How Do We Think About the French Revolution?

1
How Do We Think About the French Revolution?

• How did the French Jacobins use state power to
  achieve revolutionary goals during the Terror
  (1793-1794)?
• What were their goals?
• Why did extraordinary state power seem critical
  to attaining these goals?

2
Issues Whose Tyranny is Worse?

• Moderates Girondins, Feuillantsfear tyranny of
  mob, crowds, people
• Must do what can to preserve order, even if it
  means compromise with King
• Radicals Jacobins, The Paris Communefear
  tyranny of the state, monarchy, emigres
• Must do what can to keep them from ending
  revolution

3
The Terror in The French Revolution Contrasting
Images
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
The Terror as Desperate Measure to deal with
Crisis

• During Terror
• Universal Manhood Suffrage (womens clubs)
• Radical Constitution of 1793
• Abolished Serfdom
• Abolished Slavery
• Attempted Land Reform
• But
• At war with most of Europe
• In serious civil war with uprisings in the
  Vendée, major cities (Caen, Bordeaux, Marseille,
  Lyon)

8
Key Problem Sovereignty

• Who are the sovereign people and how do they
  exercise sovereignty?
• Why had they not resolved the question between
  1789 and1793?

9
First Hint at Potential of Popular Violence
10
(No Transcript)
11

• Key Questions
• How much would popular violence influence
  rational political debate?
• --ViolenceWhose Violence?
• Is popular sovereignty possible?
• How do you incorporate working class Parisians,
  peasants, and women into the polity? Do you want
  to? Why? Why not?

12
Flight to Varennes Changes Everything
13
Clubs and Press Explode
14
Girondins
15
Jacobin Club
16
Champs de Mars Massacre, July 17, 1791
17
Louis XVI Accepts Constitution, September 13, 1791
18
France Declares War on Austria, April 20, 1792
19
August 10, 1792 Attack on King in Tuileries
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
September Massacres (September 2-6, 1792)
23
(No Transcript)
24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
Princesse de Lamballe Attacked
27
The Terror as Genocide/Totalitarianism

• 250,000 Insurgents killed in Vendée Fighting
  Alone -15 population
• But 200,000 Revolutionary troops killed too
• Victims of Vendée describe the Terror as a
  Genocide of the Catholic Western France
• Probably 40,000 officially executed in all of
  France
• Others described coercion, the Jacobin
  Dictatorship, the price controls, and levée en
  masse (universal draft of all citizens) an
  example of early Totalitarianism

• Drowning Prisoners The Vendée

28
(No Transcript)
29
Valmy (September 22, 1792)
30
(No Transcript)
31
(No Transcript)