The French Revolution

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The French Revolution

• 1789-1799

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• In May 1774, a young man of 19 became Louis XVI,
  king of France.
• He had married an Austrian princessMarie
  Antoinettewhen he was 15 (she was 14)and they
  were married seven years before they had their
  first child.
• France had about 26,000,000 inhabitants divided
  into distinct social classes.

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• Before the Revolution, French society was
  stratified into three Estates
• The First Estate the Clergy/Church they
  represented .5 of the population, owned 10 of
  the land, and PAID NO TAXES.

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• The Second Estate the Aristocrats (nobles)
  they had titles and most had wealth.
• They represented 1.5 of the population and owned
  20 of the land but PAID NO TAXES.

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• The Third Estate the Commoners (all non-titled
  people. Merchants, doctors, lawyers, bankers,
  professionals, and peasants). They represented
  98 of the French population, owned 70 of the
  land, and PAID ALL the TAXES.

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• The philosophe found the French system too rooted
  in tradition and proposed that talent/merit
  supersede birth as the main determinant of social
  standing.
• They did not believe that social differences
  should be defined by law.
• Traditionalists countered that a hierarchy of
  social orders was necessary to hold society
  together.

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• The French Revolution began because of a
  financial crisis.
• With half of the national budget going to pay
  interest on debt from past wars (including the
  American Revolution), the king (Louis XVI) needed
  to overhaul the inefficient and inequitable tax
  system.

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• In 1788, the debt crisis was so severe, Louis XVI
  was forced to call for a meeting of Estates
  General (a legislative body that hadnt met since
  1614) to find a way out.
• Since the nobility had been freed from paying
  taxes, it would be the job of Louis XVI to
  convince the nobility to give up their tax-free
  statusnot an easy job for a weak man.

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• The nobles wanted the king to guarantee that the
  government wouldnt implement any economic
  reforms that would put limits on their
  privileges.
• The nobles also demanded that the Third Estate
  (commoners) should not have the ability to limit
  their rights/powers.

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• The meeting was to take place in one year and
  each Estate spent those 12 months preparing a
  list of grievances against the government.

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• When the delegates arrived at Versailles in May
  1789 (300 in the First, 300 in the Second, and
  600 in the Third) the first two Estates were
  welcomed while members of the Third Estate (the
  commoners) were told to wait.
• The nobles wanted each Estate to meet separately
  and vote as an entire body (so their one vote
  plus the one vote of the clergy could thwart any
  vote from the Third Estate 2-1).

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• In frustration, delegates from the Third Estate
  left and on June 10th, invited the First and
  Second Estates to join them (some of the more
  liberal-minded members of each Estate did join).
• On June 17th, the Third Estate began the French
  Revolution by declaring that they would not meet
  as a medieval estate based on social status but
  only go before the king as a National Assembly
  representing the political will of 98 of the
  French people.

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• On June 20th, the Third Estate was locked out of
  its meeting hall so it moved to a nearby indoor
  tennis court where the delegates took what became
  known as the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to
  disband until they had drafted a constitution.

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• In a very famous pamphlet, the Abbe Sieyes wrote
  about the Third Estate 
• What is the Third Estate? The answer is simple.
  What is the Third Estate? Everything.
• What has it been in the political order until
  now? Nothing.
• What does it want to be? Something.

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• The king ordered the Third Estate to disband
  immediately but they refused, so on June 27th he
  ordered the First and Second Estates to join the
  Third Estate.
• Most of the Second Estate refused and joined the
  king against the Third Estate.
• The king then ordered thousands of troops
  (including foreign troops) to guard Paris and
  Versailles.

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• Fearing the king was going to use troops against
  them, Parisians began to arm themselves.
• Tensions also ran high because of the price of
  bread. In August of 1788, 50 of an urban
  workers income went just towards bread.
• By July 1789, it had risen to 80.

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• On July 14, between 800-900 Parisians (mostly
  women) stormed the Bastillea fortified prison
  that symbolized royal authority. They were
  looking for guns/gunpowder (little was actually
  captured).
• The garrison commander ordered his troops to open
  fire on the crowd.
• A fierce battle left over 100 people dead,
  including the garrison commander.

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• July 14, 1789 the Bastille Prison

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• The fall of the Bastille (which since 1880 the
  French consider to be their Independence Day) set
  an important precedent by demonstrating that
  common people (not soldiers) were willing to
  intervene violently at a crucial political
  moment.
• There was now no turning back.
• Louis XVI, at Versailles, heard about the
  Bastille and asked Is this a revolt? to which
  an answer came No sire, it is a revolution.

