Mind-Munitions

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars 149
Of the numerous new newspapers founded during this period,
two in particular deserve mention by virtue of their founders. The
first was the Friend of the People, founded by the mob orator and
journalist Marat. Here was a propagandist who clearly recognized
the necessity of translating the ideas of the Enlightenment and of
the revolution into language the masses could understand. The
other newspaper was The Defence of the Constitution, founded by
Robespierre. Both men developed clubs to instil and debate the
ideas of freedom and liberty and to create an alternative to religion,
complete with rituals, hymns, and symbolism. The problem, however,
was that several revolutionary factions were now competing
for control and their various publications reflected their differing
views of what direction events should now take. A new constitution
was clearly necessary. Meanwhile, the Girondins were able
to assume power by virtue of adopting the patriotic stance and
attempted to unite the country behind them under the banner of
war. By 1793, this approach had failed and the Jacobins – with
their clearer view of domestic solutions and their greater
ideological coherence – assumed control under Robespierre. His
brief reign, helped by the murder of Marat and by the organization
of the Terror to purge his opponents, was to end in the same way
for him as for so many of his hated aristocrats: at the guillotine.
With the establishment of a republic to replace the monarchy in
1792, the revolutionaries found that they now had to assume the
propaganda techniques of the ruler rather than those of the discontented
ruled. The very existence of a Committee of Public Instruction
bears witness to the central role the French revolutionaries
ascribed to propaganda. Their task was greatly aided by the
declaration of war on France by European powers alarmed at the
republican regime and further shocked by the execution of the king
in 1793. Nothing unites a nation so much as a foreign war, and the
War of the First Coalition against France helped to consolidate
popular support for the new revolutionary National Assembly.
Equally, however, nothing united Europe so much as common
opposition to the French Revolution, especially when it called for
‘a new crusade, a crusade for universal freedom’. But first, the
consolidation of the revolution at home required the skilled attention
of the propagandists. When debating the symbols of the new
regime, the French looked to the American Revolution for inspiration.
Marianne as the symbol of Liberty was chosen ‘so that our