THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Transcription

1 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The Storming of the Bastille The execution of King Louis XVI

2 INTRODUCTION The term the "French Revolution" designates a period in French history during which a series of violent upheavals brought about a fundamental transformation of French society, politics, economics, and culture. While historians disagree as to how long the revolution lasted, few question its significance. It brought changes not only to French society, but was to have a profound impact on the systems of government throughout the world to the present day. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French monarchy developed and maintained a social and political system that excluded the majority of the French people from the business of running the nation. While this was not an uncommon practice at this point in history, kings of the Bourbon dynasty grew increasingly isolated from their subjects. As the French economy weakened during the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century, the Bourbon monarchs spent more and more on themselves. At the same time, philosophers in England, France, and the American colonies began to develop new ideas about how governments should treat the people they govern. Members of the French middle- and upper-classes grew worried about the reckless and selfish behavior of the monarchy. In the late-1780s they attempted to implement these new ideas and reform the French government. At first, they wanted only to put the monarchy under some form of constitutional control; but the forces for change they unleashed sent the course of revolution in many, often-uncontrollable directions. While the revolution resulted in the establishment, in 1799, of essentially a military dictatorship, the Old Regime, as it had existed prior to 1789, was irrevocably destroyed. This decade, then, of revolutionary activity is best understood by first examining the characteristics of the Old Regime, or pre-revolutionary France. Part 1 France Under the Old Regime A. Social and Political Systems Before 1789, French society was divided into three separate groups or classes called "Estates." The First Estate was composed of high-level members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The Second Estate was made up of the hereditary nobility, many of whom were directly or indirectly related to the Bourbon family. Together, these first two estates included about 3% of the population of France.

3 The Estates The remaining 97% belonged to the Third First Estate Estate. This included lawyers, bankers, middle class Second Estate shopkeepers, tradesman and peasants. On the eve of the revolution, well over 80% of the population Third Estate were peasants. Most did not own their own land, but instead paid a "taille," or rent, for the use of the land. The peasants paid this to the nobility and the Catholic Church, which owned the majority of the arable land in the country. The leaders of the Third Estate were drawn from the "bourgeoisie," or middle class. The city and town dwellers - artisans, shopkeepers, lawyers, etc. - were those who traditionally represented the interests of the entire Third Estate. No matter how wealthy or poor a person was, class in France was determined by birth and there was very little social mobility (movement between classes). In medieval times, representatives of each of the three Estates were called upon by the various Kings of France to assemble and then carry out the wishes of the royalty. Prior to 1789, the last meeting of the three Estates was in Historically, the powers of this assembly had been limited to an advisory capacity - a means by which the King could secure promises of loyalty. In fact, throughout the 1600s and 1700's the Bourbon Kings created an absolutist government with substantial privileges for the First and Second Estates. Each Estate had only one vote when the Estates General was convened; therefore the Third Estate would never, by itself, be able to challenge the decisions of the privileged classes. It was an oldfashioned form of representative government which had little real power to balance the power or the absolute monarch. The governing principle of political power before 1789 was the belief in the "divine right" of kings, that the king was chosen by God to rule on behalf of his people. This had been an accepted truth since the beginning of the French nation a thousand years before; anyone who challenged the authority of the king was, therefore, challenging the word of God. The Catholic Church supported this belief and, in turn, received special privileges from the French monarchy. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s the Bourbon dynasty depended on the loyalty and respect of its retainers, courtiers, lords and nobles. "Governing" France meant very little in the modern sense of the word. Absolute monarchy did require, however, the ability to tax the people without their formal consent. Taxes were collected by officials appointed and licensed by the crown. In fact, all jobs in the royal government were given to members of the nobility. Many positions in the government were inherited and stayed in the same family for generations. B. The Financial Crisis When Louis XIV died in 1714, he left the French treasury empty and in debt. Having ruled for over seventy years, Louis XIV had embarked on a series of wars of expansion, designed to make France - and himself - the greatest power in Europe. Furthermore, he and his grandson, Louis XV (who ruled from ), expanded the royal retreat at Versailles. All of this was done at public expense. When public money ran out, the Bourbon monarchy sold certificates representing loans to the government. The majority of these were purchased by members of the Second Estate and the bourgeoisie. Upon ascending to the throne in 1774, Louis XVI decided to continue the expansionist foreign policies of the previous Bourbon monarchs. When the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, he saw an opportunity to substantially weaken one of France s major enemies. For hundreds of years, France and Great Britain had been antagonistic competitors for the resources of Europe and the world. Only

4 ten years before, in the Seven Years War (known in the colonies as the French and Indian War ), Great Britain had forced France to give up its holdings in North America. By supporting the American colonists in their war for independence, the French could help to separate Great Britain from its most valuable colonial possession. Once the new United States was formed, the French believed, the new nation would be indebted to France and need a strong ally to protect its interests. In time, the French would be able to use friendly ports in the United States to eventually retake its captured territories in North America (mainly Quebec). To Louis XVI, whatever it would cost to support the American colonists, the eventual returns for France would be more than profitable. Like all the plans of the Bourbon monarchs, this too did not take into serious consideration the economic realities of the French government. By the time the United States finally gained its independence in 1783, French troops, armaments, and financial support amounted to over 80% of the cost of waging the war. Though some of this colossal debt was repaid, not enough made it back to France to avoid financial disaster. An audit in 1788 revealed to King Louis and his ministers that the crown was heavily in debt and would continue to be so burdened without some way of raising new money. Louis appointed a new finance minister, Jacques Necker, to examine the problems. Necker was a respected banker and financier, but a member of the Third Estate. His recommendations, therefore, were not always respected by the lords who advised Louis. In fact, Necker pointed out that the only way of raising enough money was to create additional taxes and eliminate some of the exemptions. Furthermore, the winters of the late-1780s were severe in France. Not enough wheat survived, and the price of bread - the most basic food staple - soared. Droughts and famine in parts of France further heightened people s resentment toward Bourbon policies. A tradition of tax exemptions for the First and Second Estates, coupled with rampant corruption in the system of tax collection. It has been estimated that roughly 60% of the gross revenue collected never reached the government. The government was faced with an unprecedented financial crisis by the autumn of In order to create a consensus, so that taxes could be raised, Necker proposed that the King call on the long-dormant Estates- General. In the Spring of 1789, Louis XVI reluctantly agreed to call the Estates-General into session. Elections were held throughout the kingdom for representatives to each of the three Estates. Still, only those who owned property were, by law and tradition, allowed to cast votes. New taxes, of course, were not going to be popular. Taxes on the peasants agricultural production, for farm animals, on salt, for marriage licenses, for burial, trade, religious tithes, etc. had accumulated into a heavy burden on the peasantry and the bourgeoisie of the Third Estate. The famines prior to the revolution of 1789 sparked peasant uprisings against the oppression of the landowners and the royal tax collectors. The fear of renewed uprisings if more taxes were imposed troubled some of the nobility, but the vast majority of the ruling class in the Old Regime was wellremoved from the concerns of the peasants. The system of exploitation and class had so long endured, that many believed it was the natural state of affairs and would continue for generations. They would soon be proven wrong. A document from residents of the parish Pithiviers-le-Viel, provides an example of the concerns of the peasantry and Third Estate bourgeoisie. The following passage is taken from a "List of Grievances..." written by an assembly of the town's cultivators in early The "List..." was to be taken to the Estates-General and publicly presented. The townspeople recommended that the Estates- General:

