National Convention

National Convention Convention nationale
Kingdom of France French First Republic
Emblem of the National Convention
Type
Type	Unicameral
History
Established	20 September 1792
Disbanded	3 November 1795
Preceded by	Legislative Assembly
Succeeded by	Council of Ancients Council of Five Hundred
Structure
Seats	Varied
Political groups	Composition of the National Convention prior to the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793 and the subsequent purge of the National Convention:   The Mountain (302)   The Mountain (disputed members) (7)   Girondins (178)   Girondins (disputed members) (49)   The Plain (153)   The Plain (disputed members) (97)
Meeting place
Salle du Manège (1792–1793) Salle des Machines (1793–1795)

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The National Convention (French: Convention nationale) was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire IV under the Convention's adopted calendar).

The Convention came about when the Legislative Assembly decreed the provisional suspension of King Louis XVI and the convocation of a National Convention to draw up a new constitution with no monarchy. The other major innovation was to decree that deputies to that Convention should be elected by all Frenchmen twenty-one years old or more, domiciled for a year and living by the product of their labor. The National Convention was, therefore, the first French assembly elected by a suffrage without distinctions of class.^[1]

Although the Convention lasted until 1795, power was effectively delegated by the Convention and concentrated in the small Committee of Public Safety from April 1793. The eight months from the fall of 1793 to the spring of 1794, when Maximilien Robespierre and his allies dominated the Committee of Public Safety, represent the most radical and bloodiest phase of the French Revolution, known as the Reign of Terror. After the fall of Robespierre, the Convention lasted for another year until a new constitution was written, ushering in the French Directory.