ENRAG

(French: Madman), any of a group of extreme revolutionaries in France in 1793, led by a former priest, Jacques Roux, and Varlet, a postal official, who advocated social and economic measures favoured by the lower classes. The Enrags' name reflects the horror that they aroused in the bourgeoisie. Concerned primarily with the problem of a critical food shortage, the Enrags supported a program of price controls over commodities, requisitioning of grain, and government assistance to the poor. In the spring of 1793, they took an active part in the popular agitation that led to the overthrow of the moderate Girondins in the National Convention and pressured the Montagnards, or the Jacobins in the Convention, into taking emergency and terroristic measures to protect the Revolution. The leaders of the Enrags, fierce critics of the government, charged it with inaction and were arrested in September 1793 by order of the ruling Committee of Public Safety. The Enrags were replaced as popular leaders of the Revolution by the group known as the Hbertists.