The French Revolution Unfolds Ch. 3 Section 2

I. Political Crisis and Revolt “The Great Fear”: rumors of gov’t troops attacking villages led to peasant revolts and attacks on nobles. In Paris, different factions competed for power. The Marquis de Lafayette (who fought with Washington in the Amer. Rev.) headed the National Guard. The Paris Commune, a more radical group, took control of Paris.

II. The National Assembly The Third Estate renamed itself the National Assembly. Nobles give up special privileges. Feudalism (the ancién régime) is abolished. Issued the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, written by Lafayette. Equality for all men Did not include women Louis XVI refused the Declaration.

III. Women March on Versailles Oct. 5, 1789 6,000 women march to Versailles, demanding the king return to Paris. Angry over the price of bread and Marie Antoinette’s rich lifestyle. The royal family was led back to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they stayed under house arrest for 3 years.

IV. The National Assembly Acts N.A. puts the Church under state control: Took Church’s land and property. Made clergy elected, salary-paid. Ended Pope’s authority. Many peasants angry. Issue Constitution in 1791: Limited monarchy Legislative Assembly- elected to make laws Equality for all men

Royal family attempts to escape June 1791: Caught and brought back to Paris. Seen as a traitor.

V. Radicals Take Over Rulers fear Revolution Emigrés: Nobles who escaped France. Despots feared revolution would spread to their people. Prussia and Austria threaten the French.

Radicals Fight for Power With Paris in chaos, the sans-culottes take radical action. Sans-culotte: “without breeches” Working class poor radicals Demanded a republic Supported by the Jacobins: Political club- mostly bourgeois lawyers

National Assembly Declares War France declared war on Austria, Prussia, and Britain in 1792. Wanted to spread revolution and destroy monarchies.