French Revolution People

Locke

• England’s power rests on its people

• Government needs to protect peoples’ rights in order not to be a tyranny

Baron de Montesquieu

Believed powerful groups, like nobility, offered best defense of liberty

Maria Theresa

Ruler of Austria, vowed to win back land & crush Prussia

Thomas Paine

• Wrote Common Sense

• English radical

• Mobilized public opinion towards independence

Cathrine the Great

Protected Great Britain’s shipping rights

Louis XV

• Wanted to raise taxes to pay for wars, but courts stopped him

• Scandalized country and stripped of godly aura

Louis XVI

• Shy 20-year old with good intentions

• Couldn’t decide on reform & unable to quell opposition

• Lacked energy & purpose to lead through Revolution

• Tried to leave France when Revolution got bad, captured & executed

Marie Antionette

• Louis’s wife, queen of France

• Women felt she was frivolous & scandalous

Edmund Burke

• Wrote “Reflections on the Revolution in France”

• Against abstract “liberty” and “rights” ideas

• Insisted on importance of inherited traditions & privileges in society

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Wrote “Vindication on the Rights of Women”

• Demanded equal rights for women

• Advocated for coeducational

• Very radical at time

• Foundation of feminist movement

Georges Jacques Danton

One of the leaders of the Mountain, the side of Jacobins who wanted Louis executed

Maximillian Robespierre

• a Mountain

• Lawyer from northern France

• Bourgeoise

• Appointed head of the Committee of Public Safety

• Came to power after fall of Louis

• Seeked to impose republican unity through reforms on daily life

• De-Christianized France

• Overthrown by Committee conspiracy involving Napoleon

• Made name for himself advocating for universal male suffrage, abolition of slavery in colonies, & abolition of capital punishment

Napoleon

• Military dictator of exceptional ability

• Helped overthrow Robespierre

• Had a low upbringing, earned prestige through military success, why he appealed to people as a self-made man

• Re-established Catholic Church

• Created Napoleonic Code - law code for France & captured territory

• Gained a lot of territory, became overconfident and attacked Russia, and was greatly weakened

• Abdicated throne, came back for Huundred days, then forced to resign by coalition of European powers

Vincent Ogé

• Free man of color

• Returned to Saint-Domingue determined to win rights for everyone

• Demanded political rights, and when refused turned to armed violence

• Army defeated, tortured & executed by colonial officials

Toussaint L’Ouverture

• Brought military skill & trained soldiers to Saint-Domingue

• Named commander of the west

• Defeated commander of the south in civil war, gaining total control

• French forces invaded, deported L’Ouverture to France, where he died in slavery

Aneré Rigaud

• Free person of color

• Commander of the south of Saint-Domingue

• Lost civil war against L’Ouverture

Jean-Paul Marat

• French physician & scientist, leading radical voice in French Revolution

• Gained influence through newspaper, attacking monarchy & aristocracy & defending urban poor

• Supported extreme measures against “enemies of the people”, pushing into Radical phase

• Assassinated by member of Giordians

• Celebrated by radicals as a matyr

Napoleon III

• Nephew of Napoleon

• Heir to Napoleon’s legacy

• Elected president of the French Second Republic in 1848, then seized power in coup & declared himself emperor

• Ruled as authoritarian but modernizing emporer

• Ambitious foreign policy

• Rocked into Franco-Prussian wars

• Deposed & exiled