Comprehensive Notes – The French Revolution

French Society During the Late 18th Century

• France still organised in a feudal “Old Regime”; social order fixed by birth.
• Monarch in $1774$: Louis XVI (House of Bourbon) ➔ inherits an empty treasury.
  • Reasons for bankruptcy:
  • Long dynastic wars + cost of maintaining the court at Versailles.
  • Financial aid to $13$ American colonies during their war of independence ➔ adds $1\,\text{billion livres}$ to an existing debt of $2\,\text{billion livres}$; creditors charge $10\%$ interest.

Fiscal Crisis & Tax Structure

• State expenses: army, royal household, government offices, universities.
• Only the Third Estate liable for direct & indirect taxes; this inequality makes fresh taxation politically explosive.

The Three Estates: Privilege & Burden

• First Estate (Clergy)
  • Own vast land; exempt from state taxes.
  • Collect Tithe (≈ $\tfrac{1}{10}$ of peasant produce).
• Second Estate (Nobility)
  • Aristocrats owning $60\%$ of French land (with Church & rich commoners).
  • Exempt from taxes; enjoy manorial dues & feudal labour services.
• Third Estate
  • $\approx90\%$ peasants + wage labour, artisans, bourgeoisie (businessmen, lawyers, officials).
  • Pay Taille (direct tax) + multiple indirect taxes on salt, tobacco, etc.
  • Peasants owe corvée labour: road-building, military service, work on noble lands.

Demographic Pressure & “Subsistence Crisis”

• Population boom $1715{-}1789$ ➔ grain demand ↑; production can’t keep pace.
• Bad harvests (severe winters) ➔ bread prices soar; wages stagnate.
• Result: Subsistence crisis = basic livelihood endangered.

Rise of an Educated Middle Class

• Overseas trade (wool, silk, etc.) creates wealthy bourgeoisie.
• Enlightenment belief: privilege should rest on merit, not birth.
• Key Philosophers & their doctrines:
  • John Locke – “Two Treatises of Government”: attacks divine & absolute right of kings.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau – “The Social Contract”: sovereignty lies in a social contract between people & representatives.
  • Montesquieu – “The Spirit of Laws”: proposes separation of powers (Legislature, Executive, Judiciary); model later adopted by the $13$ U.S. states.
• Ideas spread via cheap pamphlets, newspapers, salon discussions.

Spark of Revolution – Events of $1789$

• $5\,\text{May 1789}$: Louis XVI convenes Estates-General to approve new taxes.
  • Representation: First Estate $300$, Second Estate $300$, Third Estate $600$.
  • Voting dispute: Third Estate demands “one man one vote”; king refuses ➔ walk-out.
• $20\,\text{Jun}$: Deputies take Tennis Court Oath, form National Assembly (leaders: Mirabeau & Abbé Sieyès).
• $14\,\text{Jul}$: Storming of the Bastille (symbol of royal despotism).
  • Parallel peasant uprisings: rumours of hired brigands burn crops ➔ châteaux attacked, dues registers destroyed; nobles flee abroad.
• $4\,\text{Aug}$ decrees: abolition of feudal dues, clerical privileges; Church lands nationalised (≈ $2\,\text{billion livres}$ gain).

Constitutional Monarchy – $1791$

• Draft Constitution completed; France now limited monarchy.
• Power tri-partition: Legislature (National Assembly), Executive (King + ministers), Judiciary (independent courts).
• Active citizens: male, >25 years, tax ≥ $3$ days’ wage ➔ choose electors ➔ elect Assembly.
• Passive citizens: women & non-tax-paying men (majority).
• Preamble: Declaration of the Rights of Man & Citizen – life, speech, opinion, equality before law = “natural & inalienable”; state’s duty to protect.

Radicalisation – War & Jacobins ($1792{-}1793$)

• Monarchies of Austria & Prussia threaten intervention; Legislative Assembly declares war (Apr $1792$).
  • Volunteers sing “La Marseillaise” (poet: Claude Joseph Rouget de l’Isle).
• Political clubs proliferate; most influential: Jacobins (meeting in St-Jacques convent).
  • Members: shopkeepers, artisans, workers; leader Maximilien Robespierre.
  • Distinctive dress: long striped trousers, red Phrygian cap of liberty; called “sans-culottes” (“without knee-breeches”).
• $10\,\text{Aug 1792}$: Tuileries stormed; royal family imprisoned.
• Universal male suffrage ≥ $21$ yrs; new legislature = National Convention.
• $21\,\text{Sep 1792}$: Monarchy abolished ➔ France a Republic.
• $21\,\text{Jan 1793}$: Louis XVI executed for treason; Queen Marie Antoinette follows.

