Key Facts
- Duration
- 3 days (31 May – 2 June 1793)
- Deputies expelled
- 29 Girondin deputies and 2 ministers
- Principal conspirators
- Enragés: Dobsen and Varlet
- Key instigator
- Jean-Paul Marat
- Rank among revolutions
- 3rd great popular insurrection of the French Revolution
Strategic Narrative Overview
On 31 May, the Paris Commune mobilised the city's sections and armed citizens began gathering around the National Convention. The Enragés Claude-Emmanuel Dobsen and Jean-François Varlet organised the popular movement, while Jean-Nicolas Pache and Pierre Gaspard Chaumette led the march on the convention. Over three tense days, thousands of armed Parisians surrounded the building, preventing deputies from leaving and applying overwhelming pressure on the legislature to capitulate.
01 / The Origins
By spring 1793, the French National Convention was deadlocked between the Girondins and the Montagnards. The Paris Commune, backed by the sans-culottes, resented the Girondins for opposing the execution of Louis XVI and for creating the Commission of Twelve, seen as a tool to suppress radical Parisian influence. Jean-Paul Marat led Montagnard demands in the Convention to have the Girondin deputies arraigned before the Revolutionary Tribunal, setting the stage for open confrontation.
03 / The Outcome
On 2 June 1793, the Convention yielded to the armed crowd and voted to place 29 Girondin deputies and two ministers under house arrest, effectively purging them from the legislature. This transferred political dominance to the Montagnards and Jacobins. The expelled Girondins were later tried and many were executed during the Reign of Terror, while the event accelerated the centralisation of radical revolutionary government in Paris.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Jean-Paul Marat, Claude-Emmanuel Dobsen, Jean-François Varlet, Jean-Nicolas Pache, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette.
Side B
1 belligerent