Background on and course of the French Revolution.

1. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION!

2. REVIEW
 What were the three estates?
 What were some of the ideas the Enlightenment that might lead to Revolution?
 What were some of the economic problems facing ordinary people?

3. THE CRISIS IN 1789
 The French monarchy had serious money problems
 Huge expenses in fighting wars (especially helping pay for the American Revolution)
 Nobles and clergy exempt from most taxes
 Fixing the crown’s finances would mean even more taxation of commoners
 Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their advisers unable to solve problems
 Meanwhile, wages were falling and the price of bread was rising, making life
difficult for peasants and workers

4. THE MONARCHS

5. RISING PRICE OF BREAD AND CORRUPT,
INEFFECTIVE, AUTOCRATIC LEADERS (SOUND
FAMILIAR?)
Tahrir Square—Cairo, Egypt (2011)

6. PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1990)

7. ESTATES GENERAL
 Louis XVI force to call the Estates
General to assemble for the first time
in 150 years
 Tradition: Each estate gets one vote
 First and Second (clergy and nobles)
can always outvoteThird
 Demand ofThird Estate: “One man,
one vote!”
 Third Estate had more representatives,
plus some nobles and many parish
priests sympathized with commoners
 Bourgeois (middle-class) political
leaders became more and more
radical
 Demanded that this meeting of the
Estates General would truly give the
common people a say
 Printing presses were busy printing
the works of radical political thinkers

10. THE REVOLUTION SPREADS
 May, 1789:
 Third Estate declared itself the
National Assembly and invited
sympathetic nobles and clergy to join
 Now a legislature which would
represent the nation
 Swore an oath that they wouldn’t
disband until they had written a new
constitution (theTennis Court Oath)
 France was now supposed to be a
constitutional monarchy
 July, 1789
 King Louis nervous about National
Assembly—sent troops to Paris
 The common people (sans culottes)
responded by storming the Bastille to
look for weapons
 Troops refused to attack the crowd
and General Lafayette began foming
a new citizen army
 Peasants throughout France attacked
their lords’ manors

13. THE END OFTHE OLD REGIME
 Bourgeois and working-class revolutionaries now controlled Paris
 Outlawing of feudal privileges
 Catholic Church placed under government control, and much property taken away
 Many nobles fled France and began plotting against the Revolution (the emigres)
 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen approved by the National
Assembly in August, 1789

14. CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTIONTO
RADICAL REVOLUTION
 1791—Constitution Approved
 France now a constitutional monarchy
 Most power in hands of Assembly
 Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette furious—
captured as they tried to flee France
 Monarchies of Europe feared the
Revolution—Prussia and Austria
declared war on France, with British
support
 Meanwhile, peasants began revolting
against revolutionary government
 Distrusted urban revolutionaries and angry
with attacks on Catholicism

15. THE RADICAL REVOLUTION (1792-1795)
 Threat of invasion caused fear among
poor of Paris
 The September Massacres: mobs
attacked anyone thought to be a
traitor—encouraged by revolutionary
leaders
 Assembly abolished monarchy and
declared France a republic
 The Jacobins (most radical faction)
now in control
 Led by Georges-Jacques Danton and
Maximilien Robespierre
 King and Queen executed in 1793

16. RADICAL CULTURAL CHANGES
 New education system
 Abolition of slavery in French colonies
 New calendar and system of
measurement (metric system)
 1792 declaredYear One
 Attempt to create a new religion for
France: “The Cult of Reason”

17.  “This is a very terrible business.
But they are our deadly enemies,
and those who are delivering the
country from them are saving your
life and the lives of our dear
children.”
 Revolutionary during the September
Massacres
 “It often happens, especially in
time of revolution, that one has to
applaud actions that one would
not have wanted or dared to
perform one’s self.”
 Georges Jacques Danton

18. THE REIGN OFTERROR
 The Committee of Public Safety took control—justified actions by saying they
would save the revolution
 Used conscription to create a massive citizen army--troops defeated Prussia,
Austria, Britain
 The Reign ofTerror (1793-4)
 Mass executions of those suspected of disloyalty to Revolution
 All classes targeted
 Finally ended when Robespierre himself executed
 The Directory (5 men) took over and imposed order—military increasingly
politically powerful

19. DO REVOLUTIONS REQUIREVIOLENCE?
 “Liberty cannot be secured unless criminals lose their heads.”
 Maximilien Robespierre
 “Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable
will…Given a just cause, capacity for endless suffering, and avoidance of violence,
victory is certain.”
 MahatmaGandhi
 “We abhor fighting for Freedom. Freedom gotten by the sword is an established
bondage to some part or other of the creation.Victory that is gotten by the sword
is a victory that slaves get over one another.”
 GerrardWinstanley, English revolutionary, 1650