StudySpace: Western Civilizations, 16 e.

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1. Introduction
1. France and European Culture
2. The Ancien Regime
1. Aristocrats resented monarchical inroads on freedom
2. Middle-class resented a society of privilege that was outmoded
3. Peasants resented the increasing demands of the central government
3. The French Revolution and the West
2. The French Revolution: An Overview
1. Moderate stage: 1789-1792
2. Radical stage: 1792-1794
3. The Directory: 1794-1799
4. Napoleon: 1799-1815
3. The Coming of the Revolution
1. Long term causes of the Revolution
1. An issue of class conflict?
2. A new elite blurring aristocratic and middle class boundaries
2. The three estates: membership based on status
1. First Estate: clergy
2. Second Estate: nobility
3. Third Estate: everyone else
3. Causes
1. Social boundaries between noble and non-noble ill-defined
1. 50,000 new nobles created between 1700 and 1789
2. Nobility of the sword (ancient) -- nobility of the robe (purchased office)
3. From "bourgeois" wealth to "noble" wealth
1. Most noble wealth was proprietary -- tried to land
2. Influx of new wealth from banking, shipping, slave trade, and mining
3. Identified with the nobility, not the common people
4. Prosperous members of the Third Estate air their frustrations in public debate
2. The articulation of discontent
1. Locke, Voltaire and Montesquieu appeal to discontented nobles and middle class
1. Noble leaders as defenders of national political community threatened by the king and his ministers
2. Economic reform and the Physiocrats
1. Simplify tax system
2. Free the economy from mercantilist restrictions
3. Government should lift controls on price of grain
3. French economy was ailing
1. General price rise created hardship for the peasantry and urban workers
2. Poor harvests of the 1780s
3. 1789: 80% of income of the poor went to purchase bread
4. Reduced demand for manufactured goods, increasing unemployment
3. The peasantry
1. Owed obligations to landlord, church and state
2. Direct and indirect taxation a heavy burden
3. The corvée
4. Finances
1. Inefficient tax system
2. Taxation tied to social status and varied from region to region
3. Paying off the debts of Louis XIV
5. Administration
1. Louis XVI was anxious to serve as an enlightened monarch
1. His efforts at reform undermined his own authority
2. Turgot and Necker as finance ministers
3. Marie Antoinette and the dispensation of patronage among her friends
4. Tensions between the central governments and the provincial parlements slowed reform
1. Parlements defend nobility's exemption from paying taxes to pay for the Seven Years' War
4. General conclusions on the eve of the Revolution
1. Louis XVI was a weak monarch
2. Chaotic financial situation
3. Severe social tensions
4. The Destruction of the Old Regime
1. Moderate Stage, June 1789 - August 1792
2. Fiscal crisis
1. Calonne and Brienne proposed new taxes, a stamp duty, and direct tax on agricultural produce
2. Louis summons the Assembly of Notables (last called 1626)
3. Aristocrats used the financial emergency to extract constitutional reforms
4. Insisted that any new tax scheme be approved by the Estates General
3. The Estates General
1. Summoned by Louis in summer, 1788 (first time since 1614)
2. The three estates elect delegates
1. Delegates draw up the cahiers et doléances (list of grievances)
2. Delegates of the Third Estate represented the outlook of the elite
1. 25% lawyers, 43% government officials
2. Strong sense of common grievance and common purpose
3. Areas of disagreement
1. Should the estates vote by estate or by individual?
2. Abbé Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789)
3. Third Estate agree the Estate should sit together and vote as individuals
1. Also insisted the Third Estate to have as many delegates as the First and Second Estates combined
4. "Doubling the Third"
1. Opposed by Louis, then he changed his position (December 1788)
5. June 17, 1789: the delegates of the Third Estate declare themselves to be the National Assembly
6. June 20, 1789: the Oath of the Tennis Court
7. June 27, 1789: Louis orders all delegates to join the National Assembly
4. The first stages of the French Revolution
1. Popular revolts
1. Public attention to the events in Paris was high
2. Price of bread soared
3. Rumors circulate that Louis was about to stage a coup d'état
4. Parisian workers (sans-culottes) organize a militia of volunteers
2. July 14, 1789: the fall of the Bastille
1. Bastille as symbol of royal authority
2. It's fall as symbol of the people's role in revolutionary change
3. The Great Fear
1. Rumors that the king's armies were on their way
2. Peasants attack and burn manor houses
3. Destroyed manor records
4. The October Days
1. Brought on by economic crisis
2. Demanded Louis return to Paris
3. Parisian women march to Versailles (October 5) and demanded to be heard
4. The National Guard lead Louis back to Paris
5. August 4, 1789: National Assembly abolishes all forms of privilege
1. Church tithe, the corvée, nobility's hunting privileges, tax exemptions, and monopolies
2. Obliterated the remnants of feudalism
5. The National Assembly and the "Rights of Man"
1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
1. Written in August, issued in September
2. Declared natural rights
1. Private property
2. Liberty, security and resistance to oppression
3. Declared freedom of speech, religious toleration, and liberty of the press to be inviolable
4. Equality before the law
2. Man and citizen
1. "Passive citizen:" guaranteed rights under law
2. "Active citizens:" paid taxes, and could vote and hold office
1. Represented about half of all male citizens
2. They could only vote for "electors"
3. National Assembly
1. Full civil rights to Protestants and Jews
2. Abolished of serfdom and banned slavery in France
4. The rights of women
1. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
2. Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizen (1791)
1. Women have the same rights as men
5. Women and the Revolution
1. General participation in the Revolution
1. Joined clubs, demonstrations, and debates
2. The women "citizens"
6. Religion and the Revolution
1. The most divisive issue
2. the Church played a major role in the countryside
3. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July 1791)