5 Succeed in reducing certain taxes which are crushing the countryside.. The deputies will be charged to ask that all taxes generally, of whatever sort, be paid equally by the three orders - that is, by the Clergy, Nobility, and the Third Estate. (Dawson, The French Revolution) Complaints from scores of other towns and villages gave the delegates to the Third Estate a clear message to reform the tax laws and limit the power of the Catholic Church. Nobles of the Second Estate, and indeed the King himself, were faced with an explosive situation. The imposition of new taxes could result in further peasant uprisings. For those who had invested heavily in the Bourbon government, the fear grew that continued economic mismanagement by the monarchy would lead to the government collapsing and defaulting on their investments. They, too, came to desire some major reforms of the absolutist system. In early 1789, during his campaign for election to the Estates-General, Mirabeau, a "fallen" nobleman who was decidedly anti-royalist and who had cast his lot with the Third Estate, chose to exploit feelings of class antagonism to his advantage. Responding to a newspaper description of him as a mad dog,' he retorted: A good reason to elect me, for despotism and privilege will die from my bite. The public expression of these sentiments during the first days of the Estates-General in the summer of 1789 marks the onset of the revolution. Part 2 The Early Stages of the Revolution Within a few days of the first meeting, it became clear that the Estates-General had come to be dominated by unruly members of the Third Estate, in alliance with "disloyal" members of the other two Estates, including Mirabeau. For all the reasons detailed above, the need to reform the government was obvious. A. Acts of Open Defiance The first major issue was the voting procedure. The Third Estate members were proposing that since they represented the vast majority of the population, they should be given more than just one vote. The historic voting privilege of the first two Estates would be jeopardized by a more equal representation of the interests of the Third Estate. But other revolutionary ideas, such as making the clergy more accountable, reforming the tax system, abolishing the nobles' feudal privileges, and even demands for a permanent legislature or Parliament were also dividing the two sides. None of these ideas, however, were debated in the context or overthrowing or eliminating the monarchy. The revolution began as a rebellion not against the monarchy or the nobility, per se, but rather as a rebellion against perceived abuses of the monarchical system. Many in the bourgeoisie expressed their desire to create some form of constitutional monarchy. In June of 1789, the Third Estate members were locked out of their meeting hall at Versailles palace by an order of the King. The members quickly found an empty indoor tennis court and resolved, "Never to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the Kingdom shall be established and fixed upon firm foundations." This famous statement, later

6 called the "Tennis Court Oath," reaffirmed the delegates commitment to kingship and "Kingdom" as much as it expressed a desire for change. The Third Estate, together with growing numbers of delegates from the other two Estates, declared themselves to be the sole representatives of the people of France; they called themselves the "National Assembly." They resolved to create a permanently new form of constitutional government. Meanwhile, some Frenchmen and women pushed ahead of the politicians of the Third Estate by attacking a symbol of royal oppression and tyranny, the Bastille. Built in the 1300s as a defense against the English, the Bastille had been converted into a prison by Charles VI in the early 1400s. An immense fort with several towers and eight-foot thick walls, it stood near the edge of Paris as a sinister reminder of royal authority. And, while at the time of the revolution it no longer housed large numbers of political prisoners, it had a deserved reputation as a place of torture throughout the eighteenth century. Surrounding the entrance to the Bastille on July 14th, 1789, was an angry mob of about 900 Parisians. Most were workingmen, who would later be called sans-culottes, because they did not wear upper-class britches but simple trousers. Many of their families were hungry since bread prices had reached an all-time high. Others had been in the streets to protest the King's dismissal of Necker as finance minister. Rumors that troops had been ordered to encircle Paris provoked many to search for arms to protect themselves. Others knew that the Bastille contained a new supply of gunpowder sent to the fort earlier In the week. The commander of the Bastille, de Launay, refused to surrender his arms or relinquish control to the citizens, who were calling themselves "the militia of the city of Paris." The commander, was by all accounts a loyal functionary of the King and refused to surrender without direct orders from the mayor of Paris or the King. The impatience of the crowd grew and eventually a siege of the fort began. The angry citizens got support from several companies of soldiers. Realizing he could not withstand a prolonged siege, de Launay surrendered the fort by early evening. Eighty-five citizens of Paris had died that day; and once de Launay came away from the fort. the fury of the crowd was vented upon him. He was spit upon, beaten, stabbed, and eventually decapitated. The Bastille was itself ransacked and destroyed stone by stone. The demolition lasted several months and employed an army of vagrants from the poor neighborhood. Pieces of the Bastille were ingenuously carved into models of the prison itself and sold as souvenirs of the revolution throughout France. Insignificant in terms of immediate results, the storming