For more information on French Revolution, visit Britannica.com.
French Revolution
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
French Revolution |
French Revolution
5min Related Video:
French Revolution |
Political Dictionary:
French Revolution |
(1789) The first modern revolution because it changed the structure of society, rather than simply replacing the existing ruler or even the political regime, and created new ideologies to explain its course when nothing suitable could be adopted from the past. It produced the modern doctrine of nationalism, and spread it directly throughout Western Europe, something that has had enormous indirect consequences up to the present. The European wars of 1792-1815, sparked off by the French Revolution, spread both revolutionary ideas and nationalism (although the only newly free state created by the French Revolution was Haiti). The French Revolution also provided the empirical origin of modern theories of revolution, including that of Marx, as well as an important model for subsequent revolutions. Part of the reason for this was that France was pre-industrial, just as many of the countries that underwent subsequent revolutions were to be. Interpretations of the French Revolution have varied enormously, depending upon the political position and historical views of the writer.
The relationship between the French Enlightenment and the Revolution is extremely complex. Burke blamed the Enlightenment, in which he included Rousseau, for the Revolution. But while the Enlightenment spread a sceptical rationalism, it did not propose the extremism or the political solutions adopted during the Revolution.
Before 1789, France combined an absolute monarchy with feudalism. As Tocqueville first suggested, the aristocracy was exempted from taxation in return for not interfering with the king's policy. The latter was, however, fundamentally limited by the former even under Louis XIV (reigned 1643-1714), the most absolute of French kings. Because the wealthy paid no taxes, there was a permanent fiscal crisis, and the effects were only avoided by taxing the rest heavily, and by selling offices and letters of nobility. Because of its fiscal privilege, the aristocracy felt no need for a parliamentary system such as developed in England.
The Revolution proper started 1789 and ended ten years later. A series of political and social crises led up to it, including widespread popular discontent because of poverty made worse by poor harvests. The royal treasury's normal state of near bankruptcy had become desperate because of help given to the American revolt against Britain. Attempts 1787 and 1788 by ministers of Louis XVI (reigned 1774-92) to address the financial problem by reducing the privileges of the aristocracy (and the clergy) produced revolt on their part. They induced him to call, for May 1789, the first meeting since 1614 of the Estates General, an assembly of representatives of feudal society. This body consisted of the First Estate, the clergy, the Second, the aristocracy, and the Third, the rest. The aristocracy expected to dominate the Estates General and although the king had decided in December 1788 that the Third Estate would have the same number of representatives as the other two together, they were still intended to sit and vote separately. If the First and Second agreed, they would always have defeated the Third.
None of the estates was united. Each was divided between rich and poor members, and among different interest groups. When the Estates General met, the Third Estate withdrew and declared itself the National Assembly, inviting the others to join it. After some of the first two estates, especially the clergy, joined the Third, the king ordered them to combine into a single chamber, which then declared itself competent to give a new constitution to France.
On 14 July 1789, the fortress in Paris known as the Bastille, then used as a prison, was seized and demolished as a symbol of despotism. In fact, although this event has been celebrated almost ever since as a national holiday, it contained only seven prisoners, and it is even possible that the demolition had already been ordered by the existing regime.
On 4 August, remaining privileges, and effectively feudalism, were abolished, although various remnants continued in dispute. The Revolution continued, becoming more and more extreme as different groups succeeded for a time in gaining control. The wealth of the clergy was transferred to the nation and priests were required to accept civil status, which led to papal condemnation.
Eventually, in 1791, the king attempted to escape from France, but was arrested. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished, France was proclaimed a Republic, and the king was put on trial. A new calendar was adopted, starting with Year I, with ten new months, named after prevailing weather conditions, in place of the old. In 1793, the king was executed, and Robespierre, leader of the Jacobins, succeeded in becoming effective leader of the Committee of Public Safety, from which position he and his followers brought about the Terror in which thousands were summarily executed for supposed crimes against the Revolution. After a year, Robespierre fell, and was himself executed. Various schemes to reorganize government were tried, none of which worked for long, and eventually Napoleon Bonaparte succeeded with a coup d'état 1799 which eventually led to his election as emperor in 1804.
Although started by the privileged, control of the Revolution rapidly passed to the middle classes and then, for a time, to the sans-culottes in Paris who were poor and extreme. Robespierre and the Jacobins obtained power with their support against their rivals, the Girondins, mainly because they were willing to accept the sans-culottes' demand for strict control of food prices, especially bread. Their failure to carry out the policy in full explains why the sans-culottes did not intervene on Robespierre's behalf when he was under attack. The price of bread was crucial because even in normal times, it took half the expenditure of the majority of the population, and in difficult times, much more.
After Robespierre fell, control passed back to the middle classes. Napoleon's success represented a desire for internal order and victory abroad, although it was presented as the only way to keep the Revolution's achievements.
The view of the Revolution, following Marx, as the replacement of a feudal economic system, based on agriculture and a rigid social hierarchy, by capitalism, based on industry with hierarchy established in the market, is far too crude. One aspect of the abolition of privilege was the reinforcement of the peasantry, both that which continued from before 1789 and the new members who joined it as a result of the disposal of land previously owned by the Church and some of the aristocracy. This class continues to exist and to wield considerable political influence.
— Carl Slevin
French Literature Companion:
Revolution |
While the term ‘La Révolution Française’, or simply ‘La Révolution’ is reserved for the Revolution of 1789-99 , the revolutionary movement produced three further major upheavals in 19th-c. France: the uprising of 27-9 July 1830 (les trois glorieuses) leading to the establishment of the July Monarchy; the Revolution of 1848 [see Republics, 2]; and the Commune de Paris of 1871. From the opposite end of the political spectrum, the Vichy government during World War II [see Occupation And Resistance] claimed to be launching a ‘Révolution Nationale’. [See also Republicanism].
1. The French Revolution: A Chronological Account
(a) 1786-9. By 1786 a long-standing, costly foreign policy had saddled France with a massive debt. Without radical reforms which would help to clear it, the country was clearly condemned to serious decline. Louis XVI, however, could no longer act without the goodwill of the privileged orders. Calonne, the controller-general, persuaded the king therefore to summon an Assembly of Notables who—he hoped—would approve his plans and initiate a movement of national consensus. They met (February 1787), but were not compliant. Calonne's successor, Brienne, dissolved the Assembly (May 1787) and embarked, ‘unsanctioned’, on a programme of sweeping reforms. So began a serious battle of wills. For amid mounting public antagonism, Versailles tried to outface the resistance which the parlements were demonstrating towards Brienne's initiatives. Having failed, Louis determined to destroy the parlements. Since, however, they were commonly seen as bastions against ‘despotism’, that hostile measure (the May Edicts of 1788) was greeted by a wave of rebellious disaffection and renewed calls for the convocation of the États Généraux. Hoping to divide the opposition, Brienne conceded (8 August) that the Estates would meet (May 1789) in order to examine the nation's cahiers de doléances.
Though the situation had been momentarily defused, Necker, Brienne's successor, was to experience far worse trouble: the state was now bankrupt, and the disastrous summer of 1788, followed by a catastrophic winter, brought severe economic problems. In parallel there came serious political problems; for, following the inflammatory decree of the Parlement de Paris that Clergy, Nobility, and Tiers État should each have a similar number of deputies and should vote according to order, the Assembly of Notables was reconvened (November-December) to advise on the composition and running of the Estates. Attention was consequently fixed on the question of privilege and on the proportion of representation to be accorded to the Tiers. The latter's favoured ‘model’, based on the newly revived Estates of Dauphiné (Vizille, 21 July 1788), required that the Tiers be double the size of the other two orders, and that voting be, not by order, but by head. Louis received much reactionary advice on these matters, but did decide (27 December) to implement the first proposal. That still left one significant requirement unsatisfied.
(b) 1789-92. Predictably the first issue to agitate the Estates when they met in Versailles (5 May 1789) was the vote by head. Clergy and Nobility (representing together perhaps half a million men) refused to meet other than separately. The Tiers, representing 25 million common people, and which had—in the frenetic electioneering of the previous six months—recognized itself as the significant political force, reacted in the spirit of Siéyès's famous pamphlet of January 1789 (Qu'est-ce que le Tiers État?): it proclaimed itself the Assemblée Nationale (17 June), where voting would be by head. Responding immediately with an apparent coup d'état, Louis locked the deputies out of their respective meeting-places. Outraged, the Tiers—assembling in a nearby tenniscourt—there swore the first, most famous, oath of the Revolution: the Serment du Jeu de Paume, i.e. not to separate until France had a Constitution and, with it, public regeneration.
On 9 July, underlining the primacy of the task, the Assemblée was to call itself the Assemblée Nationale Constituante. Such defiance, and accompanying public ferment, prompted Louis to order both the Clergy and the Nobility (some of whom had already taken the decision) to work with the Tiers (27 June). The coming days were nevertheless notable for widespread public disorder. Since January food-shortages and steep rises in the price of grain, flour, and bread had been raising the age-old spectre of the ‘pacte de famine’ and causing riots and peasant insurrections almost everywhere. At the same time, by ordering troop movements around Paris and Versailles, Louis was clearly attempting to intimidate the populace, causing further fear and disaffection. On 11 July there came another act of royal ‘despotism’: Louis dismissed Necker, the people's champion. In Paris the resultant anger was awesome. Rioting crowds destroyed the toll-gates; needing arms to counter an ‘imminent’ coup de force, they next invaded known or suspected arsenals. On the morning of 14 July the Invalides was forced, and cannon and muskets taken. Attention was then turned on that most formidable arsenal of all: the Bastille.
