The French Revolution
The French Revolution: Why Did It Happen?
Short-run Conditions
Pre-Revolutionary events
§Grain riots of 1775
§Aristocratic revolt (1787-1788)
§Bourgeois revolt (1788-1789)
Grain Riots of 1775
§Aim:
§popular control of bread price
§For them?
§The poor and some clergy, officials, nobles
§Against them?
§Richer peasants, merchants, millers, bakers
The Three Estates
Aristocratic Revolt (1787-1788)
§Nobility wanted to squeeze more money from peasants
§Nobility wanted more say in central government
Bourgeois Revolt (1788-1789)
§Bourgeois wanted
§Free trade
§Representation (equal or double)
§Voting (by order or head)
§Popular movement more political, less economic
Most in Third Estate wanted:
§End of fetters on production
§End of high food cost
§End of feudal obligations
§More taxes paid by privileged
§End of tyrannies (lettres de cachet)
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 enclosure and land-clearance
The King, Louis XVI,
wanted to maintain his power but needed money
Louis as a pig
Marie Antoinette, queen, not beloved
Queen as serpent
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)
The French Revolution: Phase I
Constitutional Monarchy as Goal
(1789-1792)
Meeting of the Estates General (May, 1789)
Tennis Court Oath (David)
Storming of the Bastille
(July 14, 1789)
Peasants revolt against feudalism
(July-August)
§Base for Federation
§Spurred NationalAssembly to surrender feudal rights
Paris Third Estate
§Forms Commune
§Militia of bourgeoisie
Great Fear
§Rumors nobles
hoarding grain
§Rumors nobles hiring vagrants to destroy harvest
§Peasants burning castles to remove evidence of feudal dues
August, 1789
§National Assembly declares end to feudal rights (August 4-11)
§Declaration of the Rights of Man (August 26)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
Women’s march to Versailles (October, 1789)
The king greeting the market women
Triumphant Return
State confiscation and sale of Church lands (November-December, 1789)
February-July, 1790
§Some religious orders abolished (February)
§Titles and nobility abolished(June)
§Civil Constitution of Clergy (July)
Festival of the Federation
July 14, 1790
October-December, 1790
§King explores his options
§Loyalty oath
§Guilds abolished
§Le Chapelier Law passed
Champ de Mars Massacre
July 17, 1791
1791 Constitution
National Assembly adopts 1791 Constitution (September)
§Power in hands of Assembly (taxing, law-making
§Elections every two years by citizens eligible to vote
§Now Legislative Assembly
Accomplishments of Constituent Assembly
§Ended feudal privileges
§Set up constitutional monarchy and unicameral legislature
§Provided for franchise of “active citizens”
§Jews given citizenship
Legislative Assembly (October, 1791-September, 1792)
§War against Austria – April, 1792
§Unrest in France
§Monarch overthrown
Food Riots (early 1792)
Parisians at the Tuileries
(June 20, 1792)
Monarch Overthrown
Massacre of Prisoners at St. Germain
Phase 2: The Republic (August, 1792-1795)
Groups in the legislature
§Marsh or Plain (independent)
§Girondins (tending to be more bourgeois)
§Jacobins or Mountain (more radical)
1793 War, Unrest, Conscription
§Killing of the King
§War against England and Holland (February)
§Food scarcity
§Military conscription
§War on Spain (March)
Execution of Louis XVI (January, 1793)
February, March,1793
§Revolt by enragés in Paris
§The Convention sets up "extraordinary criminal tribunal”
§Revolts in Vendée (peasants, aristocracy, Catholics, and royalists)
§Paris communes set up committees of surveillance
April, 1793
§Committee of Public Safety
§Robespierre advocates new constitution
restrictions on property rights
society has duty towards all citizens
May, 1793
§Commission of Twelve established
Constitution of 1793
§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
NEVER HAPPENED
Assassination of Marat
An English View of Corday
July, 1793
§Hoarding a capital crime
§War is not going well
August, 1793
§Metric system new national standard
§Levée en masse
§War not going well
§San-Culottes demand:
§Arrest of traitors
§Establishment of revolutionary army to put down revolts
Fox
The Terror (September 1793-July, 1794)
§Popular revolts
§Power grabs
§Food price and wage controls
§New calendar
§Revolutionary festivals
§Repression
The Terror
September, 1793
§Siege of Lyon
§All women to wear the tricolor
§Law of general maximum
Siege of Lyon
October, 1793
§Republican calendar
§Queen guillotined
Queen Guillotined
Festival of Reason
November, 1793
December, 1793
§Vendée revolt essentially over
§Centralization of power
December, 1793
Danton urges peace and end to Terror
Robespierre says Terror a necessary war
February 4, 1794, slavery abolished throughout France
February-March, 1794
Laws of Ventose
Seizure and redistribution of property belonging to anyone not working for the Republic
March-July, 1794
§Struggles for power within revolutionary government
§Guillotining of Hebertists
§Guillotining of Danton and his followers
§Festival of Supreme Being
§Wage and price control law
Festival of the Supreme Being
Thermidor (July, 1794)
The Directory (1795-1799
§For 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
Phase 4: Napoleon (1799-1815)
Question: Were the original goals accomplished?