Major Causes

• The Enlightenment

• Class Conflict 

• Economic Problems

• Weakness of Louis XVI

The Enlightenment 

• More literate public—public opinion develops (unfavorable to monarchy)

  • Gather in salons to discuss new ideas

• Newspapers, books & pamphlets circulate

  • Satire against king and queen

    • People started writing poorly ab the king and queen

    • People start questioning Louis about his “divine right” and they think he shouldn’t rule

  • Radical writings of discontented “Grub Street” writers unable to break in to the “high enlightenment”

    • Ex. John Paul Marat 

      • He was killed in bathtub

• Emphasis on reason—begin to question the church & the king’s divine right & infallibility

Influential Ideas

• Locke – natural rights: life, liberty & property; right to overthrow oppressive government

  • Heavily influenced Constitution

• Voltaire – urges France to emulate British political system; religious toleration; freedom of speech

  • Publicly talks poorly of king and queen and gets exiled

    • Almost as if a CELEBRITY got kicked out of america cause they talked badly ab trump

• Rousseau – Social Contract; republic; separate spheres; men are born good & corrupted by society

• Montesquieu – 3 branches of government

Class Conflict

• Clergy 

  • Owned 10-15% of land

  • Collected tithes (taxes)

  • Pays voluntary taxes

Nobility/Aristocracy

Owned 30% of land

Collect taxes

Exempt from taxes

Bourgeoisie 

•  Part of the lower class

  • But the best part of it 

• Owned multiple businesses

Working Class

• Had a business but was not making as much money

Peasants

• 97% of the population 

• DO pay taxes

  • Go to jail of they can’t

• Prices rising faster than wages

Abbe Sieyes: “What is the Third Estate?”

• What is the Third Estate? 

EVERYTHING

What has it been hitherto in politics?

• NOTHING

What does it ask? 

• TO BECOME SOMETHING....

Economic Problems

• Deeply in debt due to Seven Years’ War and American Revolution

• Parlements (royal courts dominated by the nobility) prevented the king from taxing the nobles

  • He wanted more money and wanted to tax EVERYONE not just peasant - but nobles outnumbered peasants 2-1 so no taxation for them

• Bad Harvests led to food shortages & general unrest among urban poor * France is a wealthy country with an impoverished government

• Calonne (Finance Minister) attempts to pass new taxes which apply to all three estates

• 1787 Assembly of Notables is summoned

  • Parlements of Paris claim only the Estates General can approve new taxes…

  • 3rd Estate “technically” had representation but were always outnumbered

  • NOTE: this was an effort to continue the aristocratic resurgence & reassertion the powers of the nobility more than a true move toward equal representation

Weakness of Louis XVI

• Well-intentioned but too easily swayed by others

  • Vacillating policy: dismisses a number of finance ministers

• Unpopular foreign wife: Marie Antoinette (pictured)

  • No one liked bc she was foreign

  • Spent too much money especially when people were starving

  • People also gossip about her like cheating, gambling, etc.

• Versailles & court life extravagant & expensive → a symbol of government waste

• Aristocratic resurgence → Louis XVI is beholden to the interests of the nobles who had been subdued under Louis XIV (“the Sun King”)

Phase 1: Moderate (liberal) Stage (1789 - 1792)

• Goals:

  • Increased participation in voting

  • Stop to Tithes (10% Tax paid to church)

  • Abolishing hereditary privileges for the aristocracy

  • Fairer taxing system

  • Elimination of Ancient Regime

Paris in the summer of 1789

• Unemployment 25%

• Bread prices high

• Louis sends troops to Paris

• July 11: popular finance minister Necker is fired

  • Louis went through many ministers and advisers

Estates General (may 5, 1789)

• Medieval legislative body convened to resolve the issue of taxes at the request of the paris parlements

  • Had not convene since 1619 (under absolutism, the King does not rely on representative bodies) 

• “Doubling the Third” adds additional reps for the Third Estate

  • In theory may make sense but it wouldn’t work out

• Voting by Head vs. Voting by Order

  • Traditionally each estate got one collective vote → nobles & clergy typically allied to preserve their privileges

  • Renders Doubling the Third meaningless

National Assembly and Tennis Court Oath

• 6 weeks of deadlock in the Estates General

• They are locked out and not allowed in 

• National Assembly is formed

  • Third Estate, many members of clergy & a few nobles secede and form a new legislative body to vote by head (more democratically)

  • “We are the nation!”

