The French Revolution

Standard: WHII.6 The student will demonstrate knowledge of scientific, political, economic, and religious changes during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries by describing the French Revolution.

Objective: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of the scientific, political, economic, and religious changes during the French Revolution by viewing History Channel/PBS videos, completing Section Summaries from the textbook, and exploring the timeline of events through the Age of Napoleon.

Essential Question: How did the ideas of the Enlightenment contribute to causing the French Revolution?

The French Revolution

The French Revolution and the beginning of a new United States of America both

happened in 1789

Special Thanks to Ms. Stewart

Liberty Leading the PeopleLiberty Leading the People

The French Monarchy:1775 - 1793

King Louis XVI Queen Marie Antoinette

Europe on the Eve of Revolution

Key TermsRevolution – a great change over a short period of time

Estates – the class system in pre-revolutionary France

– Clergy – the Church– Nobility – the upper class– Bourgeoisie – the middle class– Peasants – the lower class; 90% of the population

Nationalism - proud loyalty and devotion to a nation or excessive/ fanatical devotion to a nation and its interests, often associated with a belief that one country is superior to all others

Liberal - favoring reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual

Class Division: Three Estates

France was divided into three classes, or estates

• The First Estate: The clergy, were exempt from the taille, France’s chief tax

• The Second Estate: The nobility, held many of the leading positions in the state and did not pay ANY taxes

• The Third Estate included everyone else from rich and educated bourgeois to poor illiterate peasants and totaled about 98 percent of the population

Causes of the French Revolution Cartoon Analysis

People Under the Old Regime

This image shows "the people" as a chained and blindfolded man being crushed under the weight of the rich, including both clergy and nobility. Such a perspective on the period before 1789 purposely exaggerates social divisions and would have found few proponents before the Revolution, but the image does reveal the social clash felt so intensely by the revolutionaries.

Causes of the RevolutionIdeas of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution

The Salon

Causes of the RevolutionThe French Monarchy CLUNG TO ABSOLUTISM and SPENT TOO

MUCH MONEY!

King Louis XVI clung to Absolutism

The French monarchy continued to spend lavishly on court luxuries: the queen, Marie Antoinette, was especially known for her extravagance

Financial support of the American Revolution and other costly wars led to near collapse of the French government’s finances

Causes of the RevolutionBREAD!

•The French ate an average of two pounds of bread a day•Poor harvests lead to high grain prices•The people were hurting economically from a rise in prices higher than any increase in wages

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

% of Income Spent on Bread

1787

1788

Causes of the RevolutionCLASS RESENTMENT!

The Third Estate carried the tax burden

Who owned the land? Who paid the taxes?

Summary:Causes of the French

Revolution•Enlightenment Ideas

•The American Revolution

•French system’s lack of change–Louis XVI clung to Absolutism–Economic problems

• Money: Wars, Court luxuries

• Bread: Bad harvest–Class resentment

Estates General - June 1789

Louis XVI needed money and was finally forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General, the French parliament,

which had not met since 1614, 175 years!

Estates General• Each order of French society had representatives

in the Estates General

• In order to fix France’s economic situation, most members of the Third Estate wanted to set up a constitutional government that would abolish the tax exemptions of the clergy and nobility

Voting in the Estates General

VOTE BY ESTATE

Under the old system, the single vote of the First Estate and the single vote of the Second Estate together could outvote the Third Estate, even though the Third Estate made up 90% of the population

(NOT FAIR!)

Clergy1st Estate

Nobility2nd Estate

Everyone Else3rd Estate

1 Vote

1 Vote

1 Vote

Voting in the Estates General

VOTE BY HEAD The Third Estate had

many more members than the other two estates

The change to each member having a vote would give the Third Estate much more say in matters

Clergy1st Estate

Nobility2nd Estate

Everyone Else3rd Estate

291 members

270 members

578 members

Voting in the Estates General

• The Third Estate favored a system of each member voting, but the king upheld the traditional voting method of one vote per estate

• The Third Estate reacted by calling itself a National Assembly and deciding to draft a constitution

• King Louis XVI locked them out of their meeting hall

• The Third Estate was joined by ‘liberal’ members of the other two Estates and moved to a nearby tennis court to hold their meeting

