“A state of permanent popular deliberation is indispensable”: Debating and experimenting participation in British emigrant political culture in revolutionary Paris, 1792-1794

Abstract

This article explores the engagement of British residents in Paris with the republican turn in the French Revolution. It argues that some British nationals who had taken up residence in the French capital by 1792 were drawn to supporting the drive towards greater active involvement of the broader citizenry in voicing their assent or dissent to primary legislation. They articulated such views in writing, in their depositions to the constitutional committee, drawing upon the key moments of popular activism they had witnessed while in Paris—namely, the deposition of the king and the popular overthrow of royal power in the August Days—, to reinforce their views on the ideal shape of a new republican constitution. British radicals also called upon their direct experience of popular participation in action through their contact with local section leaders and committees to justify their calls for a heightened role for the people in law-making, a people who must be vigilant and energetic in their public duties. For a number of interlocking reasons therefore, some British residents whose support for the Revolution had not waned by late 1792, were willing to countenance a greater degree of popular involvement in the political life of the new nation. As well as voicing their approval of political innovation at a national level, they also used their nascent political club, the Société des Amis des Droits de l’Homme, based at White’s Hotel in central Paris, to trial such participatory practices in the associational culture they established and sustained through 1792-1794. Such a survey attests to the interconnections between national, local and district political activism in the early republic and the impact that witnessing the popular turn in the Revolution had on foreign observers who continued to see in the Revolution the potential for generating a deeper change in the political culture of Europe.