Transforming Time: The Republican Calendar

Image: "Calendrier Republicain"; Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution.

Perhaps no transformation of the French Revolution was as ambitious as the attempt to reorganize time along the lines of Reason and Nature. According to its sponsors, this was a necessary consequence of the "regenration of the French people [and] the establishment of the Republic": as in so much else, revolutionaries exprienced a keen crisis of symbolism in 1792 when the monarchy was abolished, and strove to remake every aspect of common life in a new image, untainted by the stain of France's past.

To this end, a commission headed by the poet Fabre d'Eglantine proposed a new calendar based on the number ten: the year would begin on 22 September 1793 (under the old reckoning), the day on which the monarchy was abolished and the Republic decreed. The year would be divided into ten-day weeks (décades), three of which would comprise a month; twelve, thirty-day months would be followed by five complementary days; every four years, an extra leap day or Franciade would be inserted. The names of the months would be changed to reflect the passing of the seasons:

AUTUMN: Vendémiaire (Vintage) Brumaire (Fog) Frimaire (Frost)	WINTER: Nivôse (Snow) Pluviôse (Rain) Ventôse (Wind)
SPRING: Germinal (Buds) Floréal (Flowers) Prairial (Meadow)	SUMMER: Messidor (Harvest) Thermidor (Heat) Fructidor (Fruit)