Transcript The French Revolution 1789 - Saint Francis High School

The French Revolution
1789
Four phases of the French Revolution
1. “Liberal” Phase (1789-1791)
2. “Radical” Phase (1792-1794)
3. Directory Rule (1795-1799)
4. Napoleonic Era (1799-1815)
Pre-Revolutionary France
(up to 1789)
Why did revolution break out in
1789?
What were the causes of the French
Revolution?
#1: The French Monarchy (1774-1793)
Marie Antoinette & Louis XVI
Marie Antoinette and the Royal Children
Marie Antoinette’s “Peasant Cottage”
Marie Antoinette’s “Peasant Cottage”
The Necklace Scandal
1,600,000 livres
($100 million today)
Cardinal Louis René de Rohan & Jean de La Motte
Let them eat cake!

“Madame Deficit”

“The Austrian Whore”
#2: An Outdated Social Structure
Legal division into 3 orders, or estates:

First Estate: Clergy

Second Estate: Nobility

Third Estate: Commoners (bourgeoisie & peasants)
Inequitable Distribution of Land
“The People under the Old Regime”
#3: Enlightenment Ideas
Classical Liberalism:
Liberty
Equality
Liberty
A call for:
 individual
a
human rights
new kind of government
John Locke (1632-1704)
“no one ought to harm
another in his life,
health, liberty, or
possessions”
Montesquieu (1689-1755)
“When the legislative and
executive powers are
united in the same person,
or in the same body of
magistrates, there can be
no liberty; because
apprehensions may arise,
lest the same monarch or
senate should enact
tyrannical laws, to execute
them in a tyrannical
manner.”
Equality
All citizens should have equal rights
and liberties, except:

women excluded

economic equality excluded
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
#4: Model of the American Revolution
The Boston Tea Party, 1773
The Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
#5: Financial Problems
French Budget, 1774
Where is the tax money?
Phase 1:
The “Liberal” Phase
(1789-1791)
Convening of the Estates General
May 1789
Last time it was called into session was 1614!!
The Suggested Voting Pattern:
Voting by Estates
1
1st Estate – Clergy
2nd Estate – Aristocracy
1
1
3rd Estate – Commoners
The Number of Representatives in the
Estates General: Vote by Head!
300
1st Estate – Clergy
2nd Estate – Aristocracy
300
648
3rd Estate – Commoners
“The Third Estate Awakens”
June 17, 1789 – Formation of the National Assembly
“The Tennis Courth Oath”
by Jacques Louis David
June 20, 1789
Storming the Bastille
July 14, 1789
Revolutionary Paris, 1789
The French Urban Poor
80
70
60
50
1787
1788
40
30
20
10
0
% of Income Spent on Bread
The Great Fear: Peasant Revolt
July 20, 1789
March of the Women
October 5-6, 1789
We want the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy!
National Assembly
1789-1791
Liberté!
Egalité!
Fraternité!
August Decrees
(August 4-11, 1789)
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen
August 26, 1789
“Men are born free and remain
free and equal in rights.”
(…but NOT of Woman)
The Tricolor, 1789
The WHITE of the Bourbons + the
RED and BLUE of Paris
83 Revolutionary Departments
February 26, 1790
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
July 12, 1790



national church
clergy elected
oath of allegiance
Assignats
They were backed by the sale of Church lands.
Louis XVI “accepts” the constitution and
National Assembly, September 1791
absolute monarchy
↓
constitutional monarchy
(CONSTITUTION #1)
French Constitution of 1791:
A Constitutional Monarchy

the king got the “suspensive” veto (prevented
passage of laws for 4 years)



a permanent, elected, single chamber Legislative
Assembly


he could not pass laws
his ministers were responsible for their own actions
had the power to grant taxation
an independent judiciary
While the revolutionaries seemingly got
off to a good start…
A foreshadowing of
events to come….
Phase 2:
The “Radical” Phase
(1792-1794)
Attitudes &
actions of
monarchy
& court
Fear of
CounterRevolution
Religious
divisions
The Causes of
Instability in France
1792 - 1795
Economic
Crises
War
Political
divisions
Royal family attempted to flee France
June 1791
Marie Antoinette risks her body to save her son, the crown
prince.
War (1792-1815)
European monarchs feared spread of revolution
(émigrés spread rumors)
↓
offered help to French monarchy
↓
French revolutionaries declared war
 1792 – Austria & Prussia (“First Coalition”)
 1793 – Britain, Holland, Spain