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• Revolutions then broke out throughout France (28
  of Frances largest 30 cities experienced this)
  causing The Great Fear, a panic that ran
  throughout France in the summer of 1789.

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• Besides unrest in the cities, peasants in the
  French countryside, angry with high rents, high
  taxes, and frustrated with aristocratic
  privileges, attacked their landlords.
• To restore order from the Great Fear, the
  National Assembly abolished special aristocratic
  legal privileges and serfdom.

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• Some historians believe that one of the causes of
  the Great Fear was consumption of ergot, a
  hallucinogenic fungus.
• In years of good harvests, wheat with ergot was
  thrown away, but when the harvest was poor, the
  peasants could not afford to be so choosy.

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• In late August 1789 the National Assembly adopted
  the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
• Written by Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, this
  document (along with the American Bill of Rights)
  were products of Enlightenment thinking.

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• By arranging the articles on tablets, the artist
  clearly meant to associate this document with
  Moses Ten Commandments. Such a link could
  establish the revolutionaries handiwork as
  equivalent to that of God. Reinforcing this is
  the allseeing eye located at the top of the
  tableau. However, this is not the God of biblical
  revelation but a benevolent creator and founder
  of general laws.

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• The most important ideas were
• Political sovereignty rested with the people, not
  the monarchy.
• ALL citizens were equal before the law.
• All men are born and remain free and equal in
  rights.
• All men could enjoy freedom of religion, of
  speech, of the press, and the ability to pursue
  the economic activity of their choice.

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• But the Declaration raised the question about the
  inclusion of people of color (free and enslaved),
  Jews, Protestants, and women.
• Jewish men and Protestants received the right to
  vote, and women were declared citizens but didnt
  get the right to vote.
• Lafayette and Jefferson were quite literal when
  they referred to the Rights of Man.

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• Like most men of the period (even enlightened
  ones), they did not believe women were entitled
  to the same rights as men.
• The purpose of a woman was purely domestic a
  role which precluded a life beyond the household.

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• Nevertheless, the language of liberty tugged at
  womens sense of independence and in 1791, The
  Rights of Women appeared.
• The Rights of Women argued that women should
  also enjoy fundamental rights (to an education,
  to control their own property, to initiate a
  divorce).
• Women WERE NOT asking for full political
  rightsyet.

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• After the announcement of the Declaration, Louis
  XVI had an extravagant party at Versailles,
  condemning the revolt.
• It was reported that troops loyal to the king
  trampled the flag of the revolution (the
  tricolor) as a gesture of their opposition.

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• Blue means vigilance, truth, loyalty,
  perseverance, and justice.
• White stands for peace and honesty.
• Red means hardiness, bravery, strength, and
  valor.

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• Louis XVI continued to refuse to accept the
  demands of the National Assembly.
• In early October 1789, angry and frustrated at
  the kings insensitivity to their plight, a mob
  of nearly 8,000 women shouting Bread! marched
  over 10 miles in a cold rain to the kings palace
  at Versailles to confront the king.

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• The mob of angry women was accompanied by
  Lafayette and the new National Guard (a militia
  of mostly middle-class men).
• Once at Versailles, the mob searched for the
  queen, screaming Death to the Austrian! Well
  wring her neck! Well tear her heart out!
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzeEIW8JkF_s

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• Marie-Antoinette lived extravagantly (she spent
  millions on clothes and jewels) while many
  children of the Third Estate wore rags and
  starved.
• She even had her own peasant village on the
  palace grounds.

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• The mob killed several palace guards (and paraded
  their heads on pikes) and refused to leave
  Versailles until the king met their demand to
  return with them to Paris.
• Reluctantly the king agreed, so the next morning
  the royal family followed the crowd of women back
  to Paris.
• At the head of the procession were women riding
  on the barrels of seized cannons.

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• The women sang Now we wont have to go so far
  when we want to see our king.
• The royal family moved into the Tuileres (TWEE
  luh reez) Palace where they were virtual
  prisoners for the next three years.

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• Louis XVI finally agreed to the Declaration of
  the Rights of Man and Citizen.
• The motto and rallying cry of the Revolution
  became
• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
• (How is this different from the American
  Declaration of Independence?)

