The French Revolution

1
The French Revolution

• The start of the modern era? The logical
  culmination of the Renaissance-Reformation-Scienti
  fic Revolution-Enlightenment?

2
Crises of the French Monarchy

• The absolutism of the French monarchy as
  developed by Louis XIV could only succeed if the
  monarch were a strong and intelligent man.
• The moral and intellectual failings of Louis XV
  and Louis XVI combined with the weakness of the
  French nobility a failing treasury and the
  Enlightenment using the emerging new journalism
  all led to chaos and THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

3

• While France was the wealthiest and most
  populated nation on the European continent the
  national treasury was nearly bankrupt.
• Louis XV and his grandson Louis XVI employed a
  succession of finance ministers each of whom
  tackled the debt problem but each realized that
  only through taxation of the first and second
  estates could the problem truly be solved.

4

• Louis XVI

5

• 1770 Rene Maupeou appointed chancellor by
  Louis V Maupeou abolished the parlements and
  exiled their members. He knew that crushing the
  power of the nobility and submitting them to
  taxation would save France. BUT Louis V died
  and his young grandson Louis XVI came to power.
  Weak vacillating Louis XVI restored the
  parlements and their power in an attempt to get
  them to like him.

6
JACQUES NECKER

• The French support of the American colonists was
  bringing France to ruin. Necker issued a report
  that France could be saved IF money in America
  and the pensions to the nobles were stopped. The
  nobles forced his removal.

7

• 1786 Charles Alexandre de Calonne minister of
  finance proposed
• Encourage internal trade
• Lower gabelle
• Transform peasants feudal obligations from
  services to cash
• Land tax on all estates eliminating most other
  taxes
• New local assemblies in order to bypass
  parlements

8

• 1787 Calonne met with an ASSEMBLY OF NOBLES
  drawn from the first and second estates.
• Nobles and Clergy refused to accept Calonnes
  ideas and demanded that the ESTATES GENERAL be
  summoned in order to raise taxes.
• Estates General had not been called since 1614

9

• Calonne was dismissed by Louis XVI and replaced
  by ETIENNE CHARLES LOMENIE DE BRIENNE, Archbishop
  of Toulouse.
• Brienne was shocked to find out that the
  financial situation was truly as bad as had been
  stated.
• Brienne suddenly supported Calonnes land tax
• Parlement of Paris refused to accept any new
  taxes claiming that only the Estates General
  could approve taxes.

10

• As a priest, Brienne met with the Assembly of the
  Clergy and asked the clergy to give a subsidy to
  the government for the debt.
• The Assembly of the Clergy refused and instead
  reduced its contribution to the treasury DON
  GRATUIT.
• Brienne resigned and was replaced by Jacques
  Necker back for time number two.
• The Estates General was summoned all three
  estates wanted the body to convene but for
  different reasons. This divergence of desires
  and aims was the final step toward the FRENCH
  REVOLUTION.

11
1789

• While the French Revolution was a process that
  covered many years, 1789 is recognized as the
  start and true date of the French Revolution.
• Were the three estates in complete conflict?
• Were some allied across estate divisions?
• What was the Third Estate?
• May 5, 1789 The ESTATES GENERAL opened at the
  Palace of Versailles.

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• The Third Estate supporting the First Estate and
  the Second Estate

13
Dream of the Third Estate?
14

• France at the time of the French Revolution

15

• The calling of the Estates General sent
  representatives of the estates to Versailles
  each estate sought to gain power at the expense
  of the monarchy.
• The Third Estate was clearly the key as it was
  the largest by population and the center of power
  for the French economy.
• The First and Second Estates had land and money
  but the Third Estate represented the growing
  entrepreneurs and urban economy of the nation.
• Abbe Sieyes - What is the Third Estate?

16

• Sieyes

17
Debate of Organization and Voting

• The aristocracy moved to limit the power of the
  Third Estate.
• Equal number of representatives for each estate
• Voting by estate rather than individuals.
• Louis XVI and his advisors thought the best
  solution for them was to strengthen the Third
  Estate the Third Estate was given twice as many
  representatives.