Reports (and rumours) of events in Paris exacerbated unrest in the provinces, which rapidly spiralled down into psychosis (La Grande Peur, July-August). In many areas, known or imagined enemies of the popular cause were pre-emptively attacked, noble dwellings sacked, feudal records destroyed, barns raided, tithes reclaimed. From afar, the Assemblée magnified such events into a Dantesque vision. Believing that radical measures alone could calm such turmoil, the Assemblée—allowing civil disobedience to exert influence over the exercise of power—abandoned the whole régime féodal in the famous session of 4 August. Society had consequently to be ‘recreated’, starting with that new, now urgently required, Constitution. Most deputies agreed that it should be prefaced—as in the American States—by a Declaration of Rights. Rapidly promulgated (26 August), the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen became the founding document of the Revolution. Debate, in which Mirabeau played a dominating part, also intensified around the constitutional process to come. Should there be two chambers? Should the king—despite popular antipathy—have a power of veto? On 4 October Louis expressed reservations about the Declaration of Rights. His behaviour merely served to reinforce the people's belief that their destiny lay safely in their own hands alone. They had already organized politically [see Jacobins; Cordeliers; Commune De Paris; etc]. They now acted again: on 5 October the march on Versailles culminated in the invasion of both the Assemblée and the Royal palace. On 6 October—under severe pressure—Louis agreed to reside in the capital. The Assemblée soon followed him. Both were henceforth under the eye of vigilant, suspicious Parisians who would not hesitate (1789-95) to ‘interfere’ in the conduct of national business.
Meanwhile the national debt, unchecked, had become massive. On 3 November the Assemblée—responding robustly—decided to nationalize and sell off Church lands [see Assignats]. (The Church was to be the greatest casualty of the Revolution, losing its power and its autonomy: dissolution of monasteries and convents, February 1790; Civil Constitution of the Clergy, July 1790, which required from clerics an oath of allegiance to the new order; etc.). However, despite this signal radicalization of the Revolution, the deputies still broadly enjoyed a national consensus: the Fête de la Fédération, the first great fête révolutionnaire, mounted throughout France (14 July 1790), proved the point.
Distressed by such increasing radicalism, and particularly by the activity of the Jacobins, Louis took flight to Varennes (20 June 1791), leaving behind a proclamation which denounced everything that had been accomplished since October 1789. He was arrested and brought back to Paris. His defection, like the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further polarized opinion. But popular opposition and growing republicanism were dealt with energetically (e.g. the Massacre du Champ de Mars, 17 July 1791). The political battle was now moving into the final phase of polarization around limited versus democratic views of the Revolution. The former, represented by the Feuillants and such figures as Barnave and Lafayette, triumphed in the short term: the Constitution of 1791 trammelled the principles of liberty, equality, and revolutionary freedom (e.g. with limited franchise, restrictions on public and printed utterances, etc.). Louis signed that Constitution (14 September) and, its work complete, the Assemblée Constituante ended amid growing fears that the European monarchies were plotting to crush the Revolution.
The new Assemblée Législative (1 October 1791) was even more politicized than its predecessor. Notable for its bellicosity, it soon grew to believe that war could solve all current problems: it would divert fractious attention away from serious internal problems, regenerate the nation, and—neutralizing the league of foreign despots—consolidate the Revolution. Over the winter the mood of defiance grew. On 20 April 1792 the Assemblée declared war on Austria. Unfortunately, performance did not match mood. The army, weakened by emigration, disaffection, and sheer incompetence, met with defeats. The Brissotin ministry was replaced (June) by a more royalist administration. Against a background of military reverses, of mounting suspicion (e.g. that Lafayette was preparing a coup d'état), and severe economic shortages, new popular leaders were beginning to emerge, mobilizing displays of popular strength.
The sense of impending disaster mounted. The Patrie en danger was proclaimed (11 July); sectional assemblies (Jacobins, etc.) went into permanent session (25 July). With the Brunswick Manifesto, the Austrian invasion, and the desertion of Lafayette, all 48 Paris sections—bar one—demanded the deposition of Louis. Initiative now slipped from the Assemblée to the new insurrectionary Commune which, invading the Tuileries (10 August), brought Louis's reign to an end. Over the next six weeks the Assemblée—in the paranoid atmosphere in which Danton and Marat reigned supreme—did the Commune's bidding. Serious reverses at Longwy and Verdun laid the road to Paris open to the Austrians. Panic swept the capital, leading to that most ferocious of pre-emptive strikes: the September Massacres of counter-revolutionary suspects held in various prisons. Amid violence and carnage, the Assemblée Législative bowed out—emasculated—to make way for the Convention Nationale, whose essential, and seemingly hopeless, task was to save the Revolution.
(c) 1792-4. The Convention, ‘sujet de contemplation sombre, lugubre, effrayant, mais sublime’ (Victor Hugo), met on 20 September 1792 (the same day on which the invading Prussians were halted by the Revolutionary armies at the Battle of Valmy). Its first act was to declare that Republic which radicals had increasingly been demanding. Abolishing the monarchy was easy. Knowing what to do with Louis was not, and his future was hotly debated, with Girondins temporizing, Montagnards arguing either for his trial or his immediate punishment (the popular insurrection of 10 August having been, said Saint-Just, his trial already). Trial was the favoured solution and, after being portrayed variously and eloquently as a criminal or a victim of circumstance, Louis was condemned to death with no right of appeal to the nation (15 January 1793) and executed (21 January).
In the same spirit of defiance, the Convention took on even more enemies (including Britain) and embarked on protracted war. Initial failures (March-August 1793) were—after inspired reorganization of the army—spectacularly reversed: from the Battle of Hondschoote (8 September 1793) to Hohenlinden (3 December 1800), the armies of the Republic were almost invariably victorious. But it was war on two fronts. Nearer home, the Convention was embroiled with the Vendée, Federalist revolts, counter-revolution, and treason. The Comité de Sûreté Générale alone (instituted 2 October 1792) was unequal to the gigantic task. To counteract these domestic dangers and to safeguard the Republic ‘one and indivisible’, the authorities created the Revolutionary Tribunal and comités de surveillance (March), the Comité de Salut Public (April), the levée en masse (May), a Revolutionary army to police the countryside (June), and finally—under pressure from the popular movement—government by Terror (September).
The stage is now occupied by the great Committee of Public Safety. From its inception it sought—as something akin to a war cabinet—to galvanize the nation's resolve; responding to numerous problems, it did indeed guide the Republic with increasing single-mindedness. Unfortunately its enormous task was not facilitated by its fellow Republicans. Inter-factional fighting now bedevilled the Convention: Montagnards fought Girondins (and eliminated them in the summer of 1793), while later the Montagnards themselves were to be overtaken on the far Left by the Enragés, the Hébertistes, the Paris Commune, sundry populists, and the poorer sections of the capital. Nor was its task facilitated by the Convention's représentants en mission, who often defended the Republic with ferocious individual initiative: e.g. the purging of Lyon by Collot d'Herbois; the punishment of Toulon by Barras; the repression of Bordeaux by Tallien, and of Nantes by Carrier; or the anarchic, often repulsive, ‘dechristianization’ practiced by Fouché and Chaumette.
Such excesses—widely imitated—antagonized many ordinary supporters of the Republic (and indeed, Robespierre came to view them as deliberate acts of political sabotage). Consequently the Comité took a firmer grip on affairs. Helped by the law of 4 December 1793 which gave extraordinary powers to the Comité de Salut Public, the latter could now restrain maverick behaviour on behalf of the Republic. Complaints about such abuse of power had, however, become the main thrust of the campaign, animated by Danton and his allies, to abandon the Terror. Conversely, the Cordeliers and Hébert advocated continuing Terror and accelerated dechristianization, and called for an insurrectionary purge of the Convention. Thoroughly alarmed, the Comité struck. Within ten days the Hébertistes had been destroyed (24 March 1794), their ally—the Paris Revolutionary Army—dissolved (27 March), and the Commune purged (April-May).
Events now quickened, notably because Robespierre—a significant influence within the Comité—was becoming steadily obsessed with counter-revolutionary corruption and scheming. (His victims would include Fabre d'Églantine, Danton, Desmoulins, etc. and his weapons would include the infamous law of 22 Prairial [for Revolutionary dates see Calendars] which—simplifying the procedures of the Revolutionary Tribunal—meant that justice became expeditious and that the number of executions rose dramatically.) The Republic of Virtue was purging society of its contaminated elements, and was working hard for regeneration. But it was now Robespierre himself, with his moral fanaticism, who was being viewed as an increasingly dangerous individual. Since the autumn of 1792 he had been accused of aspiring to dictatorship. His peremptory denunciations of personal and public enemies now caused renewed suspicions of this possibility. Moreover, sheer dread gripped the Convention, where former over-zealous représentants felt distinctly vulnerable (e.g. Fouché, Tallien, etc.). The dénouement came on 26 July (8 Thermidor), when Robespierre delivered a rambling speech calling for the punishment of certain (unspecified) traitors in both the Convention and the two Comités. His clumsy declaration of war on his enemies—the meaning of which is still hotly debated—provoked the immediate counter-attack of 9 Thermidor. He was arrested and executed (along with Couthon, Saint-Just, etc.) on the following day.
