Here are 3 random examples: November 30 in the Gregorian calendar was Frimaire 10: Pickaxe, May 24 in the Gregorian calendar was Prairial 5: Duck, and August 5 was Thermidor 15: Almond.
What is quite possibly the most confusing aspect of the calendar is that each and every day had its own unique name. The day in which autumn equinox occurs varies from year to year falling either on September 22, 23 or 24.īelow are the names of the months, starting at the beginning of their year (all names are French so I have provided translations in parentheses for you): The first month of the year always began on the autumn equinox, so their new years would have occurred during our fall. There were still 12 months to the year but every month had 30 days and was divided into 3 weeks (or as they called them, decades). It’s complicated until it is learned and it begins to make sense, especially in terms of mathematics. Five is half of 10 marking the halfway point of the day, which is noon. Looking at a decimal clock you would see 10 at the top representing midnight, while 5 is at the bottom representing noon, as opposed to 6-o-clock. Forty-five seconds therefore is turned into. 5 or 50 seconds (out of 100 seconds that constitute a minute).
Half a minute is no longer 30 seconds, it is. Trying to determine how the 24 hour and 10 hour day match each other is complicated until you look at the clock as it were a math problem. Each hour consisted of 100 minutes that were each in turn 100 seconds long. The hours they used were not equivalent to how we measure time. The days were named as follows, starting with day 1 and ending with day 10: Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Octidi, Nonidi, and Decadi.ĭays were also changed from two 12 hour periods equaling 24 hours in a day to one 10 hour day. This meant that instead of 6 days between days of rest there were now 9 days to every day off. The long and short of it was that weeks, as of 1792 (or year 1), were no longer 7 days but a grueling 10 days in length. It was not completely abolished until 1805 (or year XIV) after Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor. It is based on decimal time and it was mandatory in France from 1792 until 1795, but was in use for a total of 13 years. In short, it was a convoluted new way to measure time through months, weeks, days and hours to prevent royal and religious influence on the people. The first day of the first Republican year fell on September 22, 1792, 1 day after the monarchy in France had been abolished. But it was not until 1792 that the French adopted a new way to measure time the French Revolutionary Calendar or better known at the time as the French Republican Calendar. The events that occurred between 1789 (the revolutionary movements started earlier in 1787) and 1799 shaped the course history for the entire world. It is of no surprise that the French Revolution was a turbulent time, not only for French history but for all the world.