18
Cahiers de Doleances

• The members of the Estate General brought with
  them cahiers de Doleances- list of grievances and
  demands for change.
• While varied in approach, they sought to create
  equality among the subjects of Louis XVI
• The question still was how was the Estates
  General to vote and to be organized?

19

• The Third Estate refused to sit separately 1
  June 1789 the Third Estate asked members of the
  other estates to join them in organizing a new
  legislative body.
• 17 June 1789 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY was born
  ending the centuries old Estates General.
• Spontaneous revolution?

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Tennis Court Oath

• 20 June 1789 National Assembly was locked out
  of its room in Versailles.
• The National Assembly moved to the tennis court
  where it vowed never to leave Versailles until it
  had a constitution.
• 27 June 1789 Louis XVI asked the 1st Estate and
  2nd Estate to meet as the National Assembly and
  vote by individual.
• The National Assembly renamed itself the NATIONAL
  CONSTITUENT ASSEMMBLY.

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Journees Mob Rule or True People Power

• While the National Constituent Assembly at
  Versailles began a civilized revolution of power
  ending the legislative stranglehold of the
  first and second estates the people of France
  and especially Paris began to take matters into
  their own hands.
• July 1789 on the advice of his wife Marie
  Antoinette and his younger and more conservative
  brothers Louis XVI began to plan to stop the
  National Constituent Assembly. He also fired
  Jacques Necker who was admired by the Assembly
  and the people.
• While many in the Assembly had desired a
  constitutional monarchy Louis decisions and
  actions pushed many moderates toward
  republicanism.

24
14 July 1789 Paris explodes and the Bastille
falls

• Paris had been on the verge of exploding for
  months
• Louis XVI had mustered troops outside the city in
  case of rebellion this only increased the
  feeling of tension within the city
• 1788-1789 winter had been harsh leading to food
  shortages and bread riots all in an urban area
  where the vast majority of ones daily diet was
  bread.
• After electing representatives to the Estates
  General the leading citizens of Paris continued
  to meet establishing a citizens militia and
  collecting arms.

25

• The growing tensions and the firing of Necker led
  the people of Paris and their new militia to
  march on the symbol of royal power and abuse
  the Bastille.
• Despite finding no political prisoners in the
  prison as they had expected the crowd killed
  several officers and the governor of the militia
  and later dismantled the prison.
• The militia was reorganized into the NATIONAL
  GUARD under the leadership of the Marquis de
  Lafayette.

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• The new symbol of the National Guard and later
  the revolution itself was the cockade a small
  badge of red and blue (the colors of Paris)
  separated by white representing the Bourbon
  monarchy.
• Louis XVI was forced to recognize the National
  Guard.
• The city and people of Paris became a factor in
  the revolution separate from the National
  Constituent Assembly.

29
The Great Fear Summer 1789

• Rumors that Louis XVI was going to send troops
  into the countryside sparked a rebellion of the
  peasantry against the landed nobility.
• Peasants burned chateaux, destroyed records, took
  food, refused to pay feudal dues.
• They based their claims on their rights as
  citizens against the monarchy, the nobles, and
  injustices of rural life.

30
4 August 1789 Surrender of Feudal Rights

• On 4 August 1789 nobles rose in the National
  Constituent Assembly and agreed to give away
  their ancient feudal rights.
• Gone went all legal class distinctions among the
  people of France
• Right to special courts and trials
• Hunting rights
• Fishing rights
• Special exemptions in all aspects of life
• Peasants feudal obligations

31
Louis XVI

• While the revolution spread quickly throughout
  France the monarchy was incapable of deciding
  what to do.
• Louis XVI was easily manipulated by his wife and
  brothers into trying to stop all reform as it
  would lessen his authority BUT
• All that did was to push moderates toward the
  radicals and the people of Paris and away from
  compromise.

