The French Revolution - Mr. Tyler's Lessons for the French Revolution •Louis XV fought many wars, bringing France to the verge of bankruptcy.

The French Revolution !

French Revolution Terms to Know:

Section 1

1. Old Regime

2. Estate

3. Louis XVI

4. Marie Antoinette

5. Estates-General

6. National Assembly

7. Tennis Court Oath

8. Great Fear

Section 2

1. Legislative Assembly

2. Émigré

3. Sans-culotte

4. Jacobin

5. Guillotine

6. Maximillian Robespierre

7. Reign of Terror

Causes for the French Revolution

• Louis XV

fought many

wars, bringing

France to the

verge of

bankruptcy.

•Louis XVI

supported

the

colonists

during the

American

Revolution.

• The national debt amounted to almost 2

billion livres.

.

John II

Charles V

•Lack of

social

services

for war

veterans.

•An inefficient and

antiquated financial

system unable to

manage the national

debt.

• The court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette

at Versailles continued spending.

• High unemployment and high bread

prices.

•The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops.

•Widespread

famine and

malnutrition.

• Poor transportation infrastructure for bulk foods.

• No

internal

trade and

too many

customs

barriers

• Resentment of royal absolutism.

• Resentment by the ambitious

professional and mercantile classes

towards nobles.

• Resentment by peasants toward the

nobles.

• 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

republicanism.

• Anger toward

the King for

firing Jacques

Necker and

A.R.J. Turgot

who were

popularly seen as

representatives

of the people.

• The almost total failure of Louis XVI and

his advisors to deal effectively with any

of these problems.

Estates-General of 1789

• In February 1787,

his finance

minister, Loménie

de Brienne,

convened an

Assembly of

Notables.

• The Controller-

General of

Finances, Charles

Alexandre de

Calonne, asked the

Notables to

approve a new land

tax.

• For the first time

this would include

nobles and clergy.

• The assembly did not approve the tax.

• The assembly demanded that

Louis XVI call the Estates-

General.

• As part of the

preparations

books of

grievances were

drawn up across

France, listing

the complaints

of each of the

orders.

cahiers de doléances

• There was growing concern, however,

that the government would attempt to

gerrymander an assembly to its liking.

• To avoid this, the parlement of Paris proclaimed that

the Estates-General would have to meet according to

the forms observed at its last meeting.

• The 1614 Estates consisted of equal numbers of estates and each estate receiving one vote.

-First Estate (the clergy)

-Second Estate (the nobility)

-Third Estate (the remainder of the population)

•This

provoked

an

uproar.

• Necker argued that

the size of the

Third Estate should

be doubled, but the

question of voting

by headcount was

left for the meeting

of the Estates

themselves.

• Estates-General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789.

• The Third Estate now demanded that credentialing itself should take place as a group.

• The 1st and

2nd Estates

continued to

support

voting by

order.

National Assembly (1789)

• On 10 June 1789 Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, proceed with verification of its own powers

• The other two estates were invited to take part.

•The process was completed on June 17th.

• Then declared themselves the National Assembly

• An assembly not of the Estates but of "the People."

• 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.

• He made 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 tennis court

• Here they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court

Oath (20 June 1789)

• They agreed not to separate until they had given

France a constitution.

• 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.

• On 9 July the Assembly was renamed National

Constituent Assembly.

National Constituent Assembly

(1789–1791)

• By this time,

Necker had earned

the enmity of many

members of the

French court for

his support and

guidance to the

Third Estate.

• On 11 July, after

Necker suggested

that the royal

family live

according to a

budget the King

fired him, and

completely

reconstructed the

finance ministry

• 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.

• The royal leadership essentially

abandoned the city.

• On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which also served as a symbol of tyranny by the monarchy.

18th Century French Dagger Pistol

18th century French Sword

French

Infantry

Soldiers

Sword

18th Century Sword Belt

French Muskets

Musket Balls

• 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.

• Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob

accused the prévôt des marchands (mayor) Jacques

de Flesselles of treachery; his assassination took

place en route to an trial at the Palais Royal.

Working toward a Constitution

• On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly

abolished feudalism, in what is known as the August

Decrees.

• This swept

away both the

seigniorial

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.

• The National Constituent Assembly functioned not

only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a

new constitution.

Women's March on Versailles

• The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.

• The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages.

• They demanded an end to Royalist 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 pieces of cannon 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 two

guards.

• 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.

Royal flight to Varennes

• Louis XVI, opposed to the course of the Revolution

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

wearing the clothes of servants,

while their servants dressed as

nobles.

• However, the next day the King was recognized and

arrested at Varennes late on 21 June.

• He and his family were paraded back to Paris under

guard, still dressed as servants.

• When they

reached Paris, the

crowd remained

silent.

• The Assembly

provisionally

suspended the

King.

• He and Queen

Marie Antoinette

remained held

under guard.[

Completing the Constitution

• the Assembly still favored a constitutional

monarchy, which left Louis XVI as little more

than a figurehead.

• He had 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.

• 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.

• The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to

"preserve public order".

• The National Guard under La Fayette's command

confronted the crowd.

• The soldiers first

responded to a

barrage of stones by

firing in the air; but

the crowd did not

back down, and La

Fayette ordered his

men to fire into the

crowd, thus killing

as many as 50

people.

• In the wake of this massacre the authorities

closed many of the patriotic clubs.

• Declaration of Pillnitz

- Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II

- Frederick William II of Prussia

- King's brother Charles-Philippe

• Demanded Louis XVI total liberty and the dissolution of the Assembly, and promised an invasion of France on his behalf if they refused its conditions.

• The Assembly gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution

• submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it

• The Assembly set the end of its term for 29 September 1791.

Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)

War (1792–1797)

• The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies.

• The King expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger.

• The Austrian emperor

Leopold II, brother of

Marie Antoinette, may

have wished to avoid

war, but he died on 1

March 1792.

• 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.

• France stood in turmoil and the monarchy had

effectively become a thing of the past.

Constitutional Crisis

• On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents,

supported by a new revolutionary Paris Commune,

assailed the Tuileries.

• The King and queen

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.

• The Convention was charged with writing a

new constitution

• They 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.

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.

• As many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.

• The slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities could place one under suspicion.