Tennis Court Oath

• The Third Estate took an oath (promised) they would continue to meet until they had finished drafting a constitution

• This oath is known as the Tennis Court Oath

Storming of the Bastille-July 14, 1789• The Bastille, an armory and prison

in Paris, was a symbol to the people of France representing years of abuse by the monarchy

• The commoners stormed and dismantled the Bastille looking for gunpowder and to free political prisoners – they killed the commander and freed the prisoners

• This demonstration of empowerment was a wake-up call to Louis XVI and posed a challenge to the existence of the monarchy

• This action became the flashpoint of the Revolution

Demolition of the Bastille

This watercolor painting illustrates the "demolition" of what the text refers to as the "horrible prison" of the Bastille. As workmen tear down the spires on the roof, ordinary people rip stones off the base. These stones soon became collectors’ items, souvenirs of the people’s role in the outbreak of the Revolution—and symbols of the way in which many more people wanted to commemorate the event than had participated in it.

Awakening of the Third Estate

With the Bastille being destroyed in the background, a member of the Third Estate breaks his shackles. Here,

the clergy and nobility recoil in fear, thereby emphasizing the conflict between the estates.

Symbols of The RevolutionThe Tricolor Flag

The WHITE of the Bourbons

The RED & BLUE of Paris.

Phrygian cap with cockade

Liberté, égalité,

fraternité Or

Death

National Assembly

• One of the National Assembly’s first acts was to destroy aristocratic privileges

• August 26, 1789: the assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

• The declaration proclaimed freedom and equal rights for all men, access to public office based on talent (meritocracy), and an end to exemptions from taxation

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

August 26, 1789

• Modeled in part by the American Declaration of Independence

• Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights

• Rights to liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression

• Expression of the general will • At first Louis XVI refused to accept

the laws of the National Assembly but was later forced to sign under duress

Women’s March on VersaillesOctober 5, 1789

• Thousands of Parisian women armed with pitchforks, swords, muskets, marched to Versailles

• Why did they march? BREAD

• The target of their anger was the Queen

• “We want the baker and the baker's wife!"

Results of the Women’s March

• The royal family was taken to the Tuileries Palace in Paris and virtually held prisoner

• The Women's March on Versailles was one of the turning points of the French Revolution; it showed that the peasants of the Third Estate were a force to be reckoned with

• This march also showed that women could be a driving force in history Tuileries Palace

The Constitution of 1791The Constitution of 1791

• Adopted by the Legislative Assembly, the Constitution established a new government– Set up a limited monarchy in place of the absolute

monarchy that had ruled France for centuries– The Legislative Assembly had the power to make

laws, collect taxes, and decide on issues of war and peace

– Lawmakers would be elected by tax-paying male citizens over age 25

Louis XVI “Accepts” the Constitution and the National Assembly

•At first the king seemed inclined to work with the Revolution and to try to solve the problems•But the influence of the queen and of the courtiers were too strong;  he was encouraged by them to disregard all promises he had made and sought to flee from France in order to obtain aid against the revolution from Austria

Storming of the Tuileries PalaceStorming of the Tuileries Palace August 10, 1792

• As Austrian and Prussian troops moved closer to the city of Paris, the people of Paris began to panic

• Believing that the king or his wife was giving information to these foreign powers, the Paris Commune, a group of local representatives, decided to lead an attack on the Tuileries Palace

• Nearly 30,000 French citizens were involved

Arrest of the King and his Family

• After killing numerous Swiss guards the Paris mob moved to the Legislative Assembly building

• King Louis XVI and his family, who had been hiding, were found and arrested

Imprisonment of the RoyalsImprisonment of the Royals Tour du Temple

• Built by the Knights Templar from the 12th century, as their European headquarters

• In 1808, the Temple having become a place of pilgrimage for royalists, Napoleon ordered its demolition, which took two years

Louis XVI at the Tour du Temple

Marie Antoinette in the Temple Tower

End of the Monarchy

• This event signified the end of the monarchy in France and started the official trial of the king

• The next day the Commune abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic

• The French Revolution was about to enter a more radical phase

The Guillotine• Decapitation machines had

been used throughout history• Beheading had been reserved

for the nobility as a humane way to die

• Traditional methods like the sword or axe could prove messy and difficult, especially if the executioner missed or the prisoner struggled; a machine would not only be fast and reliable, it would never tire

Guillotine Video

http://www.history.com/videos/coroners-report-guillotine#coroners-report-guillotine

Fate of the King

• King Louis XVI was put on trial as a traitor of France and found guilty

• On January 21, 1793 he died by guillotine

His execution had important

consequences for France, because it

brought about ideas in other countries against the French

Revolution

Marie Antoinette ExecutedMarie Antoinette Executed October 16, 1793

• Marie Antoinette was tried, convicted of treason and executed by guillotine nine months after her husband; she was only 37

Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine. Pen and ink by

Jacques-Louis David

The National Convention 1792The National Convention 1792

• The National Convention met in 1792, acting not only as a constitutional convention but also as a sovereign ruling body

• It’s first act was to end the monarchy and establish the French Republic

• The members disagreed over the king’s fate

• Two factions, or dissenting groups–the urban Mountain and the rural Girondins–of the Jacobin political club divided over the issue

The Politics of the National ConventionThe Politics of the National Convention 1792-1795

GirondinsGirondins MountainMountain

Power base in Paris.Main support from the sans-culottes.Would adopt extreme measures to achieve their goals.Saw Paris as the center of the Revolution.More centralized (in Paris) approach to government.Wanted to execute the king

Power base in the provinces.Feared the influence of the sans-culottes.Feared the dominance of Paris in national politics.Supported more national government centralization (federalism).Moderate toward the fate of the king

ClashClash

The Move to RadicalismThe Move to Radicalism

• Power went to the Paris Commune, the sans-culottes (French for ‘without knee-breeches’)

• Led by the minister of justice, Georges Danton, the sans-culottes sought revenge on those who had aided the king and resisted the popular will

• Thousands of people were arrested and massacred

• The sans-culottes were made up of working people and the poor, as well as merchants and artisans who were the elite of their neighborhoods

A Foreign CrisisA Foreign Crisis

• The execution of the king outraged European monarchies

• Spain, Portugal, Britain, and other monarchies formed a loose coalition to invade France

• To respond, the National Convention formed the 12-member Committee of Public Safety, led first by Danton and then by Maximilien Robespierre

Foreign Threats to FranceForeign Threats to France

• To save the republic from foreign nations, the Committee of Public Safety called a universal mobilization in 1793

• By September 1794, France had an army of over one million

• It pushed the countries invading France back across the Rhine and conquered the Austrian Netherlands

• France had defeated its foreign foes by the summer of 1794

NationalismNationalism

• Definition: Proud loyalty and devotion to your country

• The French revolutionary army changed the nature of modern warfare and was an important step in creating modern nationalism

• The new French army was a people’s army fighting a people’s war on behalf of a people’s government

• Warfare also became more destructive

Committee of Public Safety

• From 1793 to 1794, the Committee of Public Safety and the National Convention tried to defend France from foreign and domestic threats

• The Committee took steps to control France and bring order

• Enemies of the Revolution would be quickly tried and guillotined

• A man and his family might go to the guillotine for saying something critical of the revolutionary government; even neighbors would turn each other in

Maximilien Robespierre

• Robespierre was a lawyer and activist, so known for his honesty that he was called “The Incorruptible”

• He followed Rousseau’s ideas in The Social Contract, and he believed that anyone who would not submit to the general will as he interpreted it should be executed

• Robespierre was obsessed with ridding France of its domestic enemies

• He was not able to remain “Incorruptible” given his persecution of his “enemies”: it appears that absolute power did finally corrupt him

The Reign of Terror

• Robespierre’s attempt at ridding France of it’s domestic enemies

• Lasted from Sept. 1793 - July 1794

• Some estimates say that 40,000 or more people were killed during The Terror

Arrests During the Terror

The National Razor

The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939!

