European History: Class 2

Context French Revolution

• Glorious Revolution (1688 -1689)

• American Revolution (1775 -1783)

Two treatises of government (Locke): 2 main ideas

■ No government can be justified by one’s appeal to the divine right of King’s (no monarchy through divine rule: gets power from the people)

■ Legitimate governments need to be founded on the consent of the governed (people need to agree to be governed/their gov)

Two treatises of government (Locke): Social contract theorist→ justification for the “state”

■ State of Nature: rational man (people are rational, we can find ways to live together and form gov– we don’t need some supreme power to do this, can work together to elect representatives)

■ Civil gov founded on popular sovereignty: representation that comes directly from the people/popular vote (bottom up)

France Context

● 1) Economics– financially bankrupt

● 2) Politics– struggle w/”parlements”

1) Economics– financially bankrupt

○ Louis 14th (Sun King, power from God, the center of the world that everything else revolves around, center of universe, natural) mass spending = Palace of Versailles

○ French campaign in support of USA Revolution (bc France wanted to weaken/oppose England: expensive)

○ 7 Year War (Eng/Fr) = loss of many colonies (NA, Louisiana, Caribbean, trading posts in India…)

○ Poor harvest, famine, already harsh taxes (to finance wars) + income inequalities

● 2) Politics– struggle w/”parlements”

■ Provincial parlements VS Louis 16th

○ Parlements = provincial courts who held the right to appeal to the king’s decisions (despite his supreme authority) but these courts acted a bit like checks + balances

○ Louis 16th inherited (from sun king) the struggle w/the parlements/provincial courts who disagreed w/his decisions + laws

■ Parlements = source of resistance against absolutists rule = provincial

courts of appeal (judiciary power, the only ones who could challenge the King’s decisions/divine power through appeals)

Jacques Necker

= controller-general of Finance (finance minister) to deal w/economic hardship + help king regain control over economic situation

■ Publicly published what the king was spending money on

■ People were ANGRY bc they saw how lavishly/expensively the elite were living (king was angry too!)

○ Necker = critical of tax exemptions for nobility + clergy

○ He was in favor of borrowing money abroad instead of increasing taxes on (already high and overdone) taxes on the common people

■ Louis 16th didn’t like this bc it would indebt him to other countries/he would have to give up some of his power (king fires Necker)

Gamble of Louis 16th: 1787-1788

● → the king proposes a “land tax” on all land-holders (including the nobility)

○ The nobility did NOT want this because they didn’t want to pay taxes/weren’t used to paying taxes (normally the burden of the commoners)

○ = Assembly of Notables rejects the King’s proposal

○ → King Louis 16th tries to bypass their rejection by calling for a meeting of the Estates-General

Ancien Regime in France

King has divine right to rule

■ Demographic growth

■ Agricultural nation

■ Non-Industrialized

■ Geography

■ Famine

Ancien Regime Politics: King ruled w/Divine Right

There were some restrictions on the king’s power through moral + divine laws, customs, principles of administration

○ King’s council = decision making, consultation (yes-men: basically just agreed w/him)

■ Parlements = “Droit de remontrance: : power to appeal to royal edicts

● 15th C + = right to elect 3 deputies per town (type of representation: a noble, a church persona, a burgess)

● 13 parlements from v uneven districts

● Paris Parlement = only court that was somewhat critical of the King

Parlements = a growing challenge to the King’s divine rights SO the King’s start doing stuff to go against that challenge

■ 1667: Louis 14th weakens the right to appeal: ■ 1766: Louis 15th “flagellation” speech later bans all “unrespectful appeals: gets rid of any method for people to go against him/his decisions

■ 1766: Louis 15th “flagellation (power is mine alone & through only my authority that the law is enforced, public order comes from ME) in Paris Parliament:

● Reminds the parliaments of his divine right to rule!