32
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

• 27 August 1789 the National Constituent
  Assembly issued a statement of rights for the
  citizens of France.
• Civic equality
• Rights of property
• Success of the bourgeoisie?

33
The Royal Family is Forced to Move to Paris

• Louis XVI hesitated to accept the Declaration of
  the Rights of Man and Citizen and to accept the
  end of feudal rights this made the people of
  France more and more suspicious of him and the
  fear grew that he would use his troops to end the
  revolution.
• The scarcity of bread pushed the women of Paris
  on 5 October 1789 to march to Versailles and
  demand that the royal family move to Paris where
  they can be watched.
• 6 October 1789 after the women stormed the
  Palace of Versailles the royal family was
  forced to move to Paris with the women of Paris
  carrying pikes with the heads of Louis soldiers
  on top.
• The National Constituent Assembly moved to Paris
  as well.

34

• From 1789-1791, the National Constituent Assembly
  pursued a relatively moderate approach to the
  revolution.
• They wanted a constitutional monarchy
• Rational approach to administration
• Unregulated economics BOURGEOISIE
• Anticlericalism part of a long history in
  France
• Protection of Property often united nobles and
  the bourgeoisie
• Limit the impact of non-propertied classes
• Civic equality NOT economic equality

35
The Constitution of 1791 the true death of the
Ancien Regime

• 1. new unicameral legislature Legislative
  Assembly
• 2. constitutional monarchy with delay veto not
  a final veto
• War and peace powers rested in the Legislative
  Assembly
• Redefinition of the term citizen

36
Active versus Passive Citizens

• Indirect elections that attempted to halt the
  direct influence of the masses on politics
• ACTIVE CITIZENS only could vote male, over 21
  and who paid taxes equaling three days wages.
• Active citizens elected ELECTORS who then voted
  for the legislature. Electors and members of the
  legislature had property requirements to pass.
• 25 million people 50,000 eligible to be
  electors or members of the Legislative Assembly
• Women could not vote nor hold office
• Power in France passed from aristocratic wealth
  to propertied wealth. Wealth not birth
  denoted privileges.

37

• Olympe de Gouges 1791 Declaration of the
  Rights of Woman rewrote the Declaration of the
  Rights of Man and Citizen replacing woman for
  man.
• She presented the issue of a revolution that
  sought equality by denying equality.

38
An Enlightened Reorganization of French Political
Boundaries

• France had been organized into provinces whose
  border determination had been made centuries
  earlier.
• The nation was reorganized into 83 DEPARTEMENTS
  of relatively equal geographic size. Gone were
  the old names of Burgundy replaced by terms
  from nature such as names of rivers and
  mountains.
• All parlements and old courts were abolished and
  a uniform court system was established in each
  departement.

39
Provinces Departments
40

• Chapelier Law 1791 a clear example of the
  conservative economic and social nature of the
  initial phase of the French Revolution may be
  seen in the assemblys passing of the Chapelier
  Law.
• Despite the growing inflation in France, workers
  were now forbidden to orgaqnize into workers
  associations.

41
Confiscation of Church Lands

• Royal debt NOT repudiated because the bankers
  it was owed to were now the leaders of the
  Legislative Assembly.
• In an attempt to bring money into the national
  treasury, the Assembly confiscated and sold
  church lands.
• This resulted in higher inflation, religious
  schism and eventually civil war.

42
Assignats

• When the government confiscated church lands, it
  issued government bonds based on the eventual
  sale of the lands assignees.
• People bought these bonds in great numbers and
  began using them as money.
• The government began to issue far too many
  assignats devaluing them and leading to higher
  inflation and ruin for many of the urban poor.

