Wake Of Liberty: 7 – Changing Times
The Republican Calendar replaces the Gregorian Calendar with tragicomic consequences
Thank you, spirit of Cooley, for an imaginative and entertaining account of the Church’s wheeling and dealing.
“Glad you enjoyed it, Mr. Smyth.”
I have to tell you, finding causes and starting points is a fascinating process. Something new always pops up to keep things interesting.
“You have no idea. Digging around has taken me on some very intriguing journeys. Perhaps I’ll tell you about them some day. If you’re interested.”
Sure I am. Especially if you get to tell me new things, stuff I was never taught or told. There’s all kinds of strange events taking place in the world, many of which are more bizarre than any script anyone could have imagined, as I found out lately. I got into history a few weeks ago, looking stuff up for some pieces I had to write, and some of the facts I came across blew my mind.
Charles-Gilbert Romme, father of the French Republican Calendar
“Like what?”
Like the French Republican Calendar.
“Right. What do you know about it?”
It was a new calendar designed to make the system more straightforward and easier to deal with.
“Go on.”
Here’s what I read. The new calendar was a complete reinvention of the old one, its form based on reason, practicality, and the decimal system. It wasn’t entirely decimal, but close enough, matching the rational spirit of the times.
“Correct, Mr. Smyth. It was a groundbreaking idea, symbolizing a fundamental change in French infrastructure and culture. The whole country, as you know, was getting an overhaul, from top to bottom, and time was no exception. Reason was on the march.”
Out with the old!
“Right. Out with the old and in with the reasonable.”
Still, the republican calendar seems to have been one of the least successful innovations introduced during the revolution. It made no sense except to those who designed it.
“True, but that’s the nature of the revolutionary beast. Such was the anger at the old regime, and the need for change so deep and long-overdue, it made people come up with some pretty outrageous things, some of which were brilliant and others just idiotic. Only time could separate genius from folly.”
Surely some things don’t need time for one to see how bad they are. They are unmistakably unreasonable from the outset.
“Let me remind you of something, Mr. Smyth. In the Age of Reason, reason did not always have the upper hand and did not move in reasonable ways all the time. Sometimes it gave way to dubious if not ridiculous ideas, whose revolutionary quality was their passion, not their function. Let me explain.”
I’m listening.
“France, late 18th century. The Age of Reason is upon Europe, and times are changing. The ideas of the Enlightenment are spreading everywhere through the efforts of thinkers, philosophers, artists and scientists totally dedicated to progress and change. People like Montesquieu, Diderot, and Voltaire, who are busy writing up a new treatise for society.
Announcement of the Republican Age
“The aim of these pioneers is simple: the creation of a society based on knowledge and fact rather than prejudice and superstition, whereby science and critical thinking will be the main driving force. A restructuring of the system from top to bottom is being championed, old measures of control are being criticized. The total domination of the Church over society is increasingly challenged, pushing forth the atheist or scientific frame of reference, whereby data and logic determine the way ahead.
“The ideas are not widely popular among the population but they have a strong and dedicated following in urban areas, such as Paris, where people are prone to new ways of thinking. They are cultivated and discussed at will, in coffee houses and taverns, in academies and salons, in private chambers and parlors of all sorts, establishing an atmosphere of innovation and reform, which, while not fully understood by everyone involved, has an aura of rightness about it. The French, a long time fed up with how things are being run, begin to warm to these strange ideas.
“The movement is stronger at the top, taking hold of members of the aristocracy and royalty. In firm control of the state, these select nobles are the only ones able to facilitate change in a meaningful and substantial manner. Many of them are savvy to the fact that things cannot go on as they have been, that change is necessary. They are eager to apply the ideas of the Enlightenment in ways that will benefit everyone, from the nobility down, improving the country as a whole. Once in play – and if applied properly – these ideas will take hold of people in the lower classes, who, once benefited, will start warming to them, transforming the entire country in the process.
“The notion is well thought out and reasonable. It has its roots in scientific paradigms, where the data is hard and results speak for themselves. Not as hazy as society, the field of science is progressing fast, seeking the utility of logic and reason through simpler, more reliable methods of operation, so applying scientific principles to social issues seems the logical thing to do.
