Transcript The French Revolution

The French Revolution
The Revolution
that changed the world
Basics 4 Vocab
 Three estates – France’s 3 social classes: the clergy (1st),
the nobility (2nd), and everyone else (3rd)
 Bourgeoisie – the middle class and highest level of the 3rd
estate
 Estates-General – France’s legislative, law-making, body
in which each estate had one vote
 National Assembly – Revolutionary legislature formed
when the 1st & 2nd estates locked the 3rd estate out of the
Estates-General
 Tennis Court Oath – Oath taken by the National Assembly
to not leave until there was a new French Constitution
More Basics 4 Vocab
 Bastille – Parisian prison that was destroyed July 14th 1789
as crowds searched for weapons and gunpowder to protect
themselves from the French Army
 Sans-culottes – working class revolutionaries who pushed
for a republic and wanted to end the monarchy
 Jacobins – middle class lawyers and intellectuals who were
in favor of a republic
 Émigré – clergy and nobles who fled France and
revolutionaries with tales of mob violence that frightened
many European monarchs
Last slide of Basics 4 Vocab
 Suffrage – the right to vote
 Robespierre – leader of the Committee of Public
Safety, a Jacobin, he took control of the French
Revolution and began the Reign of Terror
 Reign of Terror – September 1793 – July 1794
which tried about 300,000 individuals and executed
17,000 “enemies of the revolution”
 Nationalism – feelings of pride and love for one’s
country
French Society: divided into three estates
First Estate:
Second Estate:
Third Estate
:
0.3%
% of Land
% of Pop.
1.7%
98%
10%
70%
20%
First Estate
Third Estate
Second Estate
First Estate
Third Estate
2%
Taxation
Level
0%
50%
First Estate
Third Estate
Second Estate
Second Estate
Third Estate
 Divided into three sub classes:
 1. Merchants and artisans
– Rich and well educated (liberal ideologies)
 2.Working Class (cooks, servants, and
others)
Poor wage earners
Price of bread was very important to them
 3. Farmers (80% of people)
Heavily taxed, had to work for nobles/
clergy for free
France’s National Problems
1. Crop failures led to grain shortages
2. Large debt due to Wars
(in the Americas)
– Bankers refused to lend
more money
3. Weak leader
King and Queen of France
 Louis XVI– Great Grandson of Louis
XIV
– Not very focused on his
duties
• Wanted to have fun (hunt,
play with locks, etc)
 Marie Antoinette– Daughter of Austrian
Maria Theresa
– big spender
Louis is forced to call the
Estates-General (May 1789)
 meeting of all 3 estates
 first time in 175 yrs.
 Each estate gets 1 vote
– (clergy had one, nobles had one)
 3rd Estate was always
outvoted by the other two estates
Estates-General of May 1789
 Estates-General called at request of 1st & 2nd
Estates
– Goal: To limit the powers of the monarchy
• Similar to England’s Glorious Revolution
 1st and 2nd Estate
– feared losing money from Louis’ big
spending…wanted to control him
 3rd Estate
– complained about unequal voting rights.
– Estates-General refused to listen to them and the 3rd
Estate was locked out.
Tennis Court Oath (June 1789)
 Third Estate met separately
 New name=National Assembly
 Declared that the Assembly, not the king, were the voice
of the people
Tennis Court
Oath (National
Assembly is
formed)
Rumors start
Rumor of King’s
army coming to
stop the NA
meetings
King fears that the
people are going
revolt
People storm
the Bastille to
get ready (get
gun powder)
More rumors of nobles
hiring troops to kill
peasants in countryside
Peasants react to the
rumors by burning
noble’s homes (The
Great Fear-summer
of 1789)
Louis was so disconnected from
his people…
 Louis was so disconnected from the
people that he wrote in journal (on the
day of the Storming of the Bastille)
“Rein” or “nothing happened”
referring to his afternoon hunt
Palace of Versailles (where King Louis is living)
The Great Fear (July 20th – August 5th 1789)
Declaration of the Rights of Man
– Issued August 26, 1789
– “Men are born and remain free and equal in
rights”
• Women were not included
• Right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to
oppression
• Sets up a Constitutional Monarchy
Slogan of Revolution
“Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity
(brotherhood)”
Women’s Bread Riot, October 5th 1789
 Price of bread (and other necessities) rise
 Thousands of women took up arms and marched 12
miles to Versailles (King’s palace)
 Killed two guards
 Forced the king and his family to move to Paris
Louis tries to escape France (June 1791)
 On his way to Austria
– Stopped by townsmen and guards
 Many argue that the King is not to be trusted
Political Spectrum:
Left
Right
Liberal, wants
extreme change
Conservative, wants
to go back to old
times
France’s Radical Groups:
 Sans-culottes:
 Émigrés:
 “those without knee
 nobles and clergy
breeches”
 mobs wage earners of
the cities
 far left supporters
who fled France
 Far right supporters
Europe turns against the Revolution
 Austria (Marie’s Homeland) feared that the
revolution against nobility would spread to
other nations.
– Austria declared war on France in 1792, later
joined by Prussia, Holland, Spain, and England..
– French Émigrés joined with the foreigners.
– Austrian and Prussian forces near Paris and
threatened to destroy Paris if the Royal family
was harmed
– Outraged Parisian mob kills the King’s Swiss
guards and imprisons the royal family in a tower.
The Last Straw:
the September Massacre (1792)
 The Sans-culottes hear that
they are losing power and kill
over a 1,000 noble, clergy &
other prisoners
 Power is transferred to the Left
Radicals called the Jacobins
– No longer interested in allowing a
Monarch to govern: now they
want a new form of government
King No More
 The
revolutionaries
defeat the
invading armies
 The Jacobins
establish a
Republic.
 Louis is
beheaded by the
Guillotine (Jan.
1793)
Guillotine
Decapitation was punishment for
nobility=now equal
New Leader:
Maximilien Robespierre
Revolution goes past politics
 Slavery is outlawed
 Death penalty is outlawed (predict: why is this ironic?)
 Religious Freedom for Jews and Protestants
 Playing cards—no jacks, queens and kings
 Calendar was changed to 12 months 30 days
each
– 10 day week, no Sundays
(religion seen as old fashion)
 All churches were closed
 Bread prices were controlled
Committee of Public Safety (July
1793 to July 1794)
 Led by Robespierre
 Ordered to root out
traitors of the
Revolution
 No one was safe
 Neighbor turned on
neighbor
Reign of Terror
 Run by the
Committee of Public
Safety
 Killed:
– Marie Antoinette
– early leaders of the
revolution
– fellow Jacobins
– Robespierre was killed
(July 1794)
– About 40,000 people
had been killed,
most=commoners
The Directory
 Five Moderates
– Next and final leaders of
the revolution
• Corrupt and relatively
weak
• Could not provide stability
• Bread prices increase again
• New movement to restore
the Monarch
• Not ideal, but compared to
the Terror it was breath of
fresh air to the weary
French people
Napoleon Bonaparte
 …ends the Revolution
but that’s another
story…