Montagnards

   Montagnards (the Mountain) is the name given to the deputies who, during the revolution of 1789, sat on the highest benches in the Legislative Assembly and, in doing so, signaled their extremist views. Journalists and lawyers, the Montagnards were generally, like the girondins, representatives of the bourgeoisie, but, with the difference that the Montagnard leaders (paul barras, jean-nicolas BILLAUD-VARENNE, JEAN-MARIE COLLOT D'HERBOIS, GEORGES COUTHON, JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID, CAMILLE DESMOULINS, FABRE D'ÉGLâNTINé, JOSEPH FOUCHÉ, JEAN-PAUL MARAT, MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE, LOUIS- antoine saint-just), appealed to the most extreme revolutionary elements: the insurrectionist Commune of Paris and the Parisian SANS-cuLOTTES,by whom they had, altogether, been elected to the National Convention. After the proscription of the Girondins (June 2, 1793), the Montagnards adopted more radical revolutionary measures (see terror). Then, after the fall of Robespierre and his followers (July 27, 1794), the Montagnards tried to oppose the thermidorian reaction, of which they were the first targets. The name Montagnards is also given to the leftist deputies, during the period of the second republic, who sat in the Constituent (1848) and then the National (1849) Assemblies and opposed many of the government's policies.