(d) 1794-9. Within a month of the Thermidorian coup d'état the Convention had dismantled the central institutions of the Terror and Revolutionary Government. Reaction, much heartened, re-emerged in the form of right-wing and royalist journals, of the anti-Jacobin Jeunesse dorée and Muscadins, of revenge attacks on Jacobins and Jacobin clubs. Initially unmoved, the Convention chose to demonstrate continuing commitment to leftist republicanism. For example, it removed Mirabeau's remains from the Panthéon and replaced them with those of Marat, and refused to take action against the leading terroristes in the two Comités. But palinody soon proved more opportune: before long Carrier had been sacrificed and guillotined (16 December); the maximum—that ultimate bastion of Revolutionary government—abolished (24 December); laws against emigration relaxed (December-January); Marat's body removed from the Panthéon (8 February 1795); Barère, Billaud, and Collot d'Herbois indicted (22 March).
Jacobin horror, even despair, at these happenings was exacerbated by runaway inflation and the sufferings caused by the severe winter. The result was the uprising of 12 Germinal (1 April), when the people invaded the Convention demanding bread and the Constitution of An II. Despite reprisals, the people repeated their insurrection on I Prairial (20 May). Revenge was swift. On 22 May the Saint-Antoine district of Paris received a savage punitive visit. This was followed in the coming weeks by generalized forms of repression. The popular movement in Paris, severely weakened by the Terror, was now all but destroyed. The events of December-May became the signal for anarchic (often royalist), vindictive acts of counter-terror (La Terreur Blanche) in the Lyonnais, the Rhône valley, and the South (May-June).
The main problem facing the Convention was, however, to devise a Constitution which would ensure stability, prevent any resurgence of radical republicanism and royalism, and respect the principles of 1789 (as opposed to those of 1793). That new Constitution of An III was approved on 22 August. The preceding six years having demonstrated the dangers of a single chamber, the legislature now became bicameral: the lower chamber (the Conseil des Cinq Cents) would initiate legislation, the upper (the Conseil des Anciens) would ratify or reject it. Executive power was now vested in five directors (the Directoire). The aim was general stability. Continuity was, moreover, guaranteed by decrees accompanying the Constitution which stipulated that two-thirds of the members of the founding Conseils should come from within the Convention: anger at this measure among royalists, and particularly radical republicans (who had also been disenfranchised), was extreme. On 5October came the uprising of 13 Vendémiaire, when 25, 000 insurgents converged on the Convention in what was to be Paris's last attempt to impose its will on the national representatives. The regular army, which was henceforth to become the supreme instrument of the Directoire at home and abroad, now saw action against Paris for the first time since April 1789. It took, however, much more determined effort from Bonaparte and his 6, 000 troops than his legendary ‘whiff of grapeshot’ to carry the day.
The golden rule of the first directors (1 November) was to protect the Republic from political extremism. But their attention was equally focused on the dire economic situation which had followed the abandonment of the controlled economy. Speculation was rife, fortunes were being made and flaunted. This is the atmosphere in which Babeuf eloquently expressed the grievances of the disinherited and the betrayed. But the glorious failure of his Conspiration des Égaux (April 1796), which had probably been manipulated by the Directoire, and the renewed anti-Jacobin repression of the next 12 months, emboldened the royalists. In the partial elections of An V (April-May 1797) monarchists were heavily returned. Dismayed, the republican directors (Barras, Reubell, and La Révellière-Lépeaux) forestalled any monarchist triumph: with Bonaparte's ‘permission’ they used the army for the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor (4 September). In the following Directorial Terror (lasting into 1798), the Conseils were purged and many ‘leftist’ measures implemented. Setting aside unwelcome results which it felt to be inimical to the implementation of its own policies was to become a Directorial imperative. It would do the same in the partial elections of April 1798. But in April 1799 the new Conseils proved less docile. Their own coup d'état of 30 Prairial (18 June) struck the directors themselves. Siéyès, one of the new directors, emerged with much-increased power. 1789 long forgotten, he now sought to strengthen the authority of the executive with military support. On 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) Bonaparte ejected the Conseils and, with Ducos and Siéyès, assumed executive power. The Directoire was over and, with it, the Revolution. [See Napoleon].
2. Literature in the Revolutionary Period
While the literature of the Revolutionary period is often dismissed, and certainly shows few innovations in the traditional genres, the demise of censorship, the suppression of privileged corporations, and the gradual disappearance of the salons brought about a transformation within the République des lettres which allowed this decade to demonstrate an effervescence of creativity (see Monglond's bibliography, La France révolutionaire et impériale) which stands comparison with that of 1670-80 or 1750-60.
Since the nation quickly became responsible for its own regeneration, areas of unprecedented innovation were political eloquence and journalism. The years 1789-94 are remarkable for the rhetoric of the ‘Left’ in the unfolding political debates, which found few worthy opponents on the ‘Right’ (Cazalès, Maury). The speeches of Mirabeau, of Barnave, Vergniaud, and Brissot, of Danton, of Robespierre and Saint-Just—all ardent witnesses to both national and individual dramas—punctuated every important moment of the Revolution. Though they now sometimes appear pompous, theatrical, or abstract, they will always strike the ‘listener’ as being animated by a passionate conviction which epitomizes the growing turbulence of the period.
Political journalism, with its 1, 500 separate publications in the same period, is equally ebullient [see also Press]. Transmission of facts (though not unknown, e.g. La Gazette de France, Le Moniteur, etc.) was quickly outstripped by the formation of opinion, be it royalist or revolutionary. The journals of the former (e.g. Les Actes des apôtres, Le Journal de la cour et de la ville) are simplistic and politically shallow, whereas the latter, whether L'Ami du peuple (Marat), Le Père Duchesne (Hébert), or Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant (Desmoulins), are notable for their astuteness, their effulgent and sometimes frightening sincerity. After Thermidor the press becomes largely anti-Jacobin and often obliquely royalist, and will be severely reined in after Babeuf's Conspiration des Égaux. It was then left almost uniquely to the Décade philosophique, the political and literary organ of the Idéologues, to keep faith with republican and liberal opinion.
In turn the theatre, never a stranger to didacticism, readily became a vehicle for political education. The abundant repertoire of the period was, to begin with, decidedly ‘national’ (e.g. M.-J. Chénier's Charles IX and Calas), then republican, and the authorities used their not-inconsiderable powers to ensure that it remained so, although counter-revolutionary plays did occasionally command a hearing (e.g. Laya). But not all is anchored in uplifting, didactic political themes. These years, preparing tastes to come, also see A.-V. Arnault, Lemercier, G.-M. Legouvé, and Raynouard, for example, turning for inspiration to exotic antiquity, Ossianism, or the Middle Ages; or, in a less elevated vein, the comic author Louis-Benoît Picard (1769-1828), keenly observing a society in flux (e.g. Médiocre et rampant, 1797). But this is perhaps the golden age of the melodrama of Pixerécourt and others which, like the roman noir or Gothic novel, was specifically designed for the people, and in which the values of society were reaffirmed.
Prose writers are just as prolific (e.g. Loaisel de Tréogate, Nerciat, Pigault-Lebrun, Madame de Genlis). Many of their texts, reflecting the social upheaval, are indeed so many historical documents. But the work of certain practitioners proved to have enduring value: in particular Louvet de Couvray;
Traditional poetry tends to be unremarkable, though innovation, particularly in subject-matter, is certainly to be seen (e.g. Ossianism, the Nordic world, the genre troubadour). But this is above all the time when André Chénier created his own ardently personal and timeless poems (Iambes, 1794). Furthermore, as much real and vibrant poetry can be found in Revolutionary songs and hymns (‘Le Chant du 14 juillet’, ‘La Marseillaise’, ‘Hymne à l'Être suprême’, ‘Le Chant du départ’, etc.) as in Volney's Les Ruines (1791).
Though contemporaries were assured that ‘la Révolution n'a pas besoin de savants’, the decade was singularly productive in scientists and mathematicians. Lavoisier, Laplace, and Monge produced respectively three great works (Traité de chimie, 1789; Exposition du système du monde, 1796; Traité de géométrie descriptive, 1799), while the seminal work of Cabanis (Traité du physique et du moral de l'homme, 1798-9) founded the study of psychophysiology, and that of Pinel (Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale, 1798) the study of psychopathology. And Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau des progrès de l'esprit humain must surely be—given the circumstances of its production—one of the most moving expressions of confidence in human destiny ever penned.
Finally, one should not overlook the eminently personal reactions to the Revolution. They are particularly poignant among the émigrés (Bonald, Xavier and Joseph de Maistre, Chateaubriand, Sénac de Meilhan, Rivarol, Madame de Genlis). Similarly, Madame Roland and Marmontel both wrote their Mémoires as their own direct response to the Revolution as a catastrophic transformation on both public and personal levels.
3. The Revolution and Posterity
The turbulent intensity of the Revolution (especially 1789-94), and the way in which it elicited the best and the worst from its actors, have inspired or terrified successive generations. From the very beginning it was clear that Europe was witnessing a mutation whose consequences were potentially cataclysmic. Given the mental equipment of the 18th c., almost all early commentators saw it as the result of human volition. Some invoked a type of providentialism, insisting that human pride and presumption were to blame (Burke). Others sought to shift responsibility wherever it could conveniently be placed. They blamed individuals—e.g. ‘Philippe-Égalité’ [see Orléans]—or ‘Pitt's gold’, while equally popular culprits were Protestants or Jews, freemasons or philosophes. Joseph de Maistre, on the other hand, claimed that the nation was being subjected to divine purification. The ‘definitive’ synthesis of such theories was given by the abbé Barruel in his Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du jacobinisme (1797-9). Others were, however, sceptical. For example, J.-J. Mounier, replying to Barruel, in De l'influence attribuée aux philosophes, francsmaçons et illuminés sur la Révolution de France (1801), wrote: ‘on a substituté à des causes très compliquées des causes simples, à la portée des esprits les plus paresseux et les plus superficiels.’ But in turn, despite more evident intellectual distinction, writers such as Madame de Staël, Thiers, Michelet, Quinet, and Lamartine found it impossible to keep their own affiliations and preferences separate from their writings.
