What is "feuillant"

Feuillant and its plural Feuillants, a French word derived ultimately from the Latin for "leaf", can refer to the following:

• Les Feuillants Abbey, also known as Feuillant Abbey , a Cistercian monastery in Labastide-Clermont, France
• Congregation of the Feuillants, a Catholic congregation derived from the abbey of the same name; a monk of this order was called a Feuillant, and a nun a Feuillantine
• Convent of the Feuillants ( Couvent des Feuillants) in Paris, a monastery belonging to the Congregation of the Feuillants, with its church, the Église des Feuillants
• Feuillant (political group): the Club des Feuillants, a political group of the French Revolution that used the premises of the dissolved Convent of the Feuillants; a member of this group was called a Feuillant

The Feuillants Club were a political grouping that emerged during the French Revolution. It consisted of monarchists and reactionaries who sat on the right of the Legislative Assembly of 1791. It came into existence when the left-wing Jacobins split between moderates (Feuillants), who sought to preserve the position of the king and supported the proposed plan of the National Assembly for a constitutional monarchy, and radicals (Jacobins), who wished to press for a continuation of direct democratic action to overthrow Louis XVI.

The Feuillant deputies publicly split with the Jacobins when they published a pamphlet on 16 July 1791, protesting the Jacobin plan to participate in the popular demonstrations against Louis XVI on the Champs de Mars the following day. Initially the group had 264 ex-Jacobin deputies as members, including most of the members of the correspondence committee.

The group held meetings in a former monastery of the Feuillant monks on the Rue Saint-Honoré, in Paris, and came to be popularly called the Club des Feuillants. They called themselves the Amis de la Constitution. The group was led by Antoine Barnave, Alexandre de Lameth and Adrien Duport.