Transcript The French Revolution & Napoleon

Age of Revolutions
• American Revolution was unique--4 million
people, edge of continent, no tradition of class or
clerical privilege, built on tradition of British
liberty
• French Revolution was internal revolt against
entrenched elites & monarchy, in most populous
& powerful European nation
• All Europe affected by French Revolution
In 1789, France faced a serious
economic crisis. Food prices were
rising while wages were falling and
the people were growing upset.
French Society Divided
• In 1789, France was under the
ancient regime (old order)
– European social system of the middle
ages
– Divided people into 3 estates.
• First estate – the clergy (church officials)
• Second estate – nobility
• Third estate – everyone else
The Ancien Regime
• This cartoon from
the era of the
French Revolution
depicts the third
estate as a person
in chains, who
supports the clergy
and nobility on his
back.
The Third Estate
The Clergy Enjoy Wealth
• French clergy were powerful and rich
– Paid no direct taxes, collected tithes, & owned
about 10% of land
• High ranking officials such as bishops live
very well, while priests, monks, and others
live humbly.
Nobles Hold Top Government
Jobs
• 2nd Estate (French Nobles) granted top
jobs in the government, the army, the
courts, and the Church.
• Suffering from financial crisis too and grew
to resent the royal bureaucracy.
• Feared that they might lose status and
privileges, such as tax exemption
Third Estate is Vastly Diverse
• Most diverse estate
• Bourgeoisie-middle class (top)
– Bankers, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers,
doctors, journalists, & professors.
• Most were rural peasants
– Some owned land
– Others were laborers
Urban workers
– The poorest of the poor
– Apprentices, journeymen, and other industrial
workers
– Many struggled to survive and often turned to
begging or crime
– Poor wages
– Rising bread prices threaten starvation
The
rd
3
Estate
• Resented the nobles
– Nobles paid no taxes
– Peasants paid all taxes
• Forced to pay for services such as roads
• Some also forced to pay dues to nobles
Financial Troubles
• In 1789, France faced a serious financial crisis
– By 1789 half of France’s income from taxes went to
paying the interest on the debt it owed.
• Causes
– Deficit spending: occurs when a government spends
more money than it takes in
– Louis XIV
– 7 Years War and American Revolution
– 1780’s bad harvests = high food prices
King Louis Calles on Jacques Necker for help
• It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was
the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we
had everything before us, we had nothing before
us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were
all going direct the other way – in short, the
period was so far like the present period, that
some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the
superlative degree of comparison only.
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
http://www.usdebtclock.org/#
Jacques Necker
Louis XVI's very popular finance minister.
Made three propositions to
correct France’s economy:
1. Reduce extravagant court
spending
2. Abolish burdensome tariffs on
internal trade
3. Reform government to give the
Third Estate more representation
in government & start taxing the
1st & 2nd Estates.
Jacques Necker
• So,
The Nobles
& Clergy
did not and
like this
idea
Why did
the nobles
clergy
and instead
the king
demand
thatdemanded
the kingthat
dismiss
Jacques
summon
Estatesthe
General
Necker
andthe
summon
Estates-General?
Necker wanted to tax them, & they
hoped the Estates General would
guarantee their privileges and help them
gain more power from the king
Louis XVI Calls the EstatesGeneral
• With bread riots spreading and nobles
denouncing royal tyranny, Louis is
pressured by the wealthy and powerful to
call the estates-general
– Legislative body consisting of representatives
from each estate
– Had not met in 175 years
Estates Prepare Grievance
Notebooks
• Louis tells the estates’ representatives to
prepare cahiers (Caiays)
– Notebooks, listing their grievances
– Called for tax reform, freedom of press, or
regular meeting of the Estates-General
Cahiers From the Third Estate
“Tax collectors are “bloodsuckers of
the nation who drink the tears of the
unfortunate from goblets of gold”
“20 million live off half the
wealth of France while the
clergy…devour the other half.”
The Estates General
• Members of the third estate elect
representatives
– Familiar with enlightenment ideas of Voltaire
and Rousseau
• Traditionally, each estate had one vote
– The 3rd suggests that all estates meet in a
single body and votes counted by head
First
Estate =of representation
Knowing this system
1 Vote or
was unfair, the Estates-General
from the
130,000
Votes
Third Estate wanted
all three estates to
Meet in a single body, with votes counted
“by each head”
Tennis Court Oath
The Third Estate declared itself to be the National
Assembly.
