1. The French Revolution
Chapter 18

2. Europe in 1787

3. 1786: France—the Dominant
County In Europe
• But France is bankrupt
• Lavish lifestyle of Kings
• Expensive Wars of choice by Louis XIV and Louis XV
1700-1780
• War of the Spanish Succession
• War of the Austrian Succession
• 7 Years War (in North America: French and Indian War)
• American Revolution
Wealthiest 1% of the Population paid Zero taxes

4. Social Divisions
• France’s social classes determined legal rights and
taxes
• 1st Estate: Clergy (no taxes, few obligations)
• 2nd Estate: Nobility (minimal taxes, few individual rights)
• 3rd Estate: Everybody else (majority of taxes, no rights)
• Wide gap between very wealthy merchants who were not
nobility but who copied their mannerisms and poor, landless
urban laborers and rural peasants
• 1st and 2nd Estates constituted about .01% of the
population
• 3rd estate = 25-27 million people

6. 4 stages of the French Revolution
• 1788-1792 a constitutional struggle
• Increasingly bold elites articulated grievances against
the king
• 1792-1794 acute crisis, consolidation,
repression
• Centralized government mobilized country’s
resources to fight invading armies
• 1794-1799 a republic without leadership
• Undermined by corruption and internal division,
France maintained its Republic until the rise of
Napoleon Bonaparte
• 1799-1815 Napoleon’s Rule & Defeat
• Republic to Empire to defeat and restoration of the
Monarchy

7. Stage 1: Constitutional
Struggle
1788-1792

8. Fiscal Crisis and Stalemate
• February 1787: First Assembly of Notables (chosen
from the 1% who paid no taxes) refused to approve
a plan to raise taxes and limit privileges. The
deadlock continues for over a year.
• August 1788: Louis XVI must call the Estates-
General (French version of parliament) into session
• The Estates-General had not been in session since
1614

9. Louis XVI

10. Hunger & the Ancien Regime
• July-September 1788: poor harvest --> food shortages,
hunger, continued fiscal crisis.
• November –December: Assembly of Notables insists
that Estates-General operate according to rules of the
Ancien Regime –the social, political and economic
system which centralized power in the King and granted
privilege to the Church and Nobility.
• Voting in the Estates-General under rules of the Ancien
Regime guaranteed that 1st Estate, 2nd Estate and 3rd
Estate have one vote each (even though 1st and 2nd
Estates together represented less than 1% of
population.)

11. January 1789:
“What is the Third Estate?”
• By Abbe Seyes
• Published January 1789
• The Third Estate is the Nation!
• Consider his audience
• The tone of the piece
• Reasons why Seyes claims that the 3rd estate is the
nation?
• What Kind of Political and Social order does he argue
for?

12. May 5, 1789
•Estates-General begins deliberations at
the Palace of Versailles

13. Estates-General
• June 17: 3rd Estate proclaims itself the “National
Assembly” and invites the 1st and 2nd Estates to join
them—only a few liberal nobles and churchmen
join
• June 20: King Louis XVI orders the 3rd Estate locked
out of their meeting hall
• June 20: 3rd Estate finds a Tennis Court and takes
the “Tennis Court Oath”

14. Tennis Court Oath
Delegates swear an oath that they will not disband until a constitution is approved.
The French Revolution has begun!

15. Royal Capitulation?
• On June 27, Louis XVI concedes to the formation of
a National Assembly based on majority rule and
orders the 1st and 2nd Estates to join the National
Assembly
• On July 1, Louis XVI orders garrisons of mercenary
troops to form outside Paris
• On July 2, Parisians demonstrate outside Palais
Royale against the increasing troop menace outside
Paris

16. National Constitutional Assembly
• July 7: National Assembly appoints a committee of
30 to draft a national constitution
• July 9: National Assembly proclaims itself the
National Constitutional Assembly
• Asserts power to decree law (previously only the King
could decree law)
• Asserts power to draft and adopt a national constitution

