Desmoulins vs. Brissot: an episode in the History of French Revolutionary journalism

The article is devoted to one of the episodes in the history of French revolutionary journalism — the polemical confrontation between the leader of the Girondists, J.-P. Brissot, and a supporter of the more radical Montagnard party, C. Desmoulins. The texts of periodicals such as The French Patriot and the Tribune of Patriots, pamphlets by Desmoulins and Brissot, as well as speeches by the Jacobin ideologue Robespierre, are considered. Brissot, attacking the far-left members of the Jacobin Club and the Convention, wrote about the existence among the revolutionaries of a disorganizing party that "wants to destroy everything and build nothing," "a society without a government and a government without power," "not constitutions, but revolutions." Desmoulins, like Robespierre, accused the Girondins of working for the English crown and wanting to create a "federal government", thus dismembering the country, which, in fact, constituted an accusation of high treason. The methodology of the research is complex, which uses general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, the biographical method, comparative historical and descriptive methods, as well as the method of discursive analysis, which combines the study of linguistic features of the source text and various extralinguistic aspects. The article examines the relationship between legality and revolutionary legal awareness. The revolutionaries abolished the legal norms of the Old Regime and replaced them with an intuitive sense of the danger threatening the Revolution. The verdict was passed not on the basis of actual criminal activity, but on the basis of an inner conviction of the defendant's guilt before the Republic. In his texts against the Brissotines, Desmoulins did not rely on facts proving their guilt or on legal norms, but tried to emotionally arouse hatred of the enemies of the Revolution in his readers. The controversy between Desmoulins and Brissot was based not so much on ideological differences as on a desire to secure a leading position in the National Convention. In this sense, Desmoulins was an expression of the views and political ambitions of the entire Jacobin group, in whose hands Desmoulins' pamphlets were the strongest weapon and contributed to the fall and execution of the Girondists.

polemics, French Revolution, Girondins, Montagnards, Brissot, Desmoulins, Robespierre, Brissot Unmasked, History of the Brissotins, Jacobin Club