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Columbia Encyclopedia

Cordeliers, political club of the French Revolution. Founded (1790) as the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, it was called after its original meeting place, the suppressed monastery of the Cordeliers (Franciscan Recollects). It provided a political base for Georges Danton and Jean Paul Marat. In 1792-93, after Danton left the club, it was instrumental in the destruction of the Girondists. After Marat's assassination the club was led by Jacques René Hébert and it drifted to the extreme left. Controlling the Paris commune, the Hébertists seemed a threat to the power of Maximilien Robespierre, who had them executed during the Reign of Terror. The club dissolved after Hébert was executed (Mar., 1794).

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The Cordeliers, also known as the Club of the Cordeliers and formally as the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen comprised a populist society during the French Revolution. It was formed by the members of the district of the Cordeliers, when the National Constituent Assembly suppressed the 60 districts of Paris to replace them with 48 sections (May 21, 1790).

The club held its meetings at first in the church of the monastery of the Cordeliers, - the name given in France to the Franciscan Observantists, - now the Dupuytren museum of anatomy in connection with the school of medicine. From 1791, however, the Cordeliers met in a hall in the rue Dauphine, as well as in the Café Procope.

The aim of the society was to keep an eye on the government; the emblem on its papers was simply an open eye. It sought as well to encourage revolutionary measures against the monarchy and the old régime, and it was especially responsible for popularising the motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité ("Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"), in May 1791, following a speech on the Army by the marquis de Guichardin . It took an active part in the movement against the monarchy of June 20 and August 10, 1792; but after that date the more moderate leaders of the club, Georges Danton, Fabre d'Églantine and Camille Desmoulins, seem to have ceased attending, and the enragés or Hébertists obtained control, such as J. R. Hébert, F. N. Vincent, C. P. H. Ronsin and A. F. Momoro. Its influence was especially seen in the creation of the revolutionary army destined to assure provisions for Paris, and in the establishment of the worship of Reason.

The Cordeliers were combated by those revolutionists who wished to end the Terror, especially by Danton, and by Camille Desmoulins in his journal Le Vieux Cordelier. The club disowned Danton and Desmoulins and attacked Robespierre for his "moderation", but the new insurrection which it attempted failed, and its leaders were guillotined on March 24, 1794, from which date nothing is known of the club. Little is known of its composition.

The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in Jean Maurice Tourneux, Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution (1894), i. (on the trial of the Hébertists) Nos. 4204-4210, ii. Nos. 9795-9834 and 11,813. See also A. Bougeart Les Cordeliers, documents pour servir a l'histoire de la Révolution (Caen, 1891); G. Lenotre, Paris révolutionnaire (Paris, 1895); G. Tridon, Les Hébertists, plainte contre une calomnie de l'histoire (Paris, 1864). The last-named author was condemned to four months' prison; his work was reprinted in 1871. The inventory of the pictures found in 1790 in the monastery of the Cordeliers was published by J. Guiffrey in Nouvelles archives de l’art francais, viii., 2nd series, iii. (1880).