BLUNDERS OF THE “MODERATE” CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHISTS

• November 1789: The confiscation of Church lands causes many hospitals and orphanages to close.

• July 1790: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy imposes democratic election of priests on the Catholic Church.

• 1790/91: Mismanagement of the new system of paper money results in massive inflation.

• June 1791: The “Flight to Varennes” –harsh treatment of King Louis XVI provokes him to attempt to flee to Austria.

• September 1791: The new constitution designates the poorer half of the male populace as “passive citizens.”

• April 1792: The Legislative Assembly declares war on Austria, seeking to compel Louis XVI to choose sides.

“Last Procession for the Burial of the Civic Oath” (1790/91):A hostile portrait of the clergy who accepted the Civil Constitution

“The Death of Lescuyer in the Cordeliers Church in Avignon,” October 15, 1791: A royalist mob, blessed by the priests, murders a local leader of the revolutionary government

“The Great Dinner of the Modern Gargantua & His Family”

“The Arrest of the King & Queen in Varennes” (June 1791)

Louis XVI, the pig who has gone astray

“Firing at the Champ de Mars,” July 17, 1791:The Marquis de Lafayette orders the dispersal of protesters

“La Fayette – Janus”

(1791/92):“Man of the People” or “Man of the

Royal Court”?

“The Capture of the Tuileries Palace, 10 August 1792” (painted in 1793)

The Battle of Valmy, September 20, 1792

THE REIGN OF TERROR

Sep-Dec 1792Convention split between the Mountain (led by the Jacobins) and the Plain (led by the Girondins)

January 1793 Convention votes narrowly to execute the king

March 1793 Revolutionary Tribunal created

April 1793Convention delegates authority to the 12-man Committee of Public Safety

May/June 1793

Purge of the Girondin faction; revolts break out in Toulon, Marseille, Lyons, & the Vendée

Fall 1793 The Republic defeats enemies at home & abroad

Spring 1794 Purge of “indulgents” & “ultra-revolutionaries”

July 1794 Thermidor: Robespierre executed

1795-99 The “Directory” seeks to restore the rule of law

“Marianne” (=Liberty, the Republic)

RIGHT: “The Republic,” by Antoine Gros (1794)

BELOW: The Great Seal of the First French Republic

“The Singer Chenard”

(October 1792):The typical

sans-culottes depicted on stage

The “Mountain” vs. the “Plain” in the Convention:Robespierre (1758-1794) and Condorcet (1743-94)

Martin Drolling, “Louis XVI Bidding Farewell to His Family before His Execution” (1793)

“Matter for Reflection for All the Crowned Jugglers: Thus Impure Blood

Will Fertilize Our Fields”

Pierre-Etienne le Sueur, “The Execution of the Tyrant, 21 January 1793” (1793)

James Gillray, “The Blood of the Murdered crying for Vengeance” (England, 1793)

THE REORGANIZATION

OF TIME: The revolutionary

calendar with twelve 30-month days,

introduced in 1793

Counter-Revolutionary Uprisings and

Foreign Invasions,1793/94

Jean-Baptiste Regnault, “Liberty or

Death!” (1794/95)

Anonymous, “Robespierre, guillotining the

executioner after having guillotined

all the French”(1794)

Duplessi-Bertaux, “Robespierre Wounded,” in City Hall on the morning of July 28, 1794

THE REVOLUTION DEVOURS ITS CHILDREN:Danton riding to the scaffold, April 1794; Robespierre, July 1794