Causes and Outcomes of the 1789 Revolution & Instability in French Governments (1790-1795)

The Ancien Régime: Problems and Policies of Louis XVI

• France in the late 18th century was ruled by an absolute monarch, Louis XVI.

• France was difficult to govern due to:

  • A population of approximately 27 million people.

  • Significant regional differences.

  • Strong tradition of localized issue management.

  • Varying legal systems dating back centuries.

  • Different taxation systems in different regions.

  • Customs barriers between some parts of France, hindering free trade.

• The king's orders were often ignored or difficult to implement due to these conditions.

Social Divisions in France

• The vast majority (80%) of the French population were poor peasants.

• Agriculture was underdeveloped and inefficient.

  • Peasants farmed small plots mainly to survive.

  • Heavily taxed by the government, landlords, and the Church.

  • Required to maintain roads without pay.

  • Landlords could hunt on peasants' lands.

  • Forced to use landlords' wine presses and flour mills at high prices.

• Poor harvests between 1770 and 1789 led to rural poverty and hunger.

• The economy struggled to provide for the rural population, leading to urbanization.

• The urban population faced:

  • Limited employment opportunities.

  • Declining wages due to rising food prices.

  • Bread was a staple, comprising about 75% of the working-class diet.

  • Families spent 35-50% of their income on bread in normal times; prices soared after bad harvests.

  • Increased poverty and urban unrest, including bread riots.

  • Police struggled to maintain order due to limited numbers.

• Growing distance between rich and poor.

  • The lower class was heavily taxed and unrepresented, leading to growing grievances.

  • The legal system favored the aristocracy and the Church.

• The middle class in French towns was growing.

  • Educated and wealthy, owning around 20% of the land by 1780.

  • Involved in commerce, industry, professions like law and medicine.

  • Frustrated by their powerlessness despite involvement in local government.

  • Excluded from top government, military, and judiciary positions, which were reserved for the higher nobility.

  • Resented taxation without political representation.

  • Career posts were passed down or bought, undermining meritocracy.

The Church and the Aristocracy

• The Roman Catholic Church was a wealthy organization with over 130,000 clergy, monks, and nuns.

  • Owned 10% of the land, paid no taxes, and controlled education and publications.

  • Determined to maintain control over French life and retain wealth.

  • Senior posts went to aristocrats, often inexperienced and uninterested in religious duties.

  • Lower clergy were hardworking but unable to progress to senior roles, creating divisions within the Church.

  • The Church paid a contribution to the government, but it was paid by the lower clergy not the wealthy bishops.

  • The growing division between rich and poor within the clergy was one of the reasons why the church was not able to present a united front to revolutionary forces.

• The aristocracy dominated France.

  • A tiny minority owned around 30% of the land and most of the wealth.

  • Paid virtually no taxes and were exempt from conscription and road repairs.

  • Benefited from privileges like hunting rights.

  • Dominated key posts in the court, government, Church, judiciary, and army.

  • French aristocrats tended to be hostile to those involved in trade and commerce.

• Division within the aristocracy:

  • 'Higher' aristocracy lived at Versailles, had access to power, influence, jobs and pensions.

  • Success depended on court politics rather than administrative ability.

  • 'Lower' nobility resented the 'higher' nobility's power and wealth.

King Louis XVI and the Parlements

• Louis XVI crowned in 1775, was young, inexperienced, with good intentions.

• Inherited a system of absolute power, desired to increase it.

• Courtiers and ministers were divided on the role of the monarch.

• Laws made by the king required publication by the parlements, enabling these courts to delay or prevent implementation.

• Parlement members, noble lawyers, focused on preserving their privileges.

• Some wished to return to a system in which the king had to consult the aristocracy on matters of policy thus reducing the king's power.

• Some influenced by the Enlightenment, advocated reforms for efficiency and inclusivity.

• The king appointed intendants to administer departments, but they were resisted by local parlements.

• Divisions at court, within aristocracy and clergy, and local rivalries, made France difficult to govern and in need of reform.