As Croce was to say: ‘History is always contemporary History.’ The events of 1830, 1848, and 1871 will all in turn, therefore, by a process which J. M. Roberts has aptly termed ‘mythological revivalism’, generate either reverent evocation of the Great Revolution as a model to be imitated or expressions of distaste for an aberration to be condemned. That is why Esquiros, for example, celebrating the Montagnards, could claim: ‘Leur mémoire est comme une colonne de feu qui guide les générations errantes et indécises à la recherche d'une nouvelle terre promise.’ That is precisely why Toqueville and Marx (whose political opinions are amply betrayed in their own pronouncements on the Revolution) both believed that the men of 1848, haunted by the images and the rhetoric of 1789-94, were—by a process of mimesis—recreating the actions, the language, and the stances of their revolutionary grandfathers. But that belief was not confined to the Continent, nor to 1848 or the Commune. In 1837 Thomas Carlyle reacted in a similar way. Discerning a disturbing parallelism between contemporary events in Britain and the events of 1789-94, he produced his French Revolution, an apocalyptic vision in which unrelieved violence is the recurring theme. Some 20 years later Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, which remains fixed in the British consciousness, repeated the same lesson for the same reasons—with the result that these two works, themselves building on older, indelible memories of rabid anti-Revolutionary propaganda, have helped to create a popular (but widespread) view of the Revolution which is a caricature worthy of Cruikshank or Gillray, to which even the educated are still not immune.
Views of the Revolution among the French continued to be created in the ways exemplified by Madame de Staël, Thiers, Michelet, etc. down into the 20th c. However, with the Russian Revolution and the consequent reactivation of the very concept of revolution, there came both an internationalization and an intensification of the historiographical phenomenon itself. Three generations later there are consequently, across the world, numerous adherents of diverse ‘tendencies’. At the risk of simplifying, we may define these as: counter-Revolutionary; Marxist-Leninist; libertarian Marxist; and liberal or neo-liberal ‘revisionist’.
The simplest, the first, is prejudiced in favour of the ancien régime and proposes—as did Taine, and diverse
Marxist-Leninists (of whom the most eminent are G. Lefebvre and A. Soboul) inherited much of the very orthodox and long-standing view which asserted that the bourgeoisie had seized power and used it to refashion society for its own ends. Intensifying that interpretation, the Revolution is now defined—by its economic content—as an inevitable conflict between the emerging forces of capitalist production and the declining feudalistic powers of the old social order. Russian historians and politicians, fixated by the ‘inexorable’ mechanism of the Great Predecessor, are particularly interesting: one result of their extreme tendency to draw inferences about the future direction of their own Revolution was the obsession of some (e.g. Trotsky) with the possibility of ‘Thermidor’, i.e. the brutal ending of a ‘democratic’ phase of the Revolution, or of ‘Brumaire’, i.e. the emergence of a soldier who would confiscate the state to his own advantage. They were not the first to appeal to historical analogies: Chateaubriand had already illustrated that approach in his Essai sur les révolutions (1797).
Libertarian Marxists owe less to Lenin than to Bakunin, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg. They are intensely hostile to Marxist-Leninists, whom they revile as being tainted with an authoritarian Jacobinism which is deliberately unmindful of the popular democracy of An II. Such historians (e.g. Daniel Guérin, La Lutte de classe dans la Première République, 1944; Bourgeois et Bras Nus, 1973) believe that, in Year II, there came about a new type of class struggle which opposed the bourgeoisie to the urban workers, who constituted an embryonic proletarian revolution. One important result of this school has been the intensive examination of the popular strata of society in those pre-industrial times.
The ‘revisionist’ position seeks to demythify the Revolution by stripping away from it the accretions that are attributable to later visions. Essentially—without necessarily being ‘right-wing’—it seeks to propose an alternative to the Marxist interpretation, either by placing the Revolution in a much wider temporal and spatial context (e.g. the Atlantic Revolution of R. R. Palmer or J. Godechot) or by attacking the basic concepts of Marxist historiography, which are claimed to be methodologically dubious. Classic statements of the latter position are those of Alfred Cobban (The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution, 1962) and François Furet (Penser la Révolution française, 1978); their influence was very noticeable in the many works produced in 1989 for the bicentenary of the Revolution (e.g. Simon Schama, Citizens).
— John Renwick
German Literature Companion:
French Revolution |
French Revolution, the French Revolution of 1789, the first of four major French revolutions in modern times, is the only one generally referred to as ‘die Französische Revolution’. It was in one sense the culmination of French enlightened political thought represented chiefly by Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mirabeau, which in Prussia (see Friedrich II, der Grosse) and Austria (see Joseph II), but not in France, had in varying degrees introduced an era of enlightened despotism. French feudal tyranny and social injustice were not felt acutely until the reign of Louis XVI, when the state was feared to be heading towards bankruptcy. The King's attempts at reform through his ministers (Turgot and Calonne) failed, and as an extreme measure he summoned the States General (États généraux) for 1789 (5 May), an act which was anticipated by Klopstock's ode ‘Die Etats Generaux’. The following month (17 June) the Third Estate, deciding upon independent action, styled itself the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale), and declared its right to reform the tax system and demanded a new constitution. On 9 July the Third Estate changed the National Assembly into the Constituent Assembly (Assemblée constituante), thus virtually abolishing the absolute monarchy. Encouraged by these events, the Parisians stormed the Bastille (14 July), the demolition of which became the symbol of a new age of freedom to many who watched events from Germany.
The Assembly voted the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Déclaration des droits de l'homme). Inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, it set out the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity (‘Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit’, a slogan which was soon common currency in Germany). The royal family was removed from Versailles to the Tuileries, and, attempting an escape soon after, was recaptured at Varennes, an episode which intensified Jacobin advocacy of violent action. The situation grew more acute as the emigrant French nobility sought to bring about armed intervention by the German states. Austria was particularly concerned since Marie-Antoinette was a daughter of the Empress Maria Theresia and a sister of the Emperor Leopold II. On 20 April the Legislative Assembly (Assemblée législative), which in October 1791 had succeeded the Constituent Assembly, declared war on Austria and Prussia, thus opening the Revolutionary Wars (see Revolutionskriege).
The abolition of the French monarchy was an inevitable consequence, and the royal family, including the 15-year-old Madame Royale and the 8-year-old Dauphin, were imprisoned in the Temple (10 August 1792). Between 2 and 5 September 1792, 1, 200 prisoners were massacred by a mob which had invaded the prisons. Danton, as minister of justice, and the radical Marat were among those responsible for the September massacres (Septembermorde), which aroused a strong revulsion in Germany. On 21 September the National Convention (Convention nationale) replaced the Legislative Assembly, and proclaimed the Republic. Henceforth the Revolution turned into a struggle between the various rival factions, culminating in the Jacobin Terror (Schreckensherrschaft) under the Montagne (Bergpartei) led by Robespierre which lasted from July 1793 until July 1794. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were executed (21 January and 16 October 1793) and the ailing Dauphin left to perish in prison. In ruthless persecutions countless victims were executed with or without trial. The Terror ended with the execution of Robespierre and his followers (27 July 1794). From October 1795 until December 1799 France was ruled by the Directory (Directoire), consisting of a legislative and an executive chamber with five elected directors, whose misgovernment provoked Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état leading to the establishment of the Consulate with Bonaparte as First Consul. The defeat of the absolutism of the ancien régime had thus been followed by the destruction of liberalism, and ultimately by Napoleonic dictatorship, of which Bonaparte's position as First Consul proved to be the first stage.
The French Revolution did not lead to revolutions in Germany and Austria as did the Revolution of 1848 (see Revolutionen 1848-9). Nevertheless there was for a time a strong republican movement in the Rhineland, particularly in the Electorate of Mainz, an episode which is reflected in Goethe's Belagerung von Mainz, and in Ina Seidel's novel Das Labyrinth. Politically its greatest impact was still to come, under new auspices, with Napoleon's European conquests (see Napoleonic Wars).
The ideals of the French Revolution, represented at their best by the Girondins, found many followers in Germany, among both the older and the younger generations. Klopstock (like Schiller declared an honorary French citizen), Schelling, Jean Paul, Hegel, Hölderlin, Herder, Wieland, Kant, Fichte, and Schiller were among those who welcomed the Revolution during its early stages. Goethe maintained from the first an attitude of caution and scepticism, which is reflected in his play Die natürliche Tochter. Like Schiller, many, though at first sympathetic, reacted decidedly against the Revolution after the King's execution. Some radicals, among them Georg Forster, went to Paris to witness the emergence of the Republic on the spot. Iffland and Kotzebue wrote burlesques on the Revolution, and a number of publications discussed the political implications. Friedrich von Gentz translated Burke's outspoken criticism of the Revolution of 1790, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Betrachtungen über die französische Revolution). In 1799 Novalis expressed in his essay Die Christenheit oder Europa an ideal of freedom on a universal religious basis which inspired the sentiments of the early Romantics (see Romantik).
The French Revolution has frequently been the subject of works of literature, many of which concentrate on its leading figures. Among these are: Grabbe's play Napoleon oder Die hundert Tage (1831), Büchner's Dantons Tod (1837), Mirabeau (1850) by Ernst Raupach, Graf Mirabeau (1858) and Robespierre (1859) by Th. Mundt, Die Göttin der Vernunft (1871) by P. Heyse, Danton und Robespierre (1871) by R. Hamerling, Der grüne Kakadu (1899) by A. Schnitzler, Joseph Fouché (1929) and Marie Antoinette (1932) by Stefan Zweig, the Novelle Die Letzte am Schaffott (1931) by Gertrud von Le Fort, and Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats, dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade (1964) by Peter Weiss.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
French Revolution |
French Revolution, political upheaval of world importance in France that began in 1789.
