Elementary arithmetic, with brief notices of its history... by Robert Potts.

20

ON THE DIVISIONS AND MEASURES OF TIME.

applied in contempt to the Republican party, but the same party
thus attempted to invest it with honour and respect.
Each month of 30 days was divided into three decades, or periods
of ten days each. The week of seven days was abolished, and the
seventh day as a day of rest was no longer to be observed.
The names assigned to each of the ten days were respectively
Primidi (from primus dies), Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi,
Septidi, Octidi, Novidi, Decadi. They made the day to begin at midnight, and retained the division of the day into twenty-four hours;
but the hour they divided and subdivided decimally. It appears a
singular inconsistency that the Convention did not divide the day
into ten parts, and the year into ten months, as they had divided
the month into three parts of ten days each. It is not improbable
that the Convention foresaw, if they ordained the denary division of
the day and of the night, there would be found the insuperable
difficulty of compelling the clocks of Paris and of the rest of France to
obey the new order, to strike the hours up to ten, when they had
been accustomed to strike them up to twelve, from the first day they
were set up to tell the hours.
During the period of the first Republic all events and important
facts connected with the history of France were recorded according
to the new calendar; and to complete their work, the Archbishop of
Paris and his clergy were compelled to abjure Christianity, and the
Convention decreed the worship of REASON. Before the end of 1793,
during the Reign of Terror, nearly 2,000 of the clergy lost their lives
at the hands of the Convention. The new French Calendar continued
in use until 1806, nearly two years after Napoleon Buonaparte had
been proclaimed the first Emperor of the French in 1804. He
then ordered the discontinuance of the new calendar, and the restoration
of the Gregorian. The week of seven days was resumed, but the
Christian sabbath, as a day of rest from ordinary work, has not even
at the present day recovered its sanctity in Paris.