The French Revolution class notes(history channel

A watershed event in modern European history, the French

Revolution began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the
ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French
citizens razed and redesigned their country’s political
landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as absolute
monarchy and the feudal system. Like the American Revolution
before it, the French Revolution was influenced by Enlightenment
ideals, particularly the concepts of popular sovereignty and
inalienable rights. Although it failed to achieve all of its
goals and at times degenerated into a chaotic bloodbath, the
movement played a critical role in shaping modern nations by
showing the world the power inherent in the will of the people.

PRELUDE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: MONARCHY IN CRISIS

As the 18th century drew to a close, France’s costly involvement

in the American Revolution and extravagant spending by King
Louis XVI (1754-1793) and his predecessor had left the country
on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only were the royal coffers
depleted, but two decades of poor cereal harvests, drought,
cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest
among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their
desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy
taxes yet failed to provide relief by rioting, looting and
striking.

Did You Know?

Over 17,000 people were officially tried and executed during the
Reign of Terror, and an unknown number of others died in prison
or without trial.

In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles

Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802), proposed a financial reform
package that included a universal land tax from which the
privileged classes would no longer be exempt. To garner support
for these measures and forestall a growing aristocratic revolt,
the king summoned the Estates-General (“les états généraux”)–an
assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle
class–for the first time since 1614. The meeting was scheduled
for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates
from each locality would compile lists of grievances (“cahiers
de doléances”) to present to the king.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AT VERSAILLES: RISE OF THE THIRD ESTATE

France’s population had changed considerably since 1614. The

non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now represented 98
percent of the people but could still be outvoted by the other
two bodies. In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third
Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation and
the abolishment of the noble veto–in other words, they wanted
voting by head and not by status. While all of the orders shared
a common desire for fiscal and judicial reform as well as a more
representative form of government, the nobles in particular were
loath to give up the privileges they enjoyed under the
traditional system.

By the time the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the

highly public debate over its voting process had erupted into
hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original
purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who had
convened it. On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the
Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of
National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor
tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath (“serment
du jeu de paume”), vowing not to disperse until constitutional
reform had been achieved. Within a week, most of the clerical
deputies and 47 liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27
Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new
assembly.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION HITS THE STREETS: THE BASTILLE AND THE
GREAT FEAR
On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National
Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution)
continued to meet at Versailles, fear and violence consumed the
capital. Though enthusiastic about the recent breakdown of royal
power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending
military coup began to circulate. A popular insurgency
culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress
in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider
this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as
the start of the French Revolution.

The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria quickly

swept the countryside. Revolting against years of exploitation,
peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors,
landlords and the seigniorial elite. Known as the Great Fear
(“la Grande peur”), the agrarian insurrection hastened the
growing exodus of nobles from the country and inspired the
National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4,
1789, signing what the historian Georges Lefebvre later called
the “death certificate of the old order.”

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION’S POLITICAL CULTURE: DRAFTING A

CONSTITUTION

On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights

of Man and of the Citizen (“Déclaration des droits de l’homme et
du citoyen”), a statement of democratic principles grounded in
the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers
like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The document proclaimed
the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a
system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular
sovereignty and representative government.

Drafting a formal constitution proved much more of a challenge

for the National Constituent Assembly, which had the added
burden of functioning as a legislature during harsh economic
times. For months, its members wrestled with fundamental
questions about the shape and expanse of France’s new political
landscape. For instance, who would be responsible for electing
delegates? Would the clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic
Church or the French government? Perhaps most importantly, how
much authority would the king, his public image further weakened
after a failed attempt to flee in June 1791, retain? Adopted on
September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed
the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a
constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto
power and the ability to appoint ministers. This compromise did
not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de
Robespierre (1758-1794), Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794) and
Georges Danton (1759-1794), who began drumming up popular
support for a more republican form of government and the trial
of Louis XVI.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TURNS RADICAL: TERROR AND REVOLT

In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared

war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French
émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also
hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through
warfare. On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis
took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by the
extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and
arrested the king on August 10, 1792. The following month, amid
a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred
hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative
Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which
proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment
of the French republic. On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis
XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the
state, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793)
suffered the same fate nine months later.

Following the king’s execution, war with various European powers

and intense divisions within the National Convention ushered the
French Revolution into its most violent and turbulent phase. In
June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National
Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a
series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new
calendar and the eradication of Christianity. They also
unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (“la Terreur”), a 10-month
period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were
guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried
out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian
Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28,
1794. His death marked the beginning of the Thermidorian
Reaction, a moderate phase in which the French people revolted
against the Reign of Terror’s excesses.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ENDS: NAPOLEON’S RISE

On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of

Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new
constitution that created France’s first bicameral legislature.
Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member
Directory (“Directoire”) appointed by parliament. Royalists and
Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by
the army, now led by a young and successful general named
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).

The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial

crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all,
political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied
almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and
had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field. On
November 9, 1799, as frustration with their leadership reached a
fever pitch, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état, abolishing the
Directory and appointing himself France’s “first consul.” The
event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning
of the Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate
much of continental Europe.