dise or commodities of prime necessity, under any name or commission whatsoever, is prohibited upon all the frontiers, salt excepted.

43. Decree upon the Revolutionary Government.

October 10, 1793 (19 Vendémiaire, Year II). Duvergier, Lois, VI, 219-220.

This decree was adopted by the Convention at the time when it decided, on account of the critical condition of the country, not to put the Constitution of the Year I into operation immediately. As a sort of provisional constitution it served as the basis of government until replaced by the great decree of 14 Frimaire (December 4, 1793). See No. 45. The meaning of the term revolutionary government can be deduced from the character of the arrangements here provided and should be carefully noted.

REFERENCES. Stephens. French Revolution, II, 280-281; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Generale, VIII, 196-197; Aulard, Revolution Francaise, 314-315, 366-368.

Of the Government.

I. The provisional Government of France is revolutionary until the peace.

2. The provisional executive council, the ministers, the generals, and the constituted bodies are placed under the surveillance of the committee of public safety, which shall render account of them to the Convention every eight days.

3. Every measure of security must be taken by the provisional executive council, under the authorisation of the committee, which shall render an account thereof to the Convention.

4. The revolutionary laws must be executed rapidly. The Government shall correspond immediately with the districts upon the measures of public safety.

5. The generals-in-chief shall be appointed by the National Convention, upon the presentation of the committee of public safety.

6. The inertia of the Government being the cause of the reverses, the limits for the execution of the decrees and measures of public safety are fixed. Violation of these limits shall be punished as an attack upon liberty.

Subsistences.

7. The table of the production of grain for each district, made by the committee of public safety, shall be printed and distributed to all the members of the Convention, in order to be put into operation without delay.

8. The needs of each department shall be estimated by approximation and secured. The surplus shall be subject to the requisitions.

9. The table of the productions of the Republic shall be addressed to the representatives of the people, the ministers of the navy and the interior, and the administrators of subsistences. They must make requisitions in the districts which shall have been assigned to them. Paris shall be a special district.

10. The requisitions in behalf of the unfruitful departments shall be authorised and regulated by the provisional executive council.

II. Paris shall be supplied with provisions on March 1st for one year.

General Security.

12. The direction and employment of the revolutionary army shall be constantly regulated in a way to put down the counter-revolutionaries.

The committee of public safety shall present a plan for this purpose.

13. The council shall send garrisons into the cities where counter-revolutionary movements shall arise. The garrisons shall be paid and supported by the rich of these cities until the peace.

Finances.

14. There shall be created a tribunal and a jury of accounts. This tribunal and this jury shall be appointed by the National Convention; they shall be charged to proceed against all those who have managed the public funds since the revolution and to demand of them an account of their fortunes.

The organization of this tribunal is recommitted to the committee of legislation.

44. Decree for the Republican Calendar.

November 24, 1793 (4 Frimaire, Year II). Duvergier, Lois, VI, 294-302.

This is the first of two decrees by which the republican calendar displaced the Gregorian calendar. The later decree provided additional details, but did not essentially modify the scheme here presented. Until about 1803 the new calendar was used to the entire exclusion of the old; then for a time the two were used together. The republican calendar was not altogether abandoned until January 1, 1806. Both the general scheme of the calendar and the reasons given for its adoption should be noticed.

REFERENCES. Stephens. Yale Review, IV, 326-330; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Generale, VIII, 193-194; Stephens, French Revolution, II, 561, has a concordance of the two calendars to the end of the Year VIII.

1. The era of the French counts from the foundation of the Republic, which occurred September 22, 1792, of the common era, the day when the sun arrived at the true equinox of autumn, in entering into the sign of Libra, at nine o'clock, eighteen minutes, thirty seconds, A. M., for the Observatory of Paris.

2. The common era is abolished for civil uses.

3.

Each year commences at midnight with the day on which the true equinox of autumn falls for the Observatory of Paris.

