AP Euro: French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars

Causes

- Growing industry

- Rise of middle class

Taxation

- A lot of debt due to wars with European countries

- American revolution

- French helped Americans to stick it to Britain due to wars w/ them

- Growth of new ideas; everyone is born equal

- TE

The Great Fear

- Massive peasant revolt in French countryside

- NA responds by issuing the Decrees of August 4th which:

- Abolished feudalism: from Middle Ages

- Abolished special noble privileges: feudal dues, hunting rights, tax exemptions

Abbe Sieyes

- Part of the clergy

- Wrote "What is the Third Estate":

- Third estate drives the economy and are important in the country

- Wants a change in the political order (constitutional monarchy)

Clergy

- Collects taxes

- Owns 30% of land

- No taxation (nobles, too)

- Divine right

Liberal Phase

- Dominant class: bourgeoisie

Goals:

- Constitutional monarchy

- Liberal reform

- Abolition of privilege

Influencers:

- Locke

- Montesquieu

Governing bodies: NA and LA

Le Chapelier Law

- Forbade guilds, workers combinations, and strikes

- Last vestige of classical liberalism

- Goal: to reduce influence of the urban masses

Flight to Varennes

- Royal family tried to escape Paris and go to Montmedy

- Louis XVI was caught and returned to Paris

Foreign Interference

Declaration of Pillnitz (1791):

- Prussia and Austria pledged to declare war w/ France if Louis XVI is threatened

Brunswick Manifesto:

- Issued by Duke of Brunswick

- Louis will be restored to power

- Those who resist will be treated as rebels

September Massacre:

- Mass executions of Parisian political prisoners

Legislative Assembly

- Replaced NA

- Elected by universal manhood suffrage (ANY MAN could vote)

Jacobin Clubs

- The Mountain

- Girondists

- Republicanism (opposition to the monarchy)

- San-culottes: "without breeches" (The urban working class & radicalizing force in FR)

Proclamation of French Republic

- Louis becomes a citizen

- National Convention steps into place; mostly Jacobins

- Louis was charged with treason and executed via guillotine

- The mountain: execute

- Girondists: don't execute

- Liberty, equality, fraternity

The Reign of Terror

- 1793

- Execution of Louis XVI

- Committee of Public Safety created: executive body in charge of:

- Directing war effort

- Suppressing counter-revolutionary activity

- Execution of Marie Anotinette

- Girondists are taken out

Robespierre

- Sought to create a "Republic of Virtue"

- Believed government should be an instrument of the general will

- Became a dictator in order for people to submit to the general will

- Against capital punishment: created guillotine or the "national razor"; equality in death nad painless death

NC Factions

- Left wing: the Mountain and Girondists (Jacobins/republicans)

- Right wing: conservatives

Émigré

Someone who left France and was therefore executed

The Purge of the Mountain

- 1794

- The Mountain turns on itself; made up of: Hébertists (too radical), Robespierre, Dantonistes (not radical enough)

- Jacques Hébert and his members were guillotined by Robespierre

- George Danton and his members also died for advocating an end the Terror

- In Thermidor (July), Robespierre was guillotined

Marie Antoinette

- Austrian

- Said "let them eat cake" when peasants outside her castle were asking for bread b/c they were hungry (DUMB RIGHT)

- She was a scapegoat for the extravagance of the French monarchy

- Called "Madame Deficit"

- Women's March of Versailles was an angry mob of women who tried to kill Marie and move the royal family from Versailles to Paris

- Hair was cut before her head was cut off

Olympe de Gouges

Wrote "Declaration of the Rights of Woman":

- Women are equal to men

- All should be able to write laws

Mary Wollstonecraft

Wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Man":

- Defends FR and believes in liberalism and natural rights

Also wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"

- Rights for women, too

- Women organized political clubs to be more involved politically and advocating for more rights

