Federalist Insurrection

   The Federalist Insurrection was a counterrevolutionary movement that took place during the revolution of 1789 following the elimination of the girondins from the Convention (June 2, 1793). After the installation of the insurrectionist Commune of Paris (August 10, 1792), the fear of a Parisian dictatorship provoked in several regions of France the creation of revolutionary departmental committees (end of 1792) that were transformed into revolutionary federalist committees (May 5, 1793). This sectional movement took the form of a real insurrection upon the news of the proscription of the Girondin leaders, several of whom succeeded in escaping and then assuming the leadership of the federalist uprising (jérome petion de Villeneuve, charles barbaroux, françois buzot, françois rebequi). The Federalist Insurrection reached several large centers (Caen, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Toulon). After July it was suppressed in Normandy and, in september, in Bordeaux but lasted longer in the southeast, where royalists succeeded in dominating the movement (Lyon surrendered on october 9, 1793, Toulon on December 19). Violently suppressed by the representatives sent by the montagnard Convention, the Federalist Insurrection, like the war in the vendée, constituted one of the most serious domestic threats to the Revolution and contributed to the development of the Terror and the reinforcing of central power.