1. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

2. FOUR STAGES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE MODERATE STAGE ( )
THE RADICAL STAGE ( )
THE REACTIONARY STAGE ( )
THE NAPOLEONIC STAGE ( )

3. Underlying Causes SOCIAL ?? POLITICAL ?? RELIGIOUS ?? INTELLECTUAL ??
TECNOLOGICAL ??
ECONOMIC ??

4. SOCIAL
French Estate System

5. SOCIAL - First Estate Clergy  RCC leaders
130,000 total (0.5% of population)
Own 10% of land
No mandatory tax
“Voluntary gift”
Taxed residents on
their land
Collected TITHE

6. SOCIAL – Second Estate Nobility 400,000 total (1.5% of population)
Own 25% of land
Taxed VERY minimally
Had “optional” taxes
Had manorial rights
Would tax residents on their land

7. SOCIAL – Third Estate EVERYONE ELSE
25 million total (97% of population)
HEAVILY TAXED
3 Subgroups
BOURGEOISIE
Doctors, lawyers, etc.
WORKERS
Artisans, skilled laborers
PEASANTS
21 million people

8. SOCIAL – Third Estate Problems in 3rd Estate Bourgeoisie want:
Abolition to mercantilist restrictions
Fairer distribution of taxes
A GREATER VOICE IN GOVERNMENT
Peasants want:
Freedom from serfdom
Freedom from HIGH TAXES
Gabelle – salt tax
Taille – land tax
BOTH SEEK REVOLT

9. SOCIAL – Third Estate Abbe Sieyes – 1789:
“Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything; but an everything free and flourishing.”

10. SOCIAL Unpopular Court Nobility
Tension between bourgeoisie and nobility
Resentment of noble privileges
Nobles resistant to taxes
Population increase million 18th century

11. POLITICAL Bourbon monarchs Louis XIV, XV, & XVI BIG SPENDERS
Increasingly ineffective
DEBT
Rule by divine right
Lettres de Cachet – individuals could be sentence without trial

12. POLITICAL Louis XVI (r. 1774-1791) Indecisive – vacillation
Estates General dismissed for 175 years
Nobles want to limit power
Marie Antoinette – 1770 political marriage
Young, frivolous

13. RELIGIOUS
James Gillray (1793) “The Zenith of French Glory –The Pinnacle of Liberty, Religion, Justice, Loyalty, and all the bugbears of Unenlightened Minds , Farewell!”

14. INTELLECTUAL ENLIGHTENMENT Montesquieu Voltaire Rousseau Locke Diderot
Printing Press

15. INTELLECTUAL NEW INFLUENTIAL IDEAS Liberty Individual human rights
Freedom of speech, religion, press, etc.
Equality
Right to vote, run for office, participate in government
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
Only applied to MEN
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité”

16. TECHNOLGICAL PRINTING PRESS GUILLOTINE Commoners – Hanged
Aristocracy – beheaded
“SYMBOL OF EQUALITY”
Joseph Guillotin ( )
Antoine Lewis (1723 – 1792)
Used from

18. ECONOMIC Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) Wars of Louis XIV Versailles
American Revolution
UNLIMITED PERSONAL EXPENSES
ALL = GREAT

19. ECONOMIC INEFFECTIVE TAX SYSTEM Dismissal of several finance ministers
Problems with Parlement of Paris
Continually refused to register new taxes
$$$ of bread ↑
Caused by poor harvests, ↑ in populations, and harsh winters

20. ECONOMIC CAUSE
Jacques Turgot ( ) – controller general of finances – cut gov’t spending – 20 months after he was appointed 1774 he was dismissed
Jacques Necker ( ) – dismissed in 1781 and then recalled in 1788
July 1788 – Louis XVI - to win support for new taxes called into session the Estates General

21. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

22. The MODERATE Stage (Bourgeoisie)

23. ESTATES-GENERAL (1789)
Called by Louis XVI to resolve the financial crisis
Meets May 5, 1789
First Estates-General since 1614! (175 years)
The three estates DO agree on some things
Limiting royal absolutism
Granting basic freedoms
Voting system
Each estate still only gets ONE VOTE

24. THE SECOND ESTATE = 1 Vote
THE VOTE
THE FIRST ESTATE = 1 Vote
300 reps
THE SECOND ESTATE = 1 Vote
300 reps
THE THIRD ESTATE = 1 Vote
648 reps

25. NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
3rd Estate declares itself the National Assembly (June 17, 1789)
Invites both 1st and 2nd Estate to join
Louis orders them to disband (June 27, 1789)
**Seen as first great act of French Rev**

26. THE TENNIS COURT OATH June 20, 1789
Louis XVI locks the doors of the meeting room – Versailles
National Assembly moves to an indoor tennis court
Vows not to disband until a constitution is formed

27. LOUIS XVI
June 27, Ordered the National Assembly to Disband (STRONG)
Response “..We are here by the will of the people, and that we will go only if we are driven out by bayonets”
(WEAK) ordered the first two estates to join the National Assembly
Moderate middle class and liberal nobility in control – transfer of power
Louis – Swiss and German mercenaries stationed - Paris & Versailles

28. STORMING OF THE BASTILLE
Rumor = King was planning a military coup against the National Assembly
Bastille
French Royal Prison – 7 prisoners
Was a symbol of the abuse of power
Stormed on July 14, 1789
People want … GUNPOWDER
Is looted and destroyed by French people
18 died, 73 wounded, 7 guards killed
July 14th = French independence day
BOOM!