Louis XVI responded by locking the Third
Estate out of the meeting.
The Third Estate relocated to a nearby tennis court
where its members vowed to stay together and
create a written constitution for France.
The Tennis Court Oath
– Swear “never to separate and to meet
whatever the circumstances might
require until we have established a
sound and just constitution.”
– Some nobles and clergy decide to join
it, so Louis accepts it
– This Unification would not last long…
Parisians storm the Bastille
July 14, 1789
• Meanwhile, in Paris,
• Parisians fear that royal troops might occupy
the capital and end the National Assembly
• 800 Parisians surround the Bastille (medieval
fortress/prison) and demand weapons and
ammunition
– The commander of the Bastille refuses, and opens
fire on the crowd
• Many die, but the mob eventually storms the
fortress and kills the guards
• They find no weapons though
The Fall of the Bastille
Pont de la Concorde
Significance
•
•
•
•
Gives the people confidence
Sends a message to the King
Challenged the existence of the regime
Serves as France’s national
independence day.
Section 2
The French Revolution
Unfolds
Pgs. 216 - 221
Objectives:
• Explain how the political crisis of 1789
led to popular revolts
• Summarize the moderate reforms
enacted by the National Assembly in
August 1789
• Identify additional actions taken by the
National Assembly as it pressed onward
• Analyze why there was a mixed reaction
around Europe to the events unfolding in
France.
Setting: France, 1789 – 1792
Characters: Marquis de Lafayette, Olympe de
Gouges, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Emigres,
Sans-culottes, & Jacobins
Plot: Amid growing hunger and unrest among the
peasants, the National assembly succeeds in
creating a constitution. The Popularly elected
Legislative assembly takes over, steadily grows
more radical, and begins to declare war on
tyranny throughout Europe.
French Rev. Divided Into
Phases
– National Assembly (1789 – 1791) – moderate
– Radical Phase (1792- 1794)
– Directory (1795-1799) – reaction against
extremism
– Age of Napoleon (1799 – 1815)
• This section is about the Moderate Phase
The Great Fear
• 1789 worst harvest in history
• Summer of 1789 – Peasants fear that the
King and the First and Second estates
are trying to take them over.
• Peasants burned their nobles' chateaux
and destroyed documents which
contained their feudal obligations.
Burning chateaux as the peasants riot
in the countryside
Paris Commune Comes to
Power
• Factions (competing groups) fought
for control of Paris.
• Marquis de Lafayette controlled the
national guard in Paris.
• New govt. of paris
• Mobilized people for the revolution
The French Flag
• The Marquis de Lafayette, commander of the new
National Guard, combined the colors of the King (white)
and the colors of Paris (blue and red) for his
guardsmen's uniforms and from this came the Tricolor,
the new French flag.
The Night of August 4
• The National Assembly responded to the
Great Fear. On the Night of August 4,
1789, one by one members of the nobility
and clergy rose to give up:
–
–
–
–
–
Feudal dues
Serfdom
The tithe
Hunting and fishing rights
Personal privileges.
• In one night feudalism was destroyed in
France.
The National Assembly on the night of August 4, 1789
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen
August 26,
1789
V Liberty!
V Property!
V Resistance to
oppression!
V Thomas Jefferson
was in Paris at this
time.
DOROMAC Questions:
• What rights does it provide to the French
people?
• If you were creating a Declaration of
Rights for the Springboro Student, what
would you include?
The National Assembly
• The new National Assembly created the
historic and influential document The
Declaration of the Rights of Man, which
stated the principle that all men had
equal rights under the law.
• Women were dissappointed didn’t give
them equal citizenship. Olympe de
Gouges, wrote her own declaration
stating men and women are both equal.
Declaration of the Rights of Man
Freedom of
religion
Freedom of
speech
Freedom of
the press
Guaranteed
property
rights
“Liberty,
equality,
fraternity!”
Right of the
people to
create laws
Right to a
fair trial
– Upset women
• Olympe de Gouges
– “Declaration of Rights of Woman and Female
Citizen”
– Demanded rights
March of the Women,
October 5-6, 1789
A spontaneous demonstration of Parisian women
for bread.
