n.
(French; " Mountain Man ")
Radical deputy in the National Convention during the French Revolution .
The Montagnards were so called because they sat on the higher benches (the "Mountain") above the uncommitted deputies of the " Plain ." The Montagnards emerged in 1792 as opponents of the moderate Girondin s and later associated with the radical Jacobin Club in the Committee of Public Safety . After the Thermidorian Reaction , many Montagnards were executed or purged from the convention, and they became a minority called the crête ("crest").