The French Revolution

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The French Revolution
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The French Revolution Why Did It Happen?
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• Long-run conditions
• An out-moded social system
• An out-moded economic system
• An out-moded political system

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Out-Moded Social System (Three Estates)

• Privilege no longer has a reason for being.
  Example the nobles privilege originally existed
  because they defended their domains and those in
  them it was their job. Now it generally isnt.
• Clergy has lost respect. Their privilege
  originally existed because they prayed for
  everyone. Now people dont believe in prayer
  quite so much, and the clergy dont always seem
  so holy.
• A new urban elite is impatient with the social
  system, a system into which urban life does not
  fit.
• Peasants are being squeezed for dues to the lord
  and other taxes.

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Out-Moded Economic System

• Unfair taxation seems even more unfair.
• Privilege impedes progress, gets in the way of
  free trade. Example toll booths, awarded as a
  privilege, slow down distribution of goods. It
  get
• Seigneurial system (lord and manor) no longer
  works as well as it did.

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Out-Moded Political System

• Belief in the divine right of kings is challenged
  through de-Christianization and Enlightenment
  thought
• The absolute power of kings is challenged by the
  nobility, who want more control of government.
• The municipal power of cities doesnt fit into
  the old system
• Justice is fragmented. Law differs according to
  where one lives.

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Short-run Conditions

• Famines and bad harvests. 1788-1789 crop
  failures and grain shortages doubled the price of
  bread.
• Government crisis (lack of money). Louis XVI,
  who took the throne in 1774, tried to reform
  government by a policy of laissez-faire
  (economic).
• His finance minister floated loans at high
  interest rates.
• He had spent money on backing the American
  revolution and on fighting the Seven Years War.
• Abolishing of Edict of Nantes (which had
  mandated toleration towards Protestants) in 1685
  hurt commerce. The Protestants who then fled
  France were important to the work force.
• Taxes had risen 27 since Louis XVI took office.

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Pre-Revolutionary events

• Grain riots of 1775
• Aristocratic revolt (1787-1788)
• Bourgeois revolt (1788-1789)

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Grain Riots of 1775

• Aim
• popular control of bread price
• For them?
• The poor and some clergy, market officials,
  nobles
• Against them?
• Richer peasants, grain merchants, millers, bakers
• The riots failed. Lesson no popular movement, by
  itself, could win
• (Other labor strikes. Example book-binders
  seeking a 14-hour day in 1776.)

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Aristocratic Revolt (1787-1788)

• Nobility (about 2-5 of the population) wanted to
  squeeze more money from peasants. Inflation had
  brought down the value of dues paid in set sums.
• Nobility, many of whom were in parlements (law
  courts), wanted more say in central government.
• Louis XVIs attempt to call an assembly of
  notables (important people) to get more money
  failed.
• The revolt (a bloodless one) failed because the
  nobility underestimated the intentions of the
  Third Estate.

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Bourgeois Revolt (1788-1789)

• Bourgeoisie (8 of the population) wanted
• Free trade
• Representation in government
• Bourgeosie became spokesmen for the Third Estate

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Most in Third Estate wanted

• End of fetters on production monopolies, for
  example.
• End of high food costs
• End of feudal obligations (dues to the lord)
• More taxes paid by privileged, and an end to the
  abuses of tax farming. (A tax farmer was an
  individual who collected taxes.)
• End of tyrannies. One example is lettres de
  cachet, through which disgruntled relatives, for
  instance, could petition the king to write a
  letter putting someone away (in a convent, for
  instance) for an indeterminate length of time.

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Alliances

• Wage-earners, craftsmen, wine-growers AGAINST
  monopolists, hoarders, speculators
• Little people with peasants against feudal dues
  and with bourgeoisie AGAINST seigneurial
  privilege and absolute monarchy
• Peasants against land clearance and enclosure, in
  which the commons were fenced and no longer
  available for grazing and other uses).

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The King, Louis XVI,wanted to maintain his power
but needed money
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Louis as a pig
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Marie Antoinette, queen, not beloved, hated by
many as a foreigner (she was Austrian)
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Queen as serpent
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Phases of the French Revolution

• Phase 1 Constitutional Monarchy as Goal
  (1789-1792)
• Phase 2 The Republic (1792-1795)
• Phase 3 The Directory (1795-1799)
• Phase 4 Napoleon (1799-1815)

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The French Revolution Phase IConstitutional
Monarchy as Goal(1789-1792)
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Meeting of the Estates-General

• Louis XVI calls the Estates General, a assembly
  of the Three Estates, in 1788. It has not been
  called since 1614. He is forced into it for
  financial reasons he wants them to vote for him
  to raise taxes.
• The assembly is to elect deputies, draw up a list
  of grievances (Cahiers de Doléances), and meet in
  a group in 1789 .

