The French Revolution

FRENCH REVOLUTION
long-term causes
Enlightenment ideas led to rising expectations among French citizens
classical liberalism: (see handout)
French physiocrats: advocated reform of the agrarian order; opposed to mercantilism
American Revolution intrigued many with ideal of liberty and equality
Social Stratification
First Estate: clergy, Gallican Church (less than 1% of population)
Second Estate: nobility (2-4% of population)
Third Estate: rest of population (paid both tithes to church and taille to gov’t)
peasantry: owned 40% of land in France; corvée—forced labor several days
per year for nobles
Lettre de cachet: gov’t could imprison anyone without trial or jury
bourgeoisie: upper middle class; well-to-do but resented 1st and 2nd Estates had
all the power and privilege
è Historical interpretations of the French Revolution:
Traditional view: clash between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy
Recent scholarship: bourgeoisie and aristocracy on parallel ladders leading to clash
with monarchy
short-term cause: bankruptcy of the gov’t and enormous debt
King Louis XVI (1774-1792), financial mismanagement; ½ of budget went to pay interest
Jacques Necker: finance minister who tried to raise taxes; privileged classes refused
Parlement of Paris blocked tax increases
cahiers de doleance: Each estate expected to compile list of suggestions and
grievances and present them to the king during upcoming Estates General
elections held during worst depression of 18th century
Estates General, May 1789: 1st time meeting since 1614
Parlement of Paris ruled voting would be done by estate (3 total votes)
3rd Estate furious that vote would not be proportional to population
Abbè Sièyès: What is the Third Estate? Answer: everything!
Rousseau’s Social Contract: the "general will" should prevail (3rd Estate)
3rd Estate prevailed in voting method argument after 6 weeks
èNational Assembly, 1789-1791 (also called the Constituent Assembly) – “Age of Montesquieu”
Tennis Court Oath:
June 17, 3rd Estate declared itself the true National Assembly of France
King locked them out of meeting place
Oath: swore not to disband until they had given France a constitution
bourgeoisie dominated the National Assembly
Storming of the Bastille – July 14, 1789
“Parisian” revolution due to food shortages, soaring bread prices, unemployment, and
fear of military repression
Stormed Bastille in search of gunpowder and weapons
Significance: inadvertently saved the National Assembly from king’s repression
Great Fear of 1789: wave of violence and hysteria in countryside against propertied class
Peasants (with help of middle class) destroyed records of feudal obligations
August 4, National Assembly abolished feudalism (manorialism); peaceful revolution
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens: became constitutional blueprint for France
Provisions: due process of law, sovereignty of the people, equality, freedom of
expression & religion, tax only by common consent, separate gov’t branches
“citizen”: included everyone, regardless of class
Women did not share equally in rights
Olympe de Gouges: The Rights of Woman, 1791: demanded equal rights and
economic and educational opportunities
Mary Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792: supported Gouges
Madame de Stael: ran a salon and wrote books deploring subordination of women
October 5, 1789: as part of bread riot, women march to Versailles; accelerate the revolution
Incited by Jean Paul Marat
Forced king and family to move to Tuleries in Paris: “The Baker, the Baker’s wife,
and the baker’s little boy”
Constitution
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy: created national church with 83 bishops and
diocese; biggest blunder of the National Assembly
83 Departments: country politically divided into districts
constitutional monarchy established
Flight to Varennes: king fled from Tuleries hoping to escape and rally support; failed
Assignats: new paper currency; former church lands guaranteed value of currency
International Reaction
Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Reflections on the Revolution in France
Conservative: opposed revolution as mob rule
Thomas Paine: Rights of Man: responded to Burke’s indictment by defending
the Enlightenment principles of the revolution

