins, also known as the "War Party."[89] They were known for this name because they clamoured for a war that would ultimately force the king to step down (as opposed to a popular revolution); Brissot is quoted as saying, "We want some great treachery."[90] His opinion, recorded in his pamphlet "A sel commettants" ("To Salt Principals"), was that the masses had no "managing capacity" and that he feared a society ruled by "the great unwashed."[91] Writing on 23 May 1793, Brissot had commented...

> "I have declared, since the beginning of the Convention that there was in France a party of dis-organizers, which was tending towards the dissolution of the Republic, even while it was in its cradle.... I can prove to-day: first, that this party of anarchists has dominated and still dominates nearly all the deliberations of the Convention and the workings of the Executive Council; secondly, that this party has been and still is the sole cause of all the evils, internal as well as the external, which afflict France; and thirdly, that the Republic can only be saved by taking rigorous measures to wrest the representatives of the nation from the despotism of this faction... Laws that are not carried into effect, authorities without force and despised, crime unpunished, property attacked, the safety of the individual violated, the morality of the people corrupted, no constitution, no government, no justice, these are the features of anarchy!"[92]

The Girondins, or Brissotins as they were initially called, were a group of loosely affiliated individuals, many of whom came from Gironde, rather than an organized party, but the main ideological emphasis was on preventing revolution and protecting private property. This group was first led by Brissot.[93] Robespierre, representing the party of the extreme left, loathed the Girondins.[94]

