HTAV
FRANCE: 1789: A Revolution of
the People?
24 February 2012
Peter McPhee
University of Melbourne

What was the Revolution of 1789?
Estates-General – 5 May 1789
‘Tennis Court Oath’ – 20 June 1789
Bastille
‘Grande
Peur’
National Assembly 4 August 1789
1. absolute monarchy → constitutional
monarchy
divine right → popular sovereignty
 2. privilege → civil equality in taxes, law, beliefs
 3. hierarchy of birth → merit, talent
 4. partial abolition of feudalism


‘cahiers de doléances’
10

Essentials of France in the eighteenth
century (the ‘Ancien Régime’)
Languedoc
‘les Grands’: 4,000 families at Versailles
hobereaux’
‘
‘d’épée’
vs ‘de robe’
Le Bret
by
Rigaud
‘bourgeoisie’
Artisans
‘menu peuple’

What were the causes of the Revolution of
1789?
‘philosophes’
Diderot, 1771

“Every century has its own characteristic spirit.
The spirit of ours seems to be liberty. The first
attack against superstition was violent,
unchecked. Once people dared in whatever
manner to attack the barrier of religion, this
barrier which is the most formidable as well as
the most respected, it was impossible to stop.
From the time when they turned threatening
looks against the heavenly majesty, they did not
fail the next moment to direct them against the
earthly power. The rope which holds and
represses humanity is composed of two strands:
one of them cannot give way without the other
breaking”.
Rousseau
1762
Social Contract
Emile
Maximilien
Robespierre
by
Léopold
Boilly,
1783
Declaration of Independence 4 July 1776
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.
 to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed.”


(American Declaration of Independence, 4 July
1776)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen,
27 August 1789

“1. Men are born and remain free and equal in
rights ...

2. ... these rights are liberty, property, security,
and resistance to oppression.

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides
essentially in the nation. No body, or individual
may exercise authority that does not expressly
emanate from it.”
‘cahiers de doléances’

Arthur Young in Lorraine, 12 July 1789:
Walking up a long hill, to ease my mare, I was joined by a poor
woman, who complained of the times, and that it was a sad
country. On my demanding her reasons, she said her husband had
but a morsel of land, one cow and a poor little horse, yet he had a
franchar (20 kg) of wheat and three chickens to pays as a quit-rent
to one Seigneur; and four franchar of oats, one chicken and 1 sous
to pay to another, beside very heavy tailles and other taxes. She
had seven children, and the cow's milk helped to make the soup ....
It was said, at present, that something was to be done by some
great folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who or how,
but God send us better, car les tailles et les droits nous
écrasent. This woman, at no great distance, might have been taken
for sixty or seventy, her figure was so bent, and her face so
furrowed and hardened by labour; but she said she was only
twenty-eight.
6 October
The historians’ debate

Georges Lefebvre, Albert Soboul, George Rudé

William Doyle, Simon Schama, Peter Campbell

Norman Hampson, Sarah Maza (causes célèbres), Colin
Jones