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• Liberty meant
• 1. Individual freedom from governmental
  constraints and interference (this is the
  cornerstone of the 19th century ideology,
  LIBERALISM).
• 2. Liberals see government as the enemy of
  individual liberty.
• 3. Liberals demand representative and
  constitutional government.

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• 4. Government is to stay out of the economyno
  restrictions, etc. (laissez-faire)
• 5. To protect liberty, you must limit the power
  of the government.
• 6. Jeffersons idea that a Government that
  governs least governs best.

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• Equality meant
• 1. One law and one tax system for everyone.
• 2. Equal opportunity to advance based on merit,
  not on birth (every Frenchman had an equal right
  to hold public office with no distinction other
  than that of their virtues and talents).
• 3. By 1914, liberals wanted political equality
  one man one vote.

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• Fraternity meant

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• Fraternity meant
• 1. Fraternity is the idea of brotherhood of all,
  in this case all Frenchmen.
• 2. From this, NATIONALISM was born, another great
  19th century ideology. (Before this, men were
  identified by their religion, village, estate,
  family, etc. (all local identity).

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• After the Revolution, men were identified by
  their language, ethnic background, territory.
  Men thought of themselves as Frenchmen.
• 3. Loyalty to ones nation was one of the great
  unifying ideologies of the 19th century.
• Out of the Revolution came the notion that the
  rights of the many outweighed the rights of the
  few.

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• Since the Church was part of the old order,
  the National Assembly forced reforms on the
  Church called the Civil Constitution of the
  Clergy (1790).
• The people now elected their bishops and priests,
  and their salaries were paid by the state.

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• Papal authority was dissolved, and convents and
  monasteries became the property of the government
  (which it sold to raise money to reduce the
  national debt).
• The new French government now totally controlled
  the Church.

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• The reaction towards the Civil Constitution of
  the Clergy was swift and angryThe pope condemned
  it.
• Most bishops and priests refused to accept it.
• Most French peasants, who were religiously
  conservative, rejected it.

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• When the government punished clergy who didnt
  support the Civil Constitution, a large gulf
  opened between the revolutionaries in Paris and
  the peasantry in the provinces.
• Many historians consider the Civil Constitution
  of the Clergy to be the first major blunder of
  the National Assembly.

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• Less than ½ of the French clergy and only 7 out
  of more than 100 bishops took the oath to support
  it.
• Though the government declared that clerics that
  opposed the Constitution were refractory and
  had them removed from office, most defied the
  government.

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• Pope Pius VI condemned the Civil Constitution of
  the Clergy and declared all of its provisions
  void.
• French Catholics now faced a dilemma between
  political loyalty and religious devotion.
• This caused a division in the French population
  between those who supported the constitutional
  priests and those who followed the refractory
  clergy.

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• In April 1791, the king attempted to travel from
  Paris to his mansion in nearby St. Cloud to
  celebrate Easter with a loyal priest.
• As he set out, crowds surrounded his carriage and
  refused to let him leave.
• He realized he was a prisoner in Paris and that
  he and the royal family needed to escape.

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• Two months later (June 1791), the royal family
  disguised themselves and fled Paris heading for
  the border of the Austrian controlled Netherlands
  (and the protection of Marie-Antoinettes
  brother).
• The king was dressed as a servant, the queen as a
  governess.
• The king hoped to reach the border where he could
  rally the country against the revolution.

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• In a town forty miles from the border, they were
  stopped, asked to show their travel papers, and
  found out.

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• The local postmaster held up a piece of money
  with the kings face on it and recognized him.
• Soldiers loyal to the Revolution brought the
  royal family back to Paris as prisoners.
• Along the road back to Paris, people hurled
  insults, spat, and threw things at the royal
  family.

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• To many, this showed the king was conspiring with
  foreign powers to destroy the Revolution and was
  therefore a traitor.

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• To make matters worse for the king, a letter was
  found after his escape that criticized the
  revolution and railed against the anarchy of the
  people and the idea of unrestrained political
  freedom.
• Before this letter was found, many people in
  France still had some affection for the kingthis
  letter changed that.

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• In August 1791, after hearing about Louis failed
  escape, Austria and Prussia openly declared they
  would support Louis and the monarchy (the emperor
  of Austria was Marie-Antoinettes brother,
  Leopold II).

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• It took two years (1791) for the National
  Assembly to finish the new Constitution (known as
  the Constitution of 1791), but it was completed
  in September 1791.
• Almost immediately, the king was forced to accept
  the new Constitution.
• The constitution stated that if the king left the
  country, retracted his oath to the constitution,
  or led a rebellion against France he would be
  removed from power.

