Germinal Drama
presented by Yasuhiro FUJIMURA
Germinal Drama is the series of accidents in 1794 during the French Revolution. Since fall in 1793,in the National Convention, the conflict between Hebert group and Danton group got intensified. Hebert group tried to tighten the campaign of terror, and Danton group sought for moderating that. Faced with these movements, Robespierre and Committee of Public Safety began to abolish those battles. At first, Hebert group was arrested during March 13th through 14th, 1794, and executed on March 24th. And next, from March 30th through 31st, the Committee arrested Danton group and they were executed on April 5th.
At the same time, the Committee abolished popular organizations. On March 27th, the Revolutionary Army was abolished, and according to the order of April 1st, the Commissioners to Corner was abolished. And at last, People’s Associations in each section were stopped. These series of incidents are called Germinal Drama.
About Germinal Drama, old researchers insisted that, by Germinal Drama, the relationship between revolutionary government and sans-culotte became worse. Especially, Hebert’s execution was shocking to people, because his group was expressing people’s hope and was popular among people.
However, in this thesis, the author tries to be the revisionist. He uses the reports of secret agents which were submitted to Home Minister. Those observers recorded people’s conversations, discussions and events. So these reports can be clue to look over public opinion. By researching public opinion, the conclusion will be far from that of old researchers.
At first, Hebert was already unpopular among people before his arrest, because one newspaper revealed that Hebert got bribes from Army Minister. And this article generated discourse such as “Hebert promoted by conspiracy” and even “the cause of famine is Hebert.” Moreover, the decisive incident was Hebert withdrew the proposal of riot. By his change of attitude, one image was established that Hebert group was powerless.
Thus, on the day of his arrest, “public opinion was separated,” but “supporters of Hebert were not majority.” But after his arrest, public opinion changed radically. People felt “deceived” by Hebert and began to express their angriness. Supporters of Hebert group became restricted to individual level. For the other people, “their angriness was universal.”
But as Hebert group was purged, new discourse was brought about. People began to think that “Hebert was marionette of bigger intrigue” or “behind Hebert, there is more dangerous enemies.” In that meaning, people in Paris were prepared for the next execution. And the purge of Danton was conducted in those situation and discourse, so the liquidation of Danton group was progressed like that of Hebert group.
On the other hand, the suspension of Revolutionary Army, the Commissioners to Corner and People’s Association didn’t bring about bad relation between the government and people. Above all, the abolition of Commissioners to Corner was insisted by Paris Commune which was regarded as the basement of popular movement. And activists in People’s Associations thought that, in order to accomplish the purpose of the government, the stop of the associations was acceptable. Moreover, general people regarded the abolishment of popular organizations as agreeable.
Thus, Germinal Drama is not the cause of the people's estrangement from revolutionary government. Rather, by the execution of Hebert、people felt "deceived" and began to trust on the National Convention and the Committee of public safety. So the conclusion of Germinal Drama was the strong bond between people and the government. And the crisis of Themidor is considered with the facts after Germinal Drama.
Noted by MATSUO Kazuaki
Question: What does the word “report” mean, or what is the “one journal” in detail which you referred to?
Answer: That is the journal named “vieux cordeliers” which was sold and connected to Danton group.
Opinion: Newspapers must be distinguished from public opinion in the specific of the journal. It must be took care that people’s opinions on policy are fragile or changeable, and the concept of people’s opinions are not clear. Do make clear that what “the journal” is and what background does the journal have. The journal in 19th century is clear about its political opinion.
Question: Did the author take care of the bias caused from the connection between the journal and a certain political group?
Answer: The author wrote “we have to take care of the public opinion,” and I think the author pay much attention to those points.
Question: How many pages does this article have?
Answer: About40 pages.
Question: Who are “the reporters,” or who did say that?
Answer: They might not be the member of journals but the observers were elected by Home ministry.
Question: Are “the reporters” from government?
Answer: The author writes only the reporter’s name, so I can't say who they were.
Opinion: It is general idea that the information such as person’s personality and background must be written.
Question: Who were the supporters of those political groups?
Answer: Hebert group was supported by poor people.
Opinion: Danton group mainly supported upper-middle class.
Question: Who does the word “people” mean used in presentation or resume?
Answer: In an easy word, they were Sans-culottes. That does not mean people called Bourgeoisie.
Opinion: The concept of the term “people” was invented through this revolution and the word“people” means something special. Be careful of the definition of “people.”
Question: Which contrastive ideas do you support, old one or new one?
Answer: Of course new one. It is understandable and convincing. When I read the book of old researchers, ironically, I found that their comments provided evidences to this thesis.
1, About Mr.Fujimura's presentation He prepared lots of hand-outs and slides on powerpoint for the presentation. That is quite good point. And he presented his conclusion clearly in the presentation, so I could easily understood what he discussed. But, one bad point is that he didn't know why he chose this theme. To make it clear why we choose the theme is very important and difficult. With more effort at this point, he will have good result. ｂｙYanauchi Fumio
2, Because of the problem about his material article, and the discussion time was almost only the talk about that article, I don't write about its contents. As for the use of power point, it seemed to have been insufficient for assist the speech. It often didn't correspond with talk.
3, Through his presentation and this class, we focused on a fundamental question: what is the matter of the topic which we pick up? In the course of our study, we are always asked why we take up the subject and what historical issue does the subject have. To make these problems clear, anytime we must pay attention, when picking up the subject, to the starting point where we are interested in the theme and to what historical or present-social meaning does the theme have.
4, Thank you for your presentation. I think it's very hard for you to make a presentation for all 90 minutes by yourself. I think you prepared for your presentation very well and you studied about French Revolution very well. I think you know much about French Revolution,but (this applies also to myself ) if we want to use special date , association or name, we absolutely define whether the date is availabe or not, who was included in the association, or how the name is used, I think. This is what I also have to pay attention to. Now we have to prepare for December presentation. Let's work hard.
5, I thought that his presentation was very good. He prepared for it. So I evaluated his effort to make a great presentation. But for me, other students who questioned him about the contents were greater. We, the third grade students need to find the purpose of the subject and learn to doubt trivial things. He has the great inquiring mind, so I think that he'd better broaden his views and challenge again.