17. The Fall of the Bastille
• July 12-14: Artisans and journeyman workers in
Paris, are alarmed by the gathering of mercenary
troops, angry at the price of grain and the dismissal
of the finance minister who supported reducing
their tax burden
• March to the Bastille seeking to find arms and
gunpowder to defend themselves
• Bastille held only 7 prisoners at the time
• Demonstrators demand the prison be opened
• Swiss guards open fire killing about 100

18. Camille
Desmoulins
Spoke to the Crowd of angry
Parisians and allegedly incited
them to march to the Bastille

19. Fall of the Bastille

20. Impact of Enlightenment Ideas on
The French Revolution
• Enlightenment changed public debate
• Enlightenment ideas played a critical role in articulating
grievances between social classes
• Enlightenment ideals appealed to nobles, middle class and
poor alike even though ideas about how those ideals would
be applied varied greatly among the social classes
• Reform of government to provide checks and balances to power
of the king
• Reform of economy to eliminate mercantilism and fairer tax
system
• Suffrage for whom???
• Clergy was frightened of Enlightenment Ideals because they
feared losing power and privileged position, perhaps even
property

21. The Great Fear: July – August
1789
• Rumors in the countryside: Austrians, Prussians or
“brigands” were invading France
• Peasants organized militias
• Attacked manor houses for food,
• Looted records of manorial rents/dues
• Burned estates

22. In late July 1789, as reports poured into Paris from the countryside of several thousand separate yet related
peasant mobilizations, a majority of them against seigneurial property, the deputies of the National Assembly
debated reforming not just the fiscal system or the constitution but the very basis of French society. In a dramatic
all–night session on 4–5 August deputies stepped forward, one after another, to renounce for the good of the
"nation" the particular privileges enjoyed by their town or region

23. Popular Revolts
• The public (mostly people from the 3rd
Estate)
• Rumors:
• aristocracy and King conspiring to punish the 3rd
Estate by creating conditions of scarcity and high
prices for basic necessities (commoners= sans
culottes) .
• King had called on outside forces to help put down
the rebellion

24. Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen, August 1789
• Passive citizens: those who could not vote but retained
certain natural rights
• Active Citizens: paid taxes and could hold office and vote
• About 50% of men in France qualified as “Active Citizens”
• Indirect representation: Voted for Electors whose property
ownership entitled them to hold office
• Religious Toleration—meant an end to persecution but not
accommodation of religious differences
• Abolished serfdom and slavery in continental France

25. "Active Citizen/Passive Citizen"
This cartoon mocks the distinction between active and passive citizens.
Many revolutionaries hated this difference, essentially dividing those with property
from those without. The propertied (active) were the only ones who could participate
in the political process.
“Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity: Exploring
The French Revolution”
http://chnm.gmu.edu

26. Rights of Women
• Women were active in French Revolution
• Joined clubs and held debates
• Participated in demonstrations
• circulation of news
• Marie Gouze aka Olympe de Gouges
• Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizen (1791)
• Social distinctions based only on common utility
• Women had same rights as men to resist authority and
participate in government
• Women had the right to name the fathers of illegitimate
children
• Divorce legalized in 1792

27. Olympe de Gouges

28. The October Days of 1789
• Parisian women from the market district, angered by
the soaring price of bread marched to Versailles on
October 5 and demanded to be heard
• Not satisfied by the response of the National
Assembly, crowd broke through the gates at Versailles
demanding that the King return to Paris
• On October 6, the King agreed
• Agreement weakened King’s ability to resist further changes
demanded by the National Assembly

30. National Assembly & the Church
• November 1789: Confiscated all church lands
• 1790: enacted Civil Constitution of the Clergy, bringing
church under state authority
• Bishops and priests had to swear allegiance to the state
• Intended to make Catholic Church of France free from
interference by Rome
• Pope threatened to excommunicate all Bishops or
Priests who signed the Civil Constitution
• In Roman Catholic faith, excommunication meant damnation
• Caused rift in the countryside between loyal Roman Catholics
and Republican supporters of the Revolution. People were
forced to choose.

