Glossary
Arrondissements – The 20 administrative districts, each with a mayor, into which Paris was divided.
Brassardiers – Arm-band wearers.
Cantiniere – Canteen woman attached to each battalion.
Catafalques – Decorated coffins used in funeral processions.
Chassepots – An early type of rifle.
Code Napoleon – The French legal code upholding bourgeois property and rights drawn up under Napoleon I but still the basis of the French legal system.
Corps Legislatif – Legislative Assembly.
Enceinte – The wall around the old city of Paris.
Faubourgs – Suburbs.
Feuilles-de-route – Travel document issued to a soldier giving the route to be followed and destination, and used for passing from one army unit to another.
Franc-tireurs – Irregular soldiers.
Gallicans – The Church faction which wanted the independence of the Church in France and questioned the appointment of bishops. (Cf. Ultramontanes below.)
Girondists – The right wing of the Revolution in 1793, opposed by the Jacobins.
Hôtel-de-Ville – The central town hall of Paris.
Lettres de cachet – The famous order by which the monarchs of the old regime could have people imprisoned indefinitely in the Bastille or other prisons.
Levée en masse – The general mobilisation of the populace for battle.
Mairie – Town hall of each arrondissement.
Montagnards – a name for the Jacobins – the left wing of the bourgeois revolution – deriving from the high benches they occupied in the revolutionary assembly of 1791-2.
Octrois – Local taxes levied at the city limits.
Pekin – Term for civilian used by the military.
Procureur de la République – Public Prosecutor.
Pupilles de la Commune – Orphans – largely of men who had died in the fighting – who were taken care of by the Commune.
Rappel – The call to arms.
Rurales – Provincials.
Sbirri – Police thugs.
Sergents-de-ville – Municipal police.
Tabellionat – Scriveners (a category of members of the legal profession).
Tirailleurs – Riflemen.
Turcos – Algerian units of the French army, so called by the Russians in the Crimean War who took them for Turks.
Ultra-montanes – Church faction which looked to Rome.
Vareuse – Cross-fastening jacket.