The Club Breton was a group of

Bretons The Bretons (; br, Bretoned or ''Vretoned,'' ) are a Celts, Celtic ethnic group native to Brittany. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Common Brittonic, Brittonic speakers who emigrated from Dumnonia, southwestern Great Britain, par ...

representatives attending the

Estates General of 1789 in France The Estates General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). It was the last of the Estates General of the Kingdom o ...

. They usually met in the ''café Amaury'' at the corner of the Saint-Cloud avenue and the Carnot street at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

, to debate of the Estates General subjects before the constituency debates concerning

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

of other subjects. Its influence was much greater than its size, and it became later the ''Société des amis de la constitution'', which finally became the

Club des Jacobins , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

Brittany constituency composition

The Brittany situation differed from the rest of France, because related to the absence of agreement between the different estates, only the

Third Estate The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed and ...

and the

Minor orders Minor orders are ranks of church ministry. In the Catholic Church, the predominating Latin Church formerly distinguished between the major orders —priest (including bishop), deacon and subdeacon—and four minor orders—acolyte, exorcist, lecto ...

were represented in the Estates General. The Brittany

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

sent delegates to Versailles to obtain that the election would conform to the old Brittany constitution electoral rules, which stipulated that the delegates would be nominated by the 47 representatives of the 42 towns of the province, excluding small cities and rural areas, without any representatives for the Minor orders. However, the Brittany Third Estate sent its own delegation and was allowed to send its own delegates. The nobility and the

Major orders The term major orders or greater orders was for some centuries applied in the Roman Catholic Church to distinguish what the Council of Trent also called holy orders from what at that time were termed "minor orders" or "lesser orders". The Catech ...

answer was to refuse to elect representatives on 16 April 1789 at

Saint-Brieuc Saint-Brieuc (, Breton: ''Sant-Brieg'' , Gallo: ''Saent-Berioec'') is a city in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. History Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who Christianised the region in the 6th c ...

. The Minor orders then took their place, and the Third Estate ensured that no nobility could be part of its own representatives.

Extension of the club

The representatives from Brittany were the first to encourage the reunion of the three orders in the Legislative Assembly, arguing that the Third Estate was the only Nation representative, which was agreed on the 17 June 1789. Just before the 20 June 1789, the number of the club personnel was almost 200 people. After the

Tennis Court Oath On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (french: Serment du Jeu de Paume) in the tennis court which had been built in 1686 for the use of the Versailles palace. Their vow "not to separate and to reasse ...

, the Brittany priests joined the club.

Toward the Club des Jacobins

After the transfer of

the March on Versailles The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces ...

in October 1789, the club reverted to being a provincial caucus for National Constituent Assembly deputies from Brittany. As of October 1789, the group rented for its meetings the refectory of the monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue Saint-Honoré, adjacent to the seat of the Assembly. The name ''Jacobins'', given in France to the Dominicans (because their first house in Paris was in the Rue Saint-Jacques), was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies.

References

{{French Revolution navbox Groups of the French Revolution Politics of Brittany

Brittany constituency composition

Extension of the club

Toward the Club des Jacobins

See also

References