Reign of Terror ($Sep 1793{-}Jul 1794$)

• Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety enforces policy of terror:
  • Revolutionary Tribunal tries nobles, clergy, political rivals; use of guillotine.
  • Grain requisition; price maxima; ration cards; ban on white flour; “pain d’égalité”.
  • Universal “Citoyen/Citoyenne”, closure of churches (de-Christianisation).
• July $1794$: Robespierre guillotined ➔ Thermidorian Reaction.

The Directory & Rise of Napoleon

• Constitution $1795$: property-based suffrage restored; bicameral legislature + five-member Directory (executive).
• Chronic conflict between Councils & Directors ➔ political instability.
• Napoleon Bonaparte, successful general, stages coup $1799$; crowns himself Emperor $1804$.
  • Reforms: Napoleonic Code (property rights, secular equality, uniform weights & measures via decimal system).
  • Military conquests spread revolutionary ideals yet provoke nationalist backlash; final defeat Waterloo $1815$.

Women & the Revolution

• Third-Estate women: seamstresses, laundresses, market-sellers, domestic servants; wages < men, heavy household duties.
• Discontent with Constitution $1791$ (classified as passive citizens).
• Demands: right to vote, hold office, equal pay.
• ≈ $60$ women’s political clubs; notable: Society of Revolutionary & Republican Women.
• Olympe de Gouges writes “Declaration of the Rights of Woman & Citizen” ($1791$); executed $1793$ for criticising Jacobins.
• Early legal gains:
  • Compulsory girls’ education (state schools).
  • Civil marriage contract; free-choice marriage; legal divorce (mutual).
  • Access to skilled trades, small business.
• Clubs closed during Terror; women regain political rights only in $1946$ (universal suffrage).

Abolition of Slavery & Colonial Dimension

• French Caribbean colonies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, San Domingo) = sugar, coffee, indigo hubs.
• Triangular trade (Europe ⇔ Africa ⇔ America) since $17^{\text{th}}$ c.
  • Bordeaux & Nantes thrive on slave shipping.
• Convention abolishes slavery $1794$; Napoleon reinstates $1802$; final abolition $1848$.

Everyday Life & Cultural Change

• Censorship abolished $1789$ ➔ explosion of newspapers, pamphlets, political cartoons.
• Metric weights & measures, secular calendar, citizen festivals honouring reason & liberty.

Legacy & Global Influence

• Core ideals: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity continue to inspire Europe & colonies.
• Feudalism dismantled across much of Europe; sparks 19$^{\text{th}}$-century nationalist & liberal movements.
• Indian leaders Tipu Sultan & Raja Rammohan Roy cite French ideas in anti-colonial and reform agendas.

Chronological Quick-Glance

• $1774$ – Louis XVI ascends.
• $05\,\text{May 1789}$ – Estates-General convened.
• $20\,\text{Jun 1789}$ – Tennis Court Oath.
• $14\,\text{Jul 1789}$ – Bastille taken.
• $04\,\text{Aug 1789}$ – Feudal dues abolished.
• $1791$ – Constitution ➔ constitutional monarchy.
• $Apr 1792$ – War on Austria–Prussia.
• $21\,\text{Sep 1792}$ – Monarchy ends; Republic.
• $21\,\text{Jan 1793}$ – King executed.
• $Sep 1793{-}Jul 1794$ – Reign of Terror.
• $1795$ – Directory instituted.
• $1804$ – Napoleon Emperor.
• $1815$ – Defeat at Waterloo.
• $1848$ – Final abolition of slavery.
• $1946$ – French women obtain suffrage.

Key Terms Glossary

• Tithe – $\tfrac{1}{10}$ produce tax payable to Church.
• Taille – direct land tax on Third Estate.
• Subsistence crisis – situation where basic livelihood (food supply) is threatened.
• Estates-General – representative body of three Estates.
• Sans-culottes – working-class revolutionaries, identifiable by long trousers & red cap.
• Guillotine – execution device symbolising revolutionary justice.
• Thermidor – month in revolutionary calendar; names the fall of Robespierre.

Exam-Style Checkpoints (with concise answers)

1. American colonies aided by Louis XVI: $13$.
2. Additional debt post-American War: >$1\,\text{billion livres}$ (total >$2\,\text{billion}$).
3. Direct tax on Third Estate: Taille.
4. National Assembly formed by Third Estate deputies on $20\,\text{Jun 1789}$.
5. $1791$ Constitution distributes power among Legislative, Executive, Judiciary.
6. Protection of natural rights designated to the state.