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• This set up a system similar to Britains. It
  allowed for a king but he had to follow the laws
  of the newly created Legislative Assembly (this
  replaced the NA).
• The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for
  centuries was over.

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• The Legislative Assembly had 745 members who were
  mostly members of the middle class i.e.
  wealthy/property owning.
• The Legislative Assembly had the power to make
  laws, collect taxes, and create foreign policy.

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• Members of the Assembly were elected by
  tax-paying males over the age of 25.
• The Legislative Assembly made government more
  efficient by replacing the old provinces with 83
  departments of roughly equal size.
• The old provincial courts were abolished and the
  legal system was reformed.

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• Do you know where the political terms left,
  center, and right came from?
• In the Legislative Assembly, those who sat on the
  right felt that reform had gone far enough and
  those who wanted to turn the clock back to
  pre-Revolution days.
• In the center sat those who wanted moderate
  reforms.
• On the left were the Jacobins who wanted radical
  changes.

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• To the moderates, the Revolution had now
  accomplished its goalsthere was equality before
  the law for all male citizens and the Churchs
  power to interfere in the government was over.
• Fear of similar revolutions (known as the French
  plague) spread throughout Europe as some nobles
  and clergy escaped from France and told horror
  stories.

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• But faced with unending economic problems and war
  with Austria and Prussia, the Legislative
  Assembly became more radical.
• As several hostile groups competed for power, one
  group emerged, known as the Jacobins (mostly
  middle class lawyers and intellectuals).

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• By early 1792 everyone in France seemed to want
  war with Austria.
• The king and queen hoped this war would end the
  Revolution, while those who wanted a republic
  thought a war would end the monarchy.
• In April 1792 Louis declared war on Austria.
  Prussia immediately sided with Austria.

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• The Legislative Assembly hoped the war would
  spread the ideals of the Revolution.
• But thousands of French aristocrats, including
  2/3 of the army officer corps had fled France
  (brain drain).
• Here the Legislative
• Assembly backed Louis
• and declared war on
• Austria.

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• Louis own brothers had left France and gathered
  along the eastern border, expecting to join a
  counterrevolutionary army.
• Everyone expected a brief warinstead France
  would be at war with Europe for nearly the next
  23 years (through the age of Napoleon).

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• Initially, the disorganized, untrained French
  troops got trounced in battle which further
  radicalized French politics.
• The French looked for scapegoats and the king was
  the biggest target.
• The commander of the Prussian army declared that
  wanted to end the anarchy and restore the kings
  authority. Paris would be destroyed if the royal
  family was harmed.

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• The Prussian declaration, meant to frighten
  Parisians, strengthened their desire to resist
  any forces wanting to restore power to the king.
• In August 1792, the ordinary people of Paris,
  known as the sans-culottes (means without
  breeches because they wore long trousers instead
  of the fancy knee breeches of the upper-class),
  frustrated with military defeat and facing
  military retaliation, stormed the Tuileries
  Palace looking for the king and royal family.

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• The royal family had to seek shelter in the
  meeting rooms of the Legislative Assembly (all
  their guards had been killed).
• Mob violence ruled, and the mob forced the
  Legislative Assembly to suspend the monarchy.

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• The Legislative Assembly also voted to disband
  themselves and call for new elections. The new
  body would be called the Convention.
• The body was named the Convention after the
  American Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• For the first time in history, all men in France
  would be eligible to elect members to the
  Convention, eliminating property and tax
  qualifications for voting, creating universal
  male suffrage.

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• The National Convention met in September 1792 and
  was controlled by the Jacobins.
• The first major step of the new National
  Convention was to declare France a Republic (a
  system of government where leaders are elected).
• Lands of the nobility were seized and all titles
  of nobility were abolished.

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• The republic would now only answer to the people,
  not to any royal authority. France was now the
  most democratic nation in the world.
• The French, who had never known any government
  but the monarchy, were now ending that 1000 year
  institution.

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• With the Jacobins in power, Lafayette, who
  commanded an army guarding the French border, was
  denounced as being too conservative and a warrant
  was issued for his arrest.

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• He, and many other liberal aristocrats who
  supported a constitutional monarchy, fled into
  exile in Austrian held Holland.
• Unfortunately, the Austrians captured Lafayette
  and held him in a dungeon for five years before
  releasing him (which actually saved his life).