Pressures for Change: Social, Economic, and Political

• The Enlightenment: 18th-century intellectual movement in France.

  • Influenced later revolutionary leaders and Napoleon Bonaparte.

  • Voltaire was critical of the Church's wealth and influence and religious intolerance, and attacked the French legal system.

  • Montesquieu advocated for a system of checks and balances and the rule of law.

  • Diderot promoted independent thinking and a questioning attitude through his encyclopaedia.

  • Rousseau argued for more education and explored the balance between authority and freedom.

  • Quesnay opposed constraints on free production and movement of goods.

  • These thinkers challenged established ideas and institutions.

• The writers wrote at a time when confidence in the French government was low.

• Often famine and this led to riots.

• France in 1763 had just been humiliated in a major war with Britain.

• Little confidence in the young king crowned in 1775, and his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, was hated.

Reaction of Louis XVI to Attempts at Reform

• The American Revolution prompted France to ally with colonists against Britain in 1778.

• Finance Minister Turgot warned against war involvement.

  • He argued the war would lead to bankruptcy and obstruct financial reforms.

  • He was dismissed in 1776.

  • His predictions were correct.

• Jacques Necker, a middle-class Swiss banker and Protestant, was appointed finance minister in 1777.

  • His appointment indicated awareness of France's dire financial state.

  • Promised financial system reforms.

  • Funded the war through borrowing at high interest rates.

  • Published a public account of royal finances in 1781, hiding the war's cost and claiming good financial condition, which lead to his dismissal.

• The war with Britain ended in 1783 with the United States becoming independent, but France only gained deeper national debt.

• Charles de Calonne appointed as finance minister in 1783 with the need for opportunity for financial reform and stability.

  • He Decided to borrowed more to keep the government running, but planned important changes.

  • Without change France would go bankrupt.

• In 1786, Calonne proposed reforms to:

  • Reform the system of taxation by increasing taxes for the wealthy.

  • Stimulate the economy to encourage commerce and industry.

  • Create confidence in France and its economy so it could borrow money at lower rates of interest.

• King approved the plans and submitted them to the Assembly of Notables.

  • The Assembly of Notables was comprised mainly of nobles and met for the first time since 1626.

• Calonne was disliked by the Notables and had limited support from the king.

  • The expensive war was over, so they thought the crisis was also over.

  • Calonne no idea how to manage the Notables, and, in fact, there was no clarity on what the Notables' role was.

• King solved the problem by sacking Calonne in April 1787.

• Etienne Brienne replaced Calonne, but the king disliked him.

• The King dismissed the Assembly when they demanded an accurate account of the royal finances, causing public anxiety.

Beginnings of Widespread Revolt

• Dismissal of the Notables highlighted:

  • Depth of France's financial crisis.

  • Failings of the king, court, and government.

  • Public deception regarding royal finances.

  • Opposition to the king and government.

  • Demand for public involvement in government.

• Brienne increased taxes and borrowed more money.

• Parlement of Paris refused to support tax increases without royal accounts.

• King banished parlement members, leading to protests by middle and lower classes in Paris.
  -The first sign of a potential alliance between the middle and lower classes against the king and the aristocracy.

• Financial and political crisis continued throughout 1787 and 1788.

• King undermined the ministers who were trying to negotiate and manage the parlement.

• Leaders of the 'opposition' were arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille, a royal fortress in Paris.

• Arrests resulted in countrywide protests.

• Divisions emerged among the nobility and clergy over taxation.

• The middle class was becoming increasingly alienated from the classes above.

• Pamphlets were published demanding changes.

• Paris parlement demanded constitutional change with support.

• State was virtually bankrupt by August 1788 and publicly admitted.

• Hailstorms destroyed harvest, leading to shortages and higher prices.

• King recalled Necker, who instigated the summoning of the Estates General (last met in 1614).

Cahiers de Doléances

• Districts of France were asked to submit lists of issues for the Estates General to consider, known as cahiers de doléances.