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Meeting of the Estates General (May, 1789)
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• Third Estate had 600 delegates the other two had
  300 each. (Remember that the First Estate was
  composed of about 100,000 people, the Second
  Estate of about 400,000 people, and the Third
  Estate of 26 million people.)
• The Third Estate wanted to vote by head, all in
  one group, rather than by estate. The nobility
  wanted each group to meet separately and to vote
  by group. They figured that the clergy would vote
  with them, thus assuring two votes against one.

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• There was a stalemate. Finally the Third Estate
  declared itself a National Assembly, a law-making
  body, its first task to draft a constitution. At
  that point the goal was to set up a
  constitutional monarchy, not to depose the king.
• Some clergy and nobility joined them.
• The Third Estate was locked out of the meeting
  hall, so they moved to a tennis court, where they
  made an oath not to disband until they had
  created a constitution.

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Tennis Court Oath (David)
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Louis XVI sent a message to the Third Estate
(June 23)

• The King wishes that the ancient distinction of
  the three Orders of the State be preserved in its
  entirety, as essentially linked to the
  constitution of his Kingdom that the deputies,
  freely elected by each of the three Orders,
  forming three chambers, deliberating by Order . .
  . can alone be considered as forming the body of
  the representatives of the Nation. As a result,
  the King has declared null the resolutions passed
  by the deputies of the Order of the Third Estate,
  the 17th of this month, as well as those which
  have followed them, as illegal and
  unconstitutional.
• They said no. So far, the Revolution is bloodless.

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Storming of the Bastille(July 14, 1789)
Bread prices were up. People feared that the
nobility would take over the National Assembly.
Tensions were high. On July 14, several hundred
Parisians stormed the Bastille, looking for
gunpowder and weapons. They didnt find any. Yet
this was an important symbolic act.
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Medal commemorating the fall of the Bastille. The
inscription on the right Live free or die.
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Louis XVIs reaction

• On July 14, 1789, he wrote in his diary, Louis
  "Nothing. He was referring to the fact that he
  had had no luck hunting that day.

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Meanwhile, in the Countryside . . .

• There isnt enough to eat.
• Rumors are spreading that nobles are hoarding
  grain and hiring vagrants to destroy the harvest.
• Another rumor says that the nobility was raising
  an army to fight the peasants.
• Some peasants refuse to pay the lords their dues.
  Some attack wagons taking food to Paris.
• Peasants burned castles to remove evidence of
  feudal dues (contracts, some going back to the
  Middle Ages, stating the amount peasants had to
  pay the lord each year).

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Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen is
passed on August 26, 1789. The Spanish
Inquisition condemns it. Why? (The American Bill
of Rights was passed in September, 1789.)
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Womens march to Versailles (October, 1789)
On October 5, 1789, hundred of men and women
(some of them market women) walk to accost Louis
XVI at Versailles 12 miles away to accost Louis
XVI. Paris Guards who believe in the Revolution
thousands of them join the crowd. They protest
bread prices, costs of production, and wages and
bring the King back to Paris where he will be
under the eye of the people.
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The royal family returns to Paris. Louis promises
bread and approves the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and Citizen.
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The kings return to Paris.
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The Church is Subordinated to the State
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State confiscation and sale of Church lands
(November-December, 1789)
http//www.uiowa.edu/c016003d/Resources/France178
9.htm As you can see, the clergy owned a
disproportionate amount of land. However, so did
the nobility and bourgeoisie. The confiscated
land was sold to those who could afford it.
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• In February, 1790, some religious orders are
  abolished. Only those who performed useful social
  functions are allowed to continue.
• In July, the Assembly passes the Civil
  Constitution of the Clergy,1790. It appoints all
  church officers.
• In November, 1790, clergy and public officials
  are required to take an oath stating their
  loyalty to the state.

The picture shows the last march of the clergy.
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The Nobility Loses Its Special Privileges
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Special privilege of the nobility is abolished

• National Assembly (now Constituent Assembly)
  declares end to aristocratic privilege (August
  4-11, 1789).
• In June, 1790, titles and nobility are abolished.

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Flight to Varennes (June, 1791)
The royal family tries to flee France.
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They are caught in the town of Varennes,
arrested, and brought back to Paris. The Assembly
suspends the kings authority.
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1791 Constitution

• The National Assembly adopts the 1791
  Constitution in September.
• Power in hands of Assembly (taxing, law-making)
  so there is a limited, constitutional monarchy.
• Equality before the law is declared.
• Every two years eligible citizens vote for
  representatives. The notion of talent replaces
  privilege.
• The amount of taxes a man pays determines his
  status. The lowest-ranking active citizen is over
  25 and pays taxes worth three days labor.