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• Also in September 1792, as Prussian soldiers
  approached Paris, mobs stormed Parisian prisons
  looking for traitors who might help the enemy.
• Many of the prisoners were priests, nobles, or
  common criminals.
• In what was known as the September massacres,
  over 1200 inmates, many of them innocent, were
  killed in the hysteria.

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• The princess of Lamballe, a favorite of
  Marie-Antoinette, was hacked to pieces by the mob
  and her head was put on a pike and displayed
  under the window where the royal family was under
  guard.

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• After the September massacres, the sans culottes
  believed Paris was safe from counter-revolutionari
  es from within.
• Filled with patriotic enthusiasm, thousands of
  sans culottes rushed to the front and overwhelmed
  the Prussian army.

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• One pressing issue of the Convention was the
  question of what do with the king.
• In December 1792, the Convention decided to put
  the king on trial for treason against the
  Republic.
• Two factions argued over which course to take,
  but the most radical argued that this king, or
  any king, challenged their idea of the Revolution
  and must be executed (Jacobins).

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• The other side believed the king should be given
  a hearing and that the people of France vote on
  his fate (Girondists).
• Some argued the king should be exiled.
• Louis XVI was convicted and a narrow majority
  (380-310) voted to have him executed.

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• Louis XVI went to the guillotine January 21,
  1793.

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• As he mounted the scaffold, the king said
  Frenchmen, I die innocent. I pardon the authors
  of my death. I pray God that the blood about to
  be spilt will never fall upon the head of
  France
• Unfortunately, only those closest to the scaffold
  heard his words because the roll of drums drowned
  out his voice.

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• The executioner lifted his head out of the basket
  by the hair and showed the cheering crowds.
• With this, the old order of France was
  destroyed, much to the horror of every European
  monarch.

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• One news account reported We have just convinced
  ourselves that the king is only a man, and that
  no man is above the law.
• Nine months later the queen was also convicted of
  treason and beheaded.

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• The execution of Queen Marie Antoinette.

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• Before 1789, only nobles were executed by
  beheading commoners were executed by hanging
  (beheading, if done well was considered quick and
  painless hanging, on the other hand, was slow
  and torturous.
• One of the Revolutions ideals, equality before
  the law, also meant equality in the application
  of the death penalty.

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• Dr. J.I. Guillotin, a member of the National
  Assembly and a professor of anatomy first
  proposed the device associated with his name.
• Based on the Enlightenment ideal of rationality
  and avoidance of torture, Dr. Guillotins
  machine (actually created by a French
  physician, Dr. A.Louis) was decreed by the
  Assembly to be the method of execution in June
  1791.

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• The first victim of the guillotine was a
  highwayman (bandit) in April 1792.
• The last victim was in 1981, when France
  abolished the death penalty.

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• Initially, most of Europe was ambivalent towards
  the revolution in France.
• Those who favored political reform looked at the
  revolution as a wise and rational reorganizing of
  a corrupt and inefficient government.
• Most European governments, horrified at what
  happened to the royal family, secretly hoped
  France would cease to be a major player in
  European affairs for many years.

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• Even with the execution of the king and the
  destruction of the old order, the Revolution
  faced many challenges at home and abroad.
• In November 1792, a month before the National
  Convention condemned Louis XVI to death, the
  Convention declared it would aid all peoples who
  wished to cast off aristocratic and monarchial
  oppression.

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• Because of this, and the subsequent execution of
  the king, an informal coalition of Spain,
  Portugal, Britain, the Dutch Republic, and even
  Russia joined Austria and Prussia by taking up
  arms against France.
• By the late spring of 1793, this coalition was
  poised to invade France.
• If successful, both the Revolution and the
  revolutionaries would be destroyed, and the Old
  Regime would be reestablished.

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• Adding to the widening crisis was rampant
  inflation and continued food shortages.
• Throughout much of France, there was a sense that
  protecting the national borders wasnt the main
  issue, it was protecting the new political and
  social order that had emerged since 1789.
• The French people understood that the
  achievements of the Revolution were in danger.

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• Thousands of people from all walks of life,
  peasants, nobles, clergy, business and
  professional people, etc were arbitrarily
  arrested, and in many cases executed.
• Much of France, including several cities,
  rejected the authority of the National
  Convention, creating additional pressures on an
  already overburdened government.