Origins of the Revolution
Historians disagree in evaluating the factors that brought about the Revolution. To some extent at least, it came not because France was backward, but because the country's economic and intellectual development was not matched by social and political change. In the fixed order of the ancien régime, most bourgeois were unable to exercise commensurate political and social influence. King Louis XIV, by consolidating absolute monarchy, had destroyed the roots of feudalism; yet outward feudal forms persisted and became increasingly burdensome.
France was still governed by privileged groups-the nobility and the clergy-while the productive classes were taxed heavily to pay for foreign wars, court extravagance, and a rising national debt. For the most part, peasants were small landholders or tenant farmers, subject to feudal dues, to the royal agents indirect farming (collecting) taxes, to the corvée (forced labor), and to tithes and other impositions. Backward agricultural methods and internal tariff barriers caused recurrent food shortages, which netted fortunes to grain speculators, and rural overpopulation created land hunger.
In addition to the economic and social difficulties, the ancien régime was undermined intellectually by the apostles of the Enlightenment. Voltaire attacked the church and absolutism; Denis Diderot and the Encyclopédie advocated social utility and attacked tradition; the baron de Montesquieu made English constitutionalism fashionable; and the marquis de Condorcet preached his faith in progress. Most direct in his influence on Revolutionary thought was J. J. Rousseau, especially through his dogma of popular sovereignty. Economic reform, advocated by the physiocrats and attempted (1774-76) by A. R. J. Turgot, was thwarted by the unwillingness of privileged groups to sacrifice any privileges and by the king's failure to support strong measures.
The direct cause of the Revolution was the chaotic state of government finance. Director general of finances Jacques Necker vainly sought to restore public confidence. French participation in the American Revolution had increased the huge debt, and Necker's successor, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, called an Assembly of Notables (1787), hoping to avert bankruptcy by inducing the privileged classes to share in the financial burden. They refused in an effort to protect economic privileges.
The Estates-General and the National Assembly
Étienne Charles Loménie de Brienne succeeded Calonne. His attempts to procure money were thwarted by the Parlement of Paris (see parlement), and King Louis XVI was forced to agree to the calling of the States-General. Elections were ordered in 1788, and on May 5, 1789, for the first time since 1614, the States-General met at Versailles. The chief purpose of the king and of Necker, who had been recalled, was to obtain the assembly's consent to a general fiscal reform.
Each of the three estates-clergy, nobility, and the third estate, or commons-presented its particular grievances to the crown. Innumerable cahiers (lists of grievances) came pouring in from the provinces, and it became clear that sweeping political and social reforms, far exceeding the object of its meeting, were expected from the States-General. The aspirations of the bourgeoisie were expressed by Abbé Sieyès in a widely circulated pamphlet that implied that the third estate and the nation were virtually identical. The question soon arose whether the estates should meet separately and vote by order or meet jointly and vote by head (thus assuring a majority for the third estate, whose membership had been doubled).
As Louis XVI wavered, the deputies of the third estate defiantly proclaimed themselves the National Assembly (June 17); on their invitation, many members of the lower clergy and a few nobles joined them. When the king had their meeting place closed, they adjourned to an indoor tennis court, the jeu de paume, and there took an oath (June 20) not to disband until a constitution had been drawn up. On June 27 the king yielded and legalized the National Assembly. At the same time, however, he surrounded Versailles with troops and let himself be persuaded by a court faction, which included the queen, Marie Antoinette, to dismiss (July 11) Necker.
The Revolution of 1789
Parisians mobilized, and on July 14 stormed the Bastille fortress. Louis XVI meekly recalled Necker and went to the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, where he accepted the tricolor cockade of the Revolution from the newly formed municipal government, or commune. The national guard was organized under the marquis de Lafayette. This first outbreak of violence marked the entry of the popular classes into the Revolution. Mobilized by alarm over food shortages and economic depression, by hopes aroused with the calling of the States-General, and by the fear of an aristocratic conspiracy, peasants pillaged and burned châteaus, destroying records of feudal dues; this reaction is known as the grande peur [great fear].
On Aug. 4, the nobles and clergy in the Assembly, driven partly by fear and partly by an outburst of idealism, relinquished their privileges, abolishing in one night the feudal structure of France. Shortly afterward, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Rumors of counterrevolutionary court intrigues circulated, and on Oct. 5, 1789, a Parisian crowd, aroused by rising food prices, marched to Versailles and brought the king and queen, "the baker and the baker's wife," back to the Tuileries palace in Paris. The Assembly also removed to Paris, where it drafted a constitution. Completed in 1791, the constitution created a limited monarchy with a unicameral legislature elected by voters with property qualifications.
Of gravest consequence were the Assembly's antireligious measures. Church lands were nationalized (1789), religious orders suppressed (1790), and the clergy required (July, 1790) to swear to adhere to the state-controlled Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Only a bare majority (52%) of all priests took the oath; disturbances broke out, especially in W France; and Louis XVI, though forced to assent, was roused to action. Numerous princes and nobles had already fled abroad (see émigré); Louis decided to join them and to obtain foreign aid to restore his authority. The flight (June 20-21, 1791) was halted at Varennes, and the king and queen were brought back in humiliation. Louis accepted the constitution.
Factionalism and War
On Oct. 1, 1791, the Legislative Assembly convened. Some members joined the various political clubs of Paris, such as the Feuillants and Jacobins. Most deputies were middle-of-the-roaders, swayed by the more radical clubs and by the Girondists. Jacobinism was gaining in this period; "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" became a catch phrase.
Meanwhile abroad, early sympathy for the Revolution was turning to hatred. Émigrés incited the courts of Europe to intervene; in France, war was advocated by the royalists as a means to restore the old regime, but also by many republicans, who either wished to spread the revolution abroad or hoped that the threat of invasion would rally the nation to their cause. The Feuillant, or right-wing, ministers fell and were succeeded by those later called Girondists. On Apr. 20, 1792, war was declared on Austria, and the French Revolutionary Wars began. Early reverses and rumors of treason by the king again led Parisian crowds to direct action.
The Revolution of 1792
An abortive insurrection of June 20, 1792, was followed by a decisive one on Aug. 10, when a crowd stormed the Tuileries and an insurrectionary commune replaced the legally elected one (see Commune of Paris). Under pressure from the commune, the Assembly suspended Louis XVI and ordered elections by universal manhood suffrage for a National Convention to draw up a new constitution. Mass arrests of royalist sympathizers were followed by the September massacres (Sept. 2-7), in which frenzied mobs entered jails throughout Paris and killed approximately 2,000 prisoners, many in grisly fashion.
The Republic
On Sept. 21, 1792, the Convention held its first meeting. It immediately abolished the monarchy, set up the republic, and proceeded to try the king for treason. His conviction and execution (Jan., 1793) reinforced royalist resistance, notably in the Vendée, and, abroad, contributed to the forming of a wider coalition against France. The Convention undertook the foreign wars with vigor but was itself torn by the power struggle between the Girondists and the Mountain (Jacobins and extreme left). The Girondists were purged in June, 1793. A democratic constitution was approved by 1.8 million voters in a plebiscite, but it never came into force.
The Reign of Terror
Instead of a democracy the Convention established a war dictatorship operating through the Committee of Public Safety, the Committee of General Security, and numerous agencies such as the Revolutionary Tribunal. Known to history as the Reign of Terror, this period represented the efforts of a few men to govern the country and wage war in a time of crisis. Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre dominated the new government, with Robespierre gradually gaining over Danton and others. Price and wage maximums were unevenly enforced, and acceptance of the inflated paper currency, the assignats, was made mandatory. A huge number of suspects were arrested; thousands were executed, including Marie Antoinette. A revolutionary calendar, with 10-day weeks, was adopted.
The fanatic Jacques Hébert, who had introduced the worship of a goddess of Reason, was arrested and executed in Mar., 1794, along with other so-called ultrarevolutionaries. The next month Danton and his followers, the "Indulgents," who advocated relaxation of emergency measures, were executed. To counter Hébertist influence, Robespierre proclaimed (June, 1794) the cult of the Supreme Being. France's military successes lessened the need for strong domestic measures, but Robespierre called for new purges. Fearing that the Terror would be turned against them, members of the Convention arrested Robespierre on July 27, 1794 (see Thermidor), and had him guillotined; a majority of Commune members were also executed.
The Directory and the Coming of Napoleon
The Convention drew up a new constitution, setting up the Directory and a bicameral legislature. The constitution went into effect after the royalist insurrection of Vendémiaire (Oct., 1795) had been put down by armed force. The rule of the Directory was marked by corruption, financial difficulties, political purges, and a fateful dependence on the army to maintain control. Conflict among the five directors led to the coup of 18 Fructidor (Sept. 4, 1797).
Discontent with Directory rule was increased by military reverses. In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte, the hero of the Italian campaign, returned from his Egyptian expedition and, with the support of the army and several government members, overthrew the Directory on 18 Brumaire (Nov. 9) and established the Consulate. Until the Restoration of the Bourbons (1814), Napoleon (see Napoleon I) ruled France.
Effects of the Revolution
The French Revolution, though it seemed a failure in 1799 and appeared nullified by 1815, had far-reaching results. In France the bourgeois and landowning classes emerged as the dominant power. Feudalism was dead; social order and contractual relations were consolidated by the Code Napoléon. The Revolution unified France and enhanced the power of the national state. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars tore down the ancient structure of Europe, hastened the advent of nationalism, and inaugurated the era of modern, total warfare.
