The French Revolution Begins

Radical Revolution and Reaction

The Age of Napoleon

The French Revolution and Napoleon, 1789-1815

The French Revolution Begins

Objectives:

1. Specify why social inequality and economic problems contributed to the French Revolution

2. Explain why radicals, Catholic priests, nobles, and the lower classes opposed the new order

Background to the Revolution

1789: the beginning of a new United States of

America and the beginning of the French Revolution

The French Revolution was more complex, more violent, and far more

radical

It created both a new political and social order

The causes of the French Revolution include both long-

range problems and immediate forces

French society was based on inequality:

the three estates

The Three Estates

The First Estate consisted of the clergy and

numbered about 130,000 people and were exempt from the taille (France’s

chief tax)

Parish priests were often poor and from the class

of commoners

Higher clergy came from aristocratic families

The Second Estate, the nobility included about

350,000 people

They held many of the leading positions in the

government, the military, the law courts, and the higher church

offices

They were exempt from the taille

The Third Estate, or the commoners of

society, made up the overwhelming

majority of the French population

This estate was divided by vast differences in

occupation, level of education, and wealth

Peasants, (75 to 80 percent of the total

population)

Serfdom no longer existed on any large scale in France, but

obligations were owed—”relics of feudalism”

Skilled craftspeople, shopkeepers, and wage

earners

The *bourgeoisie, or middle class, was another part of the

Third Estate; merchants, bankers,

and industrialists, and professional people—lawyers, doctors, and

writers

8 percent of the population

Members of the middle class were unhappy with

the privileges held by nobles

Aristocrats and members of the

bourgeoisie were drawn to the new political ideas

of the Enlightenment

Many were upset with the abuses by the

monarchical system

Financial Crisis

The immediate cause of the revolution was the

near collapse of government finances

Bad harvests in 1787 and 1788 and a slowdown in

manufacturing led to food shortages, rising prices for food, and

unemployment

In spite of these economic problems, the French

government continued to spend enormous sums on

costly wars and court luxuries

The government had also spent large amounts to help

the American colonists against Britain

Louis XVI was forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General to raise new taxes—the French

parliament

From Estates-General to National Assembly

The Estates-General was composed of representatives from the three orders of French society:

the first and second held the majority despite the third estate

holding the majority

The 3rd wanted to establish a constitutional government and

equal taxes

The king and the 1st and 2nd maintained the traditional system

The 3rd estate rebelled and held a meeting in the

Tennis Court, having been locked out of the assembly

The storming of the Bastille

Royal authority soon collapsed

Popular rebellions emerged

“The Great Fear”

The Destruction of the Old Regime

The establishment of the “National

Assembly”

One of the assembly’s first acts was to

destroy the relics of feudalism, or

aristocratic privileges

The Declaration of the Rights of Man

The National Assembly adopted the *Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen—inspired by the American Declaration,

Constitution, and English Bill of Rights

Reflecting the Enlightenment, equal

freedom was declared for all men

*Olympe de Gouges saw this as an

incomplete declaration and penned the

Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female

Citizen—women should have all the same rights as men

The National Assembly ignored her demands

The King Concedes

He refused to accept the National Assembly’s decrees on the abolition of feudalism and the

Declaration of Rights

Church Reforms

The National Assembly seized and sold the lands

of the Church

The Church was secularized: bishops and priests were elected by

the people

The French government now controlled the

Church

A New Constitution and New Fears

The National Assembly set up a limited monarchy but the Legislative Assembly

would make the laws

Affluent members of society were still elected

and controlled France

Many claimed the “old order” had been destroyed

War with Austria

The rulers of Austria and Prussia threatened to use force to restore

Louis XVI to full power

Legislative Assembly declared war on

Austria in the spiring of 1792

Rise of the Paris Commune

Defeats in war and economic shortages resulted in new political demonstrations

Radical political groups in paris organized a mob attack

on the royal palace and Legislative Assembly

They forced the Legislative Assembly to suspend the

monarchy

A radical phase in the French Revolution

emerged

The *sans-culottes (without breeches)—patriots without fine

clothes took the lead in the radical movements

Power was transferred from the Assembly to the Paris Commune

Objectives:

1. Specify why social inequality and economic problems contributed to the French Revolution

2. Explain why radicals, Catholic priests, nobles, and the lower classes opposed the new order

Radical Revolution and Reaction

Objectives:

1.Report how radical groups and leaders controlled the Revolution

2. Discuss why the new French Republic faced enemies at home and abroad

The Move to Radicalism

The sans-culottes sought revenge on those who had aided the king and resisted

the popular will

*Jean-Paul Marat, a revolutionary, published a

radical journal called Friend of the People

This publication, read by many, encouraged the

rebellion further

The Fate of the KingThe newly elected National

Convention acted as the sovereign ruling body of France

Lawyers, professors, and property owners

National Convention’s first major act was the abolishment of the

monarchy and establishment of a republic

Factions split the Convention: All were members of the *Jacobin

club

*Girondins represented the provinces and outside the city,

fearing and supported the king

*The Mountain represented the interests of the radicals,

largely from Paris

The latter condemned Louis XVI and sentenced him to

death

This execution created many enemies abroad

Crisis and Response

The Commune, another fraction, favored radical change and put constant pressure on the National