The Storming of the Tuilieres
August 10, 1792
Royal family imprisoned.
National Convention (1792-1795)
 replaced
Legislative Assembly
 elected by universal male suffrage
 legislative branch of the new republic
The September Massacres, 1792
Over 1,000 Parisians killed!
The First French Republic (1792-1795)
“second revolution”:
constitutional
monarchy
↓
republic
(CONSTITUTION #2)
New pop culture:
The Tricolor is the Fashion!
New pop culture:
Revolutionary Playing Cards
New pop culture:
A New Republican Calendar
I
1792 – 1793
II
1793 – 1794
III
1794 – 1795
IV
1795 – 1796
V
1796 – 1797
VI
1797 – 1798
VII
1798 – 1799
VIII
1799 – 1800
IX
1800 – 1801
X
1801 – 1802
XI
1802 – 1803
XII
1803 – 1804
XIII
1804 – 1805
XIV
1805
The Gregorian System returned in 1806.
New pop culture:
A New Republican Calendar
New Name
Meaning
Time Period
Vendemaire
Vintage
September 22 – October 21
Brumaire
Fog
October 22 – November 20
Frimaire
Frost
November 21 – December 20
Nivose
Snow
December 21 – January 19
Pluviose
Rain
January 20 – February 18
Ventose
Wind
February 19 – March 20
Germinal
Budding
March 21 – April 19
Floreal
Flowers
April 20 – May 19
Prairial
Meadow
May 20 – June 18
Messidor
Harvest
June 19 – July 18
Thermidor
Heat
July 19 – August 17
Fructidor
Fruit
August 18 – September 21
The Jacobins
Jacobin Meeting House



Parisian political club
younger, more radical than
Nat’l. Assembly members
dominated Legislative Assembly
& National Convention
A Jacobin Club Meeting
The Politics of the
National Convention
Montagnards
“The Mountain”
Girondists
More radical.
 More moderate.
Power base in Paris.
 Power base in the
provinces.
Main support from the
sans-culottes.
Leaders: Robespierre &
Danton
 Feared the influence of
the sans-culottes.
The Political Spectrum Today
1790s:
Jacobins
Montagnards
(“The Mountain”)
The Plain
(uncommitted)
Girondists
Monarchíen
(Royalists)
The Sans-culottes: The Parisian Poor
Sans-culottes
Depicted as savages by a British cartoonist.
Attempts to Control the Growing Crisis
1.
Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris  try suspected
counter-revolutionaries
A. Representatives-on-mission
B. Watch Committees
C. Trial & execution of rebels & émigrés
2.
3.
Printing of more assignats to pay for war
Committee of Public Safety
* oversee and speed up gov’t. work
4.
Committee of General Security
* responsible for pursuit of counter-revolutionaries, treatment
of subjects, & other internal security matters
Committee of Public Safety
Est. April 1793




12-member
executive gov’t.
during Reign of
Terror
revolutionary
tribunals
300,000 arrested
16,000-50,000
executed
Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794)
Georges Jacques Danton (1759-1794)
The Economy – Committee of Public
Safety’s “Total War” Legislation

planned economy – “embryonic emergency
socialism”





fixed prices
rationing
gov’t.-mandated production levels
nationalization of businesses
Aug. 1973 – conscription
EFFECT: France achieved victory in wars.
Reign of Terror (1793-1794)
Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.
- Robespierre
Reign of Terror (1793-1794)
Those convicted await their fate.
The Guillotine
The Paris Mob
The “Monster” Guillotine
The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939.
Execution of Louis XVI
January 21, 1793
Execution of Marie Antoinette
October 1973
Thermidorian Reaction (1794-1795)

July 26 Robespierre gave a speech illustrating
new plots & conspiracies



alienated members of the CPS – many felt threatened
by his implications
July 27 (9 Thermidor)  Convention arrested
Robespierre
July 28 Robespierre was tried & guillotined!
Arrest of Robespierre
The revolution consumes its own
children…
Danton awaits
execution, 1793.
Robespierre lies wounded
before the revolutionary
tribunal that will order him to
be guillotined, 1794.
Phase 3:
Directory Rule
(1795-1799)
Directory Rule (1795-1799)
Constitution of 1795:
republic
↓
Directory
(CONSTITUTION #3)
 5-man Directory
 2-house legislature
 But problems continued…

Phase 4:
Napoleonic Era
(1799-1815)
Napoleonic Era (1799-1815)

coup d’etat – overthrew Directory and established
dictatorship
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)