Topic 3

The Provinces:

  • Louis’s orders would now only be obeyed if they had been approved by the National Constituent Assembly

  • nearly everywhere, there was a municipal revolution in which the bourgoisie played a leading part

  • citizens’ militias were set up in several towns

  • the National Guard was set up in Paris on 10th August

  • many towns and cities started setting up their own national guard - Lafayette didnt like this

The Rural Revolt:

  • bad harvest of 1788 gave peasants a role in the revolution starting in Spring 1789

  • these food riots were more important due to calling of the estates general and the fall of the bastille

  • demonstrations against taxes, the tithe and feudal dues spread throughout France → law and order had collapsed everywhere

The Great Fear:

  • July 1789, attacks on the chateaux became part of the Great Fear

  • peasants believed nobles hired brigands to destroy crops

  • peasants took up arms and this rising was spread throughout rural France

  • pressured the National Assembly → led to August Decrees

  • shifted from Revolution in Paris to nationwide

  • weakened the nobility as many nobles fled

The August Decrees:

  • a series of reforms passed by the National Assembly, triggered by pressure from the Great Fear

  • abolished feudalism

  • removed noble privileges

  • ended tithes paid to the church

  • prepared the ground for the creation of a constitution

→ started the process of dismantling the regime and established legal equality + helped calm down the countryside BUT full abolition of feudal dues didnt happen until 1793

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen:

a statement of core revolutionary principles and rights issued by the National Assembly in August 1789 including:

  • liberty and equality

  • freedom of speech and expression

  • popular sovereignty

  • freedom to own property

→ ended the ideological basis of the Ancien Regime and provided framework for future reforms BUT rights only applied to men and economic inequality was not solved

LOUIS REFUSED TO ACCEPT AUGUST DECREES AND THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF MAN

Nationalisation of Church Land:

  • November 1789, the Assembly decided to nationalise all Church owned property (worth 2000m livres)

→ short term financial relief as assignats helped stablise finances and the church was weakened and became dependent on the state → over issuing assignats led to inflation

The October Days:

  • Louis’s refusal to accept the Assembly’s decrees caused tension

  • October 1789, a crowd of women followed by Lafayettes guard marched to Versailles demanding bread and political reform

  • Louis agreed to approve the Assembly’s decrees and provide Paris with grain

  • the National Assembly moved to paris and the pressure put on Louis forced him to move to Paris too

→ strengthened the power of the Parisians and the sans-culottes and Louis lost independence and authority → revolution became more influenced by urban radicals

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy:

  • the Assembly wanted to create a church that was democratic, linked more closely to the State and free from foreign control (Pope)

  • July 1790, the Catholic Church was reformed

  • clergy had to swear an oath of loyalty to the state and bishops and priests were elected by citizens

→ shifts the Priests loyalty from the Church to the state - alienated Catholics as they saw it as an attack on the Church and religion

this created 2 churches

  • a constitutional church, accepted by the revolution but rejected by Rome (juring Priests who took the oath)

  • the Church approved by the Pope but rejected by the Revolution (non juring Priests who were counter revolutionaries and didn’t take the oath)

  • led to Vendee revolt 1793