Thermidor ReactionThermidor Reaction: 1794-1795

• A revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror

• It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Robespierre, and several other leading members of the Terror

• This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution

Death of Robespierre

• Many deputies of the National Convention feared Robespierre and believed that the Terror had gone too far

• Robespierre was arrested and tried• He was guillotined on

July 28, 1794 at age 36• After Robespierre’s death,

the Terror ended, and the more radical members lost power

Execution of Robespierre

The Directory

The government of France

1795 to 1799

The Directory - 1795 to 1799

• The National Convention created a new Constitution reflecting the desire for stability

• Five elected directors acted as the executive committee, or Directory of France

• The period of the Directory was one of government corruption

• The Directory faced political enemies from both royalists and radicals

Quest for StabilityQuest for Stability

How did the Constitution of 1795 try to achieve stability?

It aimed at preventing one government group from gaining too much control through a separation of powers. The constitution called for a two-chamber legislature and gave one chamber the power to propose laws and the other the power to accept or reject them.

The Directory

• It could not solve the country’s economic problems, and it was fighting the wars begun by the Committee of Public Safety

• The Directory relied more and more on military might to stay in power

• In 1799 a coup d’état–a sudden overthrow of the government–led by the popular general Napoleon Bonaparte toppled the Directory

• Napoleon took power

Outcomes of the French Revolution

In a nutshell:

The French Revolution left a powerful legacy for world history: secular society, nationalism,

and democratic ideas

The Impact of the French Revolution

• The French Revolution became the model for revolution in the modern world

• The power of nationalism was first experienced during the French Revolution and it is still powerful in existing nations and emerging nations today

• The French Revolution spread the principles of liberty and equality, which are held dear by many nations and individuals today

• The Metric System - the official system of measurement in all but three countries in the world (the US being on of the three)

SimilaritiesThe American, French, and Haitian revolutions drew inspiration from Enlightenment ideas. The French and American determination for independence was due to financial struggles in the government. In America the Tea Act, Sugar Act, etc. raised the taxes on certain necessities, and the French government raised taxes on the nobility class when they could no longer raise enough from the peasantry. The Americans and the French both organized assemblies of the people. The French having the National Assembly and the Americans having the Continental Congress. The American and French revolutions both helped to establish some sort of constitution or declaration The French policy supported North American colonists against British rule and they both prepared the way for a violent political and social revolution against the Haitians.

DifferencesThe Americans wanted independence from British rule, but still wanted to keep British law, while the French wanted to completely redesign political, social, and cultural structures. Although the Haitians based their goals of sovereignty off of the Enlightenment concepts, the people striving for independence themselves were different: instead of free white men/women, they were slaves. In the Haiti the revolution was led by a single man: Toussaint L’Ouverture. In America and France the revolutions were led by groups of people; The Continental Congress and The National Assembly respectively. The Haitians' revolutionary success was more prominent than that of France because they destroyed slavery in Haiti and became the second independent republic in the western hemisphere. Unlike America and Haiti, France was incapable of maintaining a government institution, allowing Napoleon Bonaparte to seize control. The Haitian and American revolutions were successful in achieving their goals while France's completely new society failed.

American, French, and Haitian Revolutions

Timeline of Events 1774- Louis XV died leaving an even bigger debt from all of the wars France was in during his

reign. 1789- French peasants were mad because of an unfair tax system

and a poor harvest in 1788. May 5, 1789- Louis XVI called

Estates-General to a meeting in Versailles to approve a tax plan. June 17, 1789- The Third Estate

declared themselves the National Assembly and made the Tennis

Court Oath. July 14, 1789- The people of Paris stormed Bastille. August 4, 1789- The National Assembly announced the end of feudalism and serfdom

in France. August 27, 1789- The National

Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

October 5, 1789- Paris women invaded Versailles.

1790- The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was passed.

1791-The Constitution of 1791 was adopted.

June 20, 1791-Louis XVI and his family tried to flee France but were

arrested. April 20, 1792- France declared war

on Austria. September 1792-The National

Convention held their first meeting. January 21, 1793- Louis XVI sentenced to the guillotine.

August 1793- A national draft called for all able-bodied men to

join the army. September 1793 to July 1794- The Reign of Terror court sentenced

20,000 to 40,000 people to death. July 27, 1794- The National

Convention arrested Robespierre. July 28, 1794- Robespierre was

beheaded. 1795- A new Constitution was

adopted. 1799- The Directory fell and ended

the French Revolution.