● Reduces practice to a 1 time appeal + only short delay of royal edicts (no actual veto)

■ 1771: “Coup de Majeste” = reform of justice system, strictly defined system of appeals

○ Louis 16th: restores the right to appeal in a quest for popularity, but rising use of those appeals against his edicts challenges his authority

Absolutist Rule = No constitution

○ The king had the right to govern by god

○ Precise codes + rules varied across regional courts (legal pluralism) but no legal uniformity across France

● Customary laws + written laws implemented differently in each part of the country

Intendancy System

● Great centralization of power through a system of provincial Intendants (not hereditary!) appointed by the King

● These people had supervision + enforcement of the King’s will

● Power over policing, financing, justice (like the 3 branches)

France 3 estates

• Prayer: Catholic Clergy

• Military: Nobility

• Work: Commoners

Prayer: Catholic Clergy

○ All property (5-10%) of the land was owned by the clergy + thus tax exempted

○ Moral authority, told common people what to do/believe

Military: Nobility

○ Total monopoly over higher administrative, military functions, higher church offices…

■ Very connected to structures of power

■ Owned 25% of the land

○ Exempt from most taxes!!! Paid some but only a little, insignificant

■ Provide security, fight wars in France/for french interests, protect borders

Work: Commoners

■ Everyday people who do the work to keep the country running (servants, craftspeople, teachers, cooks, drivers)

■ Made up biggest portion of the population

○ Big diversity within the workers: the capitalist bourgeoisie VS the skilled workers/craftsmen : different socio-economic classes within the workers ○ 80% of the overall French population = Farmers!

○ Tax duties were paid by the workers to maintain the state (but often the bourgeoisie had exemptions to these taxes, so poorest people paid them!

3 estates different from class system

○ Estates are not the same thing as socio-economic groups

○ Opportunities for social mobility

■ When bourgeois acquired enough $$$, they would often leave the commerce trade to buy land + a hereditary office to qualify for noble status

○ Gray area between bourgeois + aristocracy

■ → bourgeois lacked a shared class consciousness:wantedto become nobles and join the higher classes instead of overthrowing them

Estates-General: legislative body

● → legislative/consultative assembly of the three estates together

○ =advisory body to the King ○ Presented petitions (cahiers) from the 3 estates (especiallyabout money policies)

■ Late 15th C:elective character (third estate/commoners)was incompatible w/the divine right of kings

○ Met not very often andonly at the King’s intuitive/request

■ 1614 = last meeting… then in 1789

1789: Estates-General Meeting

● → first meeting of the EG since 1614 and provides opportunities for:

○ Widespread political participation!

○ All male taxpayers over 25 years are invited to elect their deputies (3)

○ Representation: deputies presentcahiers de doleances(lists of grievances)

● → majority of the people are in favor of the King/his decisions

○ BUTdebate quickly turns to the organization of theestates-general (role of representation and rules of meeting) + the source of sovereign power

■ First baby steps to creating legal order/ procedures/ loose constitution where people can invoke their personal rights

● Sovereignty from “above”: King’s divine right to rule

● Sovereignty from “below”: from the people

Discussion on fair representation in Estates-General

○ 1) Parliament of Paris decision: same organization + proceedings as in 1614, vote by estate(not by numbers!)-- so clergy and nobilitywill vote together against workers

○ 2) “Doubling of third estate” as a counterbalance

○ 3) Continued critique of/Third Estate

■ Workers were not happy (bc of 2 to 1 voting, no substantial changes made)

○ After this critique the first & second estates wanted to convene in three separate meetings: we all meet and elect on our own = “vote by estate”

○ BUT even in this way the third estate will still be the weakest → doesn’t accept “vote by estate” wants instead a “people’s assembly” where everyone all gathers + votes together (collective deliberation

Tennis Court Oath (1789)

The 3rd estate declares itself the Nationalist Assembly of People (1789)

● → third estate members constitute themselves as a legitimate authority equal to that of the King

○ Want a new constitution and a new parliament, a new order

○ Directly demand to end the absolutist rule

○ They are there by the will of the people + will leave tennis court only by force

■ Regime change/overthrow!!!

○ 1 week later = huge support for Nationalist Assembly across France

■ → the royal party gives in :)

■ July 1987 = reform as the National Constituent Assembly

Storm Bastille (July 14, 1789)

■ Spread from the elites to the masses

■ Bastille = prison holding political prisoners who had opposed the King (stronghold/symbol of the symbol of the king)

● Political unrest: troops stationed outside Versailles (after Bastille storming)

○ Mobs, riots, support of French Guard

○ Rise of republican + anti-royal sentiment

○ Peasant Revolt (bc of inequality!)

