The Third Estate

  • Third Estate was dominated by the middle class

  • Blending of aristocratic and bourgeois classes by 1789

  • Middle class = Big Winners

  • Revolutionary goals of the middle class

Estates General

  • Meets May in 1789

  • Disagreements with King on voting

  • Radicalization of members

  • Eventually refuse to work with king

  • Withdraw and form their own governing body called the National Assembly 20 June 1789

  • Want to write a constitution

Revolutionaries in the Streets

  • Sans-culottes

  • Picked up the ideas and slogans of the revolution from the more educated leadership of lawyers and journalists.

What were the Motivations of these Revolutionaries

  • Poverty and hunger

  • Low wages and fear of unemployment

  • Heightened expectations and the exposure to a political perspective

    • Cahiers

Storming the Bastille

  • Events of the night of July 13, 1789

  • Reasons for the attack on the Bastille the next morning

  • The stubbornness of the governor of the fortress

  • Celebrations on the night of July 14th

  • Sparks tremendous popular revolution all over France.

The Great Fear

  • Independent revolutionary agitation in the countryside

  • Rumors of Royalist troops becoming wandering vandals

  • Fear breeds fear and peasants start marching

  • Within 3 weeks of July 14, the countryside of France had been completely changed ( Night 4 August 1789)

  • Abolition of the Nobility and how they have advantage

Declaration of the Rights of Man — August 27, 1789

  • “ A Bill Of Rights”

  • Universal Idea of Human rights for everyone

  • The idea of Human and Citizens

The Court Returns to Paris

  • Mounting unemployment and hunger in Paris in the fall of 1789

  • “October Days”

    • The point is that we want bread !

  • Women nearly killed the Queen

  • The Royal Family returns to Paris on October 6, 1789

The Consolidation of the Liberal Revolution ( Moderate Revolution)

  • October 1789- 1791

  • Constitutional Monarchy established

  • Human Rights

  • Minorities want rights

  • Nationalization of the Church

Growing Radicalism

  • Reasons:

    • Snowball Effect

    • Unsatisfied Expectations

    • Outbreak of War

  • Results:

    • Increasing Violence

    • Change in Political Leadership

The King’s Flight to Varenne 1791

  • King betrays the Revolution

  • Leaves with his entourage and family

  • Is recognized and arrested

  • Brought back to Paris in shame

  • Radicalization of the Revolution

  • King finally executed 1793

  • They have to create a republic because the king denounced the revolution

Robespierre’s Reign of Terror 1793-1794

  • The Committee of Public Safety

  • The concept of “ Total War”

  • Maximum price ceilings on certain goods

  • Nationalization of Small Workshops

  • Execution of 40,000 “ enemies of the Nation “

  • Stress on radical definition of equality’

  • Wanted a legal maximum on personal wealth

  • Wanted a regulation of commercial profits

  • End of Robespierre’s dictatorship

Radicalization of Time and Place

  • Wanted to REMOVE all vestiges of past

  • Renamed streets

  • Renamed themselves

  • Sought to bring Science to everyday life. ( time, calendar and measurements)

  • Reign of uniformity - no speaking out

  • Clothes were monitor

  • They create the metric system

  • Language was monitored

  • RADICAL revolution

The Phases of the Revolution

  • Liberal Phase

  • Radicalization

  • Terror