Political and Socioeconomic Life in Lyon during the Siege by the Troops of the Convention (August 8 — October 7, 1793)

Abstract

This article considers the inner life of the city of Lyon during its siege by the Jacobin troops. On May 29, 1793, the radicals who were in power in the city were overthrown by moderate figures. Shortly thereafter, this caused a conflict with the Convention, which the Girondists were expelled from at the time. The Paris authorities declared Lyon counter-revolutionary and moved troops to it. The siege lasted from August 8 to October 7, 1793, after which the city surrendered, and repression began. The study mostly refers to protocols of the work of various authorities in Lyon: the People’s Republican Committee of Public Safety, the municipality, and the revolutionary committees of certain sections. Additionally, the author refers to press materials, memoirs, and reports made by the enemy, using methods of comparative historical analysis and content analysis. The author aims to recreate the realities of everyday life in Lyon during the siege period in order to further try and define the political forces that came to power in the city on May 29, 1793. The study demonstrates that the Lyon orders of the time very much resembled the orders in Jacobin Paris. Although the May 29 coup took place under the slogans of protecting private property and people’s homes and lives from the attacks of the radicals, the circumstances of the siege forced the new authorities to resort to the same extreme methods which the city had just rebelled against. The life of besieged Lyon is an unusual attempt to balance between the observation of human rights and the typical practices of the military revolutionary time.

Keywords

• Лион
• Французская революция
• федералистский мятеж
• якобинцы
• жирондисты
• осада.