French Revolution(s) 1789-1799
NYS Core Curriculum Grade 10
1848 Excerpt from this topic s primary source Where did Karl get these ideas?
NOTE This lecture will not just repeat the series of events from your text reading. Purpose is to discuss some deeper analyses. You should have completed reading to the rise of Napoleon in preparation for this presentation.
The French Revolution scholars debate the causes of the French Revolution dramatic event helped determine political vocabulary, expectations, and myths of 19th century Europe. The French Revolution is a TEMPLATE. Other revolutions we will study will follow the same process, more or less.
Power of the French Revolution lasted 10 years in Europe s most powerful state every segment of society played an active role radical political and social agendas to save the revolution to defend France from the wrath of aristocratic Europe The Terror of 1793 1794 = most debated revolutionary experience.
Contagion of Enlightenment Ideals every phase of the revolution represented a political ideology and constitutional/institutional models spread to other parts of Europe in the knapsacks of French soldiers united by the secular ideology of nationalism. Legacy: opponents of revolution would need to mimic some of its reforms in order to survive Napoleon Bonaparte
Causes Scholars disagree on weight given to each agricultural crisis state financial ruin Enlightenment ideas tax levy and collection big population increase high urban unemployment badly behaved monarchs
Crisis begets Reaction and Revolution Estates-General called 1789 for tax demand to share power in exchange (recall England s Glorious Revolution!)
Estates-General Lack of clarity re: how three estates would function Could the first two override wishes of third estate? 3rd estate = 97 percent of the 25 million people of France tensions between middle classes (and some liberal aristocrats and clerics) --- versus --- more conservative elites. cleric Abbé Sieyès famous inflammatory pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? (1789) claimed masses represented the nation aristocrats were parasites
Phases of the French Revolution
Phase 1, 1789-1792 uneasy balance: weakened monarch vs powerful legislature 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789) storming of Bastille (July 14) Great Fear in countryside (July August) 1789-1791, main remnants of feudalism were destroyed + a constitutional monarchy was established. Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26, 1789) somewhat more radical than American Bill of Rights.
Phase 1, 1789-1792 (cont d) confiscation of church property and Civil Constitution of Clergy suppression of guilds and prohibition of workers organizations requiring a loyalty oath deeply divided Catholics left a legacy of church-state conflict. signified support for a capitalist economy. flight and capture of royal family in June 1791
Phase 1, 1789-1792 (cont d) mostly bourgeois members of Legislative Assembly October 1791 took stronger measures against non-juring priests and émigré nobles declared war against Austria in April 1792 abolished monarchy in August 1792.
Phase 2, September 1792 - July 1794 radicalization of the revolution expanded foreign war Robespierre s Reign of Terror
Phase 2, September 1792 - July 1794 (cont d) Urban and rural masses continued to be active, and revolts against the revolution also occurred. France now found itself at war with Austria, Prussia, Holland, and Britain. king was tried and executed (December 1792 January 1793).
Phase 2, September 1792 - July 1794 (cont d) more democratic Constitution of 1793 was adopted in late June universal male suffrage right to work right to subsistence right to rebel against tyranny
Phase 2, September 1792 - July 1794 (cont d) internal civil war (the Vendée) foreign defeat severe inflation shortages Robespierre dominates newly established Committee of Public Safety even more radical measures: universal military conscription wage and price controls revolutionary tribunals Reign of Terror state centralization.
Phase 2, September 1792 - July 1794 (cont d) execution of thousands of real and purported enemies of the revolution republican victories against foreign opponents numerous internal rebellions Robespierre & closest Jacobin allies overthrown and executed the end of July 1794
Phase 3, Thermidorian Reaction late summer 1794 to fall 1795 a five-person Directory November 1795-1799 return to moderate, constitutional phase of the revolution search for order and stability internally
Phase 3, Thermidorian Reaction, cont d public protest & independent political organizations repressed Constitution of 1795 adopted Directory five members = executive branch of government two-house parliament army used do battle with France s foreign foes maintain internal order.
End of the Revolution(s) decline in support for the Directory Continued foreign conquest meteoric rise to power of France s most popular general Continued political disunity Napoleon Bonaparte new form of government The Consulate (1799)
How is the French Revolution a template? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Old regime fails to respond to complex of crises (THESIS) Group coalesces to try to moderate Old Regime power and solve crises (ANTITHESIS) -- democratic reforms, moderate political orientation Suspicion and foreign threats push the revolution in a radical direction for self-preservation Lots of violence and bloodshed leads to instability The nation sacrifices democratic principles for stability of democracy. New regime arises, more totalitarian than stage 2 and somewhat like stage 1 (SYNTHESIS)
Nationalism Recall a year ago when you read The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun? 14th century rise and fall of civilizations group feeling This is essentially nationalism. French Revolution sparks nationalism, a secular religion Hitler Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ( Nazi )
Important Thinkers of the early 19th century
Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 1797 18th cen. English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book.
Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein. Today regarded as one of founding feminist philosophers
Olympe de Gouges 1748 1793 French playwright & political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings began her career as a playwright became increasingly politically involved. outspoken advocate for improving the condition of slaves in the colonies writing political pamphlets
Olympe de Gouges best known as an early feminist who demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men. Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male female inequality. executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government
William Wilberforce 1759 1833 English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical Christian, one of the leading English abolitionists.
William Wilberforce passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. convinced of the importance of religion, morality and education. Society British for the Suppression of Vice, missionary work in India, creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, foundation Society of the Church Mission Society, for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Slavery Abolition Act 1833, abolished slavery in most of the British Empire;
John Locke Social contract = Ppl in state of nature are reasonable, moral, and have rights (life, liberty, property)
John Locke Two Treatises on Government = ppl created gov t to protect natural rights Gov t functions best when power limited and accepted by most citizens If gov fails in protecting natural rights, ppl have right to overthrow it