The change was decided on in February 1794. The design that was controversial was this flag, used by the navy since 1790. The fact that the revolutionary flag was off in one corner was symbolically unfortunate. According to Jean-Bon Saint-André, speaking for the Committee of Public Safety, the issue was raised by sailors, who were unhappy to be sailing under a flag that wasn't the republic's. He held a very forceful speech, calling the continued use of the monarchist flag a political scandal. The Committee's proposition, one big blue-white-red flag for the navy, was voted into law, apparently without a single argument from anyone. The specific order of the colors wasn't discussed in the report, the important part was that all three colors were the same size.

That law (and the law it replaced) only specified the naval flag, though. In other context there was plenty of variety. Like this very Russian-looking one. And this one that looks like Serbia's. This picture has two versions. The reason no big deal was made of the changes to the flag was probably that both before and after, people just used the flag they thought looked best.

Hi there, we noticed that you've asked this question here a few times without too much success. I'm not sure we have flag experts here, but you could always try hitting up some of our French experts such as /u/elos_, /u/donaldfdraper or /u/molstern. Alternatively, you can also try submitting to /r/vexillology to see if they have information on it; though they seem to be more interested in creating flags, they do have some historical flags and discussion of historical flags featured. Good luck!