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ "Munsey's People Search: Page 1". Archived from the original on 28 January 2023. Retrieved 18 June 2023.
2. ^ Wikisource: Œuvres complètes de Maximilien Robespierre. Speech Robespierre against Brissot and the girondins Delivered to the Convention on 10 April 1793 Discours contre Brissot & les girondins
3. ^ Linton, Marisa; Harder, Mette (12 March 2015). "'Come and Dine': The Dangers of Conspicuous Consumption in French Revolutionary Politics, 1789–95" (PDF). European History Quarterly. 45 (4): 615. doi:10.1177/0265691415595959. S2CID 143310428 - via academia.edu.
4. ^ Sanson Memoirs Vol II p.70
5. ^ Robert C. Darnton, "The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy", p. 301 in The Journal of Modern History vol. 40, no. 3 (Sept. 1968)
6. ^ a b c d e "Jacques-Pierre Brissot | French revolutionary leader". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
7. ^ a b New Travels in the United States of America, p. V
8. ^ Frederick A. de Luna, " The Dean Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Jeune Philosophe ", pp. 162 in: French Historical Studies, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2001)
9. ^ Darnton, Robert C. (September 1968). "The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy". The Journal of Modern History. 40 (3): 302–327. doi:10.1086/240206. ISSN 0022-2801. S2CID 145695341.
10. ^ a b c d One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Brissot, Jacques Pierre". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 575.
11. ^ J.P. Brissot Mémoires (1754-1793), p. XXII
12. ^ New Travels in the United States of America, p. VI, VII
13. ^ Loft, Lenore (2009). "Brissot, Jacques Pierre (1754–1793)". The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest : 1500 to the present. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 1–3. doi:10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp0247. ISBN 9781405184649.
14. ^ The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 850
15. ^ New Travels in the United States of America, p. VII
16. ^ The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 853
17. ^ William Bridgewater; Elizabeth J. Sherwood; Evelyn Bartshi Boyce; et al., eds. (1950) [1935]. "Brissot de Warville, Jacques Pierre". The Columbia Encyclopedia (2nd ed.). Columbia University Press. p. 254 - via Internet Archive.
18. ^ Brissot de Warville (1781). Théorie des lois criminelles (in French). Vol. 1.
19. ^ Léonore Loft, "The Transylvanian Peasant Uprising of 1784, Brissot and the Right to Revolt: A Research Note", pp. 209–218 in: French Historical Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1991)
20. ^ "A. Jourdan (2007) The "Alien Origins" of the French Revolution: American, Scottish, Genevan, and Dutch influences. Proceedings of the Western Society for French History".
21. ^ Banat 2006, p. 281.
22. ^ Stern, Madeleine B. (1976). "Brissot De Warville and the Franco-American Press". Studies in Bibliography. 29: 362–372. ISSN 0081-7600. JSTOR 40371645.
23. ^ Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre (1754–1793) Auteur du texte (18 April 1877). Mémoires de Brissot / avec introduction, notices et notes par M. de Lescure - via gallica.bnf.fr.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
24. ^ Jourdan, A. (2007). "The 'alien origins' of the French Revolution: American, Scottish, Genevan, and Dutch influences". Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, 35, 185–205. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dodidx?c=wsfh;idno=0642292.0035.012
25. ^ Rosendaal, J.G.M.M. (2005) De Nederlandse Revolutie. Vrijheid, volk en vaderland 1783–1799, p. 242, 245.
26. ^ Perroud, C. (1912) Correspondance et papiers de Brissot, p. XLIV, 161.
27. ^ Mémoires de Brissot / avec introduction, notices et notes par M. de Lescure, p. 407
28. ^ Jourdan, Annie (2007). "The "Alien Origins" of the French Revolution: American, Scottish, Genevan, and Dutch Influences". Journal of the Western Society for French History. 35: 185–205. hdl:2027/spo.0642292.0035.012.
29. ^ Riley, James C. (1982). "Financial and Economic Ties, The First Century". Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden. 97: 439–453.
30. ^ Roster of Membership in the Society of Friends of Blacks, 1789," LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, accessed June 13, 2023, https://revolution.chnm.org/d/339
31. ^ a b c David Andress, 1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age, 87.
32. ^ Geggus, David (1989). "Racial Equality, Slavery, and Colonial Secession during the Constituent Assembly". The American Historical Review. 94 (5): 1290–1308. doi:10.2307/1906352. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1906352.
33. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
34. ^ "Jean P. Brissot". American Philosophical Society Member History. American Philosophical Society. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
35. ^ Berges, Sandrine (2015). "Sophie de Grouchy on the Cost of Domination in the Letters on Sympathy and Two Anonymous Articles in Le Républicain" (PDF). Monist. 98: 102–112. doi:10.1093/monist/onu011. hdl:11693/12519.
36. ^ Christopher Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution, p. 137.
37. ^ Jean-Joseph Gaume (1856) La Révolution, recherches historiques, Quatrième partie, Paris, Gaume frères, pp. 136–37
38. ^ "Maximilien Robespierre's False Friends by Peter McPhee" (PDF).
39. ^ "Jacques-Pierre Brissot: Journalist and Abolitionist in the French Revolution". Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas. 21 August 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
40. ^ Schama 1989, p. 567.
41. ^ "Brissot (de Warville), Jacques-Pierre | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia – Credo Reference". search.credoreference.com.
42. ^ Thomas Lalevée, "National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution", French History and Civilisation (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.
43. ^ Hampson 1974, pp. 180–181.
44. ^ V. Aulard (1892) Jacobins, III, p. 526
45. ^ Linton 2013, pp. 119–120.
46. ^ Linton 2013, p. 108.
47. ^ Hervé Leuwers (2014) Robespierre, p. 211
48. ^ Gough, Hugh (2016). The Newspaper Press in the French Revolution. Taylor & Francis. p. 87\. ISBN 978-1-317-21491-5. Archived from the original on 30 December 2023. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
49. ^ Scurr 2006, p. 291.
50. ^ Hampson 1974, p. 114.
51. ^ Hardman, John (1999). Robespierre. Longman. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-0-582-43755-5. Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
52. ^ Hampson 1974, p. 126.
53. ^ Davidson, Ian (2016). The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1847659361. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023 - via Google Books.
54. ^ "Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 76" (PDF). Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
55. ^ Oliver, Bette W. (2016). Jacques Pierre Brissot in America and France, 1788–1793: In Search of Better Worlds. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1498535342. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023 - via Google Books.
56. ^ J. P. Brissot, député à la Convention Nationale, à tous les républicains de France
57. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 39 : The "Mountain" and The Gironde". The Great French Revolution.
58. ^ Au peuple souverain; sur le procès de Louis Seize. Par un républicain
59. ^ Journal des débats et des décrets, 3 avril 1793
60. ^ a b I. Davidson, p. 157
61. ^ Davidson, I, p. 155–156.
62. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 45 : A New Rising Rendered Inevitable". The Great French Revolution.
63. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 53 : Counter-Revolution in Brittany—Assassination of Marat". The Great French Revolution.
64. ^ Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 30 mai 1793, p. 3
65. ^ Ellery, Eloise (12 March 1915). "Brissot de Warville: A Study in the History of the French Revolution ..." New York. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023 - via Google Books.
66. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 175.
67. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 176.
68. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 382.
69. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 180.
70. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 228.
71. ^ "Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel – Year available1793 – Gallica". gallica.bnf.fr. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
72. ^ Samson, Memoirs, Vol II p. 70
73. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 229.
74. ^ David Andress, The Terror, p. 230.
75. ^ "Remains Discovered in Parisian Chapel May Belong to Guillotined Aristocrats".
76. ^ Benjamin Warlop (2022) Le Chevalier de Saint-George
77. ^ The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution, 1793-1795 by Michael L. Kennedy, p. 270
78. ^ Frederick A. de Luna, "The Dean Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Jeune Philosophe", p. 178 in: French Historical Studies, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2001)
79. ^ a b Simon Burrows, "The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot," The Historical Journal vol. 46 (2003), pp. 843–871.
80. ^ Linton, Marisa; Harder, Mette (12 March 2015). "'Come and Dine': The Dangers of Conspicuous Consumption in French Revolutionary Politics, 1789–95". European History Quarterly. 45 (4): 615. doi:10.1177/0265691415595959. S2CID 143310428 - via www.academia.edu.
81. ^ Robert C. Darnton, "The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy", The Journal of Modern History vol. 40, no. 3 (Sept. 1968), p. 301.
82. ^ Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 49–68.
83. ^ Frederick A. Luna, "Interpreting Brissot", The Dean Street Style of Revolution, pp. 159–190.
84. ^ Loft, p. 209.
85. ^ Leonore Loft, Passion, Politics, and Philosophie : Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot, (2001)
86. ^ Charles, Sébastien (1 January 2013). "From Universal Pyrrhonism to Revolutionary Scepticism: Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville". In Charles, Sébastien; Smith, Plínio J. (eds.). Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées. Vol. 210\. Springer Netherlands. pp. 231–244. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4810-1_16. ISBN 9789400748095.
87. ^ Denna Goodman, "Conclusion", pp. 73 in: The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French enlightenment, (1994)
88. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 24: The "Districts" and the "Sections" of Paris". The Great French Revolution.[permanent dead link]
89. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 26: Delays in the Abolition of the Feudal Rights". The Great French Revolution.[permanent dead link]
90. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 30: The Legislative Assembly—Reaction in 1791–1792". The Great French Revolution.[permanent dead link]
91. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 32 : The Twentieth of June 1792". The Great French Revolution.[permanent dead link]
92. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 40 : Attempts of the Girondins to Stop the Revolution". The Great French Revolution.
93. ^ "Girondists | The Columbia Encyclopedia – Credo Reference". search.credoreference.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018.
94. ^ "Brissot, Jacques Pierre | The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide – Credo Reference". search.credoreference.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018.