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Civil Constitution of the Clergy 1790

• The Roman Catholic Church was transformed into a
  branch of the French State think Henry VIII and
  Joseph II
• Bishoprics reduced from 135 to 83
• Diocese borders redesigned to fit civil borders
• Clergy paid by the state only
• Louis XVI reluctantly approved
• Neither clergy nor Rome consulted
• All clergy were to take an oath supporting the CCC

45

• Clergy who refused to take the oath were
  revolution.
• The pope denounced the CCC and The Declaration of
  the Rights of Man and Citizen removed by the
  government from their positions and labeled
  REFRACTORY.
• The CCC made clergy and the religious decide
  between allegiances to the pope or to the
  revolution. This is viewed as a foolish move on
  the part of the Assembly and a leading factor in
  the developing anti-revolution movement that
  resulted in civil war and the Reign of Terror

46

• Pius VI
• once he condemned the CCC and the Declaration of
  the Rights of Man and Citizen the people of
  Paris burned him in effigy

47
Counter-revolutionaries

• While Louis XVI dithered in Paris acting at
  times as if he accepted the revolution royalist
  forces worked to stop and reverse the
  revolutionary changes.
• The counter-revolutionary/royalist forces were
  led by Louis XVIs younger brother Charles,
  Count of Artois.
• By June of 1791, Louis XVI had been persuaded by
  his brothers and his wife to flee Paris to the
  nearby Austrian Netherlands.

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• Count of Artois

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The Flight to Varennes

• 20 June 1791, the royal family and a few servants
  left Paris in disguise and headed toward the
  Austrian Netherlands.
• In the town of Varennes, the royal family was
  discovered and returned to Paris as traitors and
  enemies of the revolution.
• Conservatives in the National Constituent
  Assembly who wanted to retain a constitutional
  monarchy claimed that the family had been
  kidnapped.

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Declaration of Pillnitz

• EMIGRES pressured Leopold II brother and Marie
  Antoinette and Frederick William II of Prussia
  to make a move to protect the royal family.
• Leopold and Frederick William stated that they
  would move to protect the monarchy if other
  nations agreed.
• The French saw this declaration as an attack on
  the revolution.
• as 1791 closed and the nation moved toward the
  start of the new Constitution of 1791 the NCA
  voted to ban any of its members from sitting in
  the new Legislative Assembly. BAD MOVE it kept
  the moderates of the NCA from running and left
  extremists poised to take control.

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1791 Internal Second Revolution

• By 1791 virtually all aspects of government and
  religion had been changed within France.
• There was a growing resentment of the revolution
  from aristocrats who lost power, peasants that
  disliked the attack on the church, and radicals
  who wanted the revolution to go farther.
• The newly elected LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY was
  comprised of the radicals who wanted to push
  France even farther into revolutionary change.

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JACOBINS

• Deputies from the Third Estate had organized into
  a political club which met at an old Dominican
  friary calling themselves the Jacobins.
• Versions of this club spread throughout France
  developing a network of radical thinkers. They
  studied and espoused Enlightened thought as they
  planned more revolutionary moves.

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Girondists

• Jacobins from the departement of Gironde
  organized within the Legislative Assembly like
  minded people who became known as Girondists.
• The Girondists organized against the growing
  counter-revolution. In the LA they passed
  bills ordering émigrés to return to France or
  lose their property and refractory priests to
  support the CCC or lose their state pensions.
  Louis XVI vetoed both bills.

56

• 1792 the Girondists led the LA in declaring war
  on Austria
• The Girondists thought that a war would unite the
  nation and end the counter-revolution.
• Louis XVI and the royalists thought the war would
  bring them back to power.

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The Convention Sans-culottes

• September 1792 SEPTEMBER MASSACRES the Paris
  commune attacked the prisoners of the Revolution
  that were imprisoned in jail and murdered over
  1,200.
• Paris Commune forced the LA to call for new
  elections based on UNIVERSAL MALE SUFFRAGE and to
  write a new democratic constitution.
• The CONVENTION the group writing the new
  constitution began on 21 September 1792 The
  Convention will become the ruling body of France.
  The Convention declared France a republic.