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• Paranoia was rampant.
• The immediate need to protect the Revolution from
  enemies, real or imagined, was considered more
  important than the security of property or even
  of life.
• The actions to protect the Revolution, silence
  dissent, and deal with growing crises became
  known as the Reign of Terror (1793-94).

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• Responding to these issues, in April 1793 the
  National Convention gave broad powers to a
  special committee of 12 men known as the
  Committee of Public Safety.
• The CoPS came to be led by Maximilien
  Robespierre, the leader of the Jacobins.

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• For the year long period 1793-1794, the Committee
  of Public Safety controlled France with almost
  dictatorial power (they were not very
  democratic).
• The CoPS had two major problems (among the many)
  to deal with, wage a war and secure support for
  the war effort.

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• Robespierre believed France could create a
  republic of virtue only through the use of
  terror Liberty cannot be secured unless
  criminals lose their heads.
• In a speech in early 1794, Robespierre said The
  first maxim of our politics ought to be to lead
  the people by means of reason and the enemies of
  the people by means of terror

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• The Committee of Public Safety, believing they
  were creating a republic of virtue based on
  Rousseaus book The Social Contract, set up
  revolutionary courts to protect the Republic
  from its internal enemies.
• The presence of armies closing in on France made
  it easy to forget about the legal due process.

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• Revolutionary courts promoted the notion that
  the sacrifice of ones self and ones interests
  for the good of the republic would replace
  selfish aristocratic and monarchial corruption.
• To this end, the courts had an estimated 30,000
  people executed between 1793-94.

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• Most of the executions occurred in places that
  openly rebelled against the authority of the
  National Convention.
• The Committee of Public Safety said this
  bloodletting was only temporary.
• Once the war and domestic crises were over, the
  CoPS said the true republic would follow and the
  Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
  would be fully realized.

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• Revolutionary armies were set up to bring
  rebellious cities back under the control of the
  National Convention.
• For example, the city of Lyon rebelled when the
  Republic was in peril. To punish the city, the
  CoPS ordered the executions of nearly 2,000
  people.
• When using the guillotine proved too slow, cannon
  fire and grapeshot (a cluster of small iron
  balls) was used by firing squads to blow the
  condemned into open graves.

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• In the city of Nantes, the prosecutor didnt use
  the guillotine.
• Over a two month period he executed over 2,000
  people by forcing them into the hulls of boats
  and having them sunk or capsized in the Loire
  River.
• Anyone who attempted to climb out, including
  children or pregnant women, were hacked to death
  with swords.
• Because of the large number of bodies in the
  river, disease broke out killing even more.

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• To save the republic from its foreign enemies,
  the Committee of Public Safety decreed the first
  universal draft of men in history (known as the
  levee en masse).
• Mobilization of the nation (including women)
  began in August 1793.
• Almost all men were conscripted into the military
  and economic production was geared towards
  military purposes.
• The National Convention decreed

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• Young men will fight. Young men are called to
  conquer. Married men will forge arms, transport
  military baggage and guns, and will prepare food
  supplies. Women, who at long last are to take
  their rightful place in the revolution and follow
  their true destinywill make clothes for the
  soldiers, they will make tents, and they will
  extend their tender care to shelters where the
  defenders will receive the help that their wounds
  require. Children will make bandages of old
  clothit is for them that we are fighting. And
  old men, performing their missions again, as of
  yore, will be guided to the public squares of
  cities where they will kindle the courage of
  young warriors and preach the doctrines of hate
  for kings and the unity of the Republic.

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• In less than a year, the French revolutionary
  government raised an army of over 650,000 men in
  18 months, the army swelled to nearly 1.2
  million.
• The Republics army was the largest ever seen in
  European history (up to that point).

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• The revolutionary army was able to push the
  invading allies back across the Rhine River, they
  invaded northern Italy, and they even conquered
  the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium).
• Revolution and republicanism was poised to spread
  beyond France.
• The revolutionary army was an important step in
  the creation of modern nationalism (devotion to
  ones country).

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• Before this, wars had been fought between
  governments or ruling dynasties by relatively
  small armies of professional soldiers.
• This new French army was the creation of a
  peoples government.
• Its wars were now the peoples wars.
• Unfortunately, warfare became more destructive
  since more segments of the population were
  involved.
• This became the model for the total wars of the
  20th century.