• June 20 1789: locked out of their meeting hall → Tennis Court Oath

• Cahiers de Doléances

  • Basically documents of grievances 

    • Pisses off Louis 

    • Louis puts more troops in the areas of where people are getting more agitated

  • The cahiers criticized:

    • Government waste

    • Indirect taxes

    • Church taxes

    • Corruption

  • The cahiers advocated:

    • More equitable taxes

    • Measures to facilitate trade and commerce

    • Free press

Storming of the Bastille (july 14, 1789)

• Group of Rebels “Sans-Culottes” (without knee breeches - couldn’t afford style of pants)

• Gether outside Bastille – prison & armory when they hear Louis XIV will disband National Assembly ***symbol of despotism by Louis XIV 

• Marks beginning of Revolution

• Angry mob attacks Bastille, killing the guards

  • Sets prisoners free

  • Takes the heads of the guards and parades them around on sticks

The National Guard

• National Guard - local Militias formed in each city.

  • Led by Marquis de Lafayette 

    • Helped us in the american revolution

• Tricolour Cockade = emblem of revolution

• • Louis actually wore the broach to say he wasn’t going to stop the revolutionaries 

• Louis XVI recognizes the guard & wears the cockade

  • Essentially admitting he couldn’t stop the revolution

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (august 27, 1789)

• August 26 1789 - National Assembly issues the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen

• Natural rights: Liberty, property, security & resistance to oppression (Locke)

• All citizens equal before the law

• Due process

  • Treated fairly

  • Trial by jury, not just thrown in jail

• Freedom of religion and speech (voltaire)

• Taxation in proportion to wealth

• Included Rousseau’s social contract

  • They don’t want to dispose Louis, they want to keep him but just want some sort of social contract

The Great Fear

• Rural uprising → Peasants attack their landlords

• Burn legal documents that tied peasants to the land of the nobles

  • Bc they were practically slaves so they burned it so they had no proof

• Take control of the food supply

  • A lot of the nobility were hoarding food

• Night of August 4: members of the National Assembly renounce feudal rights

  • All citizens (that are male) are now subject to equal laws! 

  • Marked the end of the revolution for most French peasants as they only wanted freedom from outdated manorial system

    • Was the main goal of the revolution and was achieved

Women’s March to Versailles (october 5, 1789)

• Protesting the price of bread

  • Bread prices were rising 

• The mob of the “poissard” (fish ladies) and others rips through the royal palace demanding to see the “Baker,” “the Baker’s Wife,” and the “Baker’s Son” -- the royal family

• King agrees to

  • 1. Distribute all of the bread the palace hoarded

  • 2. Accepted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

    • At least officially accepts it

  • 3. Accompanied women back to their homes to see how “real” people lived

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

• National Assembly abolished monastic orders and took Catholic Church’s land

  • Probably wanted to oversee taxes bc they wanted to lower taxes

• Catholic church was made a branch of the state

  • Paid by state salaries

  • Wasn’t an original goal accomplished it nonetheless

• 10% tax was to be eliminated

• Conflict for devout Catholics: allegiance to state or church?