August 4: National Assembly

= “abolition of feudalism” (give people the right to their property, end of servitude

August 26: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

○ Equality before the law (no one has right to divine power/rule)

○ Freedom from imprisonment for no reason

○ Financial equality (shared equally based on ability to pay (taxes, wealthy pay more))

○ Freedom of thought, opinion, religion (will lead to separation of church & state)

Women’s March on Versailles (Oct 5, 1789)

● Marketplace riots over the price + scarcity of bread

○ They March to Versailles assisted by the French Guard: invade the palace & King is forced to return to Paris from Versailles

■ Symbolic meaning that the power and the wealth of the king is not actually super strong: he’s just a normal person

● Weakened position of the King!

○ King accepts the August decrees & declaration of the rights of man + and the citizen

○ Break up “monarchist” & “anti-royalist” revolutionaries→ someone is trying to fill the vacuum of power, still struggles between different groups, monarchists refuse to join the National Assembly in Paris

■ There isn’t a unity around this issue, everyone has their own interests and wants to get power for themselves

■ Groups who fought together against King now fight each other as both trying to get powe

Three Phases of Revolution

● The Moderate Stage (1789-1792)

● The Radical Stage (1793-1794

● The Directory Stage (1795-1799)

The Moderate Stage (1789-1792) (The Moderate Stage)

● 1791:Constitution of France (king = “King of the French” and representative of the French citizens instead of King of France, the people are the ones who own France)

● 1791:first gathering of the National Assembly

● Main impact → begin to restructure relations between the Church and the State (begin to separate spheres of power, what each can do) move away from absolutist power

○ Sale of Church Lands: to pay off state debt + government officials

■ Members of the assembly & administration are payed in paper bills (assignants) to be used in public auctions

■ To help recovery from impoverished period bc clergy did NOT need all that land!

○ Limitation of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church

■ A civil constitution for clergy members put into place in 1790 = clergy will be paid by state salaries (clergy in administrative order of the state)

● The clergy doesn’t have absolute power and is now regulated by the state

■ Oath of Loyalty = to the Civil Constitution = recognition of a civil moral authority over God

● Leads to tensions with Roman Catholic Church

Growing Conflict Among Revolutionaries! (The Moderate Stage)

○ Girondins (from Gironde) : moderate political group

○ Montagnards (mountain): radical political group

Girondins (from Gironde) : moderate political group (The Moderate Stage)

■ Middle class representatives = greater ties to the provinces + city centers

■ In favor of security, stabilization, economic liberalism (NOT revolution!)

● In favor of a popular vote (referendum) to overturn legislation

Montagnards (mountain): radical political group (The Moderate Stage)

■ Middle class representatives of Parisian constituencies: close relations to the Parisian movement

■ In favor of maximum prices (food/rent)

■ In favor of continued socio-economic or political reform, success really depended on sans-culottes

● AGAINST popular vote (bc it would favor the interests of the rural population instead of themselves)

○ Not happy with the new system, wanted to overturn it :)

Conflict intensifies: growing fear of counter-revolution (The Moderate Stage)

○ Political refugees mobilize the support of friendly royal families (austria, prussia) + the Pope

○ 1791: “Flight to Varennes” : King Louis 16th makes a failed attempt to flee from France

● Radicalization

○ April 20 1792: declaration of war from France on Austria + Prussia

○ August 1792: Paris Commune

○ People storm Versailles & imprison the royal family

○ Prisoners (suspected of treason in palace) are murdered

○ Call for early elections (restructures) and a new republican constitution

● Creation of the Republic (S-D 1792)

○ Louis 16th is tried for treason and executed Jan 1793

The Radical Stage (1793-1794)

● 1793= France is in military conflict w/all of its neighbors

○ France wants to expand→ other European countries are scared of this and thus growing support for war against France, other countries form coalitions to fight the French

■ Fear of regicide in other countries

■ France has annexed + started to occupy other areas in Europe

■ France had invested lots of $$$ in military→ 450,000 standing men in the army (huge!)

