The French Revolution

The French Revolution and the beginning of a new United States of

America both happened in 1789

The French Monarchy:1775 - 1793

King Louis XVI Queen Marie Antoinette

Europe on the Eve of Revolution

Key Terms

Nationalism- proud loyalty and devotion to a nation or it can be excessive or fanatical devotion to a nation and its interests, often associated with a belief that one country is superior to all others

Liberal-favoring reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual

Key Terms

Bourgeoisie- middle class

Meritocracy: leadership chosen on the basis of abilities and achievements rather than birthright (such as the 2nd Estate who were the nobility)

Class Division: Three Estates

France was divided into three classes, or estates

The First Estate: the clergy. The clergy were exempt from paying taxes.

The Second Estate, the nobility, held many of the leading positions in the state. They did not pay any taxes either.

The Third Estate, included everyone else from rich and educated bourgeois to poor illiterate peasants. About 98 percent of the population. They paid ALL of the taxes!

Causes of the French Revolution Cartoon Analysis

The Impact of the French Revolution

The French Revolution became the model for revolution in the modern world.

The power of nationalism was first experienced during the French Revolution and it is still powerful in existing nations and emerging nations today.

Causes of the Revolution

Ideas of the Enlightenment

The Salon

Causes of the Revolution

Financial support of the American Revolution led to near collapse of the French government’s finances.

Causes of the Revolution

The French monarchy continued to spend lavishly on court luxuries.

The queen, Marie Antoinette, was especially known for her extravagance.

She was hated by the French- made a scapegoat for the problems of France.

Causes of the Revolution

BREAD!

The French ate an average of two pounds of bread a day.

Poor harvests lead to high grain prices.

The people were hurting economically. Prices rose higher than wages increased.

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% of Income Spent on Bread

1787

1788

Estates General- June 1789

Louis XVI needed money and was finally forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General, the French parliament which had not met since 1614, 175 years!

Estates GeneralEach order of French society had representatives

in the Estates GeneralIn order to fix France’s economic situation, most

members of the Third Estate wanted to set up a constitutional government that would abolish the tax exemptions and privileges of the clergy and nobility.

Voting in the Estates General

VOTE BY ESTATE

Under the old system the single vote of the First Estate and the single vote of the Second Estate together could outvote the Third Estate.

Clergy1st Estate

Nobility2nd Estate

Everyone Else3rd Estate

1 Vote

1 Vote

1 Vote

Voting in the Estates General

VOTE BY HEAD The Third Estate had

many more members than the other two estates.

The change to each member having a vote would give the Third Estate much more say in matters.

Clergy1st Estate

Nobility2nd Estate

Everyone Else3rd Estate

291 members

270 members

578 members

Voting in the Estates General

The Third Estate favored a system of each member voting, but the king upheld the traditional voting method of one vote per estate.

The Third Estate reacted by calling itself a National Assembly and deciding to draft a constitution.

Voting in the Estates General

King Louis XVI locked them out of their meeting hall.

The Third Estate was joined by ‘liberal’ members of the other two Estates and moved to a nearby tennis court.

Tennis Court Oath

The Third Estate took an oath (promised) they would continue to meet until they had finished drafting a constitution.

This oath is known as the Tennis Court Oath.

The Tennis Court Oath at Versailles by Jacques–Louis David

This amazingly rich sketch by Jacques–Louis David is one of the most famous works from the French revolutionary era. The thrust of the bodies together and toward the center stand for unity. The spectators, including children at the top right, all join the spectators. Even the clergy, so vilified later, join in the scene. Only one person, possibly Marat, in the upper left–hand corner, turns his back on the celebration. David is commemorating a great moment of the Revolution on 20 June 1789, in which the deputies, mainly those of the Third Estate, now proclaiming that they represent the nation, stand together against a threatened dispersal.

Storming of the Bastille-July 14, 1789

The Bastille-an armory and prison in Paris was a symbol of the tyrannical Bourbon monarchy

The commoners stormed and dismantled the Bastille looking for gunpowder and to free political prisoners.

Storming of the Bastille-July 14, 1789

Only 7 prisoners were inside.

This action became the flashpoint of the Revolution

The king’s authority collapsed.

Demolition of the Bastille

This watercolor painting illustrates the "demolition" of what the text refers to as the "horrible prison" of the Bastille. As workmen tear down the spires on the roof, ordinary people rip stones off the base. These stones soon became collectors’ items, souvenirs of the people’s role in the outbreak of the Revolution—and symbols of the way in which many more people wanted to commemorate the event than had participated in it.

Awakening of the Third Estate

With the Bastille being destroyed in the background, member of the Third Estate breaks his shackles. Here, the clergy and nobility recoil in fear, thereby emphasizing the conflict between the estates.

National Assembly

One of the National Assembly’s first acts was to destroy aristocratic privileges

August 26, 1789 the assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

The declaration proclaimed freedom and equal rights for all men, access to public office based on talent (meritocracy), and an end to exemptions from taxation.

Symbols of The RevolutionThe Tricolor Flag

The WHITE of the Bourbons

The RED and BLUE of Paris.

Phrygian cap with cockade

Liberté, égalité,

fraternité Or

Death

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen -26 August 1789

Modeled in part by the American Declaration of Independence

Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights.

Rights to liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.

The law is the expression of the general will

Every man presumed innocent until judged guilty

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

No one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion.

Every citizen may speak, write, and print freely

Taxes levied according to ability to pay.

At first Louis XVI refused to accept the laws of the National Assembly but was later forced to sign under duress.

Women’s March on Versailles5 October 1789

Thousands of Parisian women armed with pitchforks, swords, muskets, marched to Versailles.

Why did they march? BREAD

The target of their anger was the Queen

“We want the baker and the baker's wife!"

End of the Monarchy

Louis XVI accepted the Constitution and the National Assembly this signified the end of the power of the monarchy in France.

The French Revolution was about to enter a more radical phase.

Death of the King

King Louis XVI was put on trial as a traitor of France and found guilty.

On January 21, 1793 he died by guillotine.

Death of the Queen

Marie Antoinette was tried, convicted of treason and executed by guillotine nine months after her husband (October 16, 1793).

She was only 37

Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine. Pen and ink by Jacques-Louis David

Committee of Public Safety

From 1793 to 1794 the Committee of Public Safety ruled France.

The Committee took steps to control France and bring order.

A man, and his family, might go to the guillotine for saying something critical of the Committee, even neighbors would turn each other in.

Maximilien Robespierre

Robespierre was the leader of the Committee of Public Safety.

He followed Rousseau’s ideas in The Social Contract, believed that anyone who would not submit to the general will as he interpreted it should be executed.

Robespierre was obsessed with ridding France of people who were against the Revolution.

The Reign of Terror

Robespierre was one of the chief architects of the Reign of Terror.

Lasted from September 1793-July 1794

Some estimates say that 40,000 or more people were killed during the Terror, mostly by guillotine.

The National Razor

DeChristianization

A new calendar was adopted. Years were numbered from September 22, 1792, the first day of the French Republic, and not from Christ’s birth.

The calendar contained 12 months with each month having three weeks of 10 days, with the tenth day a day of rest.

This practice eliminated Sundays.

No days of worship or religious holidays.

Temple of Reason

Churches were renamed

Temples of Reason.

The motto of the Revolution:

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

were inscribed on them.

Churches were stripped of irreplaceable works of art.

Death of Robespierre

Many deputies of the National Convention feared Robespierre, and believed that the Terror had gone too far.

Robespierre was arrested and tried.

He was guillotined on July 28, 1794 at age 36.

After Robespierre’s death, the Terror ended.

Execution of Robespierre

The Directory

The government of France1795 to 1799

The Directory - 1795 to 1799

Five elected directors acted as the executive committee, or Directory of France.

The period of the Directory was one of government corruption.

It could not solve Frances’s economic problems.

The Directory

The Directory relied more and more on military might to stay in power.

In 1799 a coup d’état–a sudden overthrow of the government–led by the popular general Napoleon Bonaparte toppled the Directory.

Napoleon took power.

People Under the Old Regime

This image shows "the people" as a chained and blindfolded man being crushed under the weight of the rich, including both clergy and nobility. Such a perspective on the period before 1789 purposely exaggerates social divisions and would have found few proponents before the Revolution, but the image does reveal the social clash felt so intensely by the revolutionaries.