of the Bastille came to be the symbolic heart of the rebellion. It was now up to the leaders of the National Assembly to secure political gains from the demise of royal power and authority. As violence increased, alarm spread among the members of the National Assembly. On the night of August 4th, the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens" was issued. In it, all the members of the National Assembly - including many nobles - pledged to abandon their feudal claims, privileges and tax exemptions. Many of the deputies believed that such a gesture would satisfy the workers of Paris and the peasantry. Essentially, the Declaration listed basic rights as "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression." Law was defined as the expression of the "general will" of "the people, and all "citizens... personally, or by their representatives" had a right to take part in the formation of government. Freedoms of the press, "opinion," and even religion were listed by the delegates in the document. The purpose of the Declaration was to raise public confidence in the National Assembly. The Declaration abandoned the legalized

7 inequalities of the Old Regime. It was widely read, having been placed on public bulletin boards and pasted up in public squares throughout France. It had wide appeal in France and was enthusiastically supported by many members of the Third Estate, including peasants. The Declaration expressed the possibility of creating a republic out of the Old Regime. But rather than turn their country over to the masses, the bourgeoisie remained staunch supporters of private property rights and created a method whereby peasants could purchase lands from the nobles and bourgeois landowners. The delegates had not yet adopted radical revolutionary ideas, such as redistributing land and allowing all people to vote in direct elections. However, during the first year and a half, the revolution was directed by a liberal National Assembly that sought to create a constitutional government that would split power between the King and the legislature and would, above all, preserve the interests of the propertied bourgeoisie. B. Revolution Becomes More Complex During October of 1789, the King refused to agree to the demands of the National Assembly (including signing the Declaration). The populace of Paris was stirred again to demonstrate its power to change the course of events. During October 5th and 6th, several thousand women and men marched from the heart of Paris out to the Palace of Versailles, several miles to the southwest of the city. In front of Versailles, the crowds skirmished with royal guards and demanded that the King vacate the Palace and return with them to face the realities of governing a starving city. Eventually the King gave in. and moved his household to the Tuilleries Palace in the center of Paris. The age of luxurious and absolute rule from Versailles was over. Despite his presence in Paris, Louis XVI remained a weak and ineffectual leader, and was never at the center of the revolutionary struggles. He reluctantly signed the Declaration and agreed in principle to sharing some power with an elected legislature. But Louis became offended by the measures the revolutionary government took to limit the power of the Catholic Church. Louis sympathized with those nobles and First Estate clergymen who resisted the decrees of the Assembly government, for they had been a loyal part of the Bourbon tradition of divine right monarchy. Rumors abounded that Louis was plotting counter-revolutionary schemes that would involve the invasion of France by foreign governments and his return to authority. The National Assembly in 1790 held elections for a new "Legislative Assembly." In the process of defining who could vote in the Assembly, the scope of what the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" seemed to promise for Frenchmen greatly narrowed. The Assembly divided French society into "active and passive" citizens. By instituting this distinction based on property and adding a poll tax, about onethird of the adult males of France were denied the right to vote. Those denied were peasants at the lowest end of the class structure. Of course, no women were allowed to vote. Furthermore, the use of electors -

8 rather than direct popular elections for delegates - reduced the level of democratic participation, and resulted in the election of a moderate bourgeois Legislative Assembly. By the spring of 1791, the Legislative Assembly had completed their constitution. Included in the Constitution of 1791, was a section giving the Assembly the right to confiscate the lands and property of the Catholic Church in France. The Assembly voted to place these properties at the disposal of the government, which would then assume the responsibility of paying the clergy, meeting the expenses of running the churches, monasteries, etc. The Church, then, was essentially taken over by the government and the clergy was forced to swear allegiance to the new government and what became known as the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy." Priests, now essentially like postmen or policemen, were asked to reject their connection to Papal authority in Rome. This policy of the Legislative Assembly caused widespread dissent among the First and Second Estate and resulted in