The French Revolution

The Moderate Phase McKay 703-706, Palmer 9.42

Moderate Phase

1789 1790 1791 1792 Radical Begins 1793

Estates General Called

-National Assembly

formed-Tennis Court Oath

Bastille Stormed

Night of August 4th

Ends Feudalism

March on Versailles

Great Fear

Declaration of the Right of Man and Citizen

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Louis XVI executed

Flight to Varennes

Declaration of Pillnitz

September Massacres-Year 1 of Republic Begins

Constitution of 1791 creates

Constitutional Monarchy

What is Louis XVI forced to do when the Assembly of Notables refuse to pay taxes?

What happens when the 1st & 2nd Estate attempt to dominate the Estates General?

What happens on July 14, 1789?

Bastille (July 14, 1789)• Parisians alarmed at the concentration

of troops at Versailles• Sought weapons and ammo • Bastille

– Medieval Castle– prison (for the rich)

• reputation of a torture chamber and symbolized tyranny

• Imprisoned by lettres de cachet– French Star Chamber

• JULY 14, 1789• Crowd attacks and kills several officials

– Army holds back• Louis XVI

– “Is it a revolt?”. “No Sir, it is a revolution.”

– Recognizes NA– Commands nobles and clergy to join – Significance: The people of Paris

(Sans Culottes) save the National Assembly

The Great Fear (July-Aug 1789)• Def: Peasant revolt across France

caused by grain shortage, fear of bandits, hatred of feudalism

• Peasants feared another bad harvest• Meeting of Estates General & drawing

of Cahiers de doléances created rising expectations

• Fear among peasants that brigands & outlaws were coming

– Many unemployed vagrants (strangers) appeared in villages

• peasants began to arm themselves, form “Town watch groups”

• Rang church bells when strangers were spotted

• Later began to attack manors, reclaim grain, tithes

• Revolt finally ended with the “Night of August Fourth” Looting & Destruction of Manorial

House

Compare and contrast the Great Fear to the Swabian Rebellion/ Pugachev Uprising.

Night of August 4, 1789• Problem – meeting demands of

peasants and not depriving landed aristocracy of income

• Solution – “Night of August 4”• Liberal nobility surrender vestiges of

feudalism and serfdom– declared flatly that feudalism is

abolished– Seigniorial dues wiped out

• Receive “compensation” for eminent property loss

– payments to buy off nobility• few are made• abolished by radical phase of

the revolution• Thus, the National Assembly ended

the “Old Regime”

medallion celebrating the Night of August 4

Declaration of the Rights of Man (8/27/1789)• Broad statement of principles of the French Revolution

– Universal, natural rights, human rights• Men are free and equal (Rousseau)• Natural rights of liberty, property, and security and resistance

to oppression (Locke)• Freedom of thought and religion (Voltaire)• Due process of law• All citizens are eligible for office (if qualified)• Law

– must be equitable – originates from the general will (Rousseau)

• But recognizes differences in talent, wealth• Upholds the sanctity of property!!

– A bourgeoisie Lockean value• The nation is sovereign (Rousseau)• Taxes are made by common consent• Powers of government should be separated (Montesquieu) • “man” refers to all human beings, even women

– revolutionaries gave right to vote only to men• consider politics, gov. war masculine business• saw “feminine” corruptions of the Old Regime

Marquis de Lafayette-Main author

• Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789

• Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789

• The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, …Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:

• Articles:

• 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

• 2. The aim 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.

• 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. …

• 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.

• 17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof …

Radical Elements emerge• Five or six hundred heads would

have guaranteed your freedom and happiness but a false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows. If you don’t strike now, millions of your brothers will die, your enemies will triumph and your blood will flood the streets. They'll slit your throats without mercy and disembowel your wives. And their bloody hands will rip out your children’s entrails to erase your love of liberty forever. – Jean Paul Marat, The Friend of the

People

March to Versailles (October 4, 1789)• Marat

– Radical “Grubstreet” writer, politician– The Friend of the People

• Ultra radical newspaper– Spreads rumor of King’s disrespect for Tricolor

• Women– Customarily managed family resources– Parisian women worked as wage earners within putting out

system• Nobles fled country after Bastille• Demand for luxuries plummeted

• 7 thousand women and revolutionary militants with Paris national guard marched to Versailles– angered by the price of bread and thought king was

undermining the Assembly– Interrupted National Assembly

• Demanded bread– demanded an audience with the king

• broke into the palace • Slaughtered Royal Guardsmen• “The Baker, the Baker’s Wife, and the Baker’s Son.”

