This article focuses on the English-speaking community in revolutionary Paris after the establishment of the National Convention in September More specifically, it highlights the close ties forged between British and Irish radicals within the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man at what was a critical juncture for foreign residents in the French capital.
It suggests that British radicals in Paris adhered to a broadly Paineite tradition, eschewing the revered British constitutional heritage in their contributions to the debate on a republican constitution at the turn of Such views both set exiled Britons apart from compatriots at home who were active in the convention movement of and and drew them into a closer union with radical Irish reformers in Paris. This paper also refutes the widely-held contention that British residents of Paris formed part of the Girondin grouping.
Instead it is argued that some British nationals had more than superficial sympathy with the aims of the Mountain, and this more radical strain of British activism may have provided impetus for British and Irish political conjunctions in the arena of revolution. Writings on the Paris society have rarely adequately accounted for the role of Irish members within the club or acknowledged their joint agendas, pursued in exile, in conjunction with English, Scottish, Welsh and American counterparts.
Indeed, as Mathieu Ferradou has shown, Irish members, rather than being marginal actors on the fringes of the club, were central to its organisation 4. His work investigates the contribution of the international society to forging an early sense of republicanism among Irish visitors to Paris, some of whom would later go on to play active roles in the Irish Rebellion of Such international cooperation, during a period of exile, had a bearing on the political and ideological positions taken by members of the society during the period of the early republic.
Woodward and David Erdman have focused on the British community in Paris after , while other scholars, such as Sophie Wahnich and Michael Rapport, have explored the treatment of and perception of foreigners under the revolutionary administration, including in their work a particular focus on English or British visitors 5. There has been significant exploration of the place of the Irish in France during the revolutionary period.