religious strife, resistance, and persecutions. With this new property as collateral, the Constitutional government began to issue assignats, or bonds. But by issuing far too many, the bonds began to depreciate and eventually they lost most of their original value. The original idea had been to use the funds raised by the bonds to pay of the debts incurred by the King. The huge debt the royal government had created was eventually defaulted, and it was difficult for future governments of France to secure credit or undertake new projects without financing. Part 3 Radicalization Few people were satisfied with the new constitutional monarchy. Radical revolutionaries wanted a republic rather than a monarchy. For many nobles, the Constitution of 1791 went too far. Frightened by angry crowds in Paris and in the countryside, a growing number of nobles fled France. These émigrés, or people who left the country for political reasons, urged European rulers to oppose the revolutionaries in France. In the summer of 1791, Louis XVI grew increasingly alarmed at the actions of the National Assembly. In the hope of securing outside help from his brother-in-law, King Leopold of Austria, he attempted to flee the country. Captured at the border by revolutionary guards who easily recognized them, the royal family returned to Paris where they were held prisoner for more than a year. When the newly-elected Legislative Assembly met in October, the seating arrangements in the Assembly reflected divisions among the revolutionaries. Moderate revolutionaries, who mostly wanted to preserve the revolution as it was, sat on the right; The more radical revolutionaries, who supported rapid and extreme change, sat on the left. To this day, the terms left and right (and center, for those with views in the middle) are used to denote where a person or party fall on the political spectrum. The king s attempt to flee the country had deepened the divisions among the revolutionaries. Moderates were embarrassed by the king s attempted flight, but they wanted to preserve the constitutional monarchy. Radicals claimed that the king could not be trusted, and demanded the establishment of a republic. However the radicals themselves were further split into two groups: the Girondin and the Jacobins. Led by Jacques Brissot, the Girondin mostly represented the commercial interests of the urban bourgeoisie. They wanted the wars to continue, hopefully to the point where France could begin to

9 acquire additional lands and resources; they believed that war would unite the people in defense of their homeland. Maximilien de Robespierre, who emerged as the leader of the Jacobins - a political organization of radical sans-cullotes, extremist journalists, and lower- and lower-middle class craftsmen and tradesmen - demanded a true democracy in which all male citizens had the right to vote and wealth was equalized. In the end, the Girondin carried the Assembly and France declared war on Austria in April of At first, the war went badly for France. French armies were disorganized and poorly led. Many experienced army officers, who were nobles, had left France. Revolutionary ideas also caused some problems. For example, in the heat of battle, one regiment demanded to vote on whether or not to attack the enemy. A. The End of the Bourbon Monarchy By August 1792, Austrian - along with Prussian - armies advanced on Paris. The Prussian commander, the Duke of Brunswick, issued a declaration warning that if Paris did not surrender peacefully, Austrian and Prussian troops would burn the city and put its leaders to death. Far from being frightened by the duke s message, the people of Paris angrily declared that no émigrés or foreign troops would crush the revolution. All over France, people rallied to defend the revolution. In September, the French defeated the Duke of Brunswick at Valmy. In the months that followed, revolutionary armies forced the invaders to retreat from France. The war against Austria and Prussia caused high prices and desperate food shortages for the people of France. Even while foreign troops threatened Paris, angry Parisians and sympathetic troops from the provinces joined in an uprising that has been called the second French Revolution. Early in the morning of August 10, revolutionaries took over the Paris city government and established a new administration, the Commune. A large force of revolutionary troops marched on the Tuileries, where the king and his family were living. The troops attacked the palace, killing many of the king s guards. When the king and queen fled to the Legislative Assembly, hoping for protection, the radicals seized control of the building. A vote was forced to remove the king from office and imprison the royal family. They then called for a national convention to write a new constitution Massacres of political prisoners suspected of being counterrevolutionaries and sympathizers with the nobility began in September. The violence in the streets kept many away from the polls on election day, and the

