Chapter 21 Study Guide
People
 Locke
 Montesquieu
 Thomas Paine
 Thomas Jefferson
 George III
 Marquis de Lafayette
 abbe Emmanual Joseph Sieyes
 Louis XVI
 Marie Antoinette
 Edmund Burke
 Mary Wollestonecraft
 Olympe de Gouges
 Georges Danton
 Maximilian Robespierre
 Jaques Roux
 Napoleon Bonaparte
 Joseph Fouche
 Lord Nelson
 Tsar Alexander I
 Frederick William III
 Prince Klemens von Metternich
 Louis XVIII
Terms
 Liberal
 Classical liberalism
 Whigs
 Loyalists
 Stamp Act
 “No taxation without representation”
 British East India Company
 Boston Tea Party
 Coercive Acts
 Continental Congress
 Patriots
 Loyalists
 Common Sense
 The Declaration of Independence
 Suffrage (this word was not used in this
chapter, but it is required term at this point,
so know what it means…look it up if
necessary!)
 Republicanism
 League of Armed Neutrality
 Treaty of Paris, 1783 (this is a later Treaty
of Paris; in an earlier unit we learned about
the Treaty of Paris after the 7 Years War)
 Allegheny Mountains
 Constitutional Convention
 Montesquieu’s checks and balances
 Anti-Federalists v Federalists
 The American Constitution and its Ten
Amendments (aka Bill of Rights)
 Inflation
 Parlement of Paris
 Tithing
 Voluntary gift (connected to the first estate)
 Three estates of the Old Regime
 Manorial rights
 Useful privileges v honorific privileges (in
reference to the 2nd estate)
 Nobility of the sword v nobility of the robe
(again, 2nd estate)
 Estates General
 What is the Third Estate?
 The National Assembly
 The Tennis Court Oath
 The Bastille
 The Great Fear
 Limited monarchy/Constitutional monarchy
 The Declaration of the Rights of Man
 Women’s March on Versailles
 Metric system
 Assignats
 Bourgeois/middle class/ the public
 Year that the Storming of the Bastille
happened and the year the First French
Constitution was written
 Conservative/conservatives/conservatism
 Reflections on the French Revolution –
Edmund Burke
 A Vindication of the Rights of Man- Mary
Wollestonecraft
 A Vindication of the Rights of WomenMary Wollestonecraft
 Radical/radicalism
 The Failed flight of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette
 The Declaration of Pillnitz
 Jacobins
 The Marseillaise
 Tuileries Palace