Conventions to adopt ever more radical positions

A foreign crisis also loomed—an informal coalition of Austria, Prussia, Spain,

Portugal, Britain, and the Dutch Republic took arms

against France

The National Convention gave broad powers to a

special committee of 12 known as the *Committee of

Public safety—later run by *Maximilien

Robespierre

The Reign of Terror

The Committee acted to defend France from foreign

and domestic threats

*Reign of Terror

During the course of the Reign of Terror, close to

40,000 people were killed

16,000 people died under the blade of the guillotine

Crushing Rebellion

Revolutionary armies were set up to bring

rebellious cities under the control of the National

government

Robespierre enacted harsh punishments to control the “radical elements”

People from all classes were killed during the

Terror

The Republic of Virtue

Under Robespierre, the title “republic of virtue” was

given to the state

Slavery was abolished in French colonies

Price limits on goods considered necessities were established—but ultimately

failed

A new order that reflected reason, the National Convention pursued

a policy of dechristianization

The priests were encouraged to marry

Notre Dame was converted to the “temple of reason”

New Calender, 10-day weeks (the elimination of Sunday) and

months were renamed

France remained overwhelmingly Catholic

A Nation in Arms

To save the republic from its foreign

enemies, the Committee of Public

Safety declared for the mobilization of the

nation

The French raised a huge army, conquered

the *Austrian Netherlands

The End of the Terror

Robespierre, who had become very powerful,

was obsessed with ridding France of all its

corrupt elements

Robespierre was guillotined in 1794, the result of the National

Conventions condemnation

Jacobins lost power

The DirectoryThe National Convention reduced

the power of the Committee of Public Safety

A new constitution was established, 500 leaders were

elected

The new centralized power, the Directory, ruled with the

legislature

In 1799, a *coup d’etat led by a popular general, Napoleon

Bonaparte, overthrew the Directory

Objectives:

1.Report how radical groups and leaders controlled the Revolution

2. Discuss why the new French Republic faced enemies at home and abroad

The Age of Napoleon

Objectives:

1.Summarize how Napoleon built and lost an empire

2. Discuss how nationalism spread as a result of the French

Revolution

3. Describe how Napoleon was exiled first to Elba, and then to

St. Helena, where he died

The Rise of Napoleon

*Napoleon Bonaparte dominated French and European history from

1799 to 1815

“I am the revolution”

Early Life

Napoleon was born in 1769 in *Corsica, an

island in the Mediterranean Sea

Received a royal scholarship to study

at a military school in France

Student of the French Enlightenment

Military Successes

Napoleon rose quickly through the ranks of the

French army

Made commander of the French armies in Italy, where he used speed,

deception, and surprise to win a series of victories

He attacked Britain indirectly by invading its

colony in Egypt

Consul and EmperorNapoleon aided the coup that

overthrew the Directory

The new government—the *consulate—was proclaimed

Napoleon held absolute power, controlling the entire government

1802, he named himself ruler for life

1804, he crowned himself Emperor

Napoleon’s Domestic Policies

The idea of republican liberty

had been destroyed by Napoleon’s

takeover of power

Peace with the Church

Napoleon himself had no personal religious faith, but made an agreement

with the pope

He recognized Catholicism as the religion of a

majority of the French people

The Catholic Church was no longer an enemy of the

French government

Codification of the Laws

Napoleon’s most famous domestic achievement was his codification of the laws

The *civil code, or Napoleonic code preserved

most of the gains of the revolution—equality under

the law, choose a profession, religious

toleration, abolition of serfdom

A New Bureaucracy

Development a bureaucracy of capable

officials

Promotion was based on ability, not rank or birth

Napoleon also created a new aristocracy based on merit in the state service

Preserver of the Revolution?

In his domestic policies, Napoleon did preserve

aspects of the revolution

Napoleon shut down 60 of France’s 73

newspapers—all manuscripts must be

subjected to government scrutiny

Napoleon’s EmpireBuilding the Empire

When Napoleon became consul in 1799, France was at war with

the coalition of Russia, Great Britain, and Austria

Napoleon’s Grand Army defeated the Austrian, Prussian,

and Russian armies, trying to create a new European order

French Empire created dependent states and allied

states

Spreading the Principles of the Revolution

Napoleon sought to spread some of the principles of

the French Revolution

He tried to destroy the old order of other nations

The spread of French revolutionary principles

was an important factor in the development of liberal

traditions in these countries

The European Response

Napoleon hoped that his Grand Empire would last for centuries

The British navy’s decisive defeat of a combined French-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in

1805

Economic blockade

The Allied States resented Napoleon’s economic

regulations

Britain’s Survival

Nationalism

*Nationalism is the unique cultural identity

of a people based on common language,

religion, and national symbols

Napoleon established Nationalism in France and to other regions: They were hated as oppressors, stirring

patriotism

The Fall of Napoleon

Disaster in RussiaThe Spanish debacle

The Grand Army and Russia

Russian forces retreated for hundreds of miles, burning

their own villages

The Grand Army discovered Moscow ablaze, lacking food

and supplies

“Great Retreat”

This military disaster led other European states to rise up and attack the crippled

French Army

Exile on the island of Elba

The Bourbon monarchy was

restored to France under Louis XVIII

The Final Defeat

Napoleon escaped from Elba, rallying France to

his side again

Mustering another army, Napoleon was defeated at

Waterloo, Belgium

He was exiled to the island of St. Helena, a

small island in the South Atlantic

Objectives:

1.Summarize how Napoleon built and lost an empire

2. Discuss how nationalism spread as a result of the French

Revolution

3. Describe how Napoleon was exiled first to Elba, and then to

St. Helena, where he died