Convention, National, a revolutionary convention in France which, on September 20, 1792, succeeded the Legislative Assembly, proclaimed the Republic, condemned the king to death, succeeded in crushing the royalists of La Vendée and the south, in defeating all Europe leagued against France, and in founding institutions of benefit to France to this day; it was dissolved on October 26, 1795, to make way for the Directory.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Contrat, Social * Conversations Lexicon