The French Revolution

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The French Revolution "Liberal" Phase 1789-1791
MAYO
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity --
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two
Cities
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Three Estates

• 1st Estate Clergy
• 2nd Estate Nobility
• 3rd Estate EVERYONE ELSE

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Clergy

• 100,000 Catholic clergy
• Owned 10 of the landgreatest land owner
• Levied a tithe on agricultural products

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Nobles

• 400,000
• Resurgence since Louis XIV
• Exempt from taille
• Monopoly on government service and positions of
  influence

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Third Estate

• 3rd Estate Everyone Else
• Bourgeoisie upper crust of third estate (middle
  class?)
• Lawyers, merchants, doctors others
• Increasingly well read
• Wealthier
• More confident
• Resented class distinctions and what came with
  them

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Common People

• Over taxed
• Under paid
• Victims of inflation BREAD!!!
• Between 1730 and 1789 wages increased only 22
• Price of bread 65

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The French Urban Poor
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Taxes

• Taille land tax
• Vingtieme income tax
• Corvees forced labor on public works
• Nobles were exempt from all of these!!!
• Banalites Feudal dues peasants paid
• Gabelle Tax on salt
• Again, Nobles exempt

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The French Monarchy1775 - 1793
Marie Antoinette Louis XVI
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Marie Antoinette and the Royal Children
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Marie AntoinettesPeasant Cottage
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Marie AntoinettesPeasant Cottage
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The Necklace Scandal
1,600,000 livres100 million today
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Let Them Eat Cake!

• Madame Deficit
• The Austrian Whore

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Challenging the French Political Order This late
eighteenth-century cartoon satirizes the French
social and political structure as the events and
tensions leading up to the outbreak of the French
Revolution unfolded. This image embodies the
highly radical critique of the French political
structure that erupted from about l787 when the
nobility and church refused to aid the financial
crisis of the monarchy. CORBIS/Bettmann
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Financial Problemsin France, 1789

• Urban CommonersBudget
• Food 80
• Rent 25
• Tithe 10
• Taxes 35
• Clothing 20
• TOTAL 170

• Kings Budget
• Interest 50
• Army 25
• Versailles 25
• Coronation 10
• Loans 25
• Admin. 25
• TOTAL 160

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Finance Ministers

• Jacques Necker
• Swiss Banker
• Suggested taxing the nobles (aristocracy)
• Dismissed (1781)
• Returned in 1788
• Charles Alexandre deCalonne
• Suggested Enlightened despotism tempered by
  representative institutions
• General tax on ALL landowners without exception
• Confiscation of some church lands
• Gathered assembly of notables to try to gain
  support
• Calonne dismissed in 1787
• Lomenie de Brienne
• Arch Bishop of Toulouse
• Tried to push Calonnes program through Parlement
  of Paris
• REJECTED Estates General

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Ancien Regime Map, 1789
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Europe on the Eve of theFrench Revolution
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IMPACT of the AMERICAN REVOLUTION

• The consequences of the American Revolution in
  France cannot be overstated
• Indeed there are at least TWO ways in which the
  American Revolution was a direct CAUSE of the
  French Revolution

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• 1. French aid to American during the revolution
  put the French government even deeper in debt.
  Louis XVI could not afford to help, but wanted to
  screw England
• 2. Example of Enlightenment ideals in action
  successfully practical application
  Declaration of Independence

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French Significance

• France was preeminent power on the continent
  economically, militarily, culturally
• Most advanced country of the day
• Center of Enlightenment and intellectualism

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Louis XVI Calls the Estates General

• Had not met since 1614
• Nobles through Parlement of Paris had forced the
  calling of this group
• In that respect, it is the nobility who initiated
  the Revolution
• Three Estates Three rooms one vote per GROUP
• Class warfare Third Estate was filled with
  detestation and distrust toward Nobility and its
  frequent bedmate the Clergy

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The Suggested Voting PatternVoting by Estates
Clergy 1st Estate
1
Aristocracy 2nd Estate
1
1
3rd Estate
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The Number of Representativesin the Estates
General Vote by Head!
Clergy 1st Estate
300
Aristocracy 2nd Estate
300
648
Commoners 3rd Estate
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The Cahiers de Doleances

• Cahiers de doleances list of grievances
  registered by local electors to be presented to
  the king
• The grievances were NOT radical
• Government waste
• Indirect taxes
• Church taxes
• Corruption

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The Cahiers de Doleances (cont.)