– IE. The Royal Family forced to return to Paris

Jean-Paul Marat

Constitution of 1791• France becomes a Constitutional Monarchy• One house system called the Legislative assembly

– elected representatives– Has all lawmaking power (& power to wage war)– King has only a suspension veto– Abolish all privilege– Women

• May seek divorce• Inherit property• Seek child support• Not allowed to vote or hold political office

– Rousseauian attitude toward women» Raise children» Corrupting influence on Old Regime

– Replaced provinces with 83 departments based on old bishoprics

– Metric system adopted (Satan)– Monopolies, guilds, unions prohibited (Smith)– Religious toleration (Voltaire)

Citizenship• Only Active Citizens could Vote• What is an Active Citizen?

– Males over 25 who could pay a tax (had property)

– only 50% qualified as “active citizens”

– voted indirectly for electors who were wealthy land owners

– electors chose delegates to National Assembly and departments

• Passive – landless– illiterate- worker– Given Civil rights – but no right to vote (no political

rights)• King

– lost power of army and couldn’t sit in Assembly

This cartoon mocks the distinction between active and passive citizens. Many revolutionaries hated this difference, essentially dividing those with property from those without. The propertied (active) were the only ones who could participate in the political process.

Assignats (Nov. 1789) • Huge Public debt owed to

the bourgeois • Maurice de Talleyrand

suggested making Church property, state property

• National Assembly paid debt by taking over Church lands

• Issued assignats– Paper currency backed

by sale of Church lands• Favored middle class, the

wealthy

• National Assembly Secularized and Nationalized Catholic Church

• Parish priests and bishops were elected

• Protestants, Jews and agnostics could vote

– No papal letter was accepted to affirm the appointment

– not carry out Pope order unless approved by gov

– Reduce number of dioceses from 130 to 83 (one for each dept.)

– Prohibited religious orders, religious vows and dissolved the monasteries

– Church is now a department of the government

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

In this caricature, after the decree of 16 February 1790, monks and nuns enjoy their new freedom

• Bishops want a say in the Civil Constitution– Assembly refused and

stupidly went to the Pope Pius VI for his blessing

• instead the Pope denounced the entire revolution

• National (Constituent) Assembly demands an oath of loyalty from all French clergy

• 66% refused to accept Oath

• Greatest mistake of the Moderate Phase– Linchpin of the

counterrevolution– Made the Revolution

seem “Godless”

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

This anti-clerical (Civil Constitution) cartoon, the (State Run) Church is represented as "Holy Infamy." Gobel, the Archbishop of Paris, is depicted (center) with the long nose of those who tell lies. … Satan, carrying the civic oath in a coffin.

• Created two churches in France• Constitutional clergy

• Official and taking directives from the National Assembly

• Refractory clergy– Secret Church– Took orders from Rome– more serious Catholics

belonged to this– More sympatric to King – peasants prefer the

refractory church– working class prefer the

refractory church• desire proper marriages

and baptisms

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Map of France showing the percentage of priests who had sworn allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, in 1791.

The Disappointed• San Culottes

– Radical & violent urban working class artisans– Despised breeches (culottes) of nobility– Anti-rich

• Not anti-private property– Equality (favored direct democracy)– Favorite weapon (Pike)– Influenced the Jacobins

• Jacobins– Society of Friends of the Constitution –

Jacobins• Extremely revolutionary politicians• Named after club that met in old Jacobin

monastery where they met (discuss politics)• A middle class, bourgeois club• Many elected to new National Assembly in

Constitution of 1791• Paris filled with radicals • Émigrés

– Conservatives nobles become disillusioned by mob violence leave the country (20 thousand)

Sans Culottes

Flight to Varennes• Loius attempted to flee France

in 1791• Planned to join with émigré

noblemen, create royalist army & retake France

• Recognized by postmaster (his face on a coin or assignat) and arrested by National Guard in the town of Varennes (in Lorraine)

• King had left a written message in which he trashed the Revolution – Assembly increasingly under

control of Jacobins– Extreme revolutionaries

• Bond between King and people irreparably damaged

• Moderates now discredited