Paine and the Abolition of the French Monarchy

Abstract

The Varennes crisis was the moment when Paine began openly to call for the abolition of monarchy. This chapter examines his role in this first republican movement which historiography has described as marginal and divided. Paine supported the Brissot-Condorcet republican campaign rather than that of the democratic Cordeliers. Paine’s contribution to the journal he edited with Condorcet and others was central, even if one considers the disagreements that surfaced among them. It was perhaps the moment, more than when Rights of Man was published in English and in French, when Paine’s name and authority became a byword for republican integrity in France. The chapter then looks into the interlude of Paine’s French decade as he stayed in England for the ensuing year. The lack of materials and especially of letters to document how Paine kept in touch with his French circles is a major problem. For the same reason, whether and how Paine’s election to the Convention in September 1792 was prepared and arranged by Paine's French contacts and friends is not known. Such a claim rather became a weapon in the arsenal of Montagnards later in 1793 when Paine had become more and more involved in the Revolution and in the work of the Convention.