“To put things in perspective, in 1790, as part of the general movement of reason and innovation, the measurement system is under fire. Measurement units based on the average volume of one’s mouth or the length of one’s stride are too arbitrary and complicated, and a new and reliable system is being championed.
“It is known as the Metric System, and thinkers of the day are arguing for it vehemently on account of its decimal simplicity, finding support in many influential persons, including Louis XVI, King of the French and head of a constitutional monarchy.
“Meanwhile, over in America and in line with the times, Thomas Jefferson has just proposed a decimal-based measurement system for the newly-formed United States. The proposition doesn’t stick, but it makes its mark nonetheless. The idea behind it is sound and applicable to other areas of life, and the rational movement continues unabated, looking for other areas to reform. Surely enough, two years later, the U.S Mint launches the 100-cent dollar, the world’s first decimal currency. And three years after that, in 1795, the Metric System is adopted officially in revolutionary France.
“Obviously groundbreaking changes are taking place across the world. The whole measurement system is being restructured along straightforward, easy-to-handle, decimal parameters that will promote knowledge and progress. Space is being reinvented across the board, from top to bottom.
“Why should time be an exception?”
The republican calendar marked the beginning of the republic, not the revolution
Out with the old! In with the relentlessly rational!
“The French thinkers get thinking. Time is unnecessarily complicated, tangled in 60-minute hours, 24-hour days, and 7-day weeks that make no sense. It needs simplification, fast.
“The decimal system seems the best way to tackle it.
“So they get to work to change time in one fell swoop, marking the beginning of a new age.
“Problem is they got off to a bad start.”
Bad start, how?
“Inaugurated on October 24, 1793, the calendar was adapted proleptically, meaning it was extended to cover time already passed. Its formal beginning was on 1 Vendémiaire, Year I of the Republic – i.e. September 22, 1792.
“But there was a problem with the basic setup. Due to some complications arising with the precession of the equinoxes and leap years and extra days popping up here and there, New Year was not a fixed date. It varied between September 22, 23, and 24, depending on the year.
“The issue proved to be a disaster in PR terms. Having years start on shifting dates was no way for a new calendar to be embraced by people. In other words, the calendar tanked.
“It wasn’t just the shifting date of the New Year, there were other, fundamental problems to the calendar, starting with its structure. It was made up of 12 months, like the old one, but the rest of it was simply bizarre. It had three 10-day weeks (décades) to a month, and 10 hours to a day. Each hour had 100 decimal minutes, and each minute 100 decimal seconds.
“It sounds logical and fascinating, but it wasn’t, not in the slightest. The 10-day weeks proved too long and arduous for everyday life: the hours were too long, the weekend too short; there was only one day of rest at the end of each décade. It was grueling and made no sense, at odds with daily rhythms at large, antagonizing human nature at will. In effect, its very nature and structure proved to be less the result of functional reform and more the jambalaya of over-sophisticated, mindless, compulsive tinkering. But the reformists pressed on, forcing it on France all the same.
“Thus, the new calendar came down like a gigantic battering ram, smashing through the barricades of convention with a vengeance, tearing down the whole edifice of society, taking out the good with the bad. It was an unprecedented coup-de-temps, or, in plain words, a bad joke.”
It sounds as if common sense had been uprooted and people’s lives were thrown off balance, all in the name of reason turned unreasonable.
The twelve new months of the calendar
“Exactly. And we haven’t even mentioned the details yet. For starters, months were rebranded, their names derived from the weather conditions typical of each month.
- Vendémiaire – Grape Harvest Month, starting 22, 23 or 24 September
- Brumaire – Fog Month, starting 22, 23 or 24 October
- Frimaire – Frost Month, starting 21, 22 or 23 November
- Nivôse – Snowy Month, starting 21, 22 or 23 December
- Pluviôse – Rainy Month, starting 20, 21 or 22 January
- Ventôse – Windy Month, starting 19, 20 or 21 February
- Germinal – Germination Month, starting 20 or 21 March
- Floréal – Flower Month, starting 20 or 21 April
- Prairial – Pasture Month, starting 20 or 21 May
- Messidor – Harvest Month, starting 19 or 20 June
- Thermidor – Summer Heat Month, starting 19 or 20 July
- Fructidor – Fruit Month, starting 18 or 19 August
“What’s more, in addition to the month overhaul, saints were removed from the calendar altogether, which may have not been a bad idea in itself had it not been succeeded by the replacement of saints with general items. Each day was now devoted to a specific plant, animal, or tool. For example, 15 Brumaire, ‘Fog Month’ (November 4) became Turkey day; 12 Pluviôse, ‘Rainy Month’ (January 31) became Broccoli day; 18 Germinal, ‘Germination Month’ (April 7) became Hemlock day.”