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Sans-culottes

• The artisans and shopkeepers of Paris organized
  into a Jacobin group more radical than the
  Girondists. They refused to wear the knee
  breeches of the upper classes and referred to
  themselves at the sans-culottes.
• The sans-culottes felt ignored by previous
  governments and as urban dwellers they felt the
  economic problems brought about by the revolution
  more acutely than the rural populace.
• The sans-culottes sat in seats high up in the
  Convention creating their political name THE
  MOUNTAIN
• Some view the sans-culottes as representing true
  democracy some see them as mob rule.

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• The Girondists met opposition from the more
  radical sans-culottes and the Parisian based
  Jacobins.
• The Girondists were turned upon by the
  sans-culottes and Jacobins loosing power and
  influence and later their lives.

61

• 1791 Pauline Leon petitioned the LA for the
  right of women to bear arms and fight for the
  revolution.
• The words and theory of the revolution were being
  applied to all aspects of society taking the
  French Revolution to a second and deeper level of
  change.
• Parisian government went from an elected council
  to a committee or COMMUNE of representative
  selected mainly by the working class.
• 10 August 1792 Parisians attacked the Tuileries
  palace forcing the royal family to flee to the
  LA for protection. The monarchy was no more.

62
The execution of Louis XVI

• While many Girondists favored allowing Louis XVI
  and his family to leave France the radicals in
  the Convention wanted his execution.
• Many wanted retribution for the past sins of the
  French nobility and monarchy others realized
  that Louis in exile would be a rallying point for
  the émigrés and the kingdoms that wanted to stop
  the ideals of republicanism.

63
On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was executed as a
traitor to France and the Revolution.
64

• 16 October 1793 Marie Antoinette was executed
  after a trial accusing her of treason and incest.

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Europe and the French Revolution

• The nations of Europe had had problems with the
  American Revolution but the execution of the
  French monarchs, the declaration of a republic,
  the revolutionary talk of social equality all
  put the kingdoms of Europe on edge.
• While the British enjoyed watching the French
  have their problems as the revolution grew so
  did the concerns of the British. George, Prince
  of Wales - Regent for George III.
• Edmund Burke Reflections o n the Revolution in
  France 1790 criticized early on the true
  application of the ideals of Liberty, Equality
  and Brotherhood.

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• Edmund Burke

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• In Great Britain, and other kingdoms, fear of the
  spread of revolutionary ideals led the
  governments to limit personal freedoms.
• Habeas corpus suspended and it became possible to
  commit treason through writing.
• Francis II HRE, Frederick William II of Prussia
  and Catherine the Great all ended attempts to be
  enlightened despots.

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• Attacks on Poland the Polish aristocrats had
  finally achieved the end of the LIBERUM VETO and
  organized a new constitutional monarchy.
• These actions and the desire for Polish lands
  led Prussia, Russia, and Austria to partition
  Poland out of existence by 1795.

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The Revolution at War with Europe

• The declaration of war by France against Austria
  and Prussia had served to unite disparate
  factions into a united French republic.
• November 1792 the Convention declared French
  aid to any people wanting to overthrow
  oppression.
• The Convention also declared the Scheldt River in
  the Austrian Netherlands open to free trade
  despite and agreement Great Britain had made with
  Austria and Holland.
• Great Britain was about to declare war on France
  when France declared war. 1793 the Mountain
  began to direct the government.
• April 1793 THE FIRST COALITION Austria,
  Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Sardinia, and
  Holland moved against France in order to protect
  their own social, political, and economic
  interests.

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The Reign of Terror

• Facing the First Coalition the Convention (led
  by the Mountain) organized small powerful
  committees to run the nation.
• THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY Jacques Danton,
  Lazare Carnot and Maximilien Robespierre they
  were to stomp out the enemies of the revolution
  within France.

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Levee en Masse

• June 1793 Parisian sans-culottes invaded the
  Convention and threw out the Girondists. The
  radical control of the Convention by the Mountain
  was finished.
• 22 June 1793 a new constitution with full
  democracy for men was approved but its
  implementation was delayed until the fighting
  stopped.
• 23 August 1793 Carnot implemented a mass
  mobilization of men and nation levee en masse
  the entire nation was reorganized for war.

