The French Revolutionaries invented a new Calendar
Minutes: 44% longer
Days: from 24 to 10 hours
The goal?
Make time-keeping more “scientific”
The result?
Total disaster
The story of the French Revolutionary Calendar banished by Napoleon, on this day, 217 years ago👇🏻
1/ This is a story of political arrogance
The revolutionaries overestimated the power of science
And underestimated the *stickiness* of religion
One hour = 100 minutes
One min = 100 seconds
New year shifted from 1st Jan to 22nd Sept
A radical attempt to redefine time itself
2/ The French revolutionaries adopted a new calendar for three reasons:
- To eliminate religious consciousness from the French society
- To make time more “rational”
- To announce the birth of an egalitarian era
In their zeal they forgot an important factor: human nature
3/ From 1793 to 1805 in France, 1 week had 10 days
The 7th day, traditionally a holiday - “holy day” - became a typical week day
Every 10th day was the rest day
John Quincy Adams called this change not just "irreligious" but also "superficially frivolous" and "coarsely vulgar"
4/ Sociologist Zerubavel notes that the 10-day week was meant to disrupt the “traditional, sacred seven-day cycle”
Purpose was to disorient people and make them lose track of “Sunday”
That is, the day for going to Church
And having a weekly sitdown with the divine
5/ The French Revolutionary Calendar was designed by the top experts of the day
The chief designer: CG Romme (Physics professor)
Mathematicians & astronomers chipped in
Tradition/old habits didn’t matter
The designers answered “solely to the principles of Reason and Science”
6/ Sociologist Zerubavel: “The Revolutionary Calendar was introduced in an age which advocated the total obliteration of the old order in the name of progress and modernity: the beginning of the new Republican Era marked the total discontinuity between past and present.”
7/ Every calendar has “critical dates” which are suffused with a symbolic importance
The Revolutionaries changed the first day of the year from January 1 to 22nd September - the day of the “foundation of the French Republic”
Society was to spin not around religion but politics
8/ Days which had a unique flavor due to their religious significance like “the saints' days, Sunday and the Church's religious holidays” were abolished. Each day became mathematically and symbolically alike. Differences were to be erased - whether among people or on the calendar
9/ By adopting calendrical rhythms alien to the rest of the world
The French created artificial barriers to communication, understanding, and ultimately trade
How would you fix delivery schedules with a country whose calendar is untranslatable into yours?
10/ Imagine you’re a French peasant in 1793
The revolutionaries have not just beheaded the King and slaughtered their own
But have also made the week 10 days long
The day is now 10 hours, not 24
Your old clocks - and your old instincts - need to be thrown out
11/ By denouncing all authority as arbitrary, the revolutionary finally harms himself
On what grounds will HE govern once the king is gone?
In hindsight we can see the “boomerang effect” of the Calendar redesign
If the old dogmas were random
Why are the new ones any better?
12/ The people HATED the new Calendar
It made them work for 9 days straight instead of 6
Plus it was confusing
Special clocks were made to translate the Revolutionary calendar into the Gregorian calendar and back
People’s age-long habits were redesigned without their CONSENT
13/ STALIN imposed a new calendar too
The week was cut to 5 days to eliminate the holiday of Sunday
Days were assigned colors, and workers were given colors
When it was your colored day, you took a day off
Families and friends had different colors and so they never hung out
Here’s the French Revolutionary Calendar. Designed by the biggest scientific minds of the time. A failed dream and a symbolic warning. An attempt to restructure time by politics instead of the sacred. Reasonable, rational, and hence doomed. An emblem to the madness of equality.
Here’s the man who ended the tyranny of artificial time and took his country back to the Gregorian calendar
On this day, 217 years ago
Common Napoleon W
Balzac, the famous French novelist, was a big fan of Napoleon
He systematically went through 100s of Napoleon’s speeches & public gazettes
And collected his most interesting aphorisms and maxims
Here are Napoleon’s best insights on war, love, and more:
oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/thirty-bonaparte-bangers
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Here's to aiming high in 2023, but not so high that we try to radically redefine the definition and experience of time itself