31. Dismantling the power of the
Church
• February 1790: Monastic vows are prohibited &
Religious orders are abolished
• Teaching and charitable orders exempted
• October 1790: Louis XVI secretly explores coalition with
foreign powers to end the Revolution
• Letter to Charles IV of Spain (Cousin) complaining of Civil
Constitution of Clergy
• November 1790: all public officials and priests required
to sign an oath of loyalty to new French Nation
• March 1791: Pope condemns both Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Civil Constitution of the Clergy

32. The Tuileries Palace

33. Louis XVI Becomes an “Enemy of
the Revolution”
• June 20-25 1791 Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and
children are caught attempting to flee France
• National Assembly suspends king’s authority
• Suspicions grow that foreign invasions are
imminent
• August 27: Declaration of Pilnitz: Emperor Leopold
II of Austria (Marie Antoinette’s Brother) agrees
with king of Prussia to end the French Revolution
and insists on English participation

34. Constitution of 1791
• September: Proclamation of new constitution
• Louis XVI swears to uphold constitution and is restored
to power
• October: First session of Constituent National
Assembly Opens
• Debates divide Assembly over question of war with
Austria and Prussia
• Many believe Royalists want to plunge France into war in
hopes that France will be defeated and Monarchy
restored to full power

35. Revolutionary Changes
• Storming the Bastille: caused the King and the Nobility
to agree to create the National Assembly
• Great Fear caused National Assembly abolish feudal
privileges
• Church tithe
• Labor requirement (corvee)
• peasants must give landlord or the crown days of labor in return for
privilege of renting a plot to farm
• Noble hunting privileges and tax exemptions
• Sale of offices
• October Days demonstrated that even the King was
subject to the will of the people

36. Stage 2 Acute Crisis,
Consolidation,
Repression
1792-1794
Centralized government mobilized country’s resources to fight
invading armies

37. Sans-Culottes

38. Runaway in Inflation and Military Threats
= Increased Popular Radicalization
• January-March 1792: Food Riots in Paris
• March, 1792 Louis XIV forms new government
consisting mostly of Jacobins
• April, 1792: France declares war on Austria
• April 25, 1792: Rouget de Lisle composes La
Marseillaise
• July 1792: Brunswick Manifesto (composed by
commanding general of Austro-Prussian army warns
Parisians to obey Louis XVI or they will be punished
severely
• July 29, 1792: Meeting of Jacobin Club in which
Maximillian Robespierre calls for removal of the king

39. Imprisonment of Louis XVI
• AUGUST 10, 1792: Sans-Culottes march toward
Tuileries to demand arrest of the King. National
Assembly strips Louis XVI of his powers and
declares him a prisoner of the nation
• August 13: Royal Family imprisoned
• August 19: Lafayette deserts the army and the
Revolution and flees to Austria. Prussian army with
French emigres invades France

40. September Massacres
• Rumors in Paris
• Imminent invasion
• Collapse of the Revolution
• Conspiracies by aristocrats
• Prussian army seizes Verdun on September 3
• Mob inflamed by rumors and pamphlets and
speeches massacres about 1,500 prisoners

41. Rule by Committee & Reign of
Terror
• September 21: National Constituent Assembly
abolishes the monarchy and declares a Republic
• Convention appoints 2 committees to oversee daily
administration of government
• Committee of General Surveillance
• Committee of Public Safety
• Robespierre declares that the purpose of the terror
is to terrorize the enemies of the revolution

42. Execution of Louis XVI
• January 21, 1793: Louis XVI found guilty of
conspiring against the nation and executed by
guillotine in the Place de la Republique

43. A Year of the Terror: 1793
• January:
• Attacks on shops and food riots in Paris during a time of great
scarcity
• February:
• Convention declares war on Great Britain and Holland
• Universal military conscription (draft) of 300,00 men
• Regional revolts against conscription
• March:
• Royalist and Catholic Revolts
• Convention declares war on Spain
• “Extraordinary Criminal Tribunal” established to judge all
enemies of the Republic
• Brittany revolt begins
• Convention decrees capital punishment for anyone who urges
agrarian revolts or attacks the principle of private property
• Revolutionary Committees of Surveillance created in each
district (commune).