Revolution and the Church
• Church lands taken
– Sell the land to pay off debt
– Avoid taxing more heavily
• Church officials and priest to be elected by
property owners
– Paid as state officials
– Catholic church loses power and independence
• Not popular with the Catholics of the County
• Pits Peasants against the Bourgeoisie and the
Revolution from this point onward
Louis XVI “Accepts” the Constitution
& the National Assembly. 1791
The French Constitution of 1791:
o Set up a limited monarchy
o Set up Legislative Assembly to make
laws, collect taxes, and decide on
issues of war and peace. Elected tax
paying males over 25
o Replaced provinces with 83 equal-sized
departments
o Abolished old courts
o Reformed laws
Y June, 1791
The Royal Family Attempts
to Flee
Y Headed toward the
Luxembourg
border.
Y The King was
recognized at
Varennes, near
the border
The apprehension of Louis XVI at Varennes
The Paris Mob
• The news of the King's flight destroyed the
last of the King's popularity with the people
of Paris.
• The popular press portrayed the royal
family as pigs and public opinion
plummeted.
• Increasingly there were demands for an
end to the monarchy and the creation of a
new kind of government, a republic.
The Parisian Mob
The San-Culottes
• At the beginning of the revolution, the working
men of Paris allowed the revolutionary
bourgeoisie to lead them.
• But by 1790 the sans-culottes were beginning
to be politically active in their own right.
– They were called sans-culottes (literally, without
trousers) because the working men wore loose
trousers instead of the tight knee breeches of the
nobility.
– Eventually sans culottes came to refer to any
revolutionary citizen.
The sans culottes
The bourgeoisie
Radicals fight for Power and declare war
– 1791 Legislative Assembly takes office.
• Food shortages and financial problems continue
• The Assignat drops in value and inflation
happens
• People hoard food and shortages occur
– Sans-Culottes – working class men and
women
• Demand republic
– Several radical factions develop in the
Legislative Assembly
• Jacobins – push for republican form of
government
• Others want no more reforms
The National Assembly
Declares War on Tyranny
– Émigrés
• Nobles who fled France
• Looking to restore the Old Regime and the
Monarch
• King of Prussia and Austria threatened to
intervene on behave of the Monarch.
The national assembly declares
war on tyranny
– Radicals hold upper hand/majority in leg
assem.
– April 1792, Leg. As. Declares war on Austria,
Prussia, Britain, and others
– The French Revolutionary Wars 1792 – 1815
• France, at odds with its Monarchical neighbors,
wages a series of wars that continues with the
reign of Napoleon.
Spreading the Gospel of
Revolution
• The French Revolution took on the
character of a religious crusade.
• It was not enough to have a revolution at
home. The gospel of revolution must be
spread to the rest of Europe.
• France declared war on Prussia and
Austria and proclaimed that it advanced
the cause of liberty.
French Soldiers
V The French armies
were ill-prepared for the
conflict w/Austria.
V ½ of the officer corps
had emigrated (they
were nobles).
V Many men disserted.
V New recruits were
enthusiastic, but
ill-trained.
V French troops often
broke ranks and fled in
disorder.
Quiz
• Using only your 6.2 outline and homework,
please respond to the following questions
on a separate sheet of paper. You may
use black or blue pen only. If you need to
cross out or change an answer, please
notify me.
#1
• The Declaration of Rights of Man was
modeled after the…
#2
• In what is called the _______________,
peasants attacked nobles’ homes, burned
feudal documents, and stole grain from
storehouses.
#3
• ________________ the aristocratic “hero
of two worlds” who fought alongside
George Washington in the American
Revolution. Heads the National Guard.
#4
• This group of people marched on
Versailles and demanded to see the king.
– Sans-Cullotes
– Peasant Women from Paris
– The Nobles
– The Jacobins
#5
• To pay off France’s massive debt, the
National Assembly...
– Placed the Church under state control and
sold off church property
– Taxed emigres leaving France
– Asked the Americans for financial
contributions
– Sold the Palace at Versailles to Prussia
#6
• _____________ and his wife and son tried
to escape France in June 1791, but were
caught before they could reach the border.
#7
• ________ were nobles, clergy, and others
who fled France and it’s revolugionary
forces.
#8
• What type of government did the Sansculottes demand?