French Republican Calendar - Months

Months

The Republican calendar year began at the Southward equinox and had twelve months of 30 days each, which were given new names based on nature, principally having to do with the prevailing weather in and around Paris.

  • Autumn:
    • Vendémiaire in French (from Latin vindemia, "grape harvest"), starting 22, 23 or 24 September
    • Brumaire (from French brume, "fog"), starting 22, 23 or 24 October
    • Frimaire (From French frimas, "frost"), starting 21, 22 or 23 November
  • Winter:
    • Nivôse (from Latin nivosus, "snowy"), starting 21, 22 or 23 December
    • Pluviôse (from Latin pluvius, "rainy"), starting 20, 21 or 22 January
    • Ventôse (from Latin ventosus, "windy"), starting 19, 20 or 21 February
  • Spring:
    • Germinal (from Latin germen, "germination"), starting 20 or 21 March
    • Floréal (from Latin flos, "flower"), starting 20 or 21 April
    • Prairial (from French prairie, "pasture"), starting 20 or 21 May
  • Summer:
    • Messidor (from Latin messis, "harvest"), starting 19 or 20 June
    • Thermidor (or Fervidor) (from Greek thermon, "summer heat"), starting 19 or 20 July
    • Fructidor (from Latin fructus, "fruit"), starting 18 or 19 August

Note: On many printed calendars of Year II (1793–94), the month of Thermidor was named Fervidor.

The English translations stated above are approximate, as most of the month names were new words coined from French, Latin or Greek. The endings of the names are grouped by season. "Dor" means "giving" in Greek.

In Britain, a contemporary wit mocked the Republican Calendar by calling the months: Wheezy, Sneezy and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy and Nippy; Showery, Flowery and Bowery; Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety. The Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle suggested somewhat more serious English names in his 1837 work The French Revolution: A History, namely Vintagearious, Fogarious, Frostarious, Snowous, Rainous, Windous, Buddal, Floweral, Meadowal, Reapidor, Heatidor, and Fruitidor. Like the French originals, they suggest a meaning related to the season but are neologisms, rather than preexisting words.

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Famous quotes containing the word months:

    “What a vast fraternity it is,—that of ‘Hearts that Ache.’ For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing; for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,
    The mother of months in meadow or plain
    Fills the shadows and windy places
    With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;”
    —A.C. (Algernon Charles)

    “Sixteen. Her breasts
    round, round, and
    dark-nippled
    who now these two months long
    is bones and tatters of flesh in earth.”
    —Denise Levertov (b. 1923)