èLegislative Assembly, 1791-1792
Jacobins: political club that dominated Legislative Assembly
Girondins: radical Jacobins who were advanced party of the revolution and brought
he country to war
Declaration of Pillnitz, August, 1791: issued by Prussia and Austria in August, 1791
Èmigrès: French nobles who fled France sought support of foreign countries.
Emperor Leopold declared he would restore gov’t of France if other powers
joined him; really a bluff
French revolutionaries took Leopold at his word and prepared for war.
War of the First Coalition
Legislative Assembly declared war in April, 1792
Austrian armies defeated French armies but divisions over eastern Europe
saved France
Brunswick Manifesto: Prussia & Austria would destroy Paris if royal family harmed
Revolutionary sentiment led by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat
King stormed at Tuleries, Swiss Guards killed; king taken prisoner
Marked beginning of “2nd French Revolution”



Paris Commune: Revolutionary municipal gov’t set up in Paris, which usurped powers of the
Legislative Assembly
Led by Georges-Jacques Danton
Legislative Assembly suspended 1791 constitution
September Massacres (led by Paris Commune)
Rumors of aristocratic and clerical conspiracy with foreign invaders led to
massacre of over 1,000 priests, bourgeoisie, and aristocrats

èNational Convention, 1792-1795 – “Age of Rousseau”
France proclaimed a republic, September 17, 1792
Equality, Liberty, Fraternity:
Two factions emerged:
The Mountain: radical republicans; urban class (Danton, Robespierre, Marat)
Girondins: more moderate faction; represented countryside
sans-culottes (“without breeches”): (not part of National Convention)
working-class; extreme radical
kept revolution moving forward: stormed Bastille, march to Versailles, driving king
from Tuleries, September Massacres
Battle of Valmy, Sept. 20, 1792: Prussian invasion stopped; moral victory for Convention
Battle of Jemappes: first major victory for France; took Austrian Netherlands
But war turned against France by Spring 1793
Louis XVI beheaded January, 1793
Jacques Roux: demanded radical political action to guarantee bread
Mountain ousts Girondins, May 1793: urged to do so by sans-culottes
Enragès, radical working-class group (even more than sans-culottes) seized and
arrested Mountain members in the Convention
Charlotte Corday, member of Girondins, kills Marat
Committee of Public Safety, formed in Summer 1793 as emergency gov’t
Maximilien Robespierre
Louis Saint-Just (1767-1794): also a leader of Committee
Law of Maximum: planned economy to respond to food shortages and other
economic problems
Foreshadowed socialism
slavery abolished in French West Indies
Reign of Terror (1793-94): most notorious event of French Revolution
Law of Suspects: Created Revolutionary Tribunals at the local level to hear cases of accused enemies brought to “justice”
guillotine: created as an instrument of mercy.
Queen Marie Antoinette beheaded
Girondins executed in September
Vendèe: region in western France that opposed revolution; many executed
Jacques Hèbert, “angry men”—Hèbertistes, executed
Danton and followers executed in 1794
Cult of the Supreme Being: deistic naturalist religion; Catholics now opposed


Thermidorian Reaction (1794): ended “Reign of Terror”
Robespierre executed, July 1794
Constituted significant political swing to the right (conservative)
Girondins readmitted
Economic controls lifted: ended control of sans-culottes
Revolutionary Calendar: new non-Christian calendar
èThe Directory: 1795-1799
Constitution of 1795 restored some order but gov’t very ineffective
Upper bourgeoisie in control but constituted very narrow social base of country
Conspiracy of Equals led by “Gracchus” Babeuf
sans-culottes faction that sought to overthrow gov’t and abolish property
precursor to communism
Easily suppressed by Directory and Babeuf executed
Elections in 1797 a victory for royalists but annulled by gov’t
Dictatorship favorable to revolution establish: “Post-Fructidorian Terror”
Victory over First Coalition
Napoleon Bonaparte victorious of Austrian army
Battle of the Pyramids: Napoleon victorious over British army in Egypt
Battle of the Nile: devastating defeat of Napoleon by British; Napoleon returns to lead France
Coup d’Ètat Brumaire, November 1799: Napoleon invited by Abbe Sieyes to lead
Directory overthrown and Napoleon becomes First Consul