Dbq French Revolution

During the period 1789-1806, one of the unusual manifestations of the French Revolution was the adoption of a completely new calendar; 'The Calendar of Reason’. It was divided into twelve months of thirty days each which symbolized their separation from the old style. One of the reasons for the calendar consisted on the rejection of numerous holidays, religious and politic oppressiveness and some reactions included people honoring to the new adoption while other arguing over the cruelty they were brought upon. French needed to break away from the past and start a new history free of the characteristics of their religious and political oppressive past. The reasons for the new adoption of the calendar can be seen in doc 1, 2, 9. According to the Third Estate Cahier de doleances, having numerous holidays was creating conflicts to the state and the people wanted it to go away (D1). Members of the third estate tried to speak to the rest of the country about their grievances; since no one listen they decided to break away. Head of the calendar reform committee, Gilbert Romme argued over the fact of holiday issues saying that the Church calendar was followed by ignorants, the calendar symbolized fanaticism and royalty (D2). Romme presented this argument as a persuasion of his believes towards his inspiration of a new change. Francois-Sebastien Letourneux, Minister of Interior supported Romme’s argument; he initiated saying that the reason for a new calendar was to “correct the vices and errors of the old” referring to all the issues that were occurring. His purpose was to convince the government to keep the calendar that had been adopted; going against it was unnecessary (D9). The old holidays were used as a symbol of France old oppressive ways and they believed that a change would begin with a cultural perspective, the calendar POV. The adoptions of the new calendar caused great joy inside people lives and honored those who were responsible; their reactions