Although some historians view the Reign of Terror as an ominous precursor of modern totalitarianism, others argue that this ignores the vital role the Revolution played in establishing the precedents of such democratic institutions as elections, representative government, and constitutions. The failed attempts of the urban lower middle classes to secure economic and political gains foreshadowed the class conflicts of the 19th cent. While major historical interpretations of the French Revolution differ greatly, nearly all agree that it had an extraordinary influence on the making of the modern world.
Bibliography
See the older works by Guizot, Jules Michelet, Alexis de Tocqueville, Louis Blanc, Edgar Quinet, and H. A. Taine; the great modern studies by Alphonse Aulard, Albert Mathiez, and Georges Lefebvre; the diplomatic history by Albert Sorel; the socialist interpretation of Jean Jaurès; P. Gaxotte, The French Revolution (1928), a royalist account.
See also J. M. Thompson, The French Revolution (1945); N. Hampson, A Social History of the French Revolution (1963); W. Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (1988) and The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989); S. Schama, Citizens (1989); R. Cobb, The French and Their Revolution (1999); D. Andress, The Terror (2006).
On the historiography of the French Revolution, see P. Farmer, France Reviews Its Revolutionary Origins (1944, repr. 1963); D. Sutherland, France, 1789-1815: Revolution and Counterrevolution (1986); and F. Furet and M. Ouzouf, A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (tr. A. Goldhammer, 1989).
History Dictionary:
French Revolution |
The event at the end of the eighteenth century that ended the thousand-year rule of kings in France and established the nation as a
Wikipedia:
French Revolution |
For later revolutions in France, see July Revolution and French Revolution of 1848.
For other uses, see French Revolution (disambiguation).
 |
This article is currently the subject of an educational assignment. |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
| The French Revolution | |
|---|---|
 The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 |
|
| Other names | Reign of Terror; French Revolutionary War |
| Participants | French society |
| Location | France |
| Date | 1789–1799 |
| Result | Abolition and replacement of the French monarchy with a radical democratic republic. Radical social change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. Armed conflicts with other European countries |
 |
|
||||
| Problems listening to this file? See media help. | |||||
The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.
The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution witnessed members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between a liberal legislature and a conservative monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was eventually proclaimed on September 22, 1792. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries, and most territories west of the Rhine—achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the brutal Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794. After the fall of Robespierre and the Jacobins, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.
The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies, and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of the monarchy, and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, constitutional monarchy, and two different empires.
|
Contents
|
Causes
Main article: Causes of the French Revolution
Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included widespread famine and malnutrition, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a 4-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789),[1] which increased the likelihood of disease and death, and intentional starvation in the most destitute segments of the population in the months immediately before the Revolution. The famine extended even to other parts of Europe, and was not helped by a poor transportation infrastructure for bulk foods. (Recent research has also attributed the widespread famine to an El Niño effect following the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland,[2] or colder climate of the Little Ice Age combined with France's failure to adopt the potato as a staple crop.)[3]
Another cause was the fact that Louis XV fought many wars, bringing France to the verge of bankruptcy, and Louis XVI supported the colonists during the American Revolution, exacerbating the precarious financial condition of the government. The national debt amounted to almost two billion livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy's military failures and ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war veterans. The inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation. Another cause was the continued conspicuous consumption of the noble class, especially the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, despite the financial burden on the populace. High unemployment and high bread prices caused more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops known as the dîme or tithe. While the dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy's tax increases, it worsened the plight of the poorest who faced a daily struggle with malnutrition. There was too little internal trade and too many customs barriers.[4]
There were also social and political factors, many of which involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by the ambitious professional and mercantile classes towards noble privileges and dominance in public life, as many of these classes were familiar with the lives of their peers in commercial cities in the Netherlands and Great Britain; resentment by peasants, wage-earners, and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by nobles; resentment of clerical advantage (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion, resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy, continued hatred for Catholic control, and influence on institutions of all kinds by the large Protestant minorities; aspirations for liberty and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; and anger toward the King for firing Jacques Necker and A.R.J. Turgot (among other financial advisors), who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.[5]
Pre-revolution
Financial crisis
Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the nation was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income.[6] This was because of France’s involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolution.[7] In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he lost favour. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Director-General of Finance. He was not made a minister because he was a Protestant, and could not become a naturalized French citizen.[8] Necker realized that the country's tax system subjected some to an unfair burden;[8] numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy.[9] He argued that the country could not be taxed higher, that the nobles and clergy should not be exempt from taxes, and proposed that borrowing would solve the country's fiscal problems. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36,000 livres; and proposed restricting the spending power of the parlements. This was not received well by the King's ministers and Necker, hoping to solidify his position, argued to be accepted as a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Directorship.[8]
Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and put forth a new tax code.[10] The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy, and the meeting of the Estates was planned for May 1789; a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was no longer absolute.[11]
Estates-General of 1789
Main article: Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General was organized into three estates, respectively: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France.[12] On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The Parlement of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614.[13] The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, wherein each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For instance, in the province of Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate.[14] The "Committee of Thirty", a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign".[15] Necker convened a Second Assembly of the Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333.[15] The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.[16]
Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.
Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.
Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate."[16] To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems.[12] The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare.[13][18] Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship.[15] The Abbé Sieyès, argued the importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? (What is the Third Estate?), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something."[13][19]
The Estates-General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three hour speech by Necker. The basic strategy of the Third Estate was to make sure that no decisions of the Estates-General should be reached in separate chambers, but instead should be made by all deputies from all three estates together (in other words, the strategy was to merge all three estates into one assembly). Thus they demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; but negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this.[18] The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator".[20] Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.[21]
National Assembly (1789)
Main article: National Assembly (French Revolution)
On 10 June 1789 Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June.[22] Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.[23]
In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.[24]
National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)
Main article: National Constituent Assembly
Storming of the Bastille
Main article: Storming of the Bastille
By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his support and guidance to the Third Estate. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker from his role as King's financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker suggested that the royal family live according to a budget to conserve funds, the King fired him, and completely reconstructed the finance ministry at the same time.[25]
Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be the start of a royal coup by the conservatives and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers—mostly foreigners under French service rather than native French troops—had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent eviction from their meeting place once again. Paris was soon consumed with riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of the French Guard, including arms and trained soldiers.[26]
On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of monarchist tyranny. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the Ancien Régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and he was shot.[27]
The King and his military supporters backed down, at least for the time being. La Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of Vive la Nation [Long live the Nation] and Vive le Roi [Long live the King].[28]
Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour. He also felt he could save France all by himself, despite having few ideas.[citation needed]
Nobles were not assured by this apparent reconciliation of King and people. They began to flee the country as émigrés, some of whom began plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European coalition against France.[citation needed]
By late July, insurrection and the spirit of popular sovereignty spread throughout France. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of châteaux, as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" (the Great Fear). In addition, plotting at Versailles and the large numbers of men on the roads of France as a result of unemployment led to wild rumours and paranoia (particularly in the rural areas) that caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances and contributed to the Great Fear.[29]
Working toward a constitution
 |
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Main article: French Revolution from the abolition of feudalism to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges.
Looking to the Declaration of Independence of the United States for a model, on 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Like the U.S. Declaration, it comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.
Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 départements, uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.
Originally summoned to deal with a financial crisis, by late 1789, the Assembly had focused on other matters and only worsened the deficit. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.
Women's March on Versailles
Main article: The March on Versailles
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Fueled by rumors of a reception by the King's bodyguards 1 October 1789 in which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.[30] The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.
Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards.[31] La Fayette ultimately convinced the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.
On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the protection of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.
Revolution and the Church
Main articles: Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution and Civil Constitution of the Clergy
The Revolution brought about a massive shifting of powers from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the Ancien Régime, the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10 percent of the land in the kingdom.[32] The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, however it levied a tithe - a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops - on the general population.[32] The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented. Non-Catholics and Protestants wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy in power. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy.[33] As historian John McManners argues, “In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse … would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence.”[34]
This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May of 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body.[35] The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was “at the disposal of the nation.”[36] They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. However, the nation had now taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy, caring for the poor the sick and the orphaned.[37] In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25 percent in two years.[38] In autumn of 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved.[39] Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and 10 percent eventually married.[40]
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because non-Catholics could participate in the election of their priests and bishops. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy.[40] This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who refused to do so. Overall 54 percent of the clergy nationwide took the oath.[41] Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, “forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors.”[38] Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. However, locals often resisted these efforts and even Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety eventually denounced this campaign.[42] The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905.
Appearance of factions
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or monarchiens, allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.
The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies.
Intrigues and radicalism
The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the Ancien Régime—armorial bearings, liveries, etc.—which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the Fête de la Fédération; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; and the King and the royal family actively participated.[43]
The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the communes had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau carried the day, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.[citation needed]
In late 1790, several small counter-revolutionary uprisings broke out and efforts took place to turn all or part of the army against the Revolution. These uniformly failed. The royal court "encouraged every anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none."[44]
The army faced considerable internal turmoil: General Bouillé successfully put down a small rebellion, which added to his (accurate) reputation for counter-revolutionary sympathies. The new military code, under which promotion depended on seniority and proven competence (rather than on nobility) alienated some of the existing officer corps, who joined the ranks of the émigrés or became counter-revolutionaries from within.[citation needed]
This period saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics, foremost among these the Jacobin Club; 152 clubs had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790.[45] As the Jacobins became more of a broad popular organisation, some of its founders abandoned it to form the Club of '89. Royalists established first the short-lived Club des Impartiaux and later the Club Monarchique. The latter attempted unsuccessfully to curry public favour by distributing bread. Nonetheless, they became the frequent target of protests and even riots, and the Paris municipal authorities finally closed down the Club Monarchique in January 1791.[citation needed]
Amidst these intrigues, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.[46]
In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the émigrés. The debate pitted the safety of the State against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau carried the day against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco".[44] But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly would adopt this "draconian" measure.[47]
Royal flight to Varennes
Main article: Flight to Varennes
Louis XVI, opposed to the course of the Revolution, but rejecting the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe, cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791 the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace wearing the clothes of servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.
