NATIONAL CONVENTION

NATIONAL CONVENTION was the revolutionary convention or assembly in France which, on September 20, 1792, succeeded the Legislative Assembly, proclaimed the Republic, condemned the king Louis XVI to the guillotine, succeeded in crushing the royalists of La Vendée and the south, in defeating all Europe leagued against France, and in founding institutions of benefit to France to this day.

It was consisting of 749 members chosen by universal suffrage, which on 22nd September 1792 supplanted the Legislative Assembly.

In spite of its perplexities and internal discords, it was successful in suppressing the Royalists in La Vendée and the south, and repelling the rest of Europe leagued against it, not only in arms, but in the field of diplomacy; it
laid the foundation of several of the academic institutions of the country, which have since contributed to its glory as well as welfare, and collected them together in the world-famous Institute; its work done, "weary of its own existence, and all men sensibly weary of it," it willingly deceased in an act of self-dissolution in favour of a Directory of Five on 20th October 1795.