  • People are divided on how they feel about the revolution 

  • Many don’t agree with the unification of church and state

Constitution of 1791

• est. a Constitutional Monarchy

• Did not advocate total equality

  • Active citizens—taxpayers of 3 days local wages

  • Additional qualifications to hold office (top 50,000)

  • Women excluded (“Domestic Sphere”)

• New basis of power = property, not birth

  • How much property you have relates to your power

  • Reflects the wishes of the bourgeoisie but doesn’t change much for the lower classes

  • Really only does so much for the bourgeoisie bc they are the ones with the land while the rest of the 3rd estate does not have any land

• French Citizens did not trust that their monarch would abide by the terms of the constitution

  • Aka like charles I

Goals:

• Increased participation in voting

  • Don’t achieve this

• Stop to Tithes (10% Tax paid to church)

  • Stopped this but at the cost of the church becoming apart of state

• Abolishing hereditary privileges for the aristocracy

  • The constitution does abolish hereditary privileges and is now not based on your birthright but your amount of land

• Fairer taxing system

  • Somewhat its shaky

• Elimination of Ancien Regime

  • Majority is destroyed but Louis is still there

Counter-Revolutionary Activity

• Émigrés – nobles who fled France

• Flight to Varennes  (June 1790)

  • Louis recognized because his face was on the assignats (Money)

  • King was seen as the chief counterrevolutionary in France

    • Aka leader bc he also leads

    • Which paints a HUGE target on his back yet 

    • 1793-Royalist revolt in Vendée

PHASE 2: RADICAL REVOLUTION 1792 - 1794

• GOALS:

  • Gov’t should immediately increase wages, fix prices, end food shortages, punish hoarders

  • Punish counter-revolutionaries

Foreign pressure

• Other monarchs feared similar disturbances in their own countries

  • Ex. Prussia and austria write letters to say that they will join in with royal fam if they are harmed

• Declaration of Pillnitz—Austria & Prussia pledged to intervene in France to preserve monarchy

• Brunswick Manifesto—threatened to destroy Paris if the royal family was harmed

• *** These threats from within & without radicalized the revolution

War with Europe

• By April 1793, France was at war with Austria, Prussia, Britain, Spain, Sardinia, and Holland

  • First Coalition 

• French people felt they were defending their revolution against the world

• Levée en masse – universal male military conscription and converting to a wartime economy

  • Citizen army of over one million!

  • Patriotism gave France an advantage over her opponents

Political Spectrum

• CONSERVATIVE: Royalists, counterrevolutionaries & emigres 

• MODERATE: Girondin

• RADICAL: Jacobins

• ULTRA-RADICAL: Sans-culotte, “The Mountain”

Jacobins

• Primarily bourgeoisie (Middle Class)

• Most popular political club

• More radical: favored a Republic

  • Inspired by Rousseau’s ideas of equality, popular sovereignty & civic virtue

• Girondists : moderate  Republicans (aka Brissotins) 

  • Wanted war to protect the revolution

    • April 1792: war with Austria

Sans-Culottes

• “without (knee) breeches”

  • They were the poorest and were affected the most by King Louis’s reign

• Shopkeepers, artisans, wage earners, & (a few) factory workers

• Most radical of the Jacobins

• Had become victims of unregulated economic liberty

• Mountain – sat in highest seats at the Convention

• GOALS OF THE SANS-CULOTTES 

  • Immediate relief from food shortages and rising prices

    • Advocated price control

  • Strongly democratic—disliked even representative government (preferred direct democracy)

    • Convention declared France a Republic in Sept 1792

  • Hostile toward aristocracy

  • Dominated the Paris Commune

    • September Massacres: 1200 prisoners executed on charges of being counterrevolutionaries 

      • Rumors of other countries were trying to raid or infiltrate france using prisoners so they go in and kill everyone 

  • January 1793: “Citizen Capet” (Louis XVI stripped of his royal title) was convicted of treason)

Jean-Paul Marat

• Editor of the newspaper: "L'ami du peuple" ("Friend of the people")

  • attacked the enemies of the Revolution

• Radical ideas led to September Massacres

  • Called for blood:  "No one more than I abhors the spilling of blood; but to prevent floods of it from flowing, I urge you to pour out a few drops."