• The Clergy (First Estate) asked to:

  • Retain all the rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic Church

  • Ban the practice of any other religion

  • Give the Church complete control of all education

  • Ban all publications attacking the Church and give the Church full control over all publications

  • Retain freedom from taxation unless it decided to contribute

  • Reform of the local legal system to ensure fairer justice for all

  • Ensure adequate food supplies for all

  • Prevent landlords from imposing high charges on peasants and hunting on their lands.

• The Nobility (Second Estate) asked that:

  • Only the king should have power to make laws

  • No change in the system of taxation without consent of the Estates General

  • Strengthen the distinction between the three orders of the Estates General.

  • The system of voting by Estates should remain

  • Ensure the supply of grain

  • Fewer restrictions be placed on agriculture and industry

  • There should be reform of the legal system.

• The Third Estate asked that:

  • The national debt be paid off

  • All taxes should be shared equally

  • The system of compulsory work for a landlord be ended

  • The administration of justice be reformed

  • The gabelle (salt tax) be abolished

  • The privilege of hunting be abolished

  • Many of regulation restricting trade be abolished

  • There should be a school in every town

  • The Church be reformed

  • There should be local elections for local assemblies to deal with local issues.

Meeting of the Estates General

• Members of the Estates General of France gathered at Versailles on May 5, 1789.

• There was widespread social, economic, and political unrest, and the prospect of national bankruptcy.

• The Estates General was the nearest thing that France had to a national law-making and representative body.

• The King and court hoped, and the French People hoped on the outcomes of this meeting.

• The three Estates met in different parts of the palace, each with an equal vote.

• The King and his ministers expected the First and Second Estates to support them.

• The opening meetings did not go well for the King or for reformers.

• King's main concern was financial problems.

• Middle class wanted overhaul of government, politics, society, and economy.

• People wanted lower taxes, rents, and bread prices.

• The first two Estates refused to support Third Estate's demands.

• Complication: First and Second Estates divided over cooperating with Third Estate.

• No clear leadership from the court and king on any issue.

• On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate changed their name to the 'National Assembly'.

  • Saying that sovereignty now lay with the people of France.

  • The Assembly was now in charge of France.

  • Assumed control of the system of national taxation.

• King tried to stop the Assembly by closing its meeting room, but the members gathered in a nearby building, a covered tennis court.

• The 'Tennis Court Oath' decided to continue meeting until they had established a new, reformed constitution that would resolve their grievances.

  • The first, critical, step on the road to revolution.

Tensions Rise in France

• In 1789, a series of events drove the process in an even more radical direction.

• Real hunger because of the poor harvest of the previous year which creating a tense situation.

• King made some unhelpful decisions:

  • Refused to give any power to the National Assembly and insisted that the Estates General continued to act in the way he expected.

  • Moved troops into both Paris and Versailles, seen as an attempt to stop any reforms by force.

  • Dismissed Necker, who had felt to bring sensible reforms and solving France's economic problems.

  • Moderate members of all three Estates began to see that Louis himself was the problem. He would never reform French government unless he was forced to do so.

Responses to Louis XVI's Actions

• Storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789):

  • The Bastille was attacked by a Parisian mob due to fears that the reforms, they hoped for they were not going to happen.

  • Seen as a symbol of royal tyranny, event demonstrated anger of Paris working class.
    -Inspired an even greater breakdown of law and order throughout France, in what became known as the 'Great Fear' of the summer of 1789

• There was a mass refusal to pay taxes.

• Grain shipments were attacked and the grain stolen.

• The homes of noblemen were looted and their owners attacked.

• Town leaders who opposed reform were killed.
  -King was reluctant to act decisively, and many of his courtiers fleeing the court and the country, it was again the representatives of the Third Estate at Versailles who seized the initiative and acted.

The August Decrees

• The Assembly did away with what was left of feudalism in France.

• It abolished:

  • All the privileges of the nobles, such as their exemption from taxes

  • The duties that a peasant owed to his noble landlord

  • The parlements

  • The provincial estates

  • Radically reduced the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

• The National Assembly passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August 1789.
  -The articles of the declaration established the principles on which the new system of government would be based.

