Famous Dates in The Republican Calendar and Other Cultural References
See also: Glossary of the French Revolution#Events commonly known by their Revolutionary datesThe "18 Brumaire" or "Brumaire" was the coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte on 18 Brumaire An VIII (9 November 1799), which many historians consider as the end of the French Revolution. Karl Marx' 1852 pamphlet The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoléon compares the 1851 coup of Louis Napoléon to his uncle's earlier coup.
Another famous revolutionary date is 9 Thermidor An II (27 July 1794), the date the Convention turned against Robespierre, who, along with others associated with the Mountain, was guillotined the following day. Based on this event, the term "Thermidorian" entered the Marxist vocabulary as referring to revolutionaries who destroy the revolution from the inside and turn against its true aims. For example, Leon Trotsky and his followers used this term about Joseph Stalin.
Émile Zola's novel Germinal takes its name from the calendar.
The seafood dish lobster thermidor was probably named after the 1891 play Thermidor, set during the Revolution.
The French frigates of the Floréal class all bear names of Republican months.
The Convention of 9 Brumaire An III, 30 October 1794, established the École Normale Supérieure. The date appears prominently on the entrance to the school.
The French composer Fromental Halévy was named after the feast day of 'Fromental' in the Revolutionary Calendar, which occurred on his birthday in year VIII (27 May 1799).
Read more about this topic: French Republican Calendar
Famous quotes containing the words famous, dates, republican, calendar and/or cultural:
“All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They’re obliged to overstate their own importance.”
—François Truffaut (1932–1984)
“Nothing dates one so dreadfully as to think someplace is uptown.... At our age one must be watchful of these conversational gray hairs.”
—Ruth Gordon (1896–1985)
“The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character.... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort—to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.—is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.”
—Clifton Fadiman (b. 1904)
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)