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Nelson and His Navy - Revolutionary Calendar

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One of the peculiar manifestations of the French Revolution was the adoption of a totally new calendar, 'The Calendar of Reason', which was based on the system used by the Ancient Egyptians. From time to time anyone reading contemporary documents will be aware of this system and a brief explanation is included here.

In the build-up to the Revolution it was not just the aristocratic class that was despised by the new 'thinkers' but also the Roman Catholic church with its all-pervading influence on the lives of ordinary people, its feasts and fasts, coupled with its reactionary support of the hated 'aristos'. Consequently one of the aims of the 1789 Revolution was the rejection of the relatively new Gregorian calendar (promulgated by Pope Gregory) adopted by France in December 1582 (although not in Britain until 1752).

In 1792 the revolutionary Committee of Public Instruction began to investigate the possibilities of this change and formed a subcommittee to do this. It contained Astronomers, Mathematicians and also Poets and Dramatists and finally published the results of its deliberations in September 1793. This was followed by a decree in October bringing in the new calendar.

The start date for this was 22nd September 1792, the date which marked the start of the French Republic, a date which, it was claimed, marked the beginning of equality for all Frenchmen. The calendar consisted of 12 months, each with 30 days. On top of this there were to be 5 'jours complémentaires' (originally called 'sansculottides' after the practice of common non-aristocrats of wearing trousers, not breeches) and leap years were to have an extra jour complémentaire. This was based on the Ancient Egyptian calendar, still used by some Eastern Orthodox Christian churches.

The poets among the committee chose the names of the new months and in particular this task fell to Philip François Nazaire Fabre d'Eglantine, whose nomenclature reflected the character of each particular month. These are presented below with an explanation (mine) of the word's root. Remember when reading these that the calendar began in late September (Gregorian).

Predictably the furiously anti-French literary establishment across the Channel in Britain made fun of this by christening the months, Wheezy, Sneezy, Freezy, Slippy, Drippy, Nippy, Showery, Flowery, Bowery, Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety.

Each month was divided up into 3 equal decades of 10 days each, and the day was divided up into 10 decimal hours. Each hour contained 100 minutes and each minute 100 seconds. Each day in the 3 decades had its own name, as in days of the week, and the 10th day, Decadi, was a day of rest when shops and businesses had to close. It became a criminal offence for a shop to close on the old Sunday. The full list is:

Primdi
Duodi
Tridi
Quartidi
Quintidi
Sextidi
Septidi
Octidi
Nonidi
Decadi

In addition there were the 5 jours complémentaires, also public holidays.

Fête du Vertu
Fête du Génie
Fête du Travail
Fête de l'Opinion
Fête de Récompenses

Finally the extra leap year day was titled the Fête du Révolution, a public holiday when great games were to be held with competitors coming from all over the blossoming revolutionary empire, perhaps the forerunner of our modern Olympic Games.

Additionally the other 360 days in the year each had an individual name! However I suspect these were rarely used, in part because no one could possibly remember them! They were named after animals , fruit, vegetables or agricultural implements. It is also recorded that some Revolutionaries christened their children after the day they were born. Imagine a poor child called Buglose (Octidi Floreal - 28 ), Vache (Quintidi Pluviôse - 15), Cochon (Quintidi Frimaire - 5) or Chou-fleur (Septidi Frimaire - 7)

And what happened to this nightmarish calendar? Despite the revolutionary fervour with which it was introduced it proved to be unpopular. The old ideas of a 7 day week with a day of rest on Sunday was impossible to fully stamp out despite legislation. By 1805 after Buonaparte had been crowned Emperor, he had reached an agreement with the Pope and in so doing restored both Catholiscm and the Gregorian calendar to France and its empire. That was the end of the Revolutionary Decimal Calendar - or was it? It briefly made a brief reappearance during the Commune of 1871.