• Influence of Enlightenment thinkers can be clearly seen in articles of the declaration.

The Decree

• The Degree argued that:

  • All power came essentially from the nation and should come only from the nation

  • The French government was monarchical but there was no authority superior to the law

  • The National Assembly should be permanent and would be composed of a single chamber of
    members, elected by the people every two years

  • The National Assembly had legislative power

  • The king may veto a law

  • No taxes of any kind could be raised except by the express permission of the National Assembly

  • While executive power resided with the king, he could not make laws and would be under the
    law and accountable under the law

  • Justice would be administered only by courts established by law, following the principles of the
    constitution and according to the forms determined by law

The Women's March on Versailles

• On the morning of 5 October, alarms sounded in Paris and crowds of women began to march from Paris to the royal palace at Versailles.

• About 7000 women had managed to obtain some weapons.

• The women first invaded the National Assembly, then sent deputies and women to the king.

  • Public anger and pressure had clearly worked.

• Did not satisfy the women protestors- they demanded that the king and the royal family returned with them to Paris.
  -Escorted back by Crowd of 60,000
  -The Parisian Crowd was more radical than Was the case in the Rest of France, which resulted in Revolutionary actions.

• The National Assembly met in Paris, which had profoundly significant.

Instability in French Governments From 1790 to 1795.

• A lack of agreement among decision-makers over the governance of the country.

• Deep antagonism between Paris and the regions of France.

• Continued social and economic problems.

• War against Austria in 1792, worsening the situation.

• The period saw a very large number of radical changes in a quite short period of time
  -Abolition of the monarchy and aristocracy and vast religious changes to a new calendar.

Counter-Revolutionary Groups: their views and aims

• No real understanding of what the majority of the French people really wanted.

• Inexperienced in making laws and deciding national policy.

• Were not helped by the many members of the nobility and clergy who were totally opposed to any change.

• Reconstruction and change focused on:

  • The unfair system of taxation

  • The inefficient and corrupt system of local government

  • The out-of-date justice system

  • The role, status and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church
    Principal Revolutionary Groups

• the Jacobins. The group formed in 1789, was open to all citizens and had linked groups all across of France

• They were conservative, and sat on the right of the Assembly. They were strong supporters of a constitutional monarchy and opposed the decision to go to war with Austria in 1792

• The third club was the Girondins. This group was also formed in 1791. They were moderate republicans and voted in favour of the war with Austria in 1792

Principal Revolutionary Groups did:
-Not address many of the problems which concerned the poorest people in France, particularly the high price of food.
-This failing was further worsen the instability.

• Were no obvious leaders and no real leadership

Failures of the Counter Revolutionaries Groups
-The king could not accept the major limitations his powers
-Louis VXIII declaration in 1795, Ancien Regime should be restored
-Among the 40,000 emgres who fled France there was no agreement about either there aims
-Opposition to the revoltuions with in France was badly divided and had different Aims

Aims of the revolutionary group Reform:
-Taxation Solved immediate financial crisis, two policies where created.
-Local Government- the old system, inadequate for dealing with contemporary problems, was abolished
Justice system - to be opened to everyone free if necessary and open to all
-The Churches became Largely an Agent of the state.

-What fundamental problems do you think France still faced at the end of 1790? Work with another
student to identify them and put them in order of importance, together with your reasons.
Changes in Government from 1790-1795

• Hopes that the new constitution had its terms.
  -People, France was also faced by continuing poor harvest, erratic behaviour by king ,growing counter-revolutionary movement.

The Flight to Varennes

• Led to any of new nobility- who became known as emgres escaping France and setting up centers of opposition abroad.

• the Assembly completing its final task to create new Constitution for France.

• The king and sovereign now makes Law transfer Legislature that took place National assembly. Indirectly making adults of the population local and National election

• Poorer Harvest and there was no oath made with with clergy so agreed too civil constitutional clergy

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