Following the Revolution, France adopted a reformed calendar called the
French Republican or Revolutionary calendar, to replace the Gregorian
calendar. It consisted of ten day weeks (decades) and twelve months of
thirty days. Five or six feast days remained at the end of each year and
these were dedicated to vacations and celebrations. The calendar was
calculated from 22 September 1792, the day the Republic was first
proclaimed.
Revolutionary France was eager to overthrow the oppression of church
and king and adopted descriptive calendar names reflecting reason, science
and nature. The calendar was devoid of the religious and mythological
connotations of the Gregorian calendar.
The months were called Vendémiaire (vintage), Brumaire (mist),
Frimaire (frost), Nivôse (snow), Pluviôse (rain),
Ventôse (wind), Germinal (sprouting time), Floréal (blossom),
Prairial (meadow), Messidor (harvest), Thermidor (heat), and Fructidor
(fruit). Not only was each month named for natural themes,
but each day
of the year was also given a unique name.
The "complementary" or feast days at the end of the year were
named in honor of Virtue, Genius, Labor, Opinion and Rewards. During leap
year the additional day was called Revolution.
Note the four different endings to the names of the months. Each
set of three months made up a season; -aire (fall), -ôse (winter),
-al (spring) and -or (summer). Because the calendar was first calcuated
from the fall equinox of 1792, each season also began on the equinox or
solstice.
The Republican calendar was in use from 1793 through 1805 in France and
areas under French rule including Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of
Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy . The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was
annexed to France as the département des Forêts, or
"Forest Department" in 1795. France (and Luxembourg) returned to the
Gregorian calendar on January 1, 1806, under Napoléon Bonaparte.
Additional Information
Calendar
Conversions
Napolean.org has a great tool for converting French Republican dates
into their Gregorian counterparts. This is one of my favorite web gadgets!
This site has as a wealth of other informaton about Napolean, well.
French Republican
Calendar
From Philippe Chapelin's "Genealogy and History in France"
web site. This page is in French, but the conversion tables are easy to
figure out.
Republican
Calendar Page
Information in English, from Denis Beauregard's "Genealogy in
France" site.
The Perpetual
Calendar Page
From Toke Nørby, this page was written for postal historians
but contains information about several calendars.
French
Republican Calendar
From Donna Speer Ristenbatt's On the Trail of Our Ancestors site.
French
Republican Calendar
Research outline from the LDS Family History Library.
