It was a revolution largely run by sociopaths. One, Robespierre, the “messianic schoolmaster,” saw it as an opportunity for the moral instruction of the nation. Everything would be politicized, no part of the citizen’s life left untouched. As man was governed by an “empire of images,” in the words of a Jacobin intellectual, the new régime would provide new images to shape new thoughts. There would be pageants, and new names for things. They would change time itself! The first year of the new Republic was no longer 1792, it was Year One. To detach farmers from their superstitions, their Gregorian calendar and its saints’ days, they would rename the months. The first month would be in the fall, named for the harvest. There would be no more weeks, just three 10-day periods each month.
Friday, July 26, 2019
Worth pondering …
… What Were Robespierre’s Pronouns? - WSJ.
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To tell the laboring classes that they must work more is not a great way to popularity for a revolutionary party.
ReplyDeleteI spend a certain amount of most working days using the "emacs" text-editing program. Its calendar mode enables me to tell you that by the French Revolutionary calenar, this is 8 Thermidor of the year 227. (French Revolutionary is only one of many non-Gregorian calendars provided.)