## Sources

[edit]

* Banat, Gabriel (2006). The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press. ISBN 978-1-57647-109-8.
* Hampson, Norman (1974). The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre. Duckworth. ISBN 978-0-7156-0741-1.
* Linton, Marisa (2013). Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957630-2.
* Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books, Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0679726101.
* Scurr, Ruth (2006). Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8050-8261-6.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Burrows, Simon. "The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot." Historical Journal (2003): 843–871. online
* Darnton, Robert. "The Brissot Dossier." French Historical Studies 17.1 (1991): 191–205. online
* De Luna, Frederick A. "The Dean Street style of revolution: J.-P. Brissot, jeune philosophe." French Historical Studies 17.1 (1991): 159–190.
* Durand, Echeverria, and Mara Vamos (New Travels in the United States of America. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964) ix–xxvii
* D'huart, Suzanne (1986). Brissot : la Gironde au pouvoir (in French). Paris: R. Laffont. ISBN 978-2-221-04686-9.
* Ellery, Eloise. Brissot de Warville: A study in the history of the French Revolution (1915) online.
* Marisa Linton, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2013).
* Marisa Linton, "The First Step on the Road to Waterloo", History Today, vol 65, issue 6, June 2015.[1].
* Marisa Linton, 'Friends, Enemies and the Role of the Individual,' in Peter McPhee (ed.), Companion to the History of the French Revolution (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013): 263–77.
* Lalevée, Thomas. "National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution", French History and Civilisation (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.
* Loft, Leonore. "J.-P. Brissot and the evolution of pamphlet literature in the early 1780s". History of European ideas 17.2–3 (1993): 265–287.
* Loft, Leonore. Passion, politics, and philosophie: Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot (Greenwood, 2002).
* Oliver, Bette W. Jacques Pierre Brissot in America and France, 1788–1793: In Search of Better Worlds (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

## External links

[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Jacques Pierre Brissot.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jacques Pierre Brissot.