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• 17 September 1793 price controls were put into
  place placating the sans-culottes as urban
  people the rising inflation in the nation
  affected them most of all.
• Fearing counter-revolutionaries everywhere the
  Committee of Public Safety began a series of
  quasi-trials eliminating all opponents of the
  revolution. Leading this was Robespierre.

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Robespierre on Terror

• In the mainspring of popular government in
  peacetime is virtue, amid revolution it is as the
  same time virtue and terror virtue, without
  which terror is fatal, terror, without which
  virtue is impotent. Terror is nothing, but
  prompt, severe, inflexible justice it is
  therefore an emanation of virtue.

77
Republic of Virtue

• The Committee of Public Safety sought to
  implement enlightened terminology and recreate
  France as a republic of virtue.
• Roman Republic dress etc was adopted.
• Vice destroyed

78
Society of Revolutionary Republican Women

• Pauline Leon and Claire Lacombe established
  SRRW
• Radicals demanded strict controls on food
  prices thugs against insufficiently
  revolutionary women
• Pushed for true rights Convention began to fear
  the womens clubs and banned them using
  Rousseaus separate spheres ideas.
• Olympe de Gouges executed 1793
• Women banned from the galleries of the Convention

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Dechristianization

• 1793 calendar reworked staring with 1791 as the
  year 1
• 12 month calendar 30 days
• New names for days and months
• Notre Dame Cathedral Temple of Reason
• DEPUTIES ON MISSION sent to close churches and
  persecute Christians throughout France

80

• Robespierre directed the revolution through
  executions left and right
• Left enrages
• Right Danton himself was executed accused of
  not connecting the revolution with moral virtue
• LAW OF 22 PRAIRIAL (June 10, 1794)
  revolutionary tribunals allowed to convict
  without evidence

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Fall of Robespierre

• 26 July 1794 gave a speech to the Convention
  stating that many were out to get him and the
  revolution named no names then.
• 27 July 1794 (9th of Thermidor) when
  Robespierre went to speak he was shouted down and
  arrested.
• 28 July 1794 executed.

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Thermidorian Reaction end of the Reign of Terror

• After the death of Robespierre the fall of the
  sans-culottes and the end of the Reign of Terror
  came quickly.
• Girondists were restored to power in the
  Convention.
• Committee of Public Safety had much of its power
  removed
• Law of 22 Prairial rescinded
• Paris Jacobin club closed
• Jacobin clubs forbidden to correspond with each
  other
• White Terror began
• Christianity not officially restored but
  Catholic services were allowed
• Thermidorian became a tern used to describe
  reactionary forces.

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Constitution of the Year III

• The constitution developed in 1793 was never
  implemented. Instead, the Convention issued the
  Constitution of the Year III neither democratic
  nor royalist. Revolution of property holders
  against the sans-culottes.
• Bicameral legislature
• Council of Elders - 40 years old men married
  or widowed
• Council of 500 - 30 married or single men
• Property qualifications for voting excepting
  soldiers

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• Executive body THE DIRECTORY five men
  selected by the Council of Elders from a list
  given by the Council of 500.
• Treaty of Basel 1795 the Directory made peace
  with Prussia and Spain BUT STILL AT WAR WITH
  GREAT BRITAIN AND AUSTRIA

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The Directory and new government fights left and
right

• Royalists had been returning to France after the
  fall of Robespierre planning government takers.
• 5 October 1795 (13 Vendemaire) royalist tried a
  revolt in Paris against the Directory. The
  Directory employed a new general to put down the
  rebellion with a whiff of grapeshot that man
  was NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

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• Napoleon Bonaparte

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Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of Equals

• Many sans-culotte objected to the end of the
  social and economic revolution.
• 1796 Gracchus Babeuf and followers led a move
  to restore radical democracy Conspiracy of
  Equals.
• The rebellion was quashed the Directory was not
  in favor of a return to social and economic
  changes.

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• Babeuf