1. Bishops and clergy subject to the laws of the state
2. Salaries to be paid from public treasury
4. Church reforms polarized France
1. Many resented the privileged position of the Church
2. Parish church an institution of great local importance
7. Other reforms of the National Assembly
1. Sold off Church lands
2. Guilds were abolished
3. Local governments restructured
4. France was divided into 83 equal departments
5. The defense of liberty and freedom from ancient privilege
5. A New Stage: Popular Revolution
1. The Radical Revolution, August 1792-July 1794
1. From moderate leaders to radical "republicans"
2. Why did the Revolution become radical?
1. The politicization of the common people, especially in cities
1. Newspapers
2. Political clubs
3. Greater political awareness heightened by fluctuations in prices
4. Demands for cheaper bread
5. Demands for government to do something about inflation
2. Lack of effective national leadership
1. Louis XVI remained a weak an vacillating monarch
2. Forced to accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
3. Louis urged on by Marie Antoinette, brother of Leopold II of Austria
4. June 20, 1791: the Flight to Varennes
5. Louis now a "prisoner" of the Revolution
3. War
1. All Europeans took a side in the conflict
2. Political societies formed outside France proclaim their allegiance to the Revolution.
2. The counterrevolution
1. The emigrés stirred up counterrevolutionary sentiment
2. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
1. Attacked the revolution as a crime against the social order
2. The French had turned their back on history
3. Men and women had no natural rights
4. Aroused sympathy for the counterrevolutionary cause
3. Outside France
1. Austria and Prussia declare support for French monarchy (August 1791)
2. April 20, 1792: the National Assembly declares war on Austria and Prussia
4. Radicals hoped the war would expose "traitors"
5. August 1792: Austria and Prussia close to capturing Paris
6. August 10, 1792: Parisians attacked the king's palace
3. The French Republic
1. More egalitarian leaders of the Third Estate: the Jacobins
2. Membership extended throughout France
3. Jacobins proclaimed themselves the voice of the people and the nation
4. The National Convention (September 1792)
5. The September Massacres
1. Patriotic Paris mobs convene revolutionary tribunal to try traitors
2. Over 1000 killed in one week
6. The end of the French monarchy
1. France declared a republic (September 21, 1792)
2. Louis placed on trial (December 1792)
3. Louis executed (January 23, 1793)
7. The National Convention and domestic reforms
1. Abolition of slavery in French colonies
2. Repeal of primogeniture
3. Confiscated property of enemies of the Revolution
4. Set maximum prices for grain
5. The revolutionary calendar
8. Small armies of sans-culottes attack hoarders and profiteers
9. Military reforms
1. France faced Britain, Holland, Spain and Austria (February 1793)
2. French revolutionary armies
3. The revolutionary government drafts all men capable of bearing arms (August 1793)
4. French military successes
1. Low Countries, Rhineland, Switzerland, parts of Spain, and Savoy
4. The Reign of Terror
1. Convention delayed adoption of constitution with male suffrage (1793)
2. The Committee of Public Safety CPS)
1. The "Twelve"
3. New radical leaders
1. Jean Paul Marat
1. Did not admire Great Britain
2. Opposed moderates
3. Edited The Friend of the People
4. Killed by Charlotte Corday, a royalist (summer 1793)
2. Georges Jacques Danton
1. Popular political leader
2. Member of the CPS
3. Wearied of the Terror
4. Sent to the guillotine (April 1794)
3. Maximilien Robespierre
1. Trained as a lawyer
2. Became president of the National Convention
3. Member of the CPS
4. Enlarged the Terror
4. Committee faced sabotage from the political left and right
1. Need for absolute control
2. The "Mountain" allies with Parisian artisans
