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Perhaps the most famous of all months in the French Republican Calendar, Thermidor corresponds with the period from roughly July 20th to August 20th--the height of summer in France (the name is a reference to heat). Several important events occurred during the month of Thermidor. In 1789 the Paris mob effectively took control of the city while at Versailles the National Assembly abolished the First and Second Estate at that time of year. Much later, durng the 1794 "Thermidorian Reaction," the National Assembly denounced and executed Robespierre, St. Just and other leaders of the Terror, bringing an end to the radical phase of the Revolution. For Thermidor, instead of the bucolic scenes that characterize most of the other months, I chose imagery reflective of both the tense, stormy weather of high summer and the restless fervor of the revolution itself. Mobs of armed Parisians and squads of uniformed soldiers drilling, marching and shooting on the Place de la Concorde--the magnificent neoclassical square now notorious for guillotines and mass executions.
