what powers did the president of the national convention have? i understand that the presidential terms during the french revolution were very short, so i presume the president did not have too much power. was the role largely procedural then?
Thank you very much for your question. I am always happy to get into the procedural details of the French Revolution (even if it takes me forever. Sorry for that!)
You are right that the role was largely procedural. But it was not purely ceremonial either.
The presidency was governed by the regulation of 28 September 1792, which deliberately established a system of rapid rotation. The aim was simple: prevent anyone from accumulating too much power. After centuries of absolute monarchy, concentrating authority in a single individual was not something the French were eager to repeat (for a few years at least).
Presidents were elected for fifteen-day terms. Elections were held by appel nominal (roll-call vote) and required an absolute majority. If no candidate reached that threshold, a second round took place between the top two candidates. These elections were often held in extraordinary evening sessions, and attendance could be quite low. For example, on 22 February 1793, only about 380 of the roughly 750 deputies voted in the second round.
What did the president actually do?
So what did the president do during those fifteen days? It is tempting to assume: not much.
In practice, the role had two main dimensions. The president acted as moderator of the Convention’s sessions and as a symbolic representative of the Republic. A glorified figurehead in some respects, but one with a few levers of real influence.
Most importantly, the president controlled the agenda of the Convention and the right to speak.
The president, assisted by a bureau of elected secretaries, also dealt with a huge administrative workload. The office received between 1,200 and 1,500 letters every day from ministers, generals, and private citizens. The president decided which of these were read aloud in the Convention and which were redirected to committees.
Control of la parole (the right to speak) could also matter politically. Presidents could grant or refuse the floor, interrupt speakers, and call deputies to order. In practice, factional loyalties often influenced these decisions. Let's put it this way: Thermidor might have ended very differently had Collot d’Herbois not been president on 27 July 1794.
The president also had judicial and ceremonial functions. During the trial of Louis XVI, the president served as the principal interrogator, reading the indictment and asking questions prepared by the instruction committee.
Beyond the chamber, the president received foreign delegations and petitioners, often giving the “fraternal kiss” (baiser fraternel) on behalf of the French people (yes, that was a thing). The president also acted as master of ceremonies during national festivals. This is why Robespierre led the procession at the Festival of the Supreme Being on 8 June 1794. Not because he thought he was king, dictator, god, or whatever Thermidorian propaganda later claimed, but because he happened to hold this transitory office at that moment.
Could presidents step down if they could not perform their duties?
Yes. Quite often.
Presidents regularly ceded the chair temporarily. If a president was personally accused of something, he had the right to leave the chair to defend himself. If he had other urgent responsibilities, he could yield the position to someone else.
Robespierre famously did exactly this on 5 September 1793. When the Convention was invaded by the Paris Commune, he ceded the chair to Thuriot so he could attend a meeting of the Committee of Public Safety with his colleagues and figure out what to do.
Ill health or exhaustion were also common reasons. Which makes sense. Sessions in the Convention were not calm tea parties. They were often closer to bloodbaths, with deputies throwing verbal and sometimes very real threats at each other.
How did the president maintain order?
As mentioned, the president’s main job was to moderate the Convention’s sessions. Which raises an obvious question. How exactly do you moderate a room full of (sometimes) armed men who are threatening to kill each other?
The short answer is simple. With a bell and a hat.
I exaggerate slightly, but that is more or less the gist of it.
The bell
The president’s main instrument of authority remained procedural control.
He granted or refused the right to speak. He could call interrupting deputies to order, demand that they return to their seats, or forbid them from speaking if they seized the tribune without permission. In extreme cases, he could order an usher (huissier) to physically remove a deputy from the tribune.
The president also used a handbell (sonnette) to demand silence and drown out interruptions. This was not always effective. On 6 January 1793, for example, Barère rang his bell so hard trying to restore order that he actually broke it.
Decrees also allowed the president to sanction persistent troublemakers. A decree of May 1793, for instance, stipulated that deputies who continued disrupting the session after a warning would be named and shamed in every commune as “disturbers” of the Assembly.
The president also had to manage the often rowdy public tribunes. Rules strictly forbade the crowd from expressing approval or disapproval. If spectators ignored this, the president could order the commander of the guard to arrest specific offenders.
If things threatened to spiral completely out of control, the president had one final option. He could abruptly close the session (lever la séance) and disperse everyone.
The hat
If the bell failed and the chamber descended into full chaos, the president had one last symbolic tool.
He put on his hat.
This gesture came from the rules of the earlier Constituent Assembly. Covering the head signalled that the public good was in danger and that all speech had to stop immediately. The debate was suspended until the president removed the hat, indicating that calm had returned.
Surprisingly, this simple gesture often worked.
On 27 December 1792, for example, about a hundred right-wing deputies surged toward the extreme left side of the hall in a threatening confrontation. President Barère managed to stop the situation and restore calm simply by covering his head.
The hat weapon, however, was not foolproof.
The most famous example occurred on 20 May 1795, during a massive insurrection in Paris driven by famine and political frustration. A violent crowd invaded the Convention hall.
Boissy d’Anglas, who was presiding, was held at gunpoint by several rioters. He remained completely impassive despite the insults hurled at him, even when the mob presented him with the severed head of the deputy Féraud, who had just been murdered. Throughout the entire scene, he deliberately kept his hat on as a formal signal that the Convention was in distress and that the public good was in danger.
It did not help him very much. He eventually had to yield the chair and only regained it later in the evening. But it made for a powerful symbol.
The gesture was used 72 times in the Convention, with varying degrees of success.
I hope this answers your question. Of course, the presidency could look a bit different depending on who controlled the Convention. When the Girondins were dominant, the presidents used the chair aggressively against the Montagne and did not always bother pretending to be neutral. Later, as power shifted to the Committees of Public Safety and General Security, the presidency became more administrative and was mostly used by men of the committees to move government business along. After Thermidor, it again became a politically contested position as different factions tried to shape the post-Robespierre narrative and deal with the last sans-culotte uprisings.
But the basic functions themselves stayed the same.
Source: Vincent Cuvilliers, Matthieu Fontaine et Philippe Moulis, « Présider les séances de la Convention nationale », Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 381