4. The first year of the Republic commenced at midnight September 22, 1792, and ended at midnight, separating the 21st from the 22d of September, 1793.

5. The second year commenced September 22, 1793, at midnight, the true equinox of autumn being reached that day for the Observatory of Paris at three o'clock, eleven minutes, thirty-eight seconds, P.M.

6. The decree which fixed the commencement of the second year of the Republic at January 1, 1793, is repealed; all documents dated the second year of the Republic, passed within the current 1st of January to September 21st inclusive, are regarded as belonging to the first year of the Republic.

7. The year is divided into twelve equal months of thirty days each after the twelve months follow five days in order to complete the ordinary year; these five days do not belong to any month.

8. Each month is divided into three equal parts of ten days each, which are called decades.

9. The names of the days of the decade are: primidi, duodi, tridi, quartidi, quintici, sextidi, septidi, octidi, nonidi, decadi. T The names of the months are, for the autumn, l'endemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire; for the winter, Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose; for the spring, Germinal, Floreal, Prairial; for the summer, Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor.

The last five days are called the Sans-Culottides.

10. The ordinary year receives one day more, according as the position of the equinox requires it, in order to maintain the coincidence of the civil year with the celestial movements. This day, called Day of the Revolution, is placed at the end of the year, and forms the sixth of the Sans-Culottides.

The period of four years, at the end of which this addition of a day is ordinarily necessary, is called the Franciade, in memory of the revolution, which, after four years of effort, has brought France to a republican government.

The fourth year of the Franciade is called Sextile.

II. The day from midnight to midnight is divided into ten parts or hours, each part into ten others, and so on to the smallest commensurable portion of its duration. The hundredth part of the hour is called decimal minute; the hundredth part of the minute is called second decimal. This article shall be in force for public documents only to count from 1 Vendémiaire, Year III of the Republic.

12. The committee of public instruction is charged to cause the new calendar to be printed in different forms, with simple instructions in order to explain the principles and usage of it.

13. The calendar, as well as the instruction, shall be sent to the administrative bodies, the municipalities, the tribunals. the justices of the peace and all public officers, the armies, the popular societies and all colleges and schools. The provisional executive council shall cause it to be transmitted to the ministers, consuls, and other agents of France in foreign countries.

14. All public acts shall be dated according to the new organization of the year.

15. The professors, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses,

fathers and mothers of families, and all those who direct the education of children shall be diligent in explaining to them the new calendar, in conformity with the instructions which are herewith annexed.

16.

Every four years, or every Franciade, upon the Day of the Revolution, republican games shall be celebrated, in memory of the French Revolution.

Instructions upon the era of the Republic and upon the division of the year, decreed by the National Convention, in order to be put at the end of the decree:

First Part.

Of the motives which have determined the decree.

The French nation, oppressed and debased during a great many centuries by the most insolent despotism, has finally risen to a perception of its rights and the power to which its destinies call it. Each day for five years of a revolution, of which the annals of the world do not afford a parallel, it has been purging itself of all that defiles it or impedes its progress, which must be as majestic as rapid. It wishes that its regeneration should be complete, in order that its years of liberty and glory may be distinguished even more by their duration in the history of peoples than its years of slavery and humiliation in the history of kings.

Soon the arts are going to be called to new progress by the uniformity of weights and measures, whose exclusive and unvariable standard, taken in the measure even of the earth, will cause the disappearance of the diversity, incoherence, and inexactitude which have existed up to the present in that part of the national industry.

The arts and history, for which time is a necessary element, were also demanding a new measure of duration disengaged from all the errors which credulity and a superstitious routine have handed down to us from the centuries of ignorance.

It is this new standard which the National Convention today presents to the French people; it must show at the same time both the impress of the intelligence of the nation and the character of our revolution by its exactitude, by its simplicity, and its disengagement from every opinion which may not be approved by reason and philosophy.