The journées were a demonstration of the Parisian sans-culottes in order to obtain bread and the Constitution of 1793. On 12 Germinal, around 2 in the afternoon, sans-culottes from the sections Cité, Poissonnière, Faubourg-Marceau, Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, Thermes, Halle-au-Blé and Bon-Conseil invaded the National Convention en masse. Underestimating the extent of the movement which emerged, the Committee of General Security had only entrusted the supervision of the Convention’s entries to the jeunesse dorée which, in position in the royal courtyard from 7 in the forenoon onwards, was quickly knocked against the walls by the flood of rioters. The Montagnards which, the day before, had envisaged to mingle with the movement if it managed to gain some consistence, appeared hesitant and even attempted to have the room evacuated, probably for fear of retaliation. After a period of tumult, Van Heck, the former commander of the battalion of Cité, took the floor in the name of the insurgents: These were the men of 14 July, of 10 August and of 31 May, he said. They had sworn to live free or to die. They were tired of spending nights at the door of the bakers. They wanted bread, the liberation of the imprisoned patriots and the Constitution of 1793. And finally, he concluded, « faites-nous donc justice de l'armée de Fréron, de ces messieurs à baton ! » The sections of Fidélité, of Fraternité, of Bonnet-de-la-Liberté and of Bonne-Nouvelle then presented speeches and the insurgents still remained masters of the room while the battalions of the bourgeois sections assembled around the National Palace : Le Peletier, Pique, Butte-des-Moulins, Faubourg-Montmartre, Champs-Elysées and Tuileries, having come to rescue the Convention. The Committee of General Security had called to arms and rang the tocsin of Unité. Around 6 or 7 in the afternoon, about 300 young people, led by Legendre and flanked by a handful of soldiers under the command of Pichegru, interrupted the Assembly and chased them away while singing Le Réveil du Peuple. The demonstration had failed due to the lack of a plan of action and of military support from the popular sections : Gravilliers, Montreuil, Popincourt and Quinze-Vingts. The hours which the insurgents had within the National Convention had been lost in noise and useless speeches. Supported by the tribunes which were now filled with the people of the honnêtes gens, the Thermidorians brought about the immediate deportation of Barère, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois and Vadier, and the arrest of eight of their colleagues of the Montagne. On the following day at the Neuilly gate, a crowd vainly attempted to stop the carriages of the deportees that were en route to exile. In the following days, around 2,000 popular militants were disarmed. In total, the insurrection of Germinal would accelerate the course of reactionary policy and, at this point, consolidated the power of the Thermidorians, who were accused of having organised it themselves.