44. A Year of the Terror: 1793
• April:
• Jacobins increase influence in the Convention
• Another French General deserts to Austrians
• Committee of Public Safety: “terrorizing enemies of
France within and without”
• May:
• Price controls voted for grain
• Commission of 12 created to “root out” extremists.
• Jacobins demand arrest of Girondins
• Convention approves Constitution of 1793

45. A Year of the Terror: 1793
• July:
• Marat is assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday on
July 13
• French surrender at Mainz
• Hoarding is voted a capital crime (you can be executed)
• August:
• Convention decrees a universal draft of all men 18-25
• Toulon falls to the British
• September:
• Sans-culottes demonstration demands arrest of suspected
enemies and traitors & establishment of revolutionary army
to put down revolts.
• Women ordered to wear the tricolored ribbon (a symbol of
the revolution)

46. A Year of the Terror: 1793
• October:
• Marie Antoinette executed on October 16 by guillotine
• November:
• Festival of Reason celebrated in Notre Dame and replaces
Catholic symbols with secular principles of knowledge,
reason, political liberty
• All Catholic Churches in Paris closed by end of the year
• December:
• Committee of Public Safety charged with prosecuting the war
• Committee of General Surveillance responsible for police and
administration of Justice
• All Revolutionary Tribunals are abolished except in Paris
• Napoleon Bonaparte’s artillery helps re-take Toulon from the
British

47. 1794: The Revolution Eats its Own
• February:
• Slavery abolished in some French Colonies
• Robespierre declares distinction between Revolutionary
government and Constitutional government
• Revolutionary government based on both “Virtue and terror—
Virtue without which terror is evil, terror without which virtue is
powerless”
• Property of all suspected of working against the Republic is
subject to seizure
• March:
• Danton who urged peace and an end to the official terror and
his followers are executed by guillotine
• June:
• Robespierre is elected President of the Convention
• July:
• Robespierre and his followers arrested and executed by
guillotine

48. What were the Causes
of the French
Revolution?
What is the meaning of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?

49. Failure of Reform
• Vastly Unequal Taxation
• Tied to social class
• Varied from region to region
• 99% of population paid 100% of taxes while top 1% (church
and nobility) paid No Taxes
• Spending
• Louis XIV: borrowed money to maintain his lifestyle and
engage in the wars in Europe
• Louis XV borrowed money to pay costs of French
participation in the American Revolutionary War on the side
of the colonists
• Neither the King nor the Church and Nobility could
reform the system alone and neither were willing to
compromise

50. Economic Conditions
• Peasant taxation by church (tithe), landlords (rent, taxes)
and state (taxes and work)
• Price Controls: fell most heavily on the peasants and
urban poor
• 1780’s poor harvests = soaring bread prices (poor urban
laborers and peasants survived mostly on bread)
• 1788: 50% of income spent on bread
• 1789: 80% of income spent on bread
• Peasants who left the countryside to find work in the
cities remained unemployed
• 1787-1789 unemployment in some urban centers was at 50%
• Bread Riots occurred throughout the country in the Spring of
1789

51. Enlightenment Ideas
• Enlightenment ideas: critical in articulating grievances
between social classes
• Enlightenment ideals: appealed to nobles, middle class
and poor alike even though ideas about how those
ideals would be applied varied greatly among the social
classes
• Reform of government to provide checks and balances to
power of the king
• Reform of economy to eliminate mercantilism and fairer tax
system
• Suffrage for whom???
• Clergy was frightened of Enlightenment Ideals because
they feared losing power, privileged position, property

52. Social Antagonisms and
Ineffective Rulers
• Antagonisms between Bourgeoisie (merchants,
professionals) and lower aristocracy
• These were the two groups who were in the best position to create
stability within a constitutional monarchy
• Failure to cooperate, compromise = failure of leadership
• Antagonisms between Bourgeoisie and sans-culottes and
peasants
• Bourgeoisie feared the mob and feared universal suffrage
• Antagonisms between King, Church and upper aristocracy
and 3rd Estate
• Could the leaders of the Ancien Regime imagine losing their power?
• Could the members of the Ancien Regime imagine the suffering of
peasants and sans-culottes
• Failure of Imagination or empathy= failure of leadership and
ineffective rule