The French Revolution,1789-1799

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The French Revolution,1789-1799

• LIBERTY EQUALITY- FRATERNITY

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Causes of the French Revolution

• The Enlightenment
• Ideas
• Liberty
• Equality
• Reason
• Progress
• Philosophes
• Locke defended private property, limited
  sovereignty and fair government
• Voltaire attacked noble privileges and the
  Churchs authority

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Causes (continued)The American Revolution,

• 1775-1783 showed the ideas of Enlightenment in
  actionFrench soldiers (i.e. Lafayette) who
  helped came home inspired Put Louis XVI in deep
  debt

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French Economy was failing

• Enormous National debt (4 Billion)
• 50 percent of governments income went to
  interest on debt
• No central bank or paper currency
• Inefficient and uneven taxation system (varied by
  region and estate)

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Feudal system

• Estate System outdated
• Posed many difficulties to rising middle class of
  Third Estate
• Difficult to move upward in society, unless
  very rich
• Less well-off commoners resented the inequality
  of the three estates

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Louis XVI

• Good intentions
• Enlightened
• Weak-willed
• Indecisive
• Marie-Antoinette allowed to dispense patronage
  amongst friends

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Peasants situation unbearable

• Web of obligations
• Obviously unfairly overtaxed
• Noble hunting privileges
• Land-starved
• Subsistence farmers

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Harvest failures in 1787-1788

• Less food
• Higher prices
• Businesses failed
• Unemployment in cities

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Periods of the French Revolution

• Moderate stage 17891792
• Radical stage 17921794
• The Directory 17941799
• Napoleon 17991815

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Outbreak of the Revolution

• THE SPARK Fiscal crisis forced Louis XVI to call
  the Estates-General, summer, 1788 (first time
  since 1614)

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The three estates elected delegates

• First Estate represented about 100,000 clergymen
• Second Estate represented about 400,000 noble men
  and women
• Third Estate represented about 24.5 million
  people

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Who were the Third Estate delegates?

• Represented the outlook of the elite
• 25 percent lawyers
• 43 percent government officials
• Strong sense of common grievance and common
  purpose (cahiers de doleances)

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Outbreak (contd.)

• May 5, 1789 Estates General convened at
  Versailles
• June 17, 1789 the delegates of the Third Estate
  declared themselves to be the National Assembly

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the Oath of the Tennis Court (June 20, 1789)
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Outbreak (Contd.)

• Public attention to the events in Paris was
  highPrice of bread soared
• Rumors circulated that Louis was about to stage a
  coup détatParisian workers (sans-culottes)
  organized a militia of volunteers

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July 14, 1789 the Storming of the Bastille

• Bastille was symbol of royal authority
• Its fall symbolized of the peoples role in
  revolutionary change

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The Great Fear

• Rumors that the kings armies were on their way
• Peasants attacked and burned manor houses
• Destroyed manor records

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Response

• August 4, 1789 National Assembly voted to
  abolish all noble and other privileges
• Church tithe
• the corvée
• hunting privileges
• tax exemptions and monopolies
• Obliterated the remnants of feudalism

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Declaration of the Rights of Man andCitizen
August 26, 1789
Declared natural rights Private property
Liberty, security, and resistance to
oppression Declared freedom of speech, religious
toleration, and liberty of the press to be
inviolable Equality before the law
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Womens March on Versailles
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Womens March cont

• Brought on by economic crisis
• Parisian women marched to Versailles (October 5)
  and demanded to be heard
• Women demanded Louis and his family return to
  Paris
• Women with the help of the National Guard forced
  Louis (and the National Assembly) to move to
  Paris

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Women and the revolution

• General participation in the Revolution
• Took leading roles in mass actions
• Joined clubs, demonstrations, and debates

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Women as citizens

• Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of
  Women and the Citizen (1791)
• Women should have the same rights as men

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Religion and the Revolution

• National Assembly confiscated church property
  (November 1789)
• The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July 1790)
• Bishops and clergy subject to the laws of the
  state
• Salaries to be paid from public treasury
• Church reforms polarized France
• Many resented the privileged position of the
  church
• Parish church an institution of great local
  importance