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• Creating the Republic of Virtue manifested
  itself in other ways too.
• A cultural revolution occurred and everything was
  republicanized.
• For example, powered wigs and the old
  (aristocratic) styles of dress were out.
• In was dressing in trousers (like the
  sans-culottes) and for women, simple dresses or
  dresses that emulated ancient Greco/Roman styles
  (to symbolize the democratic ideal) .

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• Aristocratic stylesOUT!

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• Styles of the Sans-culottesIN!

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• Rococo styleOUT. Simple, loose styles
  were IN

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• Out the old forms of addressing someone Monsieur
  (my lord) and Madame (my lady).
• In addressing someone as Citizen or Citizeness.
• Out the Gregorian calendar, 7 day weeks, old
  measurements.
• In the new calendar, 10 day weeks, the metric
  system.
• Year 1 started on Sept 22, 1792 (when the
  Republic was established).

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• The months of the new republican calendar were as
  follows (it started in Autumn)
• 1. Vendemiaire (Grape harvest)
• 2. Brumaire (Fog)
• 3. Frimaire (Frost)
• Winter
• 4. Nivose (Snowy)
• 5. Pluviose (Rainy)
• 6. Ventose (Windy)

• Spring
• 7. Germinal (Germination)
• 8. Floreal (flower)
• 9. Prairial (Pasture)
• Summer
• 10. Messidor (Harvest)
• 11. Thermidor (Heat)
• 12. Fructidor (Fruit)

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• Everything, from the new national anthem (La
  Marseillaise) to playing cards had revolutionary
  slogans and symbols.
• Everywhere was the symbol and figure of Liberty.

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• Even naming your children changedfrom
  traditional Biblical names like John, Paul,
  Peter, Mary, Sarah, Rachel, etc to those of
  ancient Roman heroes like Brutus, Gracchus, and
  Cornelia, or revolutionary heroes, or flowers.

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• The most dramatic step taken by the Republic of
  Virtue was the National Conventions attempt to
  de-Christianize France starting in the Fall of
  1793.
• Religion (especially Catholicism) had long been
  seen as an instrument of the Old Regimean
  insensitive and out of touch oppressor, like the
  aristocracy, that needed to be dealt with.

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• When the Convention proclaimed the new republican
  calendar in November 1793, it eliminated all
  Christian references and all Christian holidays.
• Every tenth day, instead of every seventh, was a
  day of rest or holiday.
• Festivals replaced traditional Christian holidays
  by trying to create a moral order of the
  Republic.

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• Many revolutionaries hoped the festival system
  would replace Catholicism altogether.
• In November 1793 the Convention decreed the
  Cathedral of Notre Dame to be a Temple of
  Reason (and no longer a Catholic church).

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• The medieval statues of kings at the Cathedral of
  Notre Dame were beheaded.

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• The Convention sent loyal members out into the
  country to enforce de-Christianization.
• Churches were closed, members of the clergy were
  persecuted (both priests and nuns), some priests
  were forced to marry, some members of the clergy
  were just killed outright.
• Churches were desecrated, some were torn down and
  their stones sold off, some were turned into
  barns or warehouses.

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• The Conventions most radical members wanted
  Christianity to be replaced with a new religion,
  what they called the Cult of Reason.
• Rather than being based on the Judeo-Christian
  God, the Cult of Reason was based on the Goddess
  of Reason.

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• Here the Goddess of Reason sits upon the high
  altar at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

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• But Robespierre objected to the
  de-Christianization campaigns atheism, and other
  members of the Convention worried about turning
  the rural, devout population against the
  republic.
• The Committee of Public Safety halted the
  de-Christianization campaign and in June 1794,
  Robespierre tried to promote an alternative the
  Cult of the Supreme Being.

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• Robespierres Cult of the Supreme Being was
  modeled after the Deist inspired religion of
  Rousseau.

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• The Festival of the Supreme Being inaugurated
  Robespierres new civic religion. The Festivals
  climax occurred when the statue of Atheism was
  burned and the statue of Wisdom rose from the
  ashes.

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• It became popular for devout revolutionaries to
  baptize their children not with Father, Son, and
  the Holy Spirit but with Liberty, Equality, and
  Fraternity the motto of the Revolution.
• Neither Cult attracted many followers, but it
  showed the lengths the Convention would go
  towards overturning the old order and its
  supporting institutions.

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• Revolutionary laws also changed the rules of
  family life.
• The state took responsibility for all family
  matters away from the church.
• People had to register all births, deaths, and
  marriages at city hall, not the local parish
  church (further separating the church from the
  state).

