33 - The French Revolution and Napoleonic Europe (abridged)

ancien regime

class system of pre-Revolutionary France in which French society was divided into the Three Estates: the clergy, the nobles, and the commoners

Louis XVI of France

(r. 1774-1793) Bourbon monarch of France who was executed during the radical phase of the French Revolution

Estates-General

assembly of representatives from the three estates; called together by Louis XVI in 1789 after a 175 year recess to discuss the French financial crisis

National Constituent Assembly

French Revolutionary assembly (1789-1791); the Third Estate of the Estates-General demanded radical change and declared itself to be a new legislative body representing the French nation; passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, ended peasant feudal dues to nobility, and drafted a new constitution

Tennis Court Oath

vow sworn by members of the National Assembly in 1789; they would continue to meet until they had written a constitution for France

storming of the Bastille

royal prison and arsenal in the middle of Paris captured by a violent mob on July 14, 1789; first bloodshed of the French Revolution

Great Fear

wave of violent panic that spread through French countryside in the summer of 1789 driven by starvation; peasants ransacked bourgeois and noble homes in search of grain; led to the abolition of peasant feudal dues to nobility

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

adopted during the liberal phase of the French Revolution (1789); stated the fundamental equality of all French citizens; later became a political source for other liberal movements

Women's March on Versailles

October 1789 spontaneous mass demonstration led by working class women who sacked the Palace of Versailles in search of grain, killed guards, and forced King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette to relocate to Paris where they remained under house arrest

Jacobins

political club of radical republicans during the French Revolution who called for abolition of the monarchy; infighting occurred between moderate Girondin faction and rival radical Mountain (Montagnard) faction led by Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre

leader of the radical Mountain faction of the Jacobin club and of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

1793-1794 radical phase of the French Revolution when all state power was invested in the 12 member Committee of Public Safety in order to direct the First French Republic's war effort against foreign powers and suppress domestic counterrevolutions; hundreds of thousands of royalists were beheaded by guillotine and killed in politically-motivated acts of genocide

Thermidorian Reaction

1794 overthrow and execution of Robespierre by political moderates; ended the radical Reign of Terror

Directory

a moderate republican government which led France from 1795-1799 between the end of the Reign of Terror and the seizure of power by Napoleon; suffrage was limited to very wealthy propertied men

Napoleon Bonaparte

rose within the French army to general during the wars of the French Revolution; led a coup that ended the French Revolution; established French empire under his rule; defeated and deposed in 1815

Napoleonic empire

1804-1815 French state under Napoleon; defeated Austria, Prussia, and Russia and dominated much of continental Europe at its peak; exported French Revolution ideology throughout Europe including legal equality, jury systems, legalised divorce, and an end to church dues and aristocratic privileges

Napoleonic Code

comprehensive and uniform system of laws established for France by Napoleon based on the principles of the French Revolution.

Continental System

French blockade designed to crush the British economy by closing European ports to British goods; proved ultimately unsuccessful

Peninsular War

1808-1813 conflict in which Spanish rebels supported by Britain fought to expel French forces from Spain; one of the first wars of national liberation and saw the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare; led to the Latin American wars of independence

French invasion of Russia

failed attempt by Napoleon to force Tsar Alexander I of Russia to stop trading with Britain; Russia used scorched-earth tactics to kill or capture 70% of the 685,000 soldiers in the French Grand Army; the turning point in the Napoleonic Wars

Louis XVIII of France

(r. 1814-1824) younger brother of Louis XVI; restored the Bourbon dynasty but accepted many of France's revolutionary changes and guaranteed civil liberties

Hundred Days

period during 1815 when Napoleon escaped imprisonment and made his last bid for power; he deposed Louis XVIII and once more became Emperor of France for a brief time

battle of Waterloo

site of Napoleon's final defeat by British and Prussian armies in 1815; led to Napoleon's exile to a remote South Atlantic island