3. Rebellions: Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles
4. CPS rounds up suspects in the countryside
5. September 1793-July 1794: executions as high as 25-30,000
6. 500,000 incarcerated between March 1793 and August 1794
5. The legacy of the second French Revolution
1. The sans-culottes
1. Workers' trousers replace breeches
2. The red cap of liberty
3. Citizen and citizeness
4. Festivals
2. Second revolution reversed trend toward decentralization
1. Replaced local officials with "deputies on mission"
2. Closed down women's political clubs
3. The erosion of traditional institutions
1. Church, guild, and parish
2. Replaced with patriotic organizations
4. Mobilization for revolution
5. Counterrevolutionary groups were also "popular" movements
6. From the Terror to Bonaparte: The Directory
1. The Ninth of Thermidor (July 27, 1794)
1. Robespierre kicked out of the Convention
2. Guillotined the following day (along with 21 other "conspirators")
2. After Thermidor
1. Jacobins driven into hiding
2. Law of maximum prices repealed
3. National Convention adopts new conservative constitution (1795)
1. Adult male suffrage to all who could read and write
2. Indirect elections
1. Citizens voted for electors, who chose the legislative body
2. Wealthy citizens held authority
3. Constitution included a bill of rights
3. The Directory
1. Five men chosen by the legislative body
2. Could not stabilize the government
3. Faced discontent on the radical left and conservative right
1. On the left
1. Stopped radical movements to abolish private property
2. Graachus Babeuf
2. On the right
1. Elections in March 1797 returned a large number of constitutional monarchists
4. Could not control developments
5. Called Napoleon Bonaparte to their assistance
6. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
1. Recaptured Toulon from the British (1793)
2. Made brigadier general at age 24
3. Delivered the "whiff of grapeshot that saved the Convention (1795)
4. Victories in the Italian campaign
5. Attempted to defeat Britain by attacking British forces in Egypt and the Near East
6. French fleet defeated by Nelson at Abukir Bay (1798)
7. Napoleon declared a "temporary consul" (18 Brumaire, November 9, 1799)
7. Napoleon and Imperial France
1. Did Napoleon consolidate or repudiate the Revolution?
2. Consolidating authority, 1799-1804
1. Napoleon rose from obscurity to become the savior of France
2. Was able to master his plans in every detail
3. Assumes title of First Consul and governed in the name of the Republic (1799)
4. New constitution
1. Universal male suffrage
2. Two legislative bodies
3. The plebiscite -- puts questions directly to popular vote
1. Bypasses politicians and legislative bodies
5. Asks the legislature to proclaim him consul for life (1802)
6. The reorganization of the state
1. Abolition of privileges
2. "Careers open to talent"
3. Generally fair system of taxation
1. Halted the inflationary spiral
4. Replaced local elected officials with centrally appointed prefects and subprefects
3. Law, education, and a new elite
1. The Napoleonic Code (1804)
1. Uniformity and individualism
2. Abolition of all feudal privileges
3. Property rights
4. Paternal authority and the subordination of women and children
5. Equality before the law
6. Outlawed arbitrary arrest and imprisonment
2. Rationalized the educational system
1. Established lycées (high schools) to train civil servants
2. Brought military and technical schools under state control
3. Founded a national university to supervise the entire system
3. Benefited the new elites (businessmen, bankers, and merchants)
4. Other issues
1. Made allies without regard to their political past or affiliations
2. Readmitted the emigrés
3. The Concordat of 1801
1. Ended hostility between France and the Church
2. Pope had the right to depose bishops and discipline the clergy
3. Church lands expropriated by the Revolution would not return to the Church
4. Marries the ambitious Josephine de Beauharnais
