From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
During the
French Revolution
,
moderantisme
(
French:
[m?de???tism]
) or the
faction des moderes
(faction of the moderates) was the name the
Montagnards
gave to their relatively more moderate opponents, first the
Girondins
and then the
Dantonists
. Moderantisme was denounced before the
Jacobin
and the
Cordeliers
clubs, who then led the first attacks on it in 1794.
Jacobin and Cordelier orators soon demanded that the
guillotine
be used against those they saw as trying to stop the Revolution. One day,
Carrier
shouted "The monsters! They want to break down the scaffolds ? but, citizens, never forget, those who want no guillotines are those who should feel that they are worthy of the guillotine!".
Camille Desmoulins
, who came to found the newspaper
le Vieux Cordelier
in which he begged for clemency with
Georges Danton
's consent, from then on laid himself open to their hatred and vengeance.
On 5 April 1794, the leaders of the moderate party were guillotined and moderantisme was returned to power after
Maximilien Robespierre
's fall and its turn was to once again hold sway against the Montagnards who still supported Robespierre, with the
Thermidorian Reaction
done in the name of moderantisme. The crimes committed in
Le Midi
were also committed by men who claimed the title of moderes, although this did not stop them carrying out excessive acts of violence.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Elphege Boursin and Augustin Challamel (1893).
Dictionnaire de la revolution francaise
. Paris: Jouvet et cie. p. 351.