Tensions between groups culminate in Reign of Terror (The Radical Stage)

○ Girondis purged from Convention/gov = expulsed or prosecuted

○ Kill Marie Antoinette & all royalists

Implement popular demands (The Radical Stage)

○ Price control on goods + rents (set maximum price limits)

○ Mass conscription: creation of revolutionary armies (to stop counter-revolution)

○ Robespierre = radical, one of the people in charge of reign of terror, he thought terror was necessary for order

The Directory Stage (1795-1799)

○ Coup: Thermidorian reaction

■ Robespierre was denounced as a tyrant and killed! (kill power vacuum)

■ White Terror: massacre of supporters of Robespierre

■ Return of 71 surviving Girondins, strengthened their movement

● Shift towards moderate republicanism

● “La politique de bascule” → to retain legitimacy, a constant balance (The Directory Stage)

○ Principles of popular sovereignty

VS

○ Control of the masses

Institutional Design for Stabilization (The Directory Stage)

○ Voter requirements that restrict who can vote/# of people who can vote

■ 2 legislative councils!

● Council of 500 & Council of Ancients → w/veto power

○ New legislative terms of 3 years now; each year ⅓ of the parliamentary seats are up for election

■ “The Directory” → 5 member executive body, serve for 5 years, replaced every year

● Separation of powers: Directory has no say in legislation, highly dependent on parliament for budgets

1799: Coup de Brumaire (The Directory Stage)

■ Ineffective, corrupt government

■ Strengthening of executive branch!

■ Government of 3 counsels (Napoleon!)

The Age of Napoleon (1800-1815)

■ Victorious general/fighter, lots of hope in him

● First Consulate (1799-1805) (The Age of Napoleon)

● Plebiscitary dictatorship = universal male suffrage but had a limited impact due to indirect voting

■ → let everyone vote but the French were voting into 4 different scales of election: your elected reps elect other people, so your initial vote kind of lost in translation, little democratic weight)

○ Control of executive over the Legislative chambers: appointed Senators, repressed opposition, legislation was initiated by the Consulate

○ Expansion + growing centralization of public administration

○ Control over workers; workers’ passport/employment record (to contro)

○ Public education (literacy, control over future political elites)

● From 1805-1815 → Napoleon appointed (by referendum) as hereditary Emperor

● 1802 Treaty of Amiens: brought peace but Napoleon failed to meet the criteria of the

peace treaty (withdrawal from territories beyond the Alpine + Rhine frontiers)

○ → led to Napoleonic wars (1802-1814)

■ Coalition of allied forces against France to stop them (enemy of my enemy is my friend)

● 1812 Invasion of Russia – failed bc of winter, 175,000 soldiers died

● Cost: 7 million people died in Napoleonic wars :(

Legacy of French Revolution!

○ From ancient regime absolute monarchy → Napleonic empire/dictatorship

Economics (Legacy of French Revolution)

○ Private land ownership was restructured by the the sale of the Church lands

○ 10% of land came to new owners: but the bourgeoisie profited the most (not the commoners!)

○ Nobility still owned 20% of the land

■ Liberalization of the market : guilds abolished, more people could participate in selling, customs done away with

○ BUT: French economy was mainly still pre-industrial, most of the people were still tied to cultural land/rural areas, farming: revolutionary wars slowed down industrialisation

Politics (Legacy of French Revolution)

● 1) Popular Sovereignty

○ No more divine rule: now reason + justification for those in power

○ Government was now on a permanent quest for legitimacy (from the people)

■ Power of the government comes from below

● 2) Creation of Public Sphere

○ Public education

○ No more divine rule:

○ Government was now on a permanent quest for legitimacy (from the people)

■ Power of the government comes from below + growing literacy levels, creation of political organizations + clubs, rise of the press

○ Enlightenment ideals: liberty, equality, are circulated to broader common audiences

■ Political mobilization of the working class population!!!

● 3) Secularization: process of separation church + state

○ Give Church autonomy in religious matters but has loyalty to the State in worldly matters (oath of clergy)

○ Limitation of Church’s worldly powers through State salaries/subsidy

● 4) Nationalism

○ Needed symbols of identification to bind French people together

■ La Marseillaise

■ Tricolor flag

■ Louis XIV renamed as “King of the French”

● 5) Inequality

○ Disenfranchisement of the poorest people (paying taxes)

■ Women finally granted important civil rights!

■ Women had the right to inherit now, but under Napoleon patriarchal authority was restored and women weren’t allowed to organize/have cubs

○ Olympe De Gouges: “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen” 1791

● 6) Inequality Race/ethnicity

● Enlightenment ideals (equality, rights) VS racism

● Slavery was restored under Napoleon: trying to restart colonial commerce

○ Ex: Haitian Slave Revolution (1791-1802) – wanted to be counted as French

citizens with full rights (French basically said they were animals, NO)