Democratic Protest and Representative Government in Paris, 1789–92: The Growth of a Collaborative Relationship

From the early stages of the French Revolution, protesters attempted to gain voice before France’s newly elected representatives. Yet protesters would only slowly achieve legitimacy before the National Assembly, not becoming regularly acknowledged or received until 1792. To win greater acceptance, protesters developed a new set of tactics – political demonstrations, petition-campaigns, banquets, mass-meetings and club networks – to make their demands in more controlled, reasoned, and usually nonviolent fashions before Revolutionary authorities.  This project, contesting an historiography almost exclusively focused on protester violence, through both a reconstructed data-set of over seven hundred fifty protests and a close reading of debates, looks to explore the development of this collaborative relationship. Elaborating a new associational world, borrowed in part from Anglo-American traditions but reaching a level of influence never before seen, Parisian sans-culottes would help direct the Revolution`s radicalization.