10 National Convention was dominated by Jacobins, who tended to be far more radical than the population in general. The first order of business before this more radical government was what to do with the king, who had been held prisoner for nearly a year. Most of the remaining moderates preferred to offer him clemency or, at worst, exile. To most Jacobins, however, the matter was clear: the king was a traitor and must be executed. The trial of the king was hastened by the discovery at the Tuileries Palace of documents proving that the King had tried to encourage Austria to invade France and put him back In power. In January 1793, a public vote was taken by the Convention. The vote (387 to 334) favored the Jacobins. The King of France was publicly beheaded by guillotine a few days later. This dramatic event paved the way for the "Reign of Terror" by the leaders of the Jacobins. B. The Reign of Virtue/The Reign of Terror Even though the King was executed, there was continued fear that nobles and foreign agents were loose in France and were plotting to wage a counter-revolution and return France to the structure of the Old Regime. Robespierre exploited these fears. Heading the "Committee for Public Safety," Robespierre began to assert tyrannical control over Paris and eventually, the outlying regions as well. In fact, the revolutionary government was in desperate straits. The revolutionary armies had been beaten along the eastern borders and were in retreat. Whole regions of France had revolted against the radical Jacobin government; and in some places alliances of clergy, nobles and peasants were calling for the overthrow of the Convention government. To achieve its goal of suppressing the counter-revolution, then, Robespierre enlisted regular army troops and special units of revolutionary guards. He also encouraged the creation of revolutionary "tribunals" composed of working-class sans-culottes who would judge arrested suspects and sentence them. The Committee for Public Safety and the tribunals embarked on a reign of terror arresting and executing thousands of men and women. Analysis of the victims of the terror suggest that it was not strictly an issue of class conflict. According to some accounts, only as many as 20% of the 40,000 victims of the Terror were aristocrats or members of the clergy. Most victims were those who simply no longer agreed with Jacobin methods or policies, and openly challenged the Jacobin version of the republic. Robespierre justified his actions by saying: "Terror is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it flows from virtue... It is wholly necessary to establish briefly the despotism of freedom in order to crush the despotism of Kings." The French people respond enthusiastically to the levee en masse.

11 Indeed, the Convention government and the Committee for Public Safety were able to crush opposition and salvage a few victories on the battlefield. The Convention had mobilized the population to rise In defense through decrees such as the following levee en masse": Henceforth, until the enemies have been driven from the territory of the Republic, the French people are in permanent requisition for army service. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes, and shall serve in the hospitals, the children shall turn old linen into lint; the old men shall repair to the public places, to stimulate the courage of the warriors and preach the unity of the Republic and hatred of Kings. (Breunig, The Age of Revolution) Constituting the first modern appeal for wartime mobilization of a people, this document is a remarkable example of the kind of loyalty the revolutionaries hoped to inspire. In fact, the Convention raised an army of over 800,000 men, with several capable new generals including Napoleon Bonaparte. This Grand Army of the Republic embarked on a series of counterattacks against Austria, Prussia, and the other European nations that joined the war against France in the spring of It was the most formidable fighting force Europe had yet seen. Once the victories and the Reign of Terror seemed to have effectively quashed the perceived threats to the new republic, the need for spilling more blood to create a.. nation of Virtue," as Robespierre put it, began to be questioned. For little more than a year, the Committee of Public Safety waged a brutal campaign against people it considered enemies of France. The Committee had almost dictatorial powers. According to Robespierre, its leader, the Committee was determined to create a Republic of Virtue in which our country assures the welfare of each individual and where each individual enjoys the pride the prosperity and glory of our country Robespierre, himself, was utterly honest and dedicated to his ideals, but he was also inflexible and narrow-minded. Agents were sent across France to help local revolutionary committees uncover traitors. One law declared that people suspected of being counter-revolutionaries could be arrested for their conduct, their relations, their remarks, or their writings. Another set strict limits on prices and wages, rationed food, and outlawed the use of scarce white flour. Citizens were required to use whole wheat flour to make equality bread. By the spring of 1794, the National Convention ordered Robespierre s arrest. Along with his supporters, he was quickly tried and guillotined. With his death, the Terror ended. C. The Impact on the French People Between 1789 and 1794, French life had been significantly transformed. The monarchy was gone, and the Bourbon king was dead. In place of the privileged Estates of the Old Regime, the revolution had declared equality for all people. The National Convention had abolished all remaining feudal dues and customs, and ended slavery in the French colonies. In addition, it had confiscated the land of the émigrés. Revolutionary leaders established a uniform system of weights and measures, known as the metric system. They also called for free public schools so all citizens could receive an education. However, the schools were never set up. Although military victories had been achieved, the government was unable to fully solve the economic problems of France. By the summer of 1795, inflation and bread riots brought down the

