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1792 French National Convention election

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FieldValue
countryFrench First Republic
typeparliamentary
previous_election1791 French legislative election
previous_year1791
next_election1795 French legislative election
next_year1795
election_dateAugust 1792 (primary elections)
September 1792 (electoral colleges)
seats_for_electionAll 749 seats in the National Convention
turnout3,360,000
image_size130x130px
image1Portrait Lazare Carnot.jpg
leader1Lazare Carnot
party1The Plain
image2Robespierre.jpg
leader2Maximilien Robespierre
party2The Mountain
image3François Bonneville - Portrait de Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793), journaliste et conventionnel - P2608 - Musée Carnavalet.jpg
leader3Jacques Pierre Brissot
party3Girondins
titlePresident of the Assembly
posttitleSubsequent President of the Convention
before_electionPierre-Joseph Cambon
before_partyJacobin
after_electionJérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
after_partyGirondins

September 1792 (electoral colleges)

Legislative elections were held in France in August and September 1792 to elect deputies to the National Convention. with the electoral colleges subsequently voting from 2 to 19 September. The elections established the nation's first government without the monarch, Louis XVI. On 20 September the Convention gathered for the first time.

From 26 August the candidates were elected by an electoral college; royalist and Girondin candidates were boycotted. On the same day news reached Paris that the Prussian army had occupied Longwy. On 28 August the assembly ordered a curfew for the next two days. The city gates were closed; all communication with the country was stopped. On 29 August the Prussians attacked Verdun. When this news arrived it escalated panic in the capital; the situation was highly critical. In the afternoon of 2 September the September Massacres began.

The electoral colleges voted from 2 to 19 September and lasted three weeks. To be an elector a citizen had to be over 21, resident one year in his department and not a domestic servant. An elector could stand as a candidate in any constituency. To be a delegate or a deputy an elector had to be over 25. If at the first ballot no candidate received an absolute majority of votes cast, there was to be a second ballot at which only the top two candidates of the first could compete.

Campaign

According to Malcolm Crook, "Evidence of orchestrated attempts to intimidate rivals is not hard to find." In Paris the sections accepted a proposal by Robespierre four a two stage screening process that was initially targeted at monarchists but ended up excluding all Girondins.

Results

Around 3,360,000 voters participated in the elections. An absolute majority of the male deputies elected belonged to the Marais party, a political faction of vague but largely moderate policies. Although it is often stated that the Marais won around 389 seats, the leftist Montagnards led by Maximilien Robespierre won around 200 seats and the more moderate Girondin faction led by Jacques Pierre Brissot around 160 seats, there was no clear delineation of political affiliation and seat totals cannot be considered to be hard facts. Around 136 of the elected legislators joined the Jacobin club.

Aftermath

The Convention met for the first time on 21 September. Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve of the Girondins was elected President of the Convention, while Girondins secured most of the posts in the secretariat. However, the elections preceded the fall of the Girondins as a political faction, mainly because of the political and social unrest following the war started by the Girondin-dominated government in the spring of 1792.

References

References

  1. Primary elections to elect members of [[electoral colleges]] were held in August,Crook, 95
  2. [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k205053m/f13.image Assemblée électorale de Paris 2 septembre, p. XVI]
  3. (7 March 1996). "Elections in the French Revolution: An Apprenticeship in Democracy, 1789-1799". Cambridge University Press.
  4. [https://archive.org/details/larvolution00madeuoft L. Madelin, Chapter XXI, p. 252]
  5. Charavay, Étienne. (1905). "Assemblée électorale de Piemel Paris 2 septembre 1792-17 frimaire an II". D. Jouaust.
  6. (1989). "French electoral systems and elections since 1789". Gower.
  7. (7 March 1996). "Elections in the French Revolution: An Apprenticeship in Democracy, 1789-1799". Cambridge University Press.
  8. (28 May 2014). "The French Revolution and the Birth of Electoral Democracy". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
  9. Jonathan Israel, ''Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from the Rights of Man to Robespierre'', p. 274.
  10. (25 March 2014). "République jacobine - Terreur, guerre et gouvernement révolutionnaire 1792-1794. Nouvelle histoire d". Éditions Points.
  11. Ian Davidson. (2016). "The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny". Profile Books.
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