Cordeliers

Cordeliers ('cord-wearers'), the name applied in France to the strictest branch (see OBSERVANTISTS) of the Franciscans on account of their wearing a girdle of knotted cord. During the Revolution the name was applied to the members of a political club which was instituted in 1790, and assembled in the chapel of a Franciscan monastery. Its leaders included Danton, Hébert, Camille Desmoulins, and Marat, and for a time it rivalled the more famous club of the Jacobins (q.v.). The height of its influence was the period of Camille Desmoulins' journal, Le Vicux Cordelier. Soon after the fall of Danton, the Cordelier club lost its influence, and it was insignificant when closed by the Convention in August 1795.