* Works by or about Jacques Pierre Brissot at the Internet Archive
* Works by Jacques Pierre Brissot at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
* Full text online versions of pamphlets written by Jacques Pierre Brissot from the Ball State University Digital Media Repository

* v
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Significant civil and political events by year

1788|

* Day of the Tiles (7 Jun 1788)
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1789|

* What Is the Third Estate? (Jan 1789)
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1790|

* Abolition of the Parlements (Feb–Jul 1790)
* Abolition of the Nobility (23 Jun 1790)
* Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 Jul 1790)
* Fête de la Fédération (14 Jul 1790)

1791|

* Flight to Varennes (20–21 Jun 1791)
* Champ de Mars massacre (17 Jul 1791)
* Declaration of Pillnitz (27 Aug 1791)
* The Constitution of 1791 (3 Sep 1791)
* National Legislative Assembly (1 Oct 1791 – Sep 1792)

1792|

* France declares war (20 Apr 1792)
* Brunswick Manifesto (25 Jul 1792)
* Paris Commune becomes insurrectionary (Jun 1792)
* 10th of August (10 Aug 1792)
* September Massacres (Sep 1792)
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* First republic declared (22 Sep 1792)

1793|

* Execution of Louis XVI (21 Jan 1793)
* Revolutionary Tribunal (9 Mar 1793 – 31 May 1795)
* Reign of Terror (27 Jun 1793 – 27 Jul 1794)
* Committee of Public Safety
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* Fall of the Girondists (2 Jun 1793)
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* The Death of Marat (painting)
* Law of Suspects (17 Sep 1793)
* Marie Antoinette is guillotined (16 Oct 1793)
* Anti-clerical laws (throughout the year)

1794|

* Danton and Desmoulins guillotined (5 Apr 1794)
* Law of 22 Prairial (10 Jun 1794)
* Thermidorian Reaction (27 Jul 1794)
* Robespierre guillotined (28 Jul 1794)
* White Terror (Fall 1794)
* Closing of the Jacobin Club (11 Nov 1794)

1795–6|

* Insurrection of 12 Germinal Year III (1 Apr 1795)
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1797|

* Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 Sep 1797)
* Second Congress of Rastatt (Dec 1797)

1798|

* Law of 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798)

1799|

* Coup of 30 Prairial VII (18 Jun 1799)
* Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 Nov 1799)
* Constitution of the Year VIII (24 Dec 1799)
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1792|

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1793|

* First Coalition
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* Battle of Neerwinden
* Battle of Famars (23 May 1793)
* Expedition to Sardinia (21 Dec 1792 - 25 May 1793)
* Battle of Kaiserslautern
* Siege of Mainz
* Battle of Wattignies
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* Battle of Peyrestortes (Pyrenees)
* Siege of Toulon (18 Sep – 18 Dec 1793)
* First Battle of Wissembourg (13 Oct 1793)
* Battle of Truillas (Pyrenees)
* Second Battle of Wissembourg (26–27 Dec 1793)

1794|

* Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies (24 Apr 1794)
* Second Battle of Boulou (Pyrenees) (30 Apr – 1 May 1794)
* Battle of Tourcoing (18 May 1794)
* Battle of Tournay (22 May 1794)
* Glorious First of June (1 Jun 1794)
* Battle of Fleurus (26 Jun 1794)
* Chouannerie
* Battle of Aldenhoven (2 Oct 1794)
* Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795)

1795|

* Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795)
* Peace of Basel

1796|

* Italian campaign (1796)
* Battle of Lonato (3–4 Aug 1796)
* Battle of Castiglione (5 Aug 1796)
* Battle of Theiningen
* Battle of Neresheim (11 Aug 1796)
* Battle of Amberg (24 Aug 1796)
* Battle of Würzburg (3 Sep 1796)
* Battle of Rovereto (4 Sep 1796)
* First Battle of Bassano (8 Sep 1796)
* Battle of Emmendingen (19 Oct 1796)
* Battle of Schliengen (26 Oct 1796)
* Second Battle of Bassano (6 Nov 1796)
* Battle of Calliano (6–7 Nov 1796)
* Battle of Arcole (15–17 Nov 1796)
* Ireland expedition (Dec 1796)

