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Dials & Symbols Compiled by Fred Kats |
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The Republican Calendar
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Republican <-> Gregorian conversion. Names of the days of the Republican year. The Republican calendar and decimal time
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 DIALS |
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Combined traditional & decimal dial |
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Combined traditional & decimal dial with republican date. (click to enlarge) |
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Combined traditional & decimal dial showing
republican days of the week and month. (click to enlarge) |
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The 1789 Revolutionaries adopted a cap worn by ancient Persian soldiers and the inhabitants of Phrygia, as they saw it as a symbol of liberation i.e. being freed and purified of evil. They wore a high woollen cap, normally falling over the right side of the head. Its revolutionary significance stemmed from Roman custom, where newly emancipated slaves donned the cap to signify their transition to full citizenship. |
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) Phrygian Cap |
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 The Troyan prince Paris with Phrygian cap. |
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| The first Phrygian caps appeared on the heads of the French people a few months after the storming of the Bastille. They were made out of red woolen cloth and went with the striped clothes of the most fervent revolutionaries, the sans-culottes. Wearing the red cap was a way of publicly displaying one's patriotism. | |||||
 1792 The people forcing Louis XVI to wear the "Phrygian cap". |
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This cap was one of the star features of the historic day of 20th June 1792, when the common people surged into the Tuileries. In the angry crowd, which managed to reach the king himself, a municipal guard called Mouchet held out a Phrygian cap, on the end of a pike, to the monarch. The astounded descendant of Saint Louis did not know how to react. He grasped it and put it on his head. This gesture somewhat appeased the hostility of the assailants. |
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Eye |
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Vigilance, essence
and divine knowledge.
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) (click to enlarge) |
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It appears on (Comtoise) clocks during the early 'royal' period of the republic and during the 'restoration' (1814-1830) to express the (re)union of the people and their King. (symbole de l'union de trois ordres puis de peuple et de son Roi. Ref. René Schopping) It is also a symbol of fraternity, equality between citizens. Citizen to citizen, no hierarchy. |
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| The perfect accord and balance. | |||||
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| A set of rods bound in the
form of a bundle which contained an axe. The word fasces means
"bundle" and refers to the fact that it is a bundle of rods, which
surrounded an ax in the middle. In ancient Rome, the lictors carried
fasces before consul, predators and dictators, i.e.
magistrates that held imperium (which means that they had the right to
command and interpret the flight of the birds). Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. Power to the liberated people. Note: Fasces has also been the symbol of Italian fascists in the 20th century. |
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Eagles
'Consulaire' and 'Imperial' |
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An Imperial emblem. In Greek mythology the Eagle was attributed to Zeus (Jupiter) |
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Rooster
(cockerel) |
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Vigilance. |
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) Comtoise clock fronton with cockerel. The three Royal fleurs-de-lis symbols were scoured away during the Revolution. (click picture for more) |
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| Caesar called, what was later France, Gallia (Gaul), most likely because
the rebellious Celts used a rooster as symbol in their escutcheon.
The rooster played an important role as the revolutionary symbol, but it would become an official emblem under the July Monarchy and the Second Republic when it was seen on the pole of regiments' flags. In 1830, the "Gallic Rooster" replaced the fleur-de-lis as the national emblem, and it was again discarded by Napoleon III. The rooster is the emblem of (sponsored) French sports teams in international competitions. |
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STAR |
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) Star, pentagram. (click to enlarge) |
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| Restauration period (1814-1824) | |||||
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La Carmagnole (click here for lyrics and melody) |
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TABLE OF SYMBOLS |
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Anchor - Hope |
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THE
METRIC SYSTEM |
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 The new decimal units, 4 November 1800. 1. The litre, 2. the gram, 3. the metre, 4. the are (100 square metres), 5. the franc, and 6. the stère (1 cubic metre of wood). Courtesy: Paris Musées. |
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| As elsewhere in Europe, France’s old weights and
measures originated from a system used by the Romans, which had evolved
into a multitude of local variations. Enlightenment scholars were faced
with the task of reforming a jumble of 800 different units of measurement,
ranging from the toise to the lieue, including the
quart and the pinte. Some of these units were quite extravagant: in early 18th-century Bordeaux, a unit of land was defined by the distance a man’s voice could carry! It was better to have a loud voice if you wanted to be a landowner. There was little to no standardization: in Paris, for example, a pinte equaled 0.93 liters, while in Saint-Denis it was 1.46 liters. An aune, used to measure fabric, was based on the width of local looms and varied greatly. This chaotic system was prone to fraud and stifled both domestic and international trade. Courtesy: Jaz le Bon Temps |
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The Republican Calendar and Decimal time |
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1793 Decimal or Revolutionary time was
adopted by decree
of the National Convention in 1793. (more
on the adoption) It
stipulated that the Gregorian calendar should be abandoned and replaced by
the
Republican calendar which divided the day into ten hours each with
one hundred minutes and then further sub-divided into one hundred seconds.
1795 Despite the efforts of some of
the great horological minds the system was never really adopted and
clockmakers had no real reason to fully support it because their
Revolution clocks were useless outside France which ruined their export
trade. |
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The republican year commences the 22nd of september and ends the 21st of september. The years were numbered as follows:
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The year is divided in 12 equal months of 30 days each, plus 5 or 6 days called 'sans-culottides' (the days of the poor) which were renamed, after august 24 1794, 'complementary days'. (jours complémentaires) They were treated as Holidays, or Festival days and were named: |
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Each month was divided in three equal parts of 10 days named: |
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The names of the days of the decades were: |
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Each day was divided in: |
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INDEX
Type 'Ctrl + F' to find any word or number
on this page. |
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1) Les Heures
Revolutionnaires.
Yves Droz et Joseph Flores Edité par l'Afaha. |
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| 2) Cadrans de la Révolution, 1789-1800 Watch dials of the French Revolution, Zifferblätter der französischen Revolution, Roberto Panicali. Publisher: Scriptar Lausanne 1972 ISBN: B0000E810O 3) Decimal time history. by: John D. Hynes. 4) More on the ADOPTION of the new calendar. As to the New Calendar, we may say here rather than elsewhere that speculative men have long been struck with the inequalities and incongruities of the Old Calendar; that a New one has long been as good as determined on. Marechal the Atheist, almost ten years ago, proposed a New Calendar, free at least from superstition: this the Paris Municipality would now adopt, in defect of a better; at all events, let us have either this of Marechal`s or a better,--the New Era being come. Petitions, more than once, have been sent to that effect; and indeed, for a year past, all Public Bodies, Journalists, and Patriots in general, have dated First Year of the Republic. It is a subject not without difficulties. But the Convention has taken it up; and Romme, as we say, has been meditating it; not Marechal`s New Calendar, but a better New one of Romme`s and our own. Romme, aided by a Monge, a Lagrange and others, furnishes mathematics; Fabre d`Eglantine furnishes poetic nomenclature: and so, on the 5th of October 1793, after trouble enough, they bring forth this New Republican Calendar of theirs, in a complete state; and by Law, get it put in action. (back to context) Source: The French Revolution A History. By Thomas Carlyle. |
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| This article is subject to ongoing updates. | |||||
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