Research: The Cordeliers’ Laboratory: Origins, Transformations, and Practices of a Political Movement in the Age of Revolutions (1789–1794)
This research focuses on the Cordeliers movement, one of the radical left-wing groups of the French Revolution which, despite being well-known, has not been widely studied.
The investigation aims to begin with a historiographical survey of the works which, from the revolutionary period to the present, have shed light on this movement, albeit with a discontinuous and fragmented approach. The intention is then to examine the genesis of the movement, which is rooted in the assembly-based dynamics that animated the Cordeliers District (one of the sixty sections established in Paris for the election of the Third Estate’s deputies in 1789, later becoming a permanent institution) during the first year of the Revolution. The analysis will later address the circumstances surrounding the creation of the better-known Cordeliers Club (also called Club des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen), one of the first “sociétés politiques” to emerge during the Revolution, in the spring of 1790, by following closely the evolution of the Club’s political discourse over the course of the revolutionary process, together with the development of the group’s concrete political practices, with its internal functioning and the mechanisms through which its militants were recruited.
The research draws on largely little-used or untapped sources and is intended to examine the documentation also referring to aspects and categories associated with political and legal studies. It aims to carefully evaluate the elements within the Cordeliers’ laboratory that anticipated certain defining features of the modern political parties’ functioning, to retrace the gradual definition of the political right of association in connection with the Cordeliers’ claims and demands, and to finally discuss the sources of the radical democratic model promoted by the movement.