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sentiment apparently proving stronger than reason in this matter. It is perhaps just as well that this year was not accepted, since modern results give a different value. Meeus (Astronomical Algorithms, p. 175), gives A.D. 1246 for this year in his discussion of the equation of time. |
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The calendar was, in fact, only part of a sweeping set of reforms in the area of measurement that became the metric system of today. The system proposed to rationalize the measurement of time by introducing both a new rational calendar and a metric clock. The clock consisted of 10 hours, each of which were divided into 100 new revolutionary minutes. The minutes were likewise divided into 100 new revolutionary seconds. Thus the units of the metric clock are related to the conventional units as follows: |
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Clocks were actually produced for several years that told time by this method, but they were perceived as even more confusing than the calendar and were quietly dropped in favor of the more conventional system, foreshadowing the fate of the FRC a few years later. |
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9.11.2.1.2
Historical Background |
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In A.D. 1792, following the French Revolution, the National Convention appointed Gilbert Romme president of the committee of public instruction to effect a reformed calendar. The mathematicians Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Gaspard Monge and the astronomer Pierre Simon Laplace were charged with the calculations, and the writer Fabre D'Eglantine was given the task of naming the months. The new calendar was intended to be based on philosophical and scientific principles. In the context of its age, these principles produced a calendar which was rigidly rationalistic, nationalistic, naturalistic, and explicitly anticlerical. |
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The calendar was put into effect on 6 October 1793 and used through 31 December 1805. Napoleon I agreed with Pope Pius VII to abandon the use of the FRC and return to the use of the Gregorian calendar effective 1 January 1806. The FRC was briefly revived during the period of the Paris Commune in 1871. The epoch of the calendar is 22 September 1792, the official anniversary of the Revolution and the autumnal equinox. Thus, there are no actual dates recorded for Year I, using the FRC. |
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The names given to the months are based on nature and are grouped into four units of three months, corresponding to the seasons. The month names have proved to be more enduring than the calendar itself and are still found in French literature. |
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The elimination of the ecclesiastical calendar, with its rich heritage of Saint's Days and feasts, left a void in French social life, which was filled to some degree by the compilation of various almanacs. Eleurtheophile Millin, a professor of zoology at the Natural History Society and Lycee des Artes, published a typical almanac in Year II of the Revolution, naming each day of the year for some plant, animal, or product. |
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