12 government. Several attempts were made by royalists to reestablish a monarchical government. Finally, the Convention dissolved, but not before writing yet another constitution. This one reflected the more conservative mood of the country. Part 4 The Napoleonic Era The Constitution of 1795 established a new government known as the Directory. The Directory consisted of two branches - an executive and legislative branch. The executive held most power and was composed of five ministers appointed by the legislature. The legislative branch had an upper and lower house, each with powers to create laws. The achievements of this last revolutionaryera government were limited to defending itself from conspiracy and armed attack from 1795 to The five-man executive did not function efficiently, and corrupt deputies in the legislature bargained for political favors. Financial problems continued to plague the republic, inflation eroded the purchasing power and confidence of investors and made development of the French economy difficult. It was General Napoleon Bonaparte who ended the rule of the Directory government and brought to a close the decade of revolutionary change. In 1799, after a year's absence from France and many victories with the army abroad, Napoleon Bonaparte secretly slipped back into France and organized a coup d'etat. Members of the government were forced to resign or imprisoned, and Napoleon began what would be essentially a military dictatorship for the next sixteen years. A. From First Consul to Emperor Napoleon joined with two directors and drew up another constitution, the fourth since Under the new government, known as the Consulate, Napoleon was named First Consul. I am no ordinary man, Napoleon once boasted. He certainly was a person who could command the attention of friends, as well as enemies. He had a sharp mind and could quickly size up a situation and decide on a course of action. He thought and spoke so fast that he could dictate letters to four secretaries on four separate topics, all at the same time. Personal qualities and military talents (or, at least, the talent to claim the glory for himself) helped Napoleon win widespread popular support. At age 30, Napoleon was the virtual dictator of France. Between 1799 and 1804, Napoleon centralized power in his own hands. In 1802, a plebiscite (popular vote) made him First Consul for life. Two years later, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. Once again, the majority of the French voters endorsed his actions. By 1804, Napoleon had gained almost absolute power. He knew the French would never stand for a return to the Old

13 Regime, so he continued many reforms of the revolution. But at the same time, he kept firm personal control of the government. For example, he kept the system of dividing France into departments; but he appointed local officials to replace the elected councils that had ruled during the revolution. He also allowed many émigrés to return home and reclaim their lost land, but they had to agree not to demand the privileges they had enjoyed before the revolution. Napoleon s greatest achievement in government was the Napoleonic Code, which has influenced French law to the present. This law code brought together many reforms of the revolution into a single, organized system. Napoleon directed his advisors to unify the different legal systems that existed in different parts of France. The code formally recognized that all men were equal before the law and guaranteed freedom of religion, as well as a person s right to work in any occupation. No longer did birth determine one s future. To a greater extent, the Napoleonic Code put the interests of the state above the individual. In addition, it repealed laws passed during the revolution that had protected the rights of women and children. Men were made the absolute head of the household with control over all family property, including that which the wife brought into the marriage. To strengthen the economy, laws were enforced requiring all citizens to pay taxes. A national Bank of France was created in which the tax money was deposited. In turn, the bank issued paper money and made loans to businesses. These policies gradually brought inflation under control. Napoleon also set up lycees, government-run schools that could fill the demand for educated, loyal government officials. Extreme patriotism was encouraged and the same curriculum was taught at each school. Though only the children of the wealthy could afford the tuition, scholarships were sometimes available. Thus, the lycees represented an initial step toward a system of public education - an enduring goal of Enlightenment thinkers and the French revolutionary leaders. Lastly, religion was dealt with through