However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse département). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they reached Paris, the crowd remained silent. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.[48][49][50][51][52]
Completing the constitution
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Main article: The Last Days of the National Constituent Assembly
As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he had perforce to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to de facto abdication.[citation needed]
Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, thus killing between thirteen and fifty people.[53]
In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions.[54] The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely caused the militarisation of the frontiers.[citation needed]
Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. The Assembly set the end of its term for 29 September 1791.[citation needed]
Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."[55]
Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)
Failure of the constitutional monarchy
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot."[56] The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the émigrés with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.[citation needed]
Constitutional crisis
Main articles: 10th of August (French Revolution), September Massacres, and Proclamation of the abolition of the monarchy
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents, supported by a new revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.
What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new de facto government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.
War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)
Main articles: French Revolutionary Wars and French Counter-Revolution
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
 |
Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2009) |
The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, the Feuillants and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. Only some of the radical Jacobins opposed war, preferring to consolidate and expand the Revolution at home. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792.[57] France declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw. However, by this time, France stood in turmoil and the monarchy had effectively become a thing of the past.[citation needed]
National Convention (1792–1795)
Main article: National Convention
|
|
Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2009) |
Execution of Louis XVI
|
|
|
||||
| Problems listening to this file? See media help. | |||||
In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw Louis condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the Place de la Révolution, former Place Louis XV, now called the Place de la Concorde. After he was executed, some of the citizens who witnessed the beheading ran forth to have their clothes soaked in the late King's blood, dripping from his head.[58] Others in the crowd went mad, slit their throats or jumped into the river Seine[59] – according to historian Adam Zamoyski this was not so much due to their love for the King but as he was seen as a representative of God on earth. In his book The Rebel, Albert Camus wrote that the execution was the turning point of French contemporary history, "an act that secularized the French world and banished God from the subsequent history of the French people".[59] The 21 January execution led to more wars with other European countries. Louis' Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the guillotine on 16 October.[60]
Economy
When war went badly, prices rose and the sans-culottes — poor labourers and radical Jacobins — rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders.[61] This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September of 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods.[62] Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"[63]
Reign of Terror
Main article: Reign of Terror
The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.[64] A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.[64][65]
On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the enragés ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert — took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to "sans-culottes" alone.[66] With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to convince the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the revolutionary dictatorship. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.[67]
Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but never applied, because normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.[68]
In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription.[69] This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée.[70] North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).[citation needed]
After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann penned a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating
“There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."[71][72]
However, some historians doubt the existence of this document[73] and others point out that the claims in it were patently false - there were in fact thousands of (living) Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed,[74] and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely.[75] It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, that may have been Westermann's attempt to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his incompetent military leadership and for his opposition to sans-culotte generals (he failed to avoid that, since he was guillotined together with Danton's group).[76]
The revolt and its suppression (including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides) are thought to have taken between 117 000 and 250 000 lives (170 000 according to the latest estimates).[77] Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media,[78] but it has attracted much criticism in academia as being unrealistic and biased.[79]
Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the levée en masse, which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.
The result was a policy through which the state used violent repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention established sans-culottes paramilitary forces, the revolutionary armies, to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from grain and bread to other household goods and declared the right to set a limit on wages.[80]
The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.
At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ["drownings"] - he organized in Nantes;[81] his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.[citation needed]
Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November.[82]
The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability and patriotism. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.[83]
In the spring of 1794, both extremist enragés such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard indulgents such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the Cult of Reason, advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".[84]
Thermidorian Reaction
Main article: Thermidorian Reaction
On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.[citation needed]
In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against.[85] The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.[85]
The Directory (1795–1799)
Main article: French Directory
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
The new constitution created the Directoire (English: Directory) and the first bicameral legislature in French history.[86] The parliament consisted of 500 representatives — the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred) — and 250 senators — the Conseil des Anciens (Council of Elders). Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the Conseil des Cinq-Cents.[citation needed] Furthermore, the universal suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.[citation needed]
With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the Ancien Régime by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance.[citation needed]
As many French citizens distrusted the Directory,[87] the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them,[88] the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, the Directory used war as the best expedient for prolonging their power, and the directors were thus driven to rely on the armies, which also desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.[citation needed]
Other reasons influenced them in this direction. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.[citation needed]
The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.[citation needed]
The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained much power.
On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the coup of 18 Brumaire which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as Empereur (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.[citation needed]
Women in the Revolution
Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they couldn’t vote or hold any political office. They were considered “passive” citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere.[89] The Encyclopédie, published by a group of philosophes over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a “failed man,” the fetus not fully developed in the womb. “Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men” as opposed to men, upon whom “Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern.” In general, “men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters”.[90] Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and “all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation.” A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.[91]
When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, “solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship.” Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society for Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.[92]
Militant Feminism in the Revolution
Main article: Militant Feminism in the French Revolution
The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,[93] activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women.[94] Women were, nonetheless, “denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793).”[93]
Pauline Léon, on March 6, 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion.[94] Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied.[95] Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of “legions of amazons” in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.[96]
On June 20 of 1792, a number of armed women took part in a procession that “passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence.”[97] Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on July 13, 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.[98]
The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on May 10, 1793.[99] The goal of the club was “to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic.” Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society.[100] Of special interest to the Society was “combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation.”[101]
Later, on May 20, 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded “bread and the Constitution of 1793.”[102] When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, “sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials.”[103]
Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for “conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic”.[104]
These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.
Women Writers of the Revolution
While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her “Declaration on the Rights of Woman” she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym “Polyme” calling him the Revolution’s “infamy and shame.” She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were “preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver.” Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied.[105] In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.[106]
Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women “could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance” if given the chance.[107] As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted “O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!” Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.[108]
Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.
Historical analysis
Main article: Historiography of the French Revolution
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
The constitutional assembly failed for many reasons: there were too many monarchists to have a republic and too many republicans to have a monarch; too many people opposed the King (especially after the flight to Varennes), which meant that the people who supported the King had their reputation slashed; the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; and many more.[citation needed]
Historians disagree about the political and socioeconomic nature of the Revolution. Traditional Marxist interpretations, such as that presented by Georges Lefebvre,[109] described the revolution as the result of the clash between a feudalistic noble class and the capitalist bourgeois class. Some historians[who?] argue that the old aristocratic order of the Ancien Régime succumbed to an alliance of the rising bourgeoisie, aggrieved peasants, and urban wage-earners.[citation needed]
Yet another interpretation[who?] asserts that the revolution resulted when various aristocratic and bourgeois reform movements spun out of control. According to this model, these movements coincided with popular movements of the new wage-earning classes and the provincial peasantry, but any alliance between classes was contingent and incidental.[citation needed]
A contributing factor to the Revolution was the considerable increases in poverty in the preceding years. Some scholars trace this to several years of recurrent weather aberrations, caused by the Laki eruption of 1783[110] and the severe El Niño effects that were to follow.[111]
See also
Related pages
- Biens nationaux
- History of democracy
- Jean-Nicolas Pache - Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
- La Révolution française
- List of people granted honorary French citizenship during the French Revolution
- List of revolutions and rebellions
- Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte
- Napoleonic code
- Rise of nationalism in Europe
Other revolutions or rebellions in French history
- Camisard Rebellion, French Huguenots (1710–1715)
- Haitian Revolution, Haiti colony (1791–1804)
- July Revolution (1830)
- Canut revolts of the July Monarchy
- French Revolution of 1848
- Resistance to the coup of 1851
- Paris Commune of 1871
- French Army Mutinies (1917)
- French Resistance during World War II
- May 1968 in France, a noteworthy rebellion, though not quite a revolution
References
- ^ Hibbert. Pg 96.
- ^ A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the poor crop yields of 1788–1789 in Europe resulted from an unusually strong El Niño effect between 1789 and 1793. Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño,” Nature 393 (1998), 318–319.
- ^ Little Ice age: Big Chill. History Channel.
- ^ "Encyclopedia Britannica - Traite". http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/602094/traite. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ Doyle 1989, pp.73–74
- ^ Frey, p. 3
- ^ "France’s Financial Crisis: 1783–1788". http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/frenchrev/section1.html. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
- ^ a b c Hibbert, p. 35, 36
- ^ Frey, p. 2
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 34
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 36
- ^ a b Frey, pp. 4, 5
- ^ a b c Doyle 2001, p. 38
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.89
- ^ a b c Neely, p. 56
- ^ a b Hibbert, pp.42–45
- ^ Assemblée Nationale (French) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/suffrage_universel/suffrage-1789.asp
- ^ a b Neely, pp. 63, 65
- ^ Furet, p. 45
- ^ Hibbert, p. 54
- ^ Schama 2004, p.300–301
- ^ John Hall Stewart. A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1951, p. 86.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.303
- ^ Schama 2004, p.312
- ^ Schama 2004, p.317
- ^ Schama 2004, p.331
- ^ Schama 2004, p.344
- ^ Schama 2004, p.357
- ^ Hibbert, 93
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.121
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.122
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 4.
