Insurrection as a claimed duty

Meaning

Lemma.

Insurrection means uprising against authority. In the Hôtel de Ville scene the mayor quotes a declaration that makes it the people’s holiest and most indispensable duty when government violates their rights. He uses this principle to oppose the Commune’s popular insurrection to what he calls the Convention’s coup d’état. The competing labels express the mayor’s constitutional claim, not a neutral settlement by the narrator of which side is legitimate. The supplied editorial note identifies the quotation as a shortened rendering of article 35 of the 1793 Declaration; the novel’s wording should not be silently expanded to reproduce that document in full.