an astute combination of reform and respect for tradition. Napoleon realized that most French people still practiced Roman Catholicism and were disgusted by the treatment of the Church during the more-radical stages of the revolution. In the Concordat of 1801, an agreement between the French government and the Pope, the power to appoint Catholic bishops and pay the clergy remained in the hands of the French government, but the Pope was returned authority over them. Also addressed in this document was the issue of church property seized during the revolution. The Catholic Church agreed that it would not demand the return of the property; this allowed Napoleon to maintain the support of people who had earlier acquired church lands. B. The Empire Between 1792 and 1815, France was almost constantly at war. During the revolution, French armies fought defensively against a coalition of European monarchs hoping to crush the revolution. However, under Napoleon, France s wars become offensive wars of conquest. By 1807, the entire European continent - with the exceptions of Great Britain and Russia - had either been conquered outright, forced to become satellite states, or bound by pledges of neutrality. In some cases, he made his relatives the monarchs of conquered nations. While ruling this vast empire, Napoleon helped spread the ideas of the French Revolution across Europe. He introduced religious toleration, abolished serfdom, and reduced the power of the Catholic Church. At first, some people welcomed Napoleon as a liberator from their own traditional social, economic, and political systems. But the imposition of high taxes on the conquered populations, and their desires to return to their own customs and traditions, led to the outbreak of revolts across Europe. These revolts reflected the

14 developing sense of nationalism that Napoleon s - and France s - accomplishments unintentionally stirred. Alliances among the conquered states, coupled with Napoleon s unsuccessful attempts to force Great Britain into economic surrender, brought about a weakening in the hold he had over the continent. In May 1812, Napoleon assembled an army of almost 600,000 soldiers and began an invasion of Russia. A combination of shrewd tactics by the Russian army and the French leader s lack of preparation for the bitter winters of the region, led to a retreat back across Europe. Paris was eventually captured by an alliance of liberated nations in March of Napoleon was sent into exile on the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy. The victorious nations installed the brother of the executed Louis XVI as the new king. Part 5 Legacies of the French Revolution and Napoleon Some historians argue that Napoleon's rule marks yet another stage or phase of revolution in French history. Certainly many social, political, and economic changes did occur during the reign of this tremendous military leader. But the years of the Grand Army and the conquests of Napoleon over many of the monarchs of Europe is a history of military expansion, and not of the internal disorder that characterized France in the decade 1789 to The strength Napoleon drew upon to conquer much of Europe lay in the great achievement of the revolution of 1789: the unification of France into a nationstate. As Napoleon himself once remarked: "The revolution destroyed all these little nations [the provinces of France] and made out of them a new one. There was no more Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, there was one France." Of course, the revolution transformed France politically. The revolution established a model for a republican form of government, a more democratic form of government than the old feudal, absolute monarchy. It swept aside many of the privileges of the aristocracy and clergy and allowed for more bourgeois participation in the political life of the country. Wealthier peasants were allowed to purchase land that had been the domain of nobles in the Old Regime. France slowly created a large, new class of independent farmers that, in large part, still exists today. The revolution brought about elimination of feudal guild restrictions and abolition of the internal tariff and the creation of uniform commercial laws. Likewise, it helped launch a national and secular system of education in France. Finally, the revolution influenced the growth of democracy in many countries throughout the world. Despite its violent phase, the French revolution became a model for revolutionaries elsewhere in the world seeking to overthrow their tyrannical systems and institute new governments based on the motto of the sans-culottes: "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." What struck many intellectuals in the late 1700s was the fact that revolution had occurred in France, the oldest, most established monarchy on the continent. If the French monarch and aristocracy could not hold back the tide of liberalism and radicalism, other European rulers might well have begun to doubt their capacity to meet similar challenges in their own countries. The "revolutionary virus" could not be indefinitely confined to France. The 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man" and the successive constitutional governments became major ideological sources for revolutionary movements in the nineteenth century throughout the world.