AKA the
Republican Calendar. Was officially adopted in
France on October 24,
1793 and
abolished on 1 January
1806 by
Emperor Napoleon I.
It was used again briefly during under
the Paris Commune in
1871. The
French also
established a new clock, in which the day was divided in ten hours of a
hundred minutes of a hundred seconds - exactly 100,000 seconds per day.
As in most
calendars, the year had 12 months - each one of 30 days. There were no weeks -
instead each month was
divided into three décades of 10 days, of which the
final day was
a day of rest. This was an
attempt to de-
Christianize the calendar, but it was an
unpopular move, as it
reduced the
resting days from 1 out of 7 to 1 out of 10.
To
compensate for the last 5.24 days of the year, five - sometimes six -
additional days were put in the calendar at the end of the year (which was around the 22nd of September - or the 1st of Vendémiaire in
Republican Calendar terms.)
As the calendar only lasted for about
14 years, there was only ever three leap years, where the sixth
additional day -
Revolution day - existed - in the years 3, 7 and 11.