Transcript Slide 1

Y June, 1791
The Royal Family Attempts
to Flee
Y The King was
recognized at
Varennes,
near
the border
Y Causes Great
Anger
Amongst the
3rd Estate
Y Why?
Austria and Prussia Threaten French Revolutionaries with War
When France sneezes,
all of Europe catches cold!
Why?
Foreign Royals (Declaration of Pillnitz) “If the
Royal Family is harmed, Paris will be leveled!!”
FRANCE
17921815
AUSTRIA
PRUSSIA
BRITAIN
SPAIN
PIEDMONT
RUSSIA
PORTUGAL
Radicalization!!!
Why a Radicalization?
•Constitutional monarchy is no longer
practical
•In a time of war, moderation can be
easily interpreted as …
•…treason!
•Also, upon writing the Constitution,
the National Assembly had dissolved
itself, in an Enlightenment attempt to
show that they were not trying to wrest
control for themselves. New elections
for legislative assembly .However, the
time elections take place after the
king’s flight. Radicals elected.
The Storming of the Tuilieres:
August 9-10, 1792
Urban Workers Come Looking for The King’s Head
The September Massacres, 1792
 Rumors that the anti-revolutionary political prisoners
were plotting to break out & attack from the rear the
armies defending France, while the Prussians attacked
from the front.
 It discredited the Revolution among its remaining
sympathizers abroad.
The Sans-Culottes
Depicted as Savages by a British Cartoonist.
The Radical’s
Arms:
No God!
No Religion!
No King!
No Constitution!
Radical Actions of the Legislative
Assembly
 Its first act was the formal abolition of
the monarchy on September 22, 1792.
 The Year I of the French Republic.
 it offered French assistance to any
subject peoples who wished to overthrow
their governments
‘if kings try to crush the revolution
by inciting war against us, then we will
incite a war of people against kings’
The Jacobins
Jacobin Meeting House
 Started as a debating society.
 Membership mostly middle class,
but very radical… claimed to
represent the urban poor.
 Large number of them in
legislative assembly
There Was A Divide in the National Convention
Between Liberals and Radicals
TODAY:
1790s:
Montagnards
The Plain
(swing votes)
Girondists
(“The Mountain”)
Jacobins
Louis XVI as a Pig
c
c
For the Mountain, the king was a traitor.
The Girondins felt that the Revolution had
gone far enough and didn’t want to execute
the king [maybe exile him].
Marie Antoinette as a Serpent
The “Widow Capet”
Radical Jacobin Triumph
• Call on the sans-culottes for
support and literally arrest and
execute a large number of the
Girondin leaders
Louis XVI’s Head (January 21, 1793)
c
c
c
The trial of the king
was hastened by the
discovery in a secret
cupboard in the
Tuilieres of a cache of
documents.
They proved
conclusively Louis’
knowledge and
encouragement of
foreign intervention.
The National
Convention voted
387 to 334 to
execute the monarchs.
Marie Antoinette Died in October, 1793
Marie Antoinette
on the Way to the Guillotine
France Becomes a ‘Republic’
Committee of Public Safety
Given dictatorial power to
‘save the Revolution’
Kinda makes sense with all the
chaos and the desperation of
France’s situation in the
European wars, but pretty
darn ironic, too
Maximillian Robespierre
“If the spring of
popular government
in time of peace is
virtue, the springs of
popular government
in revolution are at
once virtue and
terror: virtue,
without which terror
is fatal; terror,
without which virtue
is powerless.” —
Robespierre
The Reign of Terror
Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible. -Robespierre
Let terror be the order of the day! -Robespierre
c
c
c
c
Robespierre vows to save
the revolution at all costs
What is the sacrifice of an
individual for the good of
France?
Tribunal of Paris alone
executed 2,639 victims in
15 months.
The total number of victims
nationwide was over 20,000!
The Irony of the Guillotine
The “Monster” Guillotine
The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939!
Different Social Classes Executed
8%
7%
28%
25%
31%
Legislation Passed by the National
Convention
1. Price Controls on Food
2. Bread of equality
3. In other words, the Committee on
Public Safety is starting to offer
Equality of ______________
4. Early SOCIALISM!!!
The Levee en Masse:
An Entire Nation at Arms! – Over 1 Million Soldiers
•Conscript
forces
•Less training
given
•Less need to
use massed
infantry to
ensure that
soldiers don’t
desert during
battles… why?
An army based on merit, not birth!
French Army Starts Winning!
To a Certain Degree, the French Fight Better
Because They Are Fighting For Themselves
“The young men shall go to battle and the
married men shall forge arms. The women
shall make tents and clothes, and shall serve
in the hospitals; children shall tear rags into
lint. The old men will be guided to the public
places of the cities to kindle the courage of
the young warriors and to preach the unity of
the Republic and the hatred of kings.”
Surging French Nationalism!!!
• What is Nationalism?
• Identification not with a ruler or kingdom
or empire, but instead with a culture
group
• In other words, did subjects of the
Habsburgs feel nationalism?
• Subject versus Citizen
• Divine Right versus Social Contract
French Soldiers & the Tricolor:
Vive Le Patrie!
The Tricolor (1789)
The WHITE of the
Bourbons + the RED &
BLUE of Paris.
Citizen!
The Tricolor is the Fashion!
Intense Move Towards REASON
1. The adoption of a new Republican
Calendar:
abolished Sundays & religious holidays.
months named after seasonal features.
7-day weeks replaced by 10-day
decades.
the yearly calendar was dated from
the creation of the Republic
[Sept. 22, 1792]
The Convention symbolically divorced the
state from the Church!!
The 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 “Temple of Reason”
Come, holy Liberty, inhabit this temple,
Become the goddess of the French people.
The Festival of Supreme Being
A new secular holiday
Revolutionary Playing Cards
83 Revolutionary Departments
February 26, 1790
The Revolution Consumes
Its Own Children!
Danton Awaits
Execution, 1793
The “Thermidorean Reaction,” 1794
P Robespierre has demanded
complete obedience to his version
of revolutionary virtue throughout
the Reign of Terror
 He has repeatedly purged the
National Convention of ‘traitors’
 Eventually he alienates members of
the CPS and the National Convention
who feel they may be next to be
accused
P the Convention arrests Robespierre.
P Robespierre is tried & guillotined!
The Arrest of Robespierre
Robespierre Lies Wounded
Before the Revolutionary Tribunal that will
order him to be guillotined, 1794.
Yet Another Gov’t, the Directory, Is Established
V Curtailed the power of the Committee for
Public Safety.
V Closed the Jacobin Clubs.
V Churches were reopened.

freedom of worship for all cults was granted.
V Economic restrictions were lifted in favor
of laissez-faire (capitalist) policies.
V A
more conservative republicanism.

An attempt to return as much as possible to the bourgeois
stage of the Revolution