- ^ Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 16.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 5.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 50, 4.
- ^ National Assembly legislation cited in John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 61.
- ^ Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution, 148.
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 92.
- ^ Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution, 151.
- ^ Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 92–94.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.433–434
- ^ a b Mignet, François (1824). Histoire de la Révolution française. Chapter III.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.449
- ^ Schama 2004, p.442
- ^ Schama 2004, p.496
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
- ^ Lindqvist, Herman (1991). Axel von Fersen. Stockholm: Fischer & Co
- ^ Loomis, Stanley (1972). The Fatal Friendship. Avon Books - ISBN 0931933331
- ^ Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003)
- ^ http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/France/_Texts/CROROY/Fuite_de_Varennes*.html
- ^ Schama 2004, p.481
- ^ Schama 2004, p.500
- ^ Mignet, François (1824). Histoire de la Révolution française. Chapter IV.
- ^ "French Revolution". About LoveToKnow 1911. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/French_Revolution. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.505
- ^ Doyle 2002, p. 196
- ^ a b Zamoyski, Adam (1999). Holy Madness. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 1–2. ISBN 0297 815717.
- ^ "Date of Marie Antoinette execution". http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/louis.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
- ^ White, E. "The French Revolution and the Politics of Government Finance, 1770–1815." The Journal of Economic History 1995, p 244
- ^ Schuettinger, Robert. "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls." Heritage Foundation, 2009. p. 45
- ^ Bourne, Henry. "Maximum Prices in France." American Historical Review, October 1917, p. 112.
- ^ a b Gough, Hugh (1998). The Terror in the French Revolution. p. 77.
- ^ Doyle 1989, p. 258
- ^ Schama 2004, p.616
- ^ Schama 2004, p.641
- ^ Schama 2004, p.637
- ^ In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old Regime, New York Times
- ^ McPhee, Peter Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée H-France Review Vol. 4 (March 2004), No. 26
- ^ Davies, Norman. Europe: A history Pimlico, (1997). p. 705
- ^ Schama 2004, p.666
- ^ Frédéric Augris, Henri Forestier, général à 18 ans, Éditions du Choletais, 1996
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en France, 1789–1799, Éditions du Seuil, Points collection, 1998, p. 219
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Guerre de Vendée, dans l'Encyclopédie Bordas, Histoire de la France et des Français, Paris, Éditions Bordas, 1999, p 2084, et Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en France, 1789–1799, p.218.
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution. Essai sur la naissance d'un mythe national, éditions du Seuil, 2006, p. 181
- ^ 117 000 according to Reynald Secher, La Vendée-Vengé, le Génocide franco-français (1986); 200 000–250 000 according to Jean-Clément Martin, La Vendée et la France, Éditions du Seuil, collection Points, 1987; 200 000 according to Louis-Marie Clénet, La Contre-révolution, Paris, PUF, collection Que sais-je?, 1992; 170 000 according to Jacques Hussenet (dir.), « Détruisez la Vendée ! » Regards croisés sur les victimes et destructions de la guerre de Vendée, La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2007, p.148.
- ^ In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old Regime. The New York Times. June 17, 1989
- ^ Michel Vovelle, « L'historiographie de la Révolution Française à la veille du bicentenaire », Estudos avançados, octobre-décembre 1987, volume 1, n° 1, p. 61–72. [1] ou [2]
- ^ Schama 2004, p.646
- ^ Jean-Baptiste Carrier, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^ Schama 2004, p.658
- ^ Schama 2004, p.689
- ^ Schama 2004, p.706
- ^ a b Doyle 1989, p.320
- ^ Cole et al 1989, p.39
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.331
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.332
- ^ Scott “Only Paradoxes to Offer” 34–35
- ^ Encyclopedia “Woman”
- ^ Marquise de Maintenon, “Writings” 321
- ^ Dalton “Madame Roland” 262
- ^ a b Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution Edited by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 79
- ^ a b Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23–24
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 89
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23–24
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 91
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 31
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 92
- ^ Deviant Women of the French Revolution and the Rise of Feminism by Lisa Beckstrand pg. 17
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 25
- ^ Gender, Society and Politics: France and Women 1789–1914 by James H. McMillan pg. 24
- ^ Gender, Society and Politics by McMillan pg. 24
- ^ Deviant Women by Beckstrand pg. 20
- ^ De Gouges “Writings” 564–568
- ^ Mousset “Women’s Rights” 49
- ^ Dalton “Madame Roland” 262–267
- ^ Walker “Virtue” 413–416
- ^ Lefebvre, Georges (1947). The Coming of the French Revolution.
- ^ Wood, C.A., 1992. "The climatic effects of the 1783 Laki eruption" in C. R. Harrington (Ed.), The Year Without a Summer? Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, pp. 58– 77
- ^ Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño,” Nature 393 (1998), 318–319
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. This article makes use of the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.
Works cited
- Carlyle, Thomas (2002) [1837]. The French Revolution: A History. The Modern Library. ISBN 0375760229. http://books.google.com/books?id=nmRdAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=French+Revolution+carlyle&ei=R5j3SM3CG4OUMpvhvNMI.
- Censer, Jack; Lynn Hunt (2001). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Cole, Alistair; Peter Campbell (1989). French electoral systems and elections since 1789. Gower. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=msOIAAAAMAAJ&q=%22first+bicameral+legislature%22+directory+french&dq=%22first+bicameral+legislature%22+directory+french&client=firefox-a&pgis=1.
- Dalton, Susan (2001). “Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of Madame Roland” Canadian Journal of History.
- Doyle, William (1990). The Oxford history of the French Revolution (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192852213. http://books.google.com/books?id=N7chHQAACAAJ&dq=Oxford+history+of+the+French+Revolution&ei=kZj3SLD_PInYMqO_vNMI.
- Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192853961. http://books.google.com/books?id=B-Zf4topzfQC&dq=0192853961.
- Doyle, William (2002). The Oxford history of the French Revolution (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 019925298X. http://books.google.com/books?id=oMYWKlevAV4C.
- Frey, Linda; Marsha Frey (2004). The French Revolution. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313321930. http://books.google.com/books?id=RFgXl1EG5soC&dq=Short+History+of+the+French+Revolution+Doyle&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Furet, Francois (1995). Revolutionary France, 1770–1880. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631198083. http://books.google.com/books?id=EPsEJIdFz3AC&dq=Revolutionary+France+Furet&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Hibbert, Christopher (1980). The Days of the French Revolution. New York: Quill, William Morrow. ISBN 0688037046. http://books.google.com/books?id=yr1z38HCkdAC&dq=Hibbert+French+Revolution&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. “Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris,” in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).
- Kennedy, Emmet (1989). A Cultural History of the French Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Lefebvre, Georges (1971). The French Revolution: From Its Origins to 1793. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231085982. http://books.google.com/books?id=I2oA5MtB0ZkC&dq=Lefebvre+estates+general&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Marquise de Maintenon “Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis,” in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000), 321.
- McManners, John (1969). The French Revolution and the Church. New York: Harper and Row.
- Mousset, Sophie (2007). Women’s Rights and the French Revolution. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765803453.
- Neely, Sylvia (2008). A Concise History of the French Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0742534111. http://books.google.com/books?id=fccjTyOQiYwC&dq=The+Estates-General&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Rude, George (1991). The French Revolution: Its Causes, Its History and Its Legacy After 200 Years. Grove Press. ISBN 0802132723. http://books.google.com/books?id=f1pMIbvzKckC&dq=causes+of+the+French+Revolution&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0.
- Schama, Simon (2004) [1989]. Citizens. Penguin. ISBN 0141017279.
- Scott, Joan Wallach. “A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer,” in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).
- Soboul, Albert (1977). A short history of the French Revolution: 1789–1799. University of California Press, Ltd. ISBN 0520034198. http://books.google.com/books?id=GSdw2oC60cwC&dq=Soboul+French+Revolution&ei=BJn3SNLsBIqiM-HLxdMI.
- Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland." Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary Culture (2001): 403–419. http://0-www.jstor.org.bianca.penlib.du.edu/.
- “Women.” The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09. < http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.
External links
 |
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article French Revolution, The. |
- Open University course
- Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia Encyclopedia
- Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook
- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York)
- The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789–1792, and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792–1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History
- Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.
- republique.us A large collection of links
| Preceded by The Old Regime |
French Revolution 1789–1792 |
Succeeded by First French Republic |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | “The Marseillaise” (Fine Arts) |
| Gallipolis |
| Fox, Charles James (British politician) |
 | What is the French Revolution? Read answer... |
| What is French revolution about? Read answer... |
| What is French revolution and Atlantic revolution? Read answer... |
Help us answer these
 | Why was the french revolution a radical revolution? |
| Why was the french revolution really not a revolution? |
| The french revolution was it a war or a revolution? |
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
 |
 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Political Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| French Literature Companion. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| German Literature Companion. The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "French Revolution". Read more |
Related answers
- French revolution and the American revolution?
- Was the french revolution really a revolution?
- Why was their a french revolution?
ADVERTISEMENT
Answer these
- French Revolution to the American Revolution?
- French Revolution Russian revolution?
- What was the french revolution revolution terror?
Mentioned in
- “The Marseillaise” (Fine Arts)
- Gallipolis
- Fox, Charles James (British politician)
- Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit
- Louis XVI, Louis Seize style
- sans-culottes
- ancien régime (History)
- Jacobins (History)
- Marat, Jean-Paul (History)
- Marie Antoinette (History)
- chouan
- theophilanthropist
- Pleins Feux Sur La Revolution (1989 Film)
- Bastille Day