29. STORMING OF THE BASTILLE
IMPACT
City now has an armed force
Marquis de Lafayette becomes the commander
TRICOLOR FLAG EMERGES
Power shifts from King  National Assembly
More uprisings followed
Many landowners killed and their property destroyed
LEADS TO THE “GREAT FEAR”
Faced with great pressure, nobles concede a plethora of privileges (no more feudal dues)

30. FLAG OF PARIS
BOURBON FLAG
LIBERTY
EQUALITY
FRATERNITY

31. THE GREAT FEAR Time period where rumors spread (summer of 1789)
Rumors included:
King mounting a counterattack
Nobles attempting to put down revolution
Peasants ruthlessly killed nobles and destroyed their estates
They also burn any legal documents tying them to the land
Queen was hording grain at Versailles

32. LIMITING THE MONARCHY
National Assembly issues the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Aug. 27, 1789)
Called for basic human rights in France
“Liberty, security, and prosperity”
Ended feudal rights of nobles over peasants
= to American Declaration of Independence
Was mass produced and spread throughout FRA and Europe
One question remains: HOW MUCH POWER SHOULD THE KING HAVE?

33. DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
1791
Olympe de Gouges ( )
Written in response to the Constitution of 1791
“Social contract between men and women”
Rejected by the National Assembly

34. WOMEN’S MARCH ON VERSAILLES
After the fall of the Bastille, many nobles fled Versailles and left the country
Thus,  in demand for luxuries
Women, who made these luxuries as a source of income, now see dwindling profits
Toppled with  in price of wheat, many women and families began to go HUNGRY
October 5, 1789  7,000 women storm Versailles (OCTOBER DAYS)

35. WOMEN’S MARCH ON VERSAILLES
Stormed the palace looking for … MARIE ANTOINETTE
“We are going to cut off her head, tear out her heart, fry her liver, and that won’t be the end of it”
National Guard saves king, but he had to agree to go live in Paris (Tuileries Palace)
Abolishes French nobility as legal order
Sets out to create a constitutional monarchy
KING now a ceremonial figurehead

37. THE CIVIL CONSTITUION OF THE CLERGY
The National Assembly confiscated land from RCC
WHY?
TO FINANCE THE NEW GOV’T
ABOLISHED THE TITHE
The French government would now pay the salary of the clergy
Bishops and priests elected by the people
Oath of allegiance? FRANCE or THE RCC
RCC branch of the STATE

38. THE KING’S FLIGHT
Amidst great fear and diminishing power, Louis and family attempt to flee
June 20, 1791
Louis is arrested in Varennes and sent back to Paris (was only miles from the border)
King abandoning people - counterrevolutionary
Some argue that the King’s flight = TREASON (JACOBINS)

39. PICTURE: Lynn Hunt

40. CONSTITUTION OF 1791 Completed September 3, 1791
Redefined French government
Three branches
National Assembly = Legislative Assembly
Executive = King (only real power = VETO)
Judicial
ABOLISHED THE ESTATES SYSTEM
Franchise = tax-paying males
constitutional monarchy

41. ROAD TO WAR Leopold II and Frederick William II
Austria, Prussia  fear republics
Issue the Declaration of Pillnitz - August 1791
Brunswick Manifesto – July 1792
Intervene if French revolutionaries infringed on Louis XVI’s rights and did not restore him to power
French revolutionaries take this as threat, and declare war on Austria (April 20, 1792)
PROBLEM = CIVIL WAR /FOREIGN WAR

42. THE FIRST COALITION FRANCE AUSTRIA PRUSSIA BRITIAN SPAIN PIEDMONT
DUKE OF BRUNSWICK - “if the royal family is harmed France will be leveled”
FRANCE
AUSTRIA
PRUSSIA BRITIAN
SPAIN PIEDMONT

43. SUCCESSES OF THE MODERATE STAGE
Abolished special privileges
Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen
Reduce the power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, KING
Reformed local gov’t – 83 EQUAL districts
Constitution of 1791

44. Picture – Lynn Hunt

46. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

47. The Radical Stage

48. SHIFT TOWARDS RADICALISM
Why did the revolution become more radical after 1792? (MULTIPLE RESAONS)
Threat from foreign nations to restore the monarchy
Counterrevolutionaries
Attempted escape of royal family
Bad ECONOMY
Rapid inflation
High $$$ of bread
more drastic measures need TO BE taken

49. The Causes of Instability in France 1792 - 1795
Attitudes & actions of monarchy & court
Fear of Counter-Revolution
Religious divisions
The Causes of Instability in France
Political divisions
Economic Crises
War
SLIDE CREATED BY SUE POJER

50. POLITICAL SPECTRUM The Plain (swing votes) 1790s:
Montagnards (“The Mountain”)
Girondists
Monarchíen (Royalists)
Jacobins
SLIDE CREATED BY SUE POJER

51. THE JACOBINS Debating Society (Former Monastery)
Robespierre, Danton, Marat (Jacobins)
Instrumental in the creation of THE FIRST REPUBLIC
RADCIAL – “In order for the revolution to live the King must die” – Robespierre

52. THE SAN-CULOTTES “without knee-breeches” Working class
Shopkeepers, artisans, tradesman
Symbolic of patriotism
Idealism of the French Revolution

53. NATIONAL CONVENTION Sept. 1792
New elections, new constitution is formed, and RADICALS take charge
Advocated for by sans- culottes
Storm Tuileries Palace
DEMAND UNIVERSAL MANHOOD SUFFRAGE

54. NATIONAL CONVENTION 1st action = abolish the King Sept. 22, 1792
Politically divided = Jacobins, Mountain Men Girondins, Royalists
YEAR I – FRENCH REPUBLIC IS BORN
Should the King die?
VOTE – 387 to 334

55. CHILDREN OF MARIE ANTOINETTE
Sophie – ( )
Marie Therese ( )
Louis Joseph ( )
Louis Charles ( ) (LOUIS XVII) ***