French revolutionary calendar start year 7
In 1792, a commission made up of a couple mathematicians, a naval geographer, two astronomers, a horticulturalist, a poet, and a handful of politicians was convened and got to work developing a new, revolutionary calendar. In other words, reason was the new reason for the season, so the seasons had to be changed. In short, the old system of measuring days and counting hours flew in the face of Enlightenment rationality - a central pillar of revolutionary ideology. Moreover, French radicals, newly enamored of the metric system, found the whole 24/7/365 thing deeply unappealing. Days of the week were structured around religious practice and, making matters worse, the Church devoted every day of the year to a specific saint. Months named after ancient gods smacked of superstition and paganism. It’s hard to imagine the Gregorian calendar (the one we use today) seeming anything but innocuous - but to a bunch of very excitable revolutionaries in 1791 it was très réactionnaire. You know, just the most basic categories we organize our lives around. The new order sought to eliminate any remaining trace of the Ancien Régime, and central to these efforts was the implementation of a new calendar and a totally overhauled system of time measurements. But somewhere in that narrative the massive extent of the social and cultural transformation in late 18th-century France gets lost. The aristocracy was overthrown, the church was banned, people were beheaded. We’ve all committed to memory a history class reduction of the highlights of the French Revolution. If they were waking up at 6 AM, say to get a head start on rioting over bread, to show up for an early execution, or to just go to their usual job doing the same physical drudgery they’d been doing before the Revolution, it wasn’t actually 6 AM. It was the Celery Day of Brumaire, in Year Two of the French Era. (Revised, mind you, since the Revolutionary Calendar was not introduced until November 24th 1793.On the morning of October 24th, 1793, the citoyens of the recently established French Republic - aristocrats and peasants alike - awoke to find that time had changed. (Not too many problems, mind you, on account of the calendar's only being in use for a period of fourteen years.)Īnd when did that period begin? Why, they counted starting from the establishment of the first French Republic on September 22nd, 1792, which went down in revised history as 1 Vendemiaire of the year 1 of the Republic. The Republican year was supposed to begin upon autumnal equinox (+- September 22nd) but since this isn't always the same problems arose from the woodwork as the years ticked by. Jour de la révolution ( Revolution Day) (the leap day) The 5 or 6 additional days following the last day of Fructidor went a little like this:Ħ. The ten days of each décade were named fairly straightforwardly Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi.
sans-culottes) get a whiff of something rotten when the work-week stretches to 150% what it used to be. Those months were:Įach month was divided into three décades of 10 days, of which the final day was a day of rest - an attempt to de-Christianize the calendar unsuccessful because it left a rest day only one in ten rather than one in seven.
To compensate for the last 5.24 days of the year, five - sometimes six - additional days were put in the calendar at the end of the year (which was around the 22nd of September - or the 1st of Vendémiaire in Republican Calendar terms.)Īs the calendar only lasted for about 14 years, there was only ever three leap years, where the sixth additional day - Revolution day - existed - in the years 3, 7 and 11.Ī Republican year consisted of 365 or 366 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days each, followed by 5 or 6 additional days. This was an attempt to de- Christianize the calendar, but it was an unpopular move, as it reduced the resting days from 1 out of 7 to 1 out of 10. There were no weeks - instead each month was divided into three décades of 10 days, of which the final day was a day of rest. The French also established a new clock, in which the day was divided in ten hours of a hundred minutes of a hundred seconds - exactly 100,000 seconds per day.Īs in most calendars, the year had 12 months - each one of 30 days. It was used again briefly during under the Paris Commune in 1871. Was officially adopted in France on Octoand abolished on 1 January 1806 by Emperor Napoleon I.