Louis XVI

- Weak king

- Couldn't tax nobles by decree

- Called assembly of notables to ask to tax them; a failure

- Assembly of notables called estates general

Estates General

- Met in 1789 (know this date!!) also the bastille was stormed, the beg of FR

- Each estate gets one vote

- The upper 2 states always outnumbered the third estate

Bourgeoisie

- Educated French commoners

- Have no special privileges

- Have the most tax burden

Hat fiasco

- During the Estates General's 1st meeting

- King takes hat off which leads clergy and noble to do the same

- 3rd estate does the same, leading Louis to put his hat back on

- Creates tension

National Assembly

- Third estate is pissed and creates the NA

- Mostly 3rd estate

- Tennis Court Oath: swore to never adjourn until they have given France a constitution

- Louis recognized the NA as the new lawmaking body, but he brought troops to Versailes just in case

- Urban mob storms the Bastille and steal weapons on July 14, 1798

Peasants

- No voice in government

- Taille (land tax)

- Corvee (forced labor on road and bridges)

- Gabelle (salt tax)

- Tithe (Church tax)

- Feudal dues (for lords)

Proposed some reforms:

- Double the third estate (ex: double the delegates) and was approved by Louis XVI

- Vote by head instead of by estate (not approved)

Declaration of Rights of Man

- Published in 1789

- Influenced by the Declaration of US Independence written by Jefferson (a classical liberal; emphasized on individual rights)

- Also influenced by Rousseau (a radical democracy, the general will)

- Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights

- Sovereignty resides in the nation

- Liberty is the power to do anything that doesn't harm anyone

- Law is the expression of the general will

- Lockean to Rousseauan

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

- In 1789, the NA confiscated Church property and abolished religious orders and tithes later

- NA tried to regulate the Church by placing it under state control instead of liberating it, or separating it from the state

- Election of bishops and priests by people

- Bishops and priests have to swear an oath to the French revolutionary government

- More swearing priests in urban areas

- More refractory priests in rural areas

Radical Phase

Dominant groups: Jacobins and San-culottes

Goals:

Egalitarianism: everyone is equal

Nationalism

Cheap bread

Influencers: Rousseau

Governing bodies: NC and Committee on Public Safety

Coalition v.s. French Armies

Coalition armies:

- Smaller forces

- Trained and experienced

- Professional

French armies:

- Larger forces

- Conscripts/volunteers

- Patriotic

Edmund Burke

- English

- Wrote "Reflections on the Revolution in France"

- Anti-FR b/c he doesn't believe sudden changes will work out

- Conservative

Charlotte Corday/Death of Marat

- Marat believed all anti-revolutionaries should be killed

- Wrote a newspaper with names of "enemies of the people"

- Was a national hero at the time after his death

- Corday killed Marat because he was a mass murderer

- "I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand"

- She was guillotined

- Was later a national heroine but was unpopular at the time

Napoleon

- From Corsica

- Was 2nd lieutenant in the French artillery

- Was placed in command of the French forces in Italy and achieved decisive victories

- Suffered military disasters in Egypt and returned to France before the fiasco was generally known

- Overthrew the government to form the Consulate

Treaty of Lunéville

Austria lost almost all of its Italian possessions, and German territory on the west bank of the Rhine was incorporated into France

Treaty of Amiens

Britain allowed France to control the Dutch Republic, the Austrian Netherlands, the west bank of the Rhine, and most of the Italian peninsula

German Confederation of the Rhine

- A union of fifteen states minus Austria, Prussia, and Saxony

- All were expected to support the Continental System, a blockade imposed by Napoleon to halt all trade between continental Europe and Britain to weaken the British economy and military

- Continental system actually ended up benefiting Britain

Grand Empire's end

Since he believed Alexander I was trading with Britain, Napoleon led an army of 600,000 to Moscow but was forced to retreat

Treaty of Chaumont

Signed by Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain to defeat Napoleon

Napoleon's fate

- Napoleon was sent to the island of Elba but escaped in 1815 to replace Louis XVIII

- Was defeated again at the Battle of Waterloo, also known as the Hundred Days, and exiled to the island of St. Helena

Thermidorian Reaction

A reaction to the violence of the Reign of Terror in 1794, resulting in the execution of Robespierre and the loosening of economic controls

The Directory

- Upper Council of Elders (men over 40 who were either husbands or widowers)

- Lower Council of 500 (men of at least 30 years who were either single or married)

- 5 man body