French Revolution – Comprehensive Bullet-Point Notes

Storming of the Bastille (14 July 1789)

• City of Paris alarmed by royal troops; rumours of imminent firing on citizens.
• $\approx 7{,}000$ men & women gathered at Town Hall ➔ formed a people’s militia.
• Broke into govt buildings for arms; moved to eastern Paris & stormed the Bastille (fortress-prison symbolising despotic monarchy).
  • Commander killed; only 7 prisoners freed.
  • Fortress demolished; stones sold as souvenirs ➔ tangible rejection of absolutism.
• Subsequent riots in Paris & countryside mainly over bread prices.
• Historians view this as the starting-point of events that ended with royal execution (though contemporaries did not foresee).

French Society in the Late 18th Century

Monarchy & Empty Treasury

• 1774: Louis XVI (Bourbon) ascends throne at age $20$; married to Austrian princess Marie-Antoinette.
• Financial exhaustion due to:
  • Long wars + extravagant Versailles court.
  • Aid to American colonies (added $>1\text{ billion livres}$) ➔ total debt $>2\text{ billion livres}$.
  • Creditors now charged $10\%$ interest; large share of budget spent on servicing debt.
• Govt tried raising taxes but structure of estates complicated collection.

Structure of Estates (Old Regime)

• 1st Estate: Clergy – tax-exempt, collected tithes (1/10 agricultural produce).
• 2nd Estate: Nobility – tax-exempt, enjoyed feudal dues & services.
• 3rd Estate: Diverse; only group paying taxes.
  • Big bourgeoisie (businessmen, lawyers, officials)
  • Peasants (≈ $90\%$ population; majority landless – $60\%$ land owned by nobles, Church, rich 3rd-estate members)
  • Urban workers, artisans, servants.
• Direct state tax = taille; multiple indirect taxes on salt, tobacco, etc.

The Subsistence Crisis

• Population rise $23\text{ million (1715)}\rightarrow 28\text{ million (1789)}$.
• Grain production stagnant ➔ bread price soared, wages static ➔ wider rich–poor gap.
• Bad harvests (drought/hail) triggered subsistence crises (basic livelihood endangered).
• Satirical etching “Spider & Fly” illustrates exploitative nobles (spider) & peasants (fly).

Rise of the Middle Class & Enlightenment Ideas

• Prosperity from overseas trade & manufacturing (woollen/silk textiles).
• Educated professionals (lawyers, administrators) believed in merit not birth privilege.
• Key philosophers:
  • John Locke – Two Treatises of Government; rejects divine-right monarchy.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Social Contract; govt based on contract between people & representatives.
  • Montesquieu – Spirit of Laws; advocates separation of powers (legislative, executive, judiciary). Implemented in USA.
• Ideas circulated via salons, coffee-houses, books, newspapers, often read aloud for illiterate.

Outbreak of the Revolution (1789)

Estates-General (5 May 1789)

• First convocation since $1614$; meant to approve new taxes.
• Composition: 1st & 2nd estates $300$ reps each (seated); 3rd estate $600$ (standing at back). Peasants, artisans, women excluded but submitted $\approx 40{,}000$ cahiers of grievances.
• Traditional voting: one vote per estate. 3rd estate demanded one person = one vote (Rousseau’s principle). Rejected ➔ walk-out.

Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789)

• 3rd-estate reps proclaim National Assembly; vow not to disperse till constitution framed.
• Leaders: Mirabeau (noble sympathetic to reform, fiery orator) & Abbé Sieyès (author of “What is the Third Estate?”).

The Great Fear (July–Aug 1789)

• Grain shortages + troop movement ➔ panic; peasants attack châteaux, burn manorial dues, hoard grain; nobles emigrate.
• Night of 4 Aug 1789: Assembly abolishes feudal privileges, tithes; confiscates Church lands (≈ $2\text{ billion livres}$ in assets).

France as a Constitutional Monarchy (1791)

Constitution of 1791

• Power divided among Legislature (National Assembly), Executive (king & ministers), Judiciary ➔ $\textit{constitutional monarchy}$.
• Indirect voting: Citizens ➔ Electors ➔ Assembly.
  • Active citizens: men $>25$ yrs paying tax ≥ 3 days’ wages (≈ $4\text{ million}$ of $28\text{ million}$).
  • Passive citizens: no vote (women, poorer men, youth).
• Declaration of the Rights of Man & Citizen (Fig 8):
  • Natural, inalienable rights: life, liberty, property, security, resistance to oppression.
  • Sovereignty resides in nation; equality before law; freedom of speech, press; fair taxation.

Revolutionary Symbols (Box 1)

• Broken chain (liberty), bundle of rods/fasces (unity = strength), Phrygian cap (freedom), tricolour blue-white-red, winged woman (law), eye in triangle (knowledge), snake-ring (eternity), sceptre (royal power), law tablet (rule of law).

