People :
Author : Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray
Translator : Eleanor Marx
Text :
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 mobilization 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.
From : Marxists.org.
Chronology :
January 17, 2021 : Glossary of French Terms -- Added.
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