FRENCH REPUBLICAN CALENDAR, a calendar sub stituted in France during the Revolution in place of the prevail ing Gregorian system. Something of the sort had been suggested in 1785 by a certain Riboud, and a definite scheme had been promulgated by Pierre Sylvain Marechal (1750-18o3) in his Aknanach des honnetes Bens (1788). The objects which the advo cates of a new calendar had in view were to strike a blow at the clergy and to divorce all calculations of time from the Christian associations with which they were loaded, in short, to abolish the Christian year; and enthusiasts were already speaking of "the first year of liberty" and "the first year of the republic" when the national convention took up the matter in 1793. The business of drawing up the new calendar was entrusted to the president of the committee of public instruction, Charles Gilbert Romme (1750-95), who was aided in the work by the mathematicians Gaspard Monge and Joseph Louis Lagrange, the poet Fabre d'Eglantine and others. The result of their labours was submitted to the convention in September; it was accepted, and the new calendar became law on Oct. 5, The new arrangement was regarded as beginning on Sept. 22, 1792, because it was the day of the proclamation of the republic, and, in this year, the day of the autumnal equinox.
By the new calendar the year of 365 days was divided into 12 months of 3o days each, every month being divided into three periods of ten days, each of which were called decades, and the tenth, or last, day of each decade being a day of rest. It was also proposed to divide the day on the decimal system, but this ar rangement was found to be highly inconvenient and it was never put into practice. Five days of the 365 still remained to be dealt with, and these were set aside for national festivals and holidays and were called Sans-culottides. They were to fall at the end of the year, i.e., on the five days between Sept. 17 and 21 inclusive. and were called the festivals of virtue, of genius, of labour, of opinion and of rewards. A similar course was adopted with regard to the extra day which occurred once in every four years, but the first of these was to fall in the year III., i.e., in 1795, and not in 1796, the leap year in the Gregorian calendar. This day was set apart for the festival of the Revolution and was to be the last of the Sans-culottides. Each period of four years was to be called a Franciade.
Some discussion took place about the nomenclature of the new divisions of time. Eventually this work was entrusted to Fabre d'Eglantine. Beginning with the new year on Sept. 22, the autumn months the month of vintage, Brumaire, the month of fog, and Frirnaire, the month of frost. The winter months were Nivnse, the snowy, Pluviose, the rainy, and Ventose, the windy month ; the spring months, Germinal, the month of buds, Floreal, the month of flowers, and Prairial, the month of meadows ; the summer months, Messidor, the month of reaping, Thermidor, the month of heat, and Fructidor, the month of fruit. To the days Fabre d'Eglantine gave names which retained the idea of their numerical order, calling them Primedi, Duodi, etc., the last day of the ten, the day of rest, being named Decadi. The new order was soon in force in France and the new method was employed in all public documents, but it did not last many years. In Sept. 1805 it was decided to restore the Gregorian calendar, and the republican one was officially discontinued on Jan. 1, 1806.
The connecting link between the old and the new calendars is slight and the expression of a date in one calendar in terms of the other is a matter of some difficulty. A simple method of doing this, . however, is afforded by the table on the preceding page, which is taken from the article by J. Dubourdieu in La Grande Encyclopedie.
Thus Robespierre was executed on Io Thermidor An II., i.e., July 28, 1794. The insurrection of 12 Germinal An III. took place on April 1, 1795. The famous 18 Brumaire An VIII. fell on Nov. 9, 1799, and the coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor An V. on Sept. 4, For a complete concordance of the Gregorian and the republi can calendars see Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire, vol. iii. (Leyden, 1889) ; also G. Villain, "Le Calendrier republicain," in La Revolu tion Francaise for 1884-85.