Abolition of Monarchy & Birth of Republic (1792)

• Foreign threat: Prussia & Austria plan intervention ➔ France declares war (Apr 1792); patriotic volunteers sing La Marseillaise.
• Political clubs flourish – Jacobins (led by Maximilian Robespierre), mainly small shopkeepers, artisans.
  • Adopt long trousers (\textit{sans-culottes}), red liberty cap.
• 10 Aug 1792: Insurrection; storming of Tuileries, massacre of guards, king imprisoned.
• Universal male suffrage ($\ge 21$ yrs) elects the Convention.
• 21 Sep 1792: Monarchy abolished ⟹ Republic proclaimed.
• 21 Jan 1793: Louis XVI executed for treason; Marie-Antoinette soon after.

Reign of Terror (1793–94)

• Robespierre enforces Committee of Public Safety ➔ revolutionary tribunal, mass arrests.
• Guillotine (after Dr Guillotin) emblem of swift egalitarian justice.
• Economic controls: price & wage ceilings, rationing; compulsory sale of grain; ban on white flour ⇒ pain d’égalité (whole-wheat bread).
• Civic language: everyone called Citoyen / Citoyenne.
• De-Christianisation: churches closed, buildings repurposed.
• July 1794: Robespierre executed; ends Terror.

The Directory (1795–99)

• New constitution: two elected councils + Directory (5 executives) to avoid concentration.
• Suffrage restricted to propertied males.
• Constant clash & corruption ➔ political instability ➔ rise of Napoleon Bonaparte (coup 1799).

Women & the Revolution

• Active participants from outset (market riots, March to Versailles 5 Oct 1789).
• Majority worked as seamstresses, laundresses, vendors, domestic servants; limited education; lower wages.
• ↗ 60 women’s political clubs (e.g., Society of Revolutionary & Republican Women).
• Demands: equal political rights (vote, office), education, end to forced marriage, divorce rights.
• Reforms:
  • State schools for girls; marriage as civil contract, divorce legal for both sexes; entry into certain professions.
• Reign of Terror: women’s clubs banned; leaders (e.g., Olympe de Gouges, author of “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen”) executed.
• French women gained suffrage only in $1946$.

Abolition of Slavery in Colonies

• French Caribbean colonies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, San Domingo) relied on triangular trade: Europe–Africa–Americas.
• Port cities Bordeaux, Nantes prospered.
• 1794 Convention abolishes slavery (inspired by Jacobin social reform).
• 1804 Napoleon reinstates slavery; finally abolished $1848$.
• Print (Fig 14) shows French woman ‘civilising’ African & American Indian slaves – irony & paternalism.

Revolution & Everyday Life

• Censorship abolished (1789) ➔ explosion of newspapers, pamphlets, political songs, festivals (Fig 11), satirical prints (Fig 15 “patriotic fat-reducing press”).
• Festivals used Greco-Roman motifs to evoke historic grandeur & republican virtue.
• Commoners could now engage with abstract ideals through visual & oral culture.

Legacy & Rise of Napoleon

• 1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor; spreads Napoleonic Code – protects private property, introduces decimal weights & measures.
• Initially seen as liberator; later as occupier; defeated at Waterloo (1815).
• Revolutionary ideals (liberty, equality, fraternity) outlived him, influencing 19th-century European abolitions of feudalism & worldwide anti-colonial movements (e.g., Tipu Sultan, Raja Rammohan Roy).

Chronology (Key Dates)

• $1774$ – Louis XVI crowned; empty treasury.
• $1789$ – Estates-General; National Assembly; Bastille stormed; rural revolts.
• $1791$ – Constitution limits monarchy.
• $1792–93$ – France becomes republic; king executed.
• $1793–94$ – Reign of Terror.
• $1795–99$ – Directory.
• $1804$ – Napoleon Emperor.
• $1815$ – Waterloo defeat.
• $1848$ – Final abolition of slavery in French colonies.
• $1946$ – French women receive suffrage.

Key Terms (Glossary)

• Livre: French currency (discontinued $1794$).
• Tithe: $\tfrac{1}{10}$ agricultural tax to Church.
• Taille: direct state tax on 3rd estate.
• Cahiers: grievance notebooks.
• Château / Manor: noble estate & residence.
• Sans-culottes: ‘without knee-breeches’; radical Jacobins.
• Guillotine: beheading device.
• Citoyen(ne): citizen.
• Subsistence crisis: threat to basic survival due to food scarcity.
• Emancipation: freeing from bondage.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

• Challenge to hereditary privilege & divine-right monarchy.
• Debate on extent of universal rights (men vs women, colonists vs slaves).
• State violence vs liberty debate (Desmoulins vs Robespierre in Source D).
• Revolution illustrates how economic hardship (bread prices) and ideas (Enlightenment) combine to reshape political structures.
• Highlights tension between ideals (equality) and practices (exclusion of women, slavery reinstatement).

Connections & Comparative Notes

• Montesquieu’s separation of powers echoed in U.S. Constitution; later global democracies.
• French revolutionary tricolour & symbols inspired numerous national flags & emblems.
• Suffrage movements worldwide drew on precedents set by French women activists.
• Napoleonic legal reforms influenced civil codes in Europe & Latin America.