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Accomplishments of Constituent Assembly

• Ended feudal privileges
• Set up constitutional monarchy and unicameral
  legislature
• Provided for franchise of active citizens
• Jews given citizenship

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• On September 18, 1791, the king is restored to
  power.
• Then, in August of 1792, he is overthrown.
  Citizens of Paris, mostly sans-culottes, march
  to the Tuilleries to demand it. In the
  afternoon, the Assembly strips Louis of his
  powers and declares him a prisoner of the nation.
• All along the people of Paris, who formed a
  commune at the beginning of the Revolution, have
  been actively making demands of the government.
• Sans-culottes literally means without pants
  (knee-breeches, but the sans-culottes were the
  working men of Paris, who wore long pants.

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Two versions of Sans-Culotte
A cartoon by a British caricaturist shows Charles
James Fox, a British politician, as a
sans-culotte. Hes singing Ca ira!, (Itll be
okay!), a popular revolutionary song
This is a straighter version. He wears the
symbolic red cap (Phrygian) and is dressed in
revolutionary colors.
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Phase 2 The Republic (August, 1792-1795)
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What Is a Republic?

• Look it up!

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Groups in the legislature

• Marsh or Plain (independent)
• Girondins (tending to be more bourgeois)
• Jacobins or Mountain (more radical)

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War, Unrest, Conscription (1793)

• Killing of the King
• War against England and Holland (February)
• War on Spain (March)
• Food scarcity
• Military conscription

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Execution of Louis XVI (January, 1793)
What implications does this have?
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February, 1793-September, 1793

• The Convention (new assembly) sets up an
  "extraordinary criminal tribunal and passes a
  law that anyone attacking private property is to
  be executed.
• Revolts spring up in the Vendée (a region in
  western France) against the government (peasants,
  aristocracy, Catholics, and royalists)
• Paris communes set up committees of surveillance
  to keep track of people suspected of being
  traitors to the new nation.
• The Convention sets up the Committee of Public
  Safety, a group of twelve men.
• (cont)

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February, 1793-September, 1793 (cont)

• Robespierre advocates a new constitution with
  restrictions on property rights, says society has
  a duty towards all citizens
• Hoarding is made a capital crime. Levée en masse
  all males 18-25 not married or widower without
  children are called up to defend the country.
• The war is not going well
• Sans-culottes demand
• Arrest of traitors
• Establishment of revolutionary army to put down
  revolts

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Constitution of 1793 (August)

• Right to work
• Right to education
• Extension of franchise
• Principle that private property less important
  than liberty and social order
• Principle that people have right and duty to
  revolt against a government that violates rights
• NEVER HAPPENED

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The Reign of Terror (September 1793-July, 1794)

• Popular revolts
• Power grabs
• Food price and wage controls
• New calendar
• Revolutionary festivals
• Repression

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The Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety of twelve men, was
a de facto executive branch during the Reign of
Terror. The country was at war. The Jacobins
centralized the finding, trials, and executions
of enemies (anyone suspected of being an
anti-revolutionary). Thousands were killed,
mostly by guillotine.
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The Terror
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(No Transcript)
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• Republican Calendar
• 12 months of 30 days each
• Months named after flowers, vegetables, farming
  utensils
• Years dated from 1792.
• Lasted from 1792 to 1806.

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Festival of the FederationJuly 14, 1790
This was a commemoration of the fall of the
Bastille, Soldiers from all over France swore
loyalty to the king and to the assembly. Non-reli
gious festivals replaced church holidays. This is
just one of them.
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Festival of ReasonNovember, 1793
.
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Festival of the Supreme Being
June, 1794. A huge mountain was built on a parade
ground. The event was staged by the artist David.
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December, 1793

• Danton urges peace and end to Terror

• Robespierre says Terror is necessary . .
  .virtue without which terror is evil, terror
  without which virtue is powerless.

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In early 1794, slavery is abolished throughout
France.Struggles for power take place within the
revolutionary government.Danton and his
followers are guillotined.
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Thermidor (July, 1794)
Robespierre, architect of the Terror, is
guillotined.
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Phase 3 The Directory (1795-1799

• A republic but against social democracy
• Strong central government
• Power more in legislature than in executive
  branch
• Wages rising more slowly than prices
• Insurrections
• Repression of sans-culottes

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Phase 4 Napoleon (1799-1815)
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Question Were the original goals accomplished?