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• Marriage became a civil contract, not bound by
  religion, so it could be nullified.
• A new divorce law (Sept 1792) was the most
  liberal in Europe a couple could divorce by
  mutual consent or because of insanity, abuse,
  abandonment, or criminal conviction.

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• Thousands of unhappy marriages were dissolved,
  even though the pope condemned the law.
• The National Convention also passed a series of
  laws that created equal inheritance among all
  children in the family, even girls.
• The tradition of most assets going to the eldest
  son, or the child favored by the father, was seen
  as aristocratic and anti-republican.

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• Not wanting to passively watch the Revolution, in
  May 1793, a small group of women created the
  Society of Revolutionary Republican Women.
• They sought to root out and fight internal
  enemies of the revolution. They were initially
  welcomed by the Jacobins.
• They would fill the galleries of the Convention
  to hear the debates and cheer their favorite
  speakers.

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• But they became increasingly radicalized, seeking
  stronger controls on the prices of food and other
  commodities.
• They were constantly causing fights with other
  women they didnt feel supported the revolution
  enough.
• They also demanded the right to wear the
  revolutionary cockade that most men wore in their
  hats.

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• By October 1793 the Jacobins feared the turmoil
  the Society was causing so they banned all
  womens clubs and societies.
• Perhaps the most famous woman of the Revolution,
  Olympe de Gouges, (she wrote the Declaration of
  the Rights of Women 1791) was sent to the
  guillotine in November 1793 because she opposed
  the Terror and accused the Jacobins of corruption.

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• In July 1793 another young woman, Charlotte
  Corday, assassinated the outspoken Convention
  deputy Jean-Paul Marat who constantly demanded
  more heads and more blood from those opposed to
  the revolution.
• Corday considered it her patriotic duty to kill
  Marat (I killed one man to save 100,000!).
• Marat was now considered a great martyr of the
  Revolution and Corday went to the guillotine
  vilified as a monster.

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• The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David
  (1793).
• Neoclassical style.

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• By November 1793, the Committee of Public Safety
  had women excluded from public political life.
• As part of the republic of virtue, men would be
  active citizens in the military and political
  spheres and women would only be active in the
  domestic sphere.

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• As the French were becoming successful in their
  military ventures, there became less need for the
  Reign of Terror, yet it continued.
• Robespierre was obsessed with rooting out all
  enemies of the Revolution and his power
  frightened others in power.
• To assure expediency, those accused of crimes
  against the Revolution were denied a public trial
  and faced a Revolutionary Tribunal.

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• Robespierre put thousands of enemies to death
  each month, including many political rivals in
  the National Convention.
• In April 1794 he had his chief political rival
  (Jacques Danton) convicted on the flimsy charge
  of being insufficiently militant on the war.
  Danton was beheaded.

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• In late July 1794, Robespierre spoke before the
  Convention, declaring leaders of the government
  were conspiring against him and the Revolution.
• No member of the Convention felt safe so the
  Convention ordered that Robespierre be arrested
  as an enemy of the Revolution.

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• He was charged with being a dictator and tyrant
  (an anti-revolutionary) and sentenced to death.
• Desperate, he and his followers congregated in
  the Hotel de Ville, where Robespierre tried to
  commit suicide by shooting himself in the head
  (he missed, sort ofhe ended up breaking his jaw).

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• He was arrested, and the next day, Robespierre
  and 82 of his supporters were sent to the
  guillotine.

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• Robespierres execution was met with cheers from
  the Parisian crowd.
• The end of the Terror came with the end of
  Robespierre.
• FYI, the term terrorist comes from those who were
  involved with promoting the Reign of Terror.

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• After the death of Robspierre, moderates came to
  power in the National Convention and the Reign of
  Terror ended.
• The National Convention lessened the power of the
  Committee of Public Safety.
• A new constitution was created in 1795, and a new
  executive authority, called the Directory (five
  elected Directors), ruled France.

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• Within a year, all Jacobin Clubs were closed.
• Leading Terrorists were put to death.
• Churches reopened, and people sought escape from
  the atmosphere and anxiety of the Terror in a new
  pursuit of pleasure.

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• The Directory ruled from 1795-1799.
• Peace was made with Prussia and Spain, but war
  continued with Austria and Britain.
• But because of its corruption and internal
  problems, there was a military take over of
  France in 1799 (coup d etat), under the
  leadership of a young army general named Napoleon
  Bonaparte (which takes us to the next part of the
  story).