1797|

* Italian campaign (1797)
* Naval Engagement off Brittany (13 Jan 1797)
* Battle of Rivoli (14–15 Jan 1797)
* Battle of the Bay of Cádiz (25 Jan 1797)
* Treaty of Leoben (17 Apr 1797)
* Battle of Neuwied (18 Apr 1797)
* Treaty of Campo Formio (17 Oct 1797)

1798|

* French invasion of Switzerland (28 January – 17 May 1798)
* French Invasion of Egypt (1798–1801)
* Irish Rebellion of 1798 (23 May – 23 Sep 1798)
* Quasi-War (1798–1800)
* Peasants' War (12 Oct – 5 Dec 1798)

1799|

* Second Coalition (1798–1802)
* Siege of Acre (20 Mar – 21 May 1799)
* Battle of Ostrach (20–21 Mar 1799)
* Battle of Stockach (25 Mar 1799)
* Battle of Magnano (5 Apr 1799)
* Battle of Cassano (27–28 Apr 1799)
* First Battle of Zurich (4–7 Jun 1799)
* Battle of Trebbia (17–20 Jun 1799)
* Battle of Novi (15 Aug 1799)
* Second Battle of Zurich (25–26 Sep 1799)

1800|

* Battle of Marengo (14 Jun 1800)
* Convention of Alessandria (15 Jun 1800)
* Battle of Hohenlinden (3 Dec 1800)
* League of Armed Neutrality (1800–02)

1801|

* Treaty of Lunéville (9 Feb 1801)
* Treaty of Florence (18 Mar 1801)
* Algeciras campaign (8 Jul 1801)

1802|

* Treaty of Amiens (25 Mar 1802)
* Treaty of Paris (25 Jun 1802)

Military leaders

France|

| French Army|

* Eustache Charles d'Aoust
* Pierre Augereau
* Alexandre de Beauharnais
* Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
* Louis-Alexandre Berthier
* Jean-Baptiste Bessières
* Napoléon Bonaparte
* Guillaume Brune
* Jean François Carteaux
* Jean-Étienne Championnet
* Chapuis de Tourville
* Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine
* Louis-Nicolas Davout
* Louis Desaix
* Jacques François Dugommier
* Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
* Charles François Dumouriez
* Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino
* Louis-Charles de Flers
* Paul Grenier
* Emmanuel de Grouchy
* Jacques Maurice Hatry
* Lazare Hoche
* Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
* François Christophe de Kellermann
* Jean-Baptiste Kléber
* Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
* Jean Lannes
* Charles Leclerc
* Claude Lecourbe
* François Joseph Lefebvre
* Étienne Macdonald
* Jean-Antoine Marbot
* Marcellin Marbot
* François Séverin Marceau
* Auguste de Marmont
* André Masséna
* Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey
* Jean Victor Marie Moreau
* Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise
* Joachim Murat
* Michel Ney
* Pierre-Jacques Osten [fr]
* Nicolas Oudinot
* Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon
* Jean-Charles Pichegru
* Józef Poniatowski
* Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr
* Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer
* Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier
* Joseph Souham
* Jean-de-Dieu Soult
* Louis-Gabriel Suchet
* Belgrand de Vaubois
* Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno

|

French Navy|

* Charles-Alexandre Linois

Opposition|

|  Austria|

* József Alvinczi
* Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
* Count of Clerfayt (Walloon)
* Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg
* Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze (Swiss)
* Friedrich Adolf, Count von Kalckreuth
* Pál Kray (Hungarian)
* Charles Eugene, Prince of Lambesc (French)
* Maximilian Baillet de Latour (Walloon)
* Karl Mack von Leiberich
* Rudolf Ritter von Otto (Saxon)
* Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
* Peter Vitus von Quosdanovich
* Prince Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen
* Johann Mészáros von Szoboszló (Hungarian)
* Karl Philipp Sebottendorf
* Dagobert von Wurmser

|

Britain|

* Sir Ralph Abercromby
* James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez
* Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth
* Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany

Netherlands|

* William V, Prince of Orange

Prussia|

* Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick
* Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen

Russia|

* Alexander Korsakov
* Alexander Suvorov
* Andrei Rosenberg

Spain|

* Luis Firmin de Carvajal
* Antonio Ricardos

Other significant figures and factions

Patriotic Society of 1789|

* Jean Sylvain Bailly
* Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
* François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
* Isaac René Guy le Chapelier
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
* Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
* Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
* Nicolas de Condorcet

