Enragés

The Enragés (ɑ̃ʁɑʒe; ), commonly known as the Ultra-radicals (Ultra-radicaux), were a small number of firebrands known for defending the lower class and expressing the demands of the extreme radical sans-culottes during the French Revolution. They played an active role in the 31 May – 2 June 1793 Paris uprisings that forced the expulsion of the Girondins from the National Convention, allowing the Montagnards to assume full control. The Enragés gained their name for their angry rhetoric appealing to the National Convention to take more measures that would benefit the poor. Jacques Roux, Jean-François Varlet, Jean Théophile Victor Leclerc and Claire Lacombe, the primary leaders of the Enragés, were strident critics of the National Convention for failing to carry out the promises of the French Revolution. The Enragés were not a unified party, but rather a set of individuals who worked for their own objectives, and evidence of cooperation between them is inconclusive. As individual political personalities, the Enragés had anarchist-like leanings, being suspicious of most political organizations and individuals and resisting ties to others. The leaders did not view themselves as part of a cohesive movement, with Roux even calling for Varlet's arrest at one point. The notion of the Enragés as a cohesive group was perpetuated by the Jacobins, as they lumped their critics Leclerc and Roux into one group. In 1793, Jacques Roux delivered a speech at the National Convention known as the Manifesto of the Enragés that represented the essential demands of the group. He asserted that freedom and equality had thus far been "vain phantoms", because the rich had profited from the French Revolution at the expense of the poor. To remedy this, he proposed measures for price controls, arguing, "Those goods necessary to all should be delivered at a price accessible to all". He also called for strict punishments against actors engaged in speculation and monopoly.