• The cahiers wanted
• More equitable taxes
• Measures to facilitate trade and commerce
• Free press

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Abbe Sieyes

• What is the Third Estate? (1789)
• Attack on Aristocracy
• the nobility was a useless caste which could be
  abolished without loss the Third Estate was the
  one necessary element of society, that it was
  identical with the nation.

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Convening the Estates General May, 1789
Last time it was called into session was 1614!
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The Third Estate Awakens
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Estates General

• Third Estate insisted the three estates meet in
  one large gathering
• Each representative (person) should have one vote
  one man one vote
• Stalemate king supported traditional structure
  Third Estate refused some clergy left their
  group and went to meet with the Third Estate
• King ordered them back refusal king barred
  them from Estates General for lack of cooperation.

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• Third Estate and new allies went to a nearby
  tennis court and met
• Declared themselves the National Assembly
• Oath of the Tennis Court (June 20, 1789)
• Wherever they forgathered the National Assembly
  was in existence and they would not disband until
  they drafted a constitution.

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The Tennis Court Oathby Jacques Louis David
June 20, 1789
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• King again ordered them back
• They refused
• King failed to enforce his command
• Ordered 18,000 French troops to Versailles
• King, who had always sought to control nobility,
  now sided with them against the people
• Many of the Third Estate still held loyalty to
  the king. They saw him as a captive of the
  nobles. The Nobility was the enemy of France.

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Storming the Bastille,July 14, 1789
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The Tricolor (1789)
The WHITE of the Bourbons the RED BLUE of
Paris.
Citizen!
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The Great Fear

• July 1789
• Rural uprisings
• Peasants armed themselves to protect their homes,
  crops, and families
• Agitation and emotion created reaction against
  the manors
• Manors and buildings housing records of feudal
  due were burned
• Movement to bring the manorial system of the Old
  Regime to an end

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The Great FearPeasant Revolt
July 20, 1789
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National Assembly1789 - 1791
Liberté!
Egalité!
Fraternité!
August Decrees(August 4-11, 1789)
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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen
August 26,1789
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Olympe de Gouges (1745-1793)
Declaration of the Rights of Womanand of the
Citizen
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The Revolution Grows?

• Revolutionary leadership began to splinter soon
  after the Declaration of the Rights of Man
• Some wanted strong monarch with veto power and a
  bicameral legislative body like England
• Patriots wanted weak king and unicameral body
• King by September was still debating whether or
  not to accept the Declaration or the decree
  ending feudalism

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Emigres

• French nobles left France and sought refuge in
  neighboring monarchies
• Count of Artois, brother of King Louis XVI, began
  to agitate against the revolution from abroad
• These émigrés would be a constant source of
  concern for the Revolutionary cause

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March of the Women,October 5-6, 1789
We want the baker, the bakers wife and the
bakers boy!
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• Bread riot turned into much more
• Crowd of women, militants and the Paris national
  guard marched to Versailles and forced Louis XVI
  to move to Paris where he could be watched
• National Assembly also moved to Paris
• In Paris, the mob had influence and the more
  radical elements of the revolution won key votes

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Planting the Tree of Liberty
1790
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Jacobins

• Elements of the revolution began to organize into
  clubs
• Society of Friends of the Constitution, called
  the Jacobin club
• Most advanced members of the National Assembly
  were Jacobins
• They used the club as a caucus
• Middle class group

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The Jacobins
Jacobin Meeting House
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A Jacobin Club Meeting
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The French Constitution of 1791 A Bourgeois
Government

• The king got the suspensive veto which
  prevented the passage of laws for 4 years.
  he could not pass laws. his ministers
  were responsible for their own actions.

• A permanent, elected, single chamber
  Legislative Assembly. had the power to
  grant taxation.

• An independent judiciary.

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Louis XVI Accepts the Constitution the
National Assembly. 1791
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Louis XVI Tried to Escape to Varennes, 1791
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The Cordeliers

• The Society of the Friends of the Rights of
  Man and of the Citizen.
• Organized in 1790.
• It provided a political base for Danton and
  Marat.
• Georges Danton "the chief force in the overthrow
  of the monarchy and the establishment of the
  First French Republic"
• It eventually drifted to the extreme left
  after Marats death.
• Called for the deposition of the king.

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When to stop a Revolution

• Constitution officially proclaimed in September
  of 1791
• National Assembly disbanded
• New Legislative Assembly
• Legislative Assembly would only last about 10
  months insurrection war