Feuillants
and monarchiens

* Grace Elliott
* Arnaud de La Porte
* Jean-Sifrein Maury
* François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy
* Guillaume-Mathieu Dumas
* Antoine Barnave
* Lafayette
* Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth
* Charles Malo François Lameth
* André Chénier
* Jean-François Rewbell
* Camille Jordan
* Madame de Staël
* Boissy d'Anglas
* Jean-Charles Pichegru
* Pierre Paul Royer-Collard
* Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac

Girondins|

* Jacques Pierre Brissot
* Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière
* Madame Roland
* Father Henri Grégoire
* Étienne Clavière
* Marquis de Condorcet
* Charlotte Corday
* Marie Jean Hérault
* Jean Baptiste Treilhard
* Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
* Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
* Jean Debry
* Olympe de Gouges
* Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet
* Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux

The Plain|

* Abbé Sieyès
* de Cambacérès
* Charles-François Lebrun
* Pierre-Joseph Cambon
* Bertrand Barère
* Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot
* Philippe Égalité
* Louis Philippe I
* Mirabeau
* Antoine Christophe Merlin de Thionville
* Jean Joseph Mounier
* Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
* François de Neufchâteau

Montagnards|

* Maximilien Robespierre
* Georges Danton
* Jean-Paul Marat
* Camille Desmoulins
* Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
* Paul Barras
* Louis Philippe I
* Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau
* Jacques-Louis David
* Marquis de Sade
* Georges Couthon
* Roger Ducos
* Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois
* Jean-Henri Voulland
* Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai
* Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville
* Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas
* Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier
* Jean-Pierre-André Amar
* Prieur de la Côte-d'Or
* Prieur de la Marne
* Gilbert Romme
* Jean Bon Saint-André
* Jean-Lambert Tallien
* Pierre Louis Prieur
* Antoine Christophe Saliceti

Hébertists
and Enragés|

* Jacques Hébert
* Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne
* Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
* Charles-Philippe Ronsin
* Antoine-François Momoro
* François-Nicolas Vincent
* François Chabot
* Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte
* Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel
* François Hanriot
* Jacques Roux
* Stanislas-Marie Maillard
* Charles-Philippe Ronsin
* Jean-François Varlet
* Theophile Leclerc
* Claire Lacombe
* Pauline Léon
* Gracchus Babeuf
* Sylvain Maréchal

Others|

| Figures|

* Charles X
* Louis XVI
* Louis XVII
* Louis XVIII
* Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien
* Louis Henri, Prince of Condé
* Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé
* Marie Antoinette
* Napoléon Bonaparte
* Lucien Bonaparte
* Joseph Bonaparte
* Joseph Fesch
* Joséphine de Beauharnais
* Joachim Murat
* Jean Sylvain Bailly
* Jacques-Donatien Le Ray
* Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes
* Talleyrand
* Thérésa Tallien
* Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target
* Catherine Théot
* Madame de Lamballe
* Madame du Barry
* Louis de Breteuil
* de Chateaubriand
* Jean Chouan
* Loménie de Brienne
* Charles Alexandre de Calonne
* Jacques Necker
* Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil
* List of people associated with the French Revolution

|

Factions|

* Jacobins
* Cordeliers
* Panthéon Club
* Social Club

Influential thinkers

* Les Lumières
* Beaumarchais
* Edmund Burke
* Anacharsis Cloots
* Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
* Pierre Claude François Daunou
* Diderot
* Benjamin Franklin
* Thomas Jefferson
* Antoine Lavoisier
* Montesquieu
* Thomas Paine
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* Abbé Sieyès
* Voltaire
* Mary Wollstonecraft

Cultural impact

* La Marseillaise
* Cockade of France
* Flag of France
* Liberté, égalité, fraternité
* Marianne
* Bastille Day
* Panthéon
* French Republican calendar
* Metric system
* Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
* Cult of the Supreme Being
* Cult of Reason
* Temple of Reason
* Sans-culottes
* Phrygian cap
* Women in the French Revolution
* Incroyables and merveilleuses
* Symbolism in the French Revolution
* Historiography of the French Revolution
* Influence of the French Revolution
* Films

Authority control databases

International|

* FAST
* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* Norway
* Spain
* France
* BnF data
* Catalonia
* Germany
* Italy
* Israel
* Belgium
* United States
* Sweden
* Czech Republic
* Australia
* Greece
* Netherlands
* Poland
* Portugal
* Vatican

Artists|

* ULAN

People|

* Deutsche Biographie
* Sycomore
* Trove

Other|

* SNAC
* IdRef

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