The French Revolution of 1789 Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!

Humanities 221 ProfessorEaston

THE OLD REGIME

The Three Estates

1st Clergy: tithes; tax exempt; birth, marriage & death; schools; censorship

2nd Nobility (Nobility and Clergy combined=400,000 out of a pop. of 26 million): land, mills & bakeries; tax exempt; manor dues; hunting rights; magistrates

"Nobles of the race" & "Nobles of the robe"

3rd Everybody Else=bourgeoisie, laborers, artisans, peasants (96% of population): talent but no birth; limited incomes; high cost of living

1788: peasant spends 50% of income on bread

1789: peasant spends 80% of income on bread

1785-1789 cost of living increases 62%; wages increase 22%

Problems: economic (war debts, loans, extravagant kings, too many tax exemptions)

social (imbalance of social power)

THE ESTATES GENERAL--convenes the delegates from each of the three Estates; hasn't met since 1614 (the Monarchy has been "absolute").

Meeting at Versailles May 5, 1789. Number of delegates from 3rd Estate approximately the number of delegates from the 1st & 2nd.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY declared June 17, 1789

TENNIS COURT OATH June 20, 1789. They will not disband until France has a constitution.

STORMING OF THE BASTILLE (prison & armory) July 14, 1789

END OF THE OLD REGIME

Revolutionary spirit spreads to the countryside.

National Assembly reduces aristocratic privilege.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (adopted Aug. 26, 1789)

influence of American Revolution; Enlightenment philosophes; Jean Jacques Rousseau

Mary Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Women

Olympe de Gouges: Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizenness

Shortsightedness of revolutionaries: only partial religious toleration

Women's activism: October 1789 march to Versailles: "We have no bread."

Many nobility flee France, and opposition to National Assembly decreases.

REFORMS MADE BY THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

End Clergy/Nobility privilege

Declare Human Rights

End Roman Catholic Church privilege

Create Constitutional government; limit King's power; equality of Citizens

Reform Judiciary; torture abolished

Eliminate duties & tolls; medieval guilds eliminated

RESPONSES TO THE REVOLUTION:

1. Counter-Revolutionary measures (nobles, churchmen, Catholic peasants)

2. Sans-Culottes ("no pants" shopkeepers, artisans, wage earners): not rev. enough

3. Fear from other countries: Austria fought off, Aug. 1792.

SEPTEMBER MASSACRE, 1792, raid of prisons, killed 1100.

NATIONAL CONVENTION (new legislature) abolishes Monarchy. France becomes a REPUBLIC. Louis XVI executed January 1793

BLOODY REVOLUTION. . .

Two bourgeois political parties: Jacobins (strong central government; supported by Sans-Culottes) vs. Girondins (oppose government inference in business)

Jacobin constitution: the law of the maximum fixes prices on bread & other necessities

Maximilien Robespierre: The Reign of Terror

Guillotine . . . 40,000 killed (preservation of The Republic)

Robespierre executed July 27, 1794 (the 9th of Thermidor, according to the Republican calendar), ending Jacobin domination of the government.

New Republican Government: The Directory

Thermidoreans: bourgeois property owners; not sympathetic to commoners, massacre Jacobins.

By 1795, The Directory is weakened through internal uprisings.

Military generals take increasing control of government.

Napoleon Bonaparte (30 years old in 1799)

Napoleon and other generals overthrow The Directory in 1799. "First consul" 1802.

Crowns himself Emperor of France in 1804

Napoleonic reforms (an Enlightened Despot?)

suppressed political freedom

sustained revolutionary reforms rejecting religious intolerance & privilege by birth

arrested political opponents, both royalists and republicans

kept food prices low

built up bourgeois community

expanded French empire

instituted civil rights for Jews

reformed education

modernized roads & bridges)

Napoleonic Code: (selected examples)

equality under the law

right to choose one's own profession

separation of church and state

inferiority of wives to husbands

tolerance of husbands beating wives (rule of thumb)

no support for employees under employers

British reaction (Napoleon bans import of British goods); support for Napoleon weakens.

Napoleon attacks Russia; defeated 1812.

"Able was I ere I saw Elba"

1815 Napoleon returns, defeated at Waterloo; exiled

WHAT HAPPENS TO FRANCE?