The French Revolution

Chapter 23

Jot down comments on what you see reflected in the picture.

• The image of "Liberty" in Roman antiquity carried at the end of a pike a conical hat that covered the head of a freed slave. It is a cap similar to what the common people of the eighteenth century wore and, in particular, the conquerors of the Bastille. Often it had a red color. At the theater, it went along with Janot, the man of the people in farces. It became, according to the Révolutions de Paris, "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism.

Placing the “red cap” of liberty upon the king’s head

Royal Family often portrayed as or with pigs

National Assembly Makes ReformsNational Assembly Makes Reforms

• Aug. 27, 1789 Aug. 27, 1789 NA issues the NA issues the “Declaration of the Rights of “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”Man and Citizen”

• Slogan:Slogan: “Liberté, Egalité, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”Fraternité”

• Olympe de Gouges Olympe de Gouges “Declaration of the Rights of “Declaration of the Rights of Woman”Woman”

Dec. of Rights of Man and Dec. of Rights of Man and CitizenCitizen

1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.

2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.

4. Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other limits than those which assure to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by the law.

Ideas of Locke, Rousseau

6. The law is the expression of the general will.

7. No man may be indicted, arrested, or detained except in cases determined by the law and according to the forms which it has prescribed.

8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments may be established by the law, and no one may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally applied.

16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not settled has no constitution.

Rousseau

Beccaria

Montesquieu

Dec. of Rights of Man and Dec. of Rights of Man and CitizenCitizen

Declaration of the Rights of Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female CitizenWoman and the Female Citizen

PreamblePreambleMothers, daughters, sisters [and] representatives of the nation

demand to be constituted into a national assembly. Believing that ignorance, omission, or scorn for the rights of woman are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, [the women] have resolved to set forth a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman in order that this declaration, constantly exposed before all members of the society, will ceaselessly remind them of their rights and duties…

Consequently, the sex that is as superior in beauty as it is in courage during the sufferings of maternity recognizes and declares in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and of Female Citizens….

• NA abolished French nobility as legal order

• Created constitutional monarchy Louis XVI reluctantly agreed- All lawmaking power in hands of Legislative Assembly

“August Days” (meeting of National Assembly)

• The end of class privileges (nobility & clergy agreed to give up tax exemption)

"What glory, what honor to be a Frenchman!"

Catholic Church put under state control

• Seized church property & abolished monasteries• Granted religious freedoms to Jews &

Protestants• Peasants disagreed with state-controlled church • New paper currency, the “assignats” sale

used to pay off France’s debt

Wars of Revolution BeginWars of Revolution Begin• France divided into factions France divided into factions radicals, radicals,

moderates, conservativesmoderates, conservatives• Jacobins Jacobins • Émigrés Émigrés

members of radical clubmembers of radical clubconservative nobles who had conservative nobles who had fled France wanted to undo fled France wanted to undo Revolution & restore Old Revolution & restore Old RegimeRegime

Sans-culottes (“those without knee breeches” Parisian workers & small

shopkeepers who wanted greater change

Other Monarchs Feared Revolts • Austria & Prussia urged France to

restore Louis XVI as monarch• Legislative Assembly responded by

declaring war

End of Monarchy & Death of the King

• Aug. 10, 1792 Jacobin mob arrested the king

• Sept. 21, 1792 monarchy abolished & declared a republic

• Jan. 21, 1793 King Louis XVI sentenced to death by guillotine by vote of 361 to 360

• “I am innocent and shall

die without fear. I would that my death might bring happiness to the French, and ward off the dangers which I foresee.”

• Led to further wars with European countries

Radicalization of Revolution• National Convention

new governing body of the republic

• Convention also declared war on Britain, Holland, & Spain

• Sans-culottes & Jacobins rioted Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre gained power

Robespierre & Committee of Public Safety

• Member of bourgeoisie & Jacobins

• Nicknamed the “incorruptible”

• Robespierre & followers set out to create “republic of virtue”

• Robespierre became leader of Committee of Public Safety

• Robespierre led France as dictator known as Reign of Terror

Maximilien Robespierre“If the spring of popular government in time of peace is

virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible...It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed.”

~ Maximilien Robespierre Speech on the Justification of the Use of Terror

Reign of Terror

• Committee of Public Safety’s main task was to protect Revolution from “enemies”- Anyone seen as “enemy” was sent to guillotine- About 40,000 were executed, including Marie Antoinette- 85% were urban poor or middle class

End of the Terror

• Members of Committee feared for their safety arrested Robespierre

• Reign of Terror ended on July 28, 1794 Robespierre executed by guillotine

The Directory

• 1795 Moderate leaders in National Convention met to draft new gov’t

• Placed power in hands of upper middle class

• Two-house legislature• Executive body of five men

known as the Directory• Appointed general to command

France’s armies Napoleon Bonaparte