The Thermidorian Reaction

The fall of Robespierre and his allies brought about a political reaction against the ‘Terror’ and Jacobinism. In the south of France this often led to political executions (see below), but in Paris the 2–3,000 individuals who comprised what is known as the Gilded Youth, right-wing thugs, confined themselves to beating up their enemies, the Jacobins. Their headquarters was the Café de Chartres in the Palais Royal. Much like the sans-culottes had sometimes been used by the Jacobins, the Gilded Youth were used by the Thermidorians to terrorise their political opponents. This extract from the memoirs of Georges Duval (1772 or 1777–1853), a playwright who lived in Paris during the Revolution, gives an indication of who made up the Gilded Youth, and recounts their attack on the Jacobin Club in November 1794.

Fréron’s Gilded Youth,¹ which was not in the least gilded, were called that because of their tone, their manners and the cleanliness of their dress which was in marked contrast with the language, the vulgar manners, and the official filthiness of the Jacobin costume. It was made up of all the young people who belonged to the upper classes of Paris society which had more or less suffered from the Revolution, several of whom had relatives or friends who had drowned in that enormous shipwreck [that is, the Terror]. It was also made up of all the clerks of notaries, solicitors or appraisers, almost all the merchants’ clerks, and finally all those who belonged to the honourable bourgeoisie. United, they formed in the middle of Paris a large enough army for the Convention to count on to oppose, if the occasion arose, the Jacobin masses who, in spite of the defeat of their leaders, were still solid and threatening. Up till then, however, the gilded youth …had limited themselves to teasing the Jacobins, to singing the ‘Réveil du peuple’ in the streets and the public promenades, and to making honourable amends to actors whose patriotic fervour had risen a few degrees too much during the course of the Revolution. But Barras, Fréron, Tallien, Goupilleau de Fontenay and Merlin de Thionville did not go to the trouble to train us, to discipline us, and to teach us the use of arms in order to carry out these vulgar exploits, or to parade in the streets crying out, ‘Down with the Jacobins!’ or to become the theatre police. The time was approaching when we were to be called upon to do great things, when our good will and our military talents were going to be seriously put to the test. Up till now I have told you about encounters that were hardly worth calling skirmishes; now let me tell you about sieges and combats.

[Duval goes on to say how Fréron stirred them up with a rousing speech at their general headquarters.]

This short harangue fired us up, made us enthusiastic, and we replied with the unanimous cry: ‘To the Jacobin Club, to the Jacobins!’ We crossed the rue Saint-Honoré in the greatest silence, Fréron and Tallien at our head. A few officers and a few soldiers devoted to the Convention joined us, and by the time we reached the courtyard of the Jacobin Club our gathering was all that more imposing. At our approach, [Jacobin] brothers and friends had closed all the doors and were singing the ‘Marseillaise’ at the top of their voices; we replied with the ‘Réveil du peuple,’ and summoned them to open their doors. Their only reply was to throw at us benches, desks and fairly large stones which they had procured in advance, probably in the expectation of the siege which they were then subjected to. A few of us were wounded by these projectiles. … in the meantime, the doors were still closed, the Jacobins shut up in their hall, and the siege dragged on. We were about to mount an assault by the windows when the besieged made a sortie. Then there really was a free for all, and prisoners were taken on both sides. The Jacobins took theirs into the hall; we locked ours, among whom were several sisters, in the former refectory of the order, and put guards on the door. Since new summonses proved useless, several assailants climbed through the windows. They penetrated into the rostrums occupied by the Jacobin sisters of the fraternal society. As they peaceably crossed the rostrums to get to the hall, the shrews attacked them, armed with knives, long knitting needles and open scissors with which they wounded a few of our men. After defending ourselves, we prepared to administer them a small punishment. Since we hesitated about what sort [of punishment], Martinville cried out: ‘Good God, my friends, treat these hussies the same way they treated the venerable Sisters of the Charity of the Hôtel Dieu; let’s whip them.’ Fear took hold of them; they called their brothers for help, but these were occupied defending the entry to the hall which was about to be forced, and paid no attention to their cries, and the punishment was applied in extenso. I must say, however, as a truthful narrator, that the flagellation was very light, and that only the modesty of these ladies suffered. And if one considers that these women were none other than those abominable Furies of the guillotine, whose sole daytime occupation was to accompany those unfortunate victims to the scaffold with their yells and shouts, and who came in the evening to the Jacobin Club to knit and applaud the propositions of massacres which succeeded each other daily, one could say that Fréron’s Gilded Youth was far from giving them their just deserts.

The Jacobins were still holding out in their hall, and were not giving up. The Committees of Public Safety and General Security, which had ordered and directed the action, and to which we reported the state of affairs minute by minute, realised that the time had come to finish things off. To this end, they sent Barras, Goupilleau de Fontenay, Bourdon de l’Oise and Merlin de Thionville who arrived on the spot escorted by a few artillerymen to whom they gave the order to break down the doors. It took only a moment. We entered the hall at the double; and the brothers and friends, struck with the terror they had so long inspired in others, fled by all the exits, with no less agility than the representatives of the people assembled in the Orangerie at Saint Cloud, on 18 Brumaire, fled at the sight of Bonaparte and his grenadiers, abandoning their Carmagnoles and their red [phrygian] bonnets, as promptly as the deputies threw away their tricolour sashes and their senatorial cloaks in the bushes through which they ran to save themselves.

Source: Georges Duval, Souvenirs thermidoriens, 2 vols (Paris, 1844), vol. 2, pp. 10–12.https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781032618814/e9ac31eb-0a68-4fdc-b417-e6e5b1e67c6c/content/fig17_Unfig_001.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>