The French Revolution and the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

Comprehensive review flashcards in fill-in-the-blank style covering the causes, Enlightenment foundations, four phases, and key figures of the French Revolution.

The French Revolution was the central event in the era of the __________ Revolutions, a series of political upheavals in Europe and the Americas between 1760 and 1850.

Atlantic

The four major monarchies dominating mainland Europe in the 18th century were Austria ruled by the House of Habsburg, Prussia ruled by the House of Hohenzollern, France ruled by the House of Bourbon, and Russia ruled by the House of __________.

Romanov

In 1789, France was the most populous country in Europe with approximately __________ million inhabitants.

28

British foreign policy toward mainland Europe was primarily aimed at maintaining the __________ of power to prevent any single superpower from dominating the continent.

balance

The conflict between Great Britain and France in North America ended in 1763 in favor of the British, who seized French settlements near New Orleans and __________.

Quebec

American colonists vehemently resisted new British taxes and duties with the rallying cry: 'No __________ without representation'.

taxation

The political philosophy of the 1776 American Declaration of Independence regarding natural rights and the right to abolish destructive government was primarily inspired by the English philosopher __________.

John Locke

French financial intervention in support of the American Revolutionary War left the royal treasury depleted, placing the French state on the brink of __________ by 1783.

bankruptcy

The English philosopher who laid the foundation for modern science by advocating the empirical method based on systematic observation and experimentation was __________.

Francis Bacon

In his 1687 work Principia, the English scientist __________ mathematically formulated the universal laws of gravity and motion.

Isaac Newton

In Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1784), Immanuel Kant identified the motto of the Enlightenment as '__________!', meaning 'Dare to know' or 'Dare to use your own reason'.

Sapere aude

In Leviathan (1651), __________ argued that the natural state of mankind is a war of all against all, necessitating an absolute sovereign to maintain order and security.

Thomas Hobbes

In De l'esprit des lois (1748), the French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu advocated for the __________ to prevent abuse of power.

separation of powers

In Du contrat social (1762), Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that legitimate political authority rests on popular sovereignty guided by the __________.

general will

Under the Ancien Régime, the First Estate consisted of the clergy, who collected church tithes and owned approximately $5$ to __________ percent of all land.

10

Under the Ancien Régime, the Second Estate was the nobility, who held a monopoly on high state offices and paid no __________ taxes.

direct

The Third Estate constituted approximately __________ percent of the French population, encompassing the wealthy bourgeoisie, urban workers, and rural peasants.

97

Following the abolition of the Ancien Régime's estate system, __________ replaced birth and lineage as the primary criterion for social division in France.

wealth

On June 20, 1789, deputies of the Third Estate assembled in an indoor court to swear the __________, pledging not to disband until a written constitution was established.

Tennis Court Oath

On July 14, 1789, the lower classes of Paris mobilized and carried out the storming of the __________, a key royal fortress and prison.

Bastille

Article 3 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) states that the source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the __________.

nation

Passed in July 1790, the __________ placed the Catholic Church under French state control and required clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the constitution.

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Passed on June 14, 1791, the __________ banned trade unions, workers' associations, and guilds in France.

Le Chapelier Law

Under the French Constitution of 1791, voting rights were restricted through census suffrage to tax-paying males designated as __________ citizens.

active

Maximilien de Robespierre condemned the 1791 census suffrage system, arguing that limiting political rights created an 'aristocracy of __________'.

wealth

Following the storming of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792, the newly convened representative assembly that abolished the monarchy was called the National __________.

Convention

On January 21, 1793, King __________ was executed by guillotine after being convicted of high treason for conspiring with foreign monarchies.

Louis XVI

During the radical republic, political power was concentrated in the Committee of Public Safety, led prominent Jacobin figure __________.

Maximilien de Robespierre

During the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), approximately __________ individuals across France were executed as suspected counter-revolutionaries.

40,000

To mobilize the entire nation for war against foreign coalitions, the Committee of Public Safety decreed the mass conscription known as the __________.

levée en masse

The executive body established under the French Constitution of 1795, which consisted of five directors and reinstated census suffrage, was known as the __________.

Directory

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte launched an expedition to __________ to disrupt British trade routes to India.

Egypt

In November 1799, general __________ seized executive power in a coup d'état, establishing the Consulate and becoming First Consul.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In 1801, Napoleon consolidated domestic stability by signing the __________ with the Papacy, resolving the religious schism caused by the Revolution.

Concordat

Enacted in 1804, the French civil code that unified over 300 regional legal customs into a single nationwide system is known as the __________.

Code Civil