5. Napoleon crowns himself Napoleon I at Notre Dame (December 1801)
5. In Europe as in France: Napoleon's Empire
1. Collapse of the First Coalition -- Austria, Prussia, Britain (1795), revived in 1798
2. Russia and Austria withdraw (1801)
3. The new empire
1. Series of small republics from Austria's empire and old German kingdoms
2. France's revolutionary "gift" of independence to all European patriots
3. Military buffers and system of client states
4. The Confederation of the Rhine
4. Napoleon introduces his reforms throughout the new empire
1. Administrative modernization
2. Careers open to talent
3. Reorganization of public works and education
4. New taxes collected to support the new state
5. Liberty and law
1. Eliminated feudal and church courts
2. Created a single legal system
3. Civil rights granted to Protestants and Jews
6. New electoral districts
7. Government emanated from Paris and Napoleon
5. The legacy
1. Accumulated useful knowledge
2. An image for posterity - Arc de Triomphe
3. A mixed blessing - liberator or upstart emperor?
8. The Return to War and Napoleon's Defeat, 1806-1815
1. The Continental System
1. Blockade of British goods from the continent (1806)
2. Napoleon's first serious mistake
1. British developed trade with South America
2. Europe divided into economic camps
2. Napoleon's Ambition
1. Remaking Europe as new Roman Empire, ruled from Paris
2. Republican Roman ideals -- art, architecture, clothing
3. Made his brothers and sisters monarchs of newly created kingdoms
4. Divorces Josephine (1809), marries Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I (Hapsburg)
3. Continuing war
1. France against Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden and Britain
2. Napoleon on the battlefield
1. Personally led his men
2. Shock attacks
3. The Grande Armee
4. Battle of Austerlitz (December 1805)
5. Prussian army humiliated at Jena (1806)
3. French defeat at Trafalgar (1805)
4. The invasion of Spain (1808)
1. Invasion aimed at conquest of Portugal
2. Napoleon installs his brother on the Spanish throne
3. Guerilla warfare
5. The Russian campaign (1812)
1. Ended in disaster
2. Russians drew the French further into Russia
3. Napoleon orders his troops to retreat (October 19, 1812)
4. The Russian winter
6. Renewed attacks by Prussia, Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Britain
1. Wars of liberation
2. The Battle of Nations (October 1813)
3. Tsar Alexander I and Frederick William III enter Paris (March 31, 1814)
7. Napoleon's abdication
1. Exile at Elba
8. The Bourbon Restoration of Louis XVIII (brother of Louis XVI)
9. The Last One Hundred Days
1. The Battle of Waterloo (June 15-18, 1815)
2. Exile on St. Helena
9. Liberty, Politics, and Slavery: The Haitian Revolution
1. The Haitian Revolution
1. The Caribbean sugar trade and slavery
2. Delegation from St. Domingue ask to be seated by the Assembly
3. The Assembly refused
4. Mulatto rebellion in St. Domingue (August 1791)
5. Slave rebellion -- British and Spanish invade
6. The success of the rebellion
1. France makes free men of color citizens
2. 1793: promised freedom to slaves who would join the French
7. Toussaint L'ouverture
1. Victorious over French planters, the British and Spanish
2. Sets up a constitution (1801)
1. Swore allegiance to France
2. Slavery abolished
3. Reorganizes the military
4. Christianity established as state religion
8. Napoleon sends 20,000 troops to bring the island under control (January 1802)
9. Toussaint captured and brought to France (dies in 1803)
10. The war became a French nightmare, the army collapses (December 1803)
11. Haiti declares its independence (1804)
12. Set an example to non-Europeans and enslaved peoples
13. Contributed to the British decision to abolish slavery in 1838
10. Conclusion
1. The French Revolution and popular movements
2. Liberty, equality, and nation
3. Europe polarized

 

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