The club held its meetings at first in the church of the monastery of the Cordeliers, - the name given in France to the Franciscan Observantists, - now the Dupuytren museum of anatomy in connection with the school of medicine. From 1791, however, the Cordeliers met in a hall in the rue Dauphine.
The aim of the society was to keep an eye on the government; its emblem on its papers was simply an open eye. It sought as well to encourage revolutionary measures against the monarchy and the old régime, and it was it especially which popularised the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". It took an active part in the movement against the monarchy of June 20 and August 10, 1792; but after that date the more moderate leaders of the club, Danton, Fabre d’Eglantine and Camille Desmoulins, seem to have ceased attending, and the enragés obtained control, such as J. R. Hébert, F. N. Vincent, C. P. H. Ronsin and A. F. Momoro. Its influence was especially seen in the creation of the revolutionary army destined to assure provisions for Paris, and in the establishment of the worship of Reason.
The Cordeliers were combated by those revolutionists who wished to end the Terror, especially by Danton, and by Camille Desmoulins in his journal Le Vieux Cordelier. The club disowned Danton and Desmoulins and attacked Robespierre for his "moderation", but the new insurrection which it attempted failed, and its leaders were guillotined on March 24, 1794, from which date nothing is known of the club. We know little of its composition.
The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution (1894), i. (on the trial of the Hébertists) Nos. 4204-4210, ii. Nos. 9795-9834 and 11,813. See also A. Bougeart Les Cordeliers, documents pour servir a l’histoire de la Révolution (Caen, 1891); G. Lenotre, Paris révolutionnaire (Paris, 1895); G. Tridon, Les Hébertists, plainte contre une calomnie de l’histoire (Paris, 1864). The last-named author was condemned to four months’ prison; his work was reprinted in 1871. The inventory of the pictures found in 1790 in the monastery of the Cordeliers was published by J. Guiffrey in Nouvelles archives de l’art francais, viii., 2nd series, iii. (1880).