  • Basically started the september massacres

• Elected to National Assembly 1792 & wanted to purge Girondins (moderates)

• 1793: killed by Charlotte Corday in his bathtub

Execution of Louis XVI

• By guillotine

• Major event

• January 21, 1793

REIGN OF TERROR

• Committee of Public Safety

  • 12 member executive body created by the National Convention in 1793 - defend against foreign/domestic enemies; oversee new functions of executive gov’t

  • Enjoyed almost dictatorial power

  • Set “maximums” on grain prices

  • Moderate under Danton (member); Radical under Robespierre (leader)

  • Systematic use of terror against “enemies” of the revolution

• Maximilien Robespierre

  • Dominated the Committee of Public Safety by the end of 1793

  • Advocated a “Republic of Virtue” – sacrificing oneself for the Republic

    • General will over individual interest (inspired by Rousseau)

• Reign of Terror

  • 25,000 “enemies” were executed in 15 months by revolutionary tribunals

  • Guillotine: icon of the terror

    • More humane & “egalitarian” method of execution

  • Women’s Clubs were banned

    • He didn’t like women and didn’t like they could gather together so banned it

    • Only men were to be “active citizens”

  • De-Christianization: replaced with Cult of Reason - The Worship of Reason was France's first established state-sponsored atheistic religion, intended as a replacement for Catholicism

    • The entire calendar has to be redone

    • Saints are renamed

  • Wants to erase French history 

REIGN OF TERROR ENDS

• July 28, 1794 - Robespierre Killed

  • Robespierre had become a violent tyrant. He no longer served the interests of the people because many people lived in fear of falling victim to the Terror

PHASE 3: THERMIDORIAN REACTION  (Conservative)

• Goals: 

  • End reign of Terror

  • Create new constitution 

• July 1794 (9^th of Thermidor): Robespierre is overthrown

• Conservative reaction to the Terror

  • “White Terror” against radicals

    • People are terrified by what this new turn will take and if it will end the revolution

  • Repealed economic restrictions

• New constitution:

  • Bicameral legislature

  • Executive power to a five member committee (Directory)

    • Spoiler alert: will be overthrown by Napoleon in 1799

Haitian Independence Movement

• French revolution inspired revolutions around the world

• Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803) - slave in Haiti

  • Taught to read then was freed in 1776

• Slave Revolt 1791

  • Saint Domingue - wealthy sugar plantations - 

  • Toussaint L'Ouverture took the lead in the revolt

  • Trained troops in guerilla warfare

  • 1794 The French National Convention declared enslaved people free 

Haiti After Revolt

• Toussaint L'Ouverture became lieutenant governor

  • Gave previously enslaved people positions in power 

  • Advocated for reconciliation between races

  • People were forced to work, but laborers were free and shared plantation profits

  • Became military governor 

• Napoleon distrusted L'Ouverture and plotted against him - L'Ouverture was tricked and arrested - died in French prison in 1803

• L'Ouverture followers fought French army and won - led to Haiti's independence in 1804 (near Napoleon's defeat)

Opponents of French Revolution

• France’s enlightenment ideals did not match its violent actions

  • HRE Leopold III (brother of Marie Antoinette)

    • Was made an enemy

  • Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1789 - Cautioned england in engaging)

Background & Context

• The three main goals of the French Revolution were liberty, equality, and fraternity.

  • Liberty meant that everyone had all of their natural rights and freedoms, protected by a constitution. 

  • Equality meant that everyone would be equal in the eyes of the government. 