Yes, I read about that. It cracked me up.
“Comedians pray to the gods of amusement for stuff like this, I mean it was just too good. The English mocked the calendar by calling its months Wheezy, Sneezy, Freezy, and so on. Caricatures appeared in pamphlets and publications everywhere. There was no end to the fun one could poke at the new calendar.
“Why did its creators add material items to each day of the year in the first place? They wanted to celebrate earth and its tangible elements rather than have people associate them with an invisible concept.
“It was a measure that led to some interesting new connections between historical events and a given day’s material item. July 14, for example, falls on 26 Messidor (Harvest Month), day of the Sage Plant; so it would be Revolution and Sage day. July 4 falls on 16 Messidor and would be Independence and Tobacco day. May 1 falls on 12 Floréal and would be Solidarity and Sainfoin day – and let the landmark dates fornicate with the items in this calendar to create new meanings behind their associated history.
“Take the Sanfoin, for instance. It marks the day people celebrate their solidarity. It encapsulates the vicious stampede various factions and unions engage in when they proclaim their support for everyone in the name of international brotherhood, over which some self-proclaimed people’s regimes are willing to annihilate each other – as well as everyone who happens not to share their values completely – in order to bring peace and justice to the world.
“There you go. May 1, day of the Sanfoin, aka French Grass: a Eurasian perennial herb, which has been described as ‘a non-bloating forage legume with an upright habit of growth suitable for cutting and aftermath grazing’.”
This is free association, Cooley, and means nothing. Amusing as it may be.
“I know, I am not trying to find hidden meaning here, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Smyth. All I’m doing is having a little fun with the arbitrariness of it all, it’s just too ridiculous. Free-spirited connections through free association are my thing, I love making them. Here’s another one for you, deeply ironic and one of my favorites. October 12, Columbus Day: the date celebrating the discovery of the New World – or 21 Vendémiaire (Grape Harvest Month) in the new calendar – would have been Hemp Day – hardly the plant to mark the subsequent slaughter of millions of people – leaving us wondering how cruel irony can be. I mean Columbus had a vision for the future, and a noble one at that, but it was not compatible with the dreams of the native population, a bunch of savages in desperate need of civilization and Christianization, through the savagery of whom the sword eventually sliced in order to make nobles out of them, opening up the New World to the wisdom of the Old, paving the way for progress as we know it.
“The French republican calendar attempted something similar, albeit in the opposite direction. It went for the old and established, for the savage noble, seeking to right the error of its Christian ancestors by annulling their power, by dechristianizing the population of France altogether with the blades of radical thought.”
Out with the old! In with the relentlessly rational!
“Obviously the French thinkers hadn’t thought it out well enough. Or they had overdone it in their eagerness to get rid of the Bible. Either way, they had made an error, coming down hard on Christians in the name of Reason, repeating the brutality of old and perpetuating the violence of those they sought to replace. Religious dogma was exchanged for Rousseau’s Social Contract, which some applied like gospel, revamping the system all the way, no exceptions. Time, religion, culture, language – everything had to be burned down and reconstituted.
“Exaggerations? Exactly, Mr. Smyth, absolute exaggeration, from one end of the spectrum to the other, from one dysfunctional extreme to another. Until the monarchy’s dictatorship was replaced by a democratic republican dictatorship.
FOR MORE: Wake Of Liberty
Images:
Coup-de-temps by Gavin Denman
Charles-Gilbert Romme: source - http://en.wikipedia.org
Calendar Announcement: source - http://revolutioninfiction.wordpress.com
Republican Calendar: source – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar/Y1
The New Calendar Months: source – http://www.hubertlerch.com/modules/The_French_Revolution_in_Pictures.html
The New Calendar Clock: source - http://www.hubertlerch.com/modules/The_French_Revolution_in_Pictures.html
Brumaire (Fog Month): source – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar/Y1
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