Club de Clichy
Clichy Club Club de Clichy | |
|---|---|
| Leader | |
| Founded | 28 July 1794 |
| Banned | 5 September 1797 |
| Preceded by | Feuillant Club |
| Ideology | Anti-abolitionism[citation needed] Conservatism Laissez-faire Monarchism |
| Political position | Right-wing |
| Colours | Blue |
Means of revenues were severalaristocratssuch asCharles Maurice de Talleryrand,Germaine de StaëlandPrince of Condé | |
TheClichy Club(French:Club de Clichy) was apolitical groupactive during theFrench Revolutionfrom 1794 to 1797.
History
[edit]During the French Revolution, the Clichy Club formed in 1794 following the fall ofMaximilien Robespierre,9 Thermidor an II (27 July 1794). The political club that came to be called the Clichyens met in rooms in the rue de Clichy, which led west towards the fashionable Parisian suburb ofClichy.The club was initially constituted around the dismissed deputés of theNational Convention,most of whom had been imprisoned during theReign of Terror.Under theFrench Directorate,they began to play an increasingly important role on thepolitical right,embracingmoderatismrepublicansandmonarchists,namely those who still believed that in aconstitutional monarchybased in part on theBritish modellay the best future for France. The main Clichyens wereFrançois Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas,Jean-Charles PichegruandCamille Jordan.[1]Among other members wereGuillaume-Mathieu Dumas,Pierre Paul Royer-Collardand GeneralAmédée Willot.With the closure of theJacobin Clubin November 1794, the danger from thepolitical leftappeared to subside and moderates drifted away from the Clichy Club, which was dormant for several years.
Under the Directorate, thesalons of Parisbegan cautiously to reconvene under the guidance of women whose fortunes had not been ruined during the Revolution's first decade—the private sphere became politicized "one of the few sanctuaries of free exchange" observes the historian of the salons as a political force as the public sphere was not free.[2]Within the span of political opinion, those members of the Clichy Club who figured among theMonarchienssignalled their party loyalties in the long black waistcoats they wore.[3]Madame de Staëlattempted in hersalon mixteto bridge the social and political differences between the Monarchiens of the Clichy Club and factions who were more securely associated with the new regime, such as those who congregated withBenjamin Constantat the Hôtel de Salm or inCharles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's circle.
In a rearguard reaction to preserve the rapidly dissolving powers of the Directorate in the face of public opinion, after 205 of 216 conventionnels who ran for re-election in 1797 were rejected by the limited group of enfranchised voters (though two of the Clichyens were seated),[4]the extremists among the Clichy Club were intent on turning out the Directors and repealing Revolutionary legislation, especially that directed against the returnedémigrésand theCatholic Church.
The Clichy Club seemed to be in a position to dominate theCouncil of Five Hundredthrough the newly elected deputies. Divisions among the group pitted about 80 intransigent partisans for the return ofmonarchy,headed byJean-Louis Gibert des Molières,against moderates around Mathieu Dumas, who avoided confrontations with the five-man Directorate. The apex of the Clichyens' influence was in the election to the Directorate ofFrançois-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy.
Napoleon Bonaparte's reaction was a proclamation to the army denouncing the Clichyens and matters rapidly evolved in thecoup d'état of 18 Fructidor.On 3 September 1797, a royalist conspiracy was announced and the following morning Pichegru, still in correspondence with thePrince de Condé,[5]was among those arrested. However, few others among the Clichyens were in such treasonable relations with theroyalist pretenderand his advisors.[6]On the fifth, he was among those ordered for deportation toGuyaneand the new party rapidly consolidated its power. Among its first actions was to close and ban the Clichy Club, though it hesitated to treat other more private salons—though kept under close police surveillance—as political associations, which the Directorate had previously banned as "private associations occupying themselves with political questions".[7]
In thehistory of slavery,the Clichyens's nucleus of French colonial planters coordinated a common voice againstabolitionas detrimental to theFrench colonies.Public statements of the Clichy Club generally appeared in the right-wing press,L'Éclair,Le Véridique,Le Messager du soirandLes nouvelles politiques.[8]
Electoral results
[edit]| Council of Five Hundred | |||||
| Election year | No. of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
No. of overall seats won |
+/– | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1795 | Unknown (2nd) | 36 | 160 / 500
|
–
|
|
| 1797 | Unknown (1st) | 59 | 387 / 657
|
 227 |
|
References
[edit]- ^Robert Matteson Johnston,The French revolution: a short historyp. 248.
- ^Steven D. Kale,French Salons: High society and political sociability from the Ancien Régime to the revolution of 1848(Johns Hopkins Press) 2004, p. 72.
- ^Kale.
- ^Huntley Dupre,Lazare Carnot, Republican Patriot(Mississippi Valley Press) 1940, p. 243.
- ^Adolphe Thiers,Histoire de la révolution françaisevol. 9, p. 146.
- ^A. Thiers suggests the deputé Roland-Gaspard Lemerer, a certain Mersan, Jacques Imbert-Colomès, Pichegru and perhaps Willot.
- ^Kale, p. 73.
- ^For general context see Jeremy D. Popkin,The Right-Wing Press in France, 1792-1800(University of North Carolina Press) 1980.
