Thermidor

EPAUTRE German Wheat

BOUILLON-BLANC Mullein

MELON Melon

IVRAIE Corn-cockle

BELIER Ram

ARMOISE Mug-wort

MURES Blackberries

ARROSOIR Watering-can

Inspired by Rousseau, and composed by the poet Fabre d’Eglantine, the Republican Calendar was introduced into France in 1793 and was abolished by Napoleon in 1805. The first decade (or Republican ‘week’) of Thermidor (Month of Heat), ending in Arrosoir (Watering-can), saw the fall, and the execution, of the Robespierrists. For those sympathetic to the revolutionary ideal those ten days in An II (1794) therefore constitute a kind of ‘via crucis’ – a Stations of the Jacobin Cross.