  • Fraternity meant that everyone would get along and respect each other's rights

• The French Revolution had become increasingly radical under Robespierre & the Committee of Public Safety, losing sight of many of the original goals of the Revolution

• Robespierre was overthrown and replaced with a Directory of 5 men which was more conservative, but overall was weak and indecisive

• France was in need of a strong ruler to bring order and stability 

Napoleon’s Rise to Prominence

• Born on the island of Corsica (historically Italian but occupied by France)

• Attended military school in Paris but briefly led Corsican resistance to French occupation before pledging allegiance to France

• 1795 - Napoleon saved the Directory from counter-revolutionary forces →  called the “savior of the Republic” 

• Named commander of the Army of the Interior & was a top advisor to the Directory on military matters

• 1798 - lost Battle of the Nile to British admiral Horatio Nelson → discovered the Rosetta Stone (taken by Britain in 1801)

Seizing & Consolidating Power

• 1799 November: Coup d’etat on 19 Brumaire 

  • December: New Constitution — “First Consul” (one of three consuls but he is the highest ranking)

    • “Consul” was a leader in the Roman Republic

• 1800 — Plebiscite approves new constitution

  •  Plebiscite - a Roman term for voting by all “citizens” (adult males)

• Concordat with the Papacy - restored good relations with the Catholic Church which had been essentially abolished during the Revolution

• 1802 — “Consul for Life” - declares it himself

• 1804 — Napoleon crowns HIMSELF emperor!

  • People don’t mind this because he is doing what they have asked and he is fulfilling the goals of the rev

Napoleonic Code (Civil Code)

• Based on ideals from the French Revolution:

  • Laws should be based on reason and common sense rather than tradition and history

    • Abolishing the ancient regime

  •  All men should be treated equally and guaranteed rights under the law

    • The right to property

    • abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom 

    • Made women more legally dependent on men: could not own property, could be jailed for adultery, had to submit to the will of her husband, etc.

      • Stripped them of laws they already had

      • BEFORE REIGN OF TERROR THEY HAD: divorce rights and a right to own property - REIGN OF TERROR TOOK THOSE AWAY - this just reinforced it

• Objective: simplify the laws and consolidate into a single document

• Code was spread to the regions conquered by France 

Napoleonic Wars

• By 1812, Napoleon conquered most of Europe

  • He takes control of two very independent countries: Italy and Spain

  • He also takes control of the HRE (holy roman empire) but it has had a decline since protestant reformation so not very surprising (he does unify some states in there which will have some effect in the unification of Germany)

• Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

  • Napoleon said: “if we are masters of the Channel for six hours, we are masters of the world”

  • Defeated by the British navy led by Lord Nelson

  • Britain remained the dominant maritime power

    • Napoleon gets very power hungry

• Battle of Austerlitz (1805)

  • Major victory: La Grande Armée (France) vs. Third Coalition (U.K, HRE and Russia)

  • Napoleon became King of Italy

  • Led to Treaty of Tilsit (1807) Alliance between Russia & France

  • Napoleon considered this one of his proudest moments

Continental System (1807)

• Napoleon issues Berlin Decrees – forbid allies from importing British goods

• Goal: isolate Britain economically 

• Challenge: Britain has the world’s strongest navy

• Difficult to enforce → smuggling was rampant

  • France would have to patrol the waters which is incredibly hard to do

• Ultimately a failure

Invasion of Russia (1812)

• Russia withdrew from Continental System → 600,000 French soldiers marched into Russia

  • Napoleon’s ego is bruised he doesn't want this on his reputation so he takes his men in to Russia SIX MONTHS JOURNEY BTW 

• Russians retreated using the SCORCHED-EARTH POLICY

  • Alexander I burned Moscow to the ground rather than surrender it to Napoleon

  • In the DEAD OF WINTER france’s army have no more supplies, are starving, and about ⅔ DIE

    • He returns to France and people are now angry with Napoleon - People start plotting against him and many European nations are angry with his disruption of Power in Europe so the lead to Battle of Nations

• Napoleon defeated by “General Winter”

Downfall

• Capitalizing on the weakness of Napoleon after the disaster in Russia, the Third Coalition (Russia, Sweden, U.K and Austria) went on the offensive: Battle of the Nations (1814) - allied armies march into Paris

• Napoleon abdicates & is exiled to Elba

• Returns and tries to regain control during the Hundred Days (1815) – defeated at Waterloo

• Final exile to St. Helena

Death of Napoleon 

• King Louis Philippe arranged for his remains to be brought to France in 1840, an event known as the “return of the ashes.” His “ashes” mean his “mortal remains,” as Napoleon was not cremated. 

• Napoléon’s remains were first buried in the Chapelle Saint-Jérôme in the Invalides.

• His final resting place, a tomb made of red quartzite and resting on a green granite base, was finished in 1861..

Congress of Vienna

• was a series of international diplomatic meetings from 1814-1815 to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte

Conservative Goals

• Klemens von Metternich (Austria) three goals:

  • Make sure the French would not attack another country again

  • Create a balance of power so no one country would be a threat to another.

  • Return legitimacy back to the kings Napoleon had driven out.

    • Basically return the throne to Louis’s family

• CONSERVATISM: prioritizes order and stability. Emphasizes tradition. Most commonly associated with the upper classes and the church. 

Key Negotiators

• Tsar Alexander I (Russia)

• King Frederick William III (Prussia)

• The “Host” - Prince Klemens von Metternich (Austria)

• Foreign Minister Castlereagh (Britain)

• Foreign Minister, Tallyrand (France)

  • Was allowed to be there but had no say

Territorial Adjustments

• France was deprived of all territory conquered by Napoleon

• Russia was given most of Warsaw (Poland)

• Prussia was given half of Saxony, parts of Poland, and other German territories → strengthens Prussia

• A GERMANIC CONFEDERATION of 30+ states (including Prussia) was created from the previous 300 → Step toward German unification

• Austria gained territory at the expense of Italy 

• The neutrality of Switzerland was guaranteed 

A Concert of Europe

• Founding powers were members of the Quadruple Alliance

• Reactionary (very conservative) effort to restore Europe to its state before 1789 

•  a balance of power in international relations: that the ambitions of each Great Power was curbed by the others

  • existed from 1815 – 1914 & was novel in that it was an alliance to AVOID war rather than wage war

THEME: The rise of NATIONALISM, the conflicts over the “EASTERN QUESTION,” [decline of the Ottoman Empire] the UNIFICATION OF GERMANY and the RISORGIMENTO  [increased nationalism & unification] in Italy brought an end to the Concert's effectiveness

France after the Congress of Vienna

• France restored its monarchy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars after the Congress of Vienna in 1814

• Known as the Bourbon Restoration, (1814–30)

  • Louis XVIII became king

The period was marked by a constitutional monarchy of moderate rule (1816–1820)

Despite the return of the House of Bourbon to power, France was much changed; the liberalism of the revolutionaries remained an important force and the autocracy and hierarchy of the earlier era could not be fully restored.

CONTEXTUALIZATION

• Rationalism of Scientific Rev. and Enlightenment questioned religious and royal authority

  • Led to an increase in tolerance after years of religious warfare

  • New emphasis on reason allowed people to rediscover ideals in classical civilization

• Enlightenment rationalism produced deism, skepticism, neoclassicism… 

• Romanticism: Movement of religious revival growing feeling and emotions in art and literature

The Romantic Age

• Reasons for the Romantic Age

Rousseau - Father of the Romantic Movement

• Encyclopédie 

• Composed music, wrote novels and poetry

• Writings celebrate nature, spontaneity, individualism, and passion

Romantic Art Themes

• THEMES

  • Emotions/Individual - The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault 

  • Nature and the natural world - Caspar David Friedrich Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

  • Nationalism - Eugène Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People

  • Mysticism/mystery and supernatural and Imagination and the subconscious John Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781) 

Nationalism

• Inspired by Enlightenment ideals, nationalism emerged in the late 18th Century

• French revolution

  • Individual liberty

  • Equality

  • Fraternity 

Romanticism in Literature

• Mary Shelley

  • Frankenstein - shows personification and pathetic fallacy

  • Critique of science - dangers of science conquering nature

Edgar Allan Poe “Dark Romanticism”

• Poem Annabel Lee, The Raven

• Women are presented as idealized love interests, pure and beautiful