The Hebertists ( French : Hebertistes ), or Exaggerators ( French : Exageres ) were a radical revolutionary political group associated with the populist journalist Jacques Hebert , a member of the Cordeliers club. They came to power during the Reign of Terror and played a significant role in the French Revolution .

The Hebertists were ardent supporters of the dechristianization of France and of extreme measures in service of the Terror, including the Law of Suspects enacted in 1793. They favoured the direct intervention of the state in economic matters in order to ensure the adequate supply of commodities, advocating the national requisition of wine and grain. ^[3]

The leaders went to the guillotine on 24 March 1794.

Rise to popularity [ edit ]

The rise in power of the Hebertists can be largely attributed to the popularity of Hebert's newspaper, Le Pere Duchesne . This newspaper, which purported to present the frank opinions of Pere Duchesne, a fictional working-class furnace-maker, had a large following amongst the sans-culottes . The government-funded distribution of Le Pere Duchesne to the French armies, a policy arranged by the Hebertist Minister of War Jean Baptiste Noel Bouchotte in 1793, widened support and sympathy for Hebertist ideas.

On 24 May 1793, the newly appointed Commission of Twelve ordered the arrest of Hebert, who had been using Le Pere Duchesne to incite violence against members of the Girondin faction. The tremendous public outcry and civil unrest which ensued rapidly resulted in Hebert's release. However, rioting continued, culminating in a series of insurrections . On 31 May 1793, a large crowd of sans-culotte agitators surrounded the National Convention in an attempt to force its accession to their demands, namely the dissolution of the Commission of Twelve, the arrest of a list of Girondin deputies, a tax on the rich and the restriction of suffrage to sans-culottes. ^[4] The Commission was abolished, but on 2 June 1793 the crowds?now supported by National Guard forces headed by Hebertist and newly appointed Commandant-General Francois Hanriot ?returned. Hanriot threatened to set fire to the Convention if the offending Girondin deputies were not expelled. Ultimately, the arrest of twenty-nine Girondins was decreed, marking the end of the Girondin faction's political power. ^[5]

Following the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat by a Girondin sympathizer in July 1793, Hebert positioned himself as Marat's natural successor in the affections of those who had shared the dead man's ultra-revolutionary beliefs. ^[6] The Hebertists' popularity grew. Their evident and increasingly destabilizing influence was disturbing to many less extreme revolutionary politicians, including leading Montagnard figures such as Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre ?the latter of whom especially disapproved of the Hebertists' atheism . ^[6]

Accusations and denunciation [ edit ]

Over the course of October 1793, a number of accusations were leveled against prominent Hebertists by Fabre d'Eglantine , a friend and supporter of Danton. Fabre claimed to have discovered a foreign plot in which Stanislas-Marie Maillard and Anacharsis Cloots , among others, were implicated as agents. This succeeded in casting suspicion on the Hebertist faction. However, Fabre himself was rapidly revealed to have been acting in part as part of an elaborate attempt to conceal his own involvement in a scandal surrounding the liquidation of the French East India Company and his credibility was thereby diminished.

In December 1793, the journalist Camille Desmoulins ?whose political opinions had long been aligned with those of Danton and Robespierre?began publishing a journal, Le Vieux Cordelier , aimed in part at the discrediting of the Hebertist faction. The journal's title alluded to the fact that the Cordeliers Club , formerly a moderate revolutionary society dominated by the policies of Danton, had become overrun by sans-culotte Hebertists and their sympathizers. Desmoulins attacked Hebert for bringing the French Republic into disrepute through his writings, claiming that "when the tyrants of Europe wish[ed] to vilify the Republic, to make their slaves believe that France is covered with the darkness of barbarism, that Paris [...] is peopled with Vandals", they reprinted Le Pere Duchesne . ^[7] He also mocked Hebert for having pretended to be a "man of the people" and a representative of the sans-culottes?when in fact he had profited handsomely from the contracts his follower Bouchotte had secured to distribute Le Pere Duchesne to the armies. ^[8] In turn, Hebert accused Desmoulins of hypocrisy, pointing out that his current opposition to violence and extremism (in addition to attacking ultra-revolutionary excesses, Desmoulins had called for an end to the Terror) stood in sharp contrast to his support for such tactics in a 1789 pamphlet, Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens, which had advocated the execution of those opposed to revolution . The vitriolic exchange continued throughout the winter of 1793?1794, ultimately contributing to the downfall of both Desmoulins and Hebert.

Fall from power [ edit ]

Following the February 1794 recall of Hebertist deputy Jean-Baptiste Carrier from Nantes, where he had been engaged in mass executions to suppress the Vendeen revolts , the Hebertists attempted to stage a popular revolt, hoping to mimic that which had led to the downfall of the Girondins. On 4 March 1794, Carrier and Hebert veiled the bust of Liberty at the Cordeliers Club, declaring according to ritual a state of insurrection. They had hoped to demand that the National Convention expel Robespierre and his Montagnard supporters. ^[9] However, the city of Paris did not rise and the Paris Commune failed to provide military support for the coup.

The Hebertists were denounced by Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and Robespierre, and the leaders of the faction were arrested on 13 March 1794. ^[9] Some twenty of them, including Anacharsis Cloots , Pierre-Ulric Dubuisson , Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel , Jean Conrad de Kock , Antoine-Francois Momoro , Charles-Philippe Ronsin , Francois-Nicolas Vincent and Hebert himself were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal and convicted on 24 March 1794. They went to the guillotine that same evening. ^[10] Pierre Gaspard Chaumette followed a few days later, followed by Hebert's widow Marie Marguerite Francoise Hebert .

Other Hebertists, including Joseph Le Bon , Jean-Baptiste Carrier , Francois Chabot and Francois Hanriot , were to also fall victim to the guillotine on various dates in 1794 and 1795.

Notable Hebertists [ edit ]

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Gallery [ edit ]

• 
  Jacques Hebert
• 
  Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette
• 
  Francois Chabot
• 
  Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel
• 
  Antoine-Francois Momoro

References [ edit ]

• Claretie, Jules (1876). Camille Desmoulins and His Wife: Passages from the History of the Dantonists . London: Smith, Elder, & Co.
• Furet, Francois (1992). Revolutionary France, 1770-1880 . Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
• Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Scurr, Ruth (2006). Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution . New York: Owl Books.

Notes [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

• Tridon, Gustave (1871). Les Hebertistes: la Commune de Paris de 1793 . J. H. Briard.
• Furet, Francois; and Mona Ozouf, eds. (1989). A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution . pp. 363?369.
• Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989).
• Slavin, Morris (1994). The Hebertistes to the Guillotine: Anatomy of a "Conspiracy" in Revolutionary France . Louisiana State University Press. ISBN   0-8071-1838-9 .