world hist-the french revolution

8/8/2019 World Hist-The French Revolution

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When Louis XV (1715-74) inherited the throne, the Frenchpeople waited hopefully for the reforms they thought hewould bring about. The bourgeoisie , or middle class,sought a voice in the government and an end to pettyrestrictions on trade. The peasants, who were forced to

pay over half their income in taxes and feudal dues,were reduced to poverty.

But Louis disappointed both groups. He continued towaste money and devoted his time to selfish pleasures.In a series of wars with the British, the French lost both

their American colonies and their settlements in India.



³ After me, the deluge´, Louis XV is supposed to have said,thereby admitting the corruption and inefficiency thatcharacterized his government.

The French nobles, however, were quite satisfied with their

special privileges, such as exemption from almost alltaxation. They did not want to see conditions changed.But during the eighteenth century there were a number of keen, critical Frenchmen who spoke up for thecommon man. The writings of the French reformers,

aimed at the injustices of the times, did much to stir thepeople to action.



The most famous of the reformers was Voltaire. He wastwice a political prisoner in the Bastille, but he was soclever that even royalty liked to listen to him.

In his most famous book, Letters on the English, Voltairepraised England for its free speech and religious libertyand contrasted it with the persecution in France. Here area few lines from one of Voltaire¶s letters.

³«I agree with you that it is somewhat a reflection onhuman nature that money accomplishes everything and

merit nothing«

³It is sad to see« those who toil, poverty, and those whoproduce nothing, in luxury;« violence in high places

which engenders violence in the people: might makingright not only amongst nations but amongst individuals.´



The most familiar statement attributed to Voltaire is: ³ I do

not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the

death your right to say it.´

Voltaire¶s scathing attacks on the evils of eighteenth

century France did not advise revolt. But they caused

many Frenchmen to think that unless the old order

changed, it would have to be swept away.



Another reformer whose writings stirred the French peoplewas Jean Jacques Rousseau. In The Social Contract,

Rousseau attacked the right of kings to rule without theconsent of the people they governed. ³ Man ,´ he said, ³ is born free yet is now everywhere in chains. One manbelieves himself the master of others and yet is after allmore of a slave than they.´ The people, he claimed, had

a right to decide for themselves how they were to begoverned. He believed not only in the right of people todetermine their own government , but also in each one¶sobligation to take part in government. Rousseau wrote, ³

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State. µWhat does it matter to me?¶ the State may be given upfor lost.



It was Louis XVI¶s misfortune to come to the throne in1774, for it was he who was made to pay for the misruleof his predecessors.

Louis was a fat, good-natured man who liked to tinker withlocks. When the American colonies revolted againstEngland in 1776, Louis XVI had an opportunity to strikeback at the English. He listened willingly to thearguments of Benjamin Franklin that France should aidthe Colonies. France contributed two and half milliondollars to the American cause. The aid enabled the

United States to win its independence, but it helpedbankrupt the French government.



The expense of maintaining the court at Versailles

continued to increase. Louis¶ wife, Marie Antoinette,

earned such a reputation for extravagance that she

became known as ³Madame Deficit.´ Louis ordered his

officials to raise more and more money. When they could

not raise enough money to please him, he dismissed

them and appointed others.



By 1789 the French government was hopelessly in debt.

The king¶s officials were no longer able to wring money

from the overburdened merchants and peasants. They

could not tax the nobles or the clergy. So the king was

forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General, thelegislative parliament, which had not met for 175 years.

The meeting was held in one of the palaces at

Versailles.



The Estates-General was composed of representatives of

the three classes: The First Estate (clergy), the SecondEstate (nobility), and the Third Estate (commoners). The

Third Estate was composed of the broadest segment of

society.

It included merchants, professional men, the workers of thetowns and cities, and- the largest group of all- the

peasants. Because the Third Estate accounted for about

96% of France¶s population, its representation in the

Estates-General was equal to the combined membership

of the other two Estates.



Naturally the Third Estate wanted the three groups to meet

as one body and vote as individuals. In that way, the

Third Estate would have a majority and would be incontrol. But Louis ordered the Estates to meet

separately, each Estate casting a single vote. The

representatives of the Third Estate refused to obey. They

knew that the first two Estates would outvote them.For six weeks the representatives of the Third Estate

stubbornly held out. The Third Estate declared that the

king must not levy any more taxes without its consent.

This made Louis XVI so angry that he ordered his

soldiers to prevent a further meeting in the palace.



The members of the Third Estate, angry and aroused at

the king¶s interference, met in an indoor tennis court inVersailles. There they declared themselves to be

empowered to make laws for all of France, and they took

a solemn oath not to adjourn until they had written a

constitution for France. This defiant Oath of the TennisCourt marked the real beginning of the Revolution. Louis

finally gave in and ordered the three Estates to meet

together as a National Assembly. The days of divine-

right monarchy in France were almost over; the power of

Louis XVI was crumbling.



Meantime, political clubs of various shades of opinion had

been established among the members of the Estates-General. The delegates sat together according to their

political views. From this seating arrangement have

come the political terms used today: the left means the

radicals (as the revolutionary Third Estate wasconsidered to be), while the right means the

conservatives ( as the nobles certainly were). The center

means the moderates, or people whose views are

between the conservatives and radicals.



If Louis had decided to cooperate with the National

Assembly, France might have peacefully become a

constitutional monarchy and the Revolution might haveended at this point. Instead, he listened to the advice of

his nobles and discharged a popular finance minister.

Then he ordered troops to Versailles. The people of

Paris interpreted this move as a threat to the members

of the Third Estate and a sign that Louis intended to put

down the Revolution by force.

Someone suggested that there might be muskets and

powder stored in the hated fortress of the Bastille, where

political prisoners were kept. On July 14, 1789, the mobsstormed and took the Bastille.



The news frightened Louis. Turning his back on the

nobles, he tried to make friends with the National Assembly. He withdrew his troops, recalled the minister

of finance whom he had dismissed and drove into Paris

with the tricolor- the blue, white, and red symbol of the

Revolution- in his hat. The delegates to the Assembly

cheered, and Paris rejoiced. The motto ³ Liberty,Equality, Fraternity´ became the watchword of the

Revolution, and in the years following it became the

custom in France to inscribe the words on public

buildings.



The fall of the Bastille was the signal for outbursts of revolt

all over the country. The nobles in the National Assemblyrealized that unless they gave in to the peasants, the

whole country would go up in flames. In one dramatic

session of the Assembly, the nobles voluntarily

surrendered the feudal and manorial privileges that they

had exercised for centuries. Serfdom was ended, special

rights for nobles were repealed, and unfair taxes were

abolished. The old order was dead.



The National Assembly issued the ³Declaration of the

Rights of Man and the Citizen´ This famous document

declared in ringing tones that ³men are born and remain

free and equal in rights.´ Their rights included ³ liberty,

property, security, and resistance to oppression.´ All menwere guaranteed freedom of speech, press, and religion,

so long as their actions did not injure someone else. All

men were declared equal before the law and given the

right of self-government.



The National Assembly was in desperate need of money

to run the government, just as Louis had been. As a

result, the members of the Assembly voted to have the

government take over, or nationalized , all the land

owned by the Church. It was also decided that all

clergymen would be elected by the people and that their

salaries would be paid by the government.Louis shocked began to plot with foreign powers to put

down the Revolution. He and the queen managed to get

away from Paris disguised as servants. But there was an

alert soldier, who had never seen either of them before,

recognized the king having seen his likeness on French

coins.



The French people lost all confidence in the king from the

moment, although it was more than a year before he

actually lost his throne. In September, 1792, the

monarchy was abolished, and Louis XVI was accused of

treasonous conduct and summoned for trial. He wascondemned to death on the guillotine, and a few months

later, his wife, Marie Antoinette, was also beheaded.



LOUIS XVI MARIE ANTOINETTE



They were shocked and dismayed with Louis execution,and they vowed revenge. Armies from Austria and

Prussia began to march against France. The French

responded with a patriotism and quickly raised

republican armies for the defense of the nation. At this

time a young French army captain, Rouget de I¶Isle,composed a stirring marching song for young republican

volunteers as they made their way to Paris. The song,

the ³Marseillaise´, has become the national song of

France.



The horrible Reign of Terror that had taken so many lives

came to an end with the execution of Robespierre in

1794. Meantime , a convention had been elected to write

a new constitution for France. When it was finished, the

new constitution provided for a republican governmentwith a legislature and an executive body called the

Directory. But many people objected to provisions in the

constitution which were designed to assure the re-

election of those who had favored the execution of the

king. They organized a rebellion and began to march

against the new government.



The task of holding off the mob was entrusted to a young

officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon drove

them away with a volley of grapeshot from his cannon.

Under the Directory, the new government turned its

attention to its foreign enemies. Great Britain and Austriawere the chief enemies of the republic at this time. As a

reward for his action in defending the Convention, the

government made Napoleon a general.



General Bonaparte directed his small force with such

military skill that he was completely victorious. His

brilliant campaign in Italy forced the Austrians to make

peace with France. Napoleon also established French

influence in much of northern Italy. After his first success,Napoleon met defeat in a campaign against the English

in Egypt. But in spite of the setback, when he returned to

Paris the people greeted Napoleon as a national hero.



The new government of France, under the Directory, had

grown corrupt and inefficient, and it had lost popular support. So in the last year of the eighteenth century

Napoleon overthrew the Directory and made himself

First Consul of the French Republic.

Less than five years after he had become First Consul of the Republic, Napoleon Bonaparte stood in the famous

Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. There he had come to

be crowned emperor. Seizing the crown from the hands

of the Pope, he placed it upon his own head and

became ³ Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.´



In fourteen years the French government had passed

through the stages of absolute monarchy, limited

monarchy, republic, rule by a Directory, and then back to

the one-man rule of Napoleon. The course of the

Revolution seemed to prove the truth of an old Frenchproverb: ³ The more things change, the more they stay

the same.´



Napoleon Bonaparte was not a native Frenchman. He wasborn on the island of Corsica, which lies just off thesouthern coast of France in the Mediterranean. He wasonly five feet one inch tall. But Napoleon had matchlessability to inspire others with faith in him. Once he said, ³ I

am the child of destiny«

,and again,³«

I began to makemistakes only when I listened to advisers.´

He freed France from invaders. Then he set out toconquer all those who had opposed him: Spain, Austria,

many of the German states, Russia, and Great Britain.His ideal was to bring all of Europe under one emperor-himself.



Napoleon was interested in improving the land he ruled.

Like the Roman emperors, he built roads and other

public works. He erected buildings and triumphal archesto remind people of his victories. The most famous is the

Arc de Triomphe, which towers 165 feet above one of

the prominent squares of Paris. Today it shelters the

grave of the French Unknown Soldier of World War I.During the Revolution, the church had been frequently

scoffed at. Napoleon reached an agreement with the

Pope. It was called the Concordat. It restored the Church

to an important position in France. The Concordat lasted

more than a century.



The tide turned against Napoleon at last. Napoleon madethe mistake of invading Russia. His enemies managedto reach Moscow. But the Russian winter, the longsupply line, and the tough Russian resistance forcedN

apoleon to retreat from Moscow. It was one of history¶smost disastrous routs. The Russians gave thanks to³General Winter´ and ³General Mud´ for his defeat.

The next year, combined armies of the nations that wereallied against Napoleon defeated him in Europe. He was

sent to the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy, as aprisoner.



One of Louis XVI¶s brothers became king of France. ButNapoleon escaped from Elba to Marseilles in southern

France. He made a triumphal march to Paris.

Napoleon quickly raised an army. He met the allied forcesof England, Holland, and the German states at Waterlooin Belgium. There, after a hard-fought and bloody battle,

he was finally defeated. His power was forever crushed,and the old line of kings once more returned to thethrone of France. Napoleon threw himself on the mercyof his bitter enemies, the English. He was exiled to thedistant island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. There

he died six years later.



With Napoleon out of the way, representatives of the greatpowers met at Vienna to rearrange the boundaries of the

European nations. All of Napoleon¶s conquests were lost to her, and her boundaries were redrawn along lines that areapproximately the same as her present boundaries.

The Congress of Vienna favored bringing back the old

royal families. It tried to revive the absolute power of thekings over the people. However, the old order in Europewas not fated to last for many years. While the Congressof Vienna was significant as the first attempt by aninternational conference to deal with the problems of

Europe, it failed to suppress the rise of nationalism andoverlooked the widespread social changes created bythe Industrial Revolution.



The idea of equal opportunity for everyone remained

alive in France.

The people had some say in government.

No king or emperor was ever again to rule France

without consulting a National Assembly.

In many countries people cherished a dream of the

ideals of justice and equality.



CORON ATION OF EMPEROR N APOLEON I BON APARTE



BATTLE AT WATERLOO

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