Having overturned the government, good revolutionists dearly love to overturn the calendar. In 1793 French Republicans, flushed with political success, changed the names of all the months from the prosaic January, February, March to the more descriptive Pluviōse (rainy) Ventōse (windy), Germinal (budding), etc. They divided each month into three "weeks" of ten days each, and dated everything from the First day of the Year 1 (Sept. 22, 1792), the date of the proclamation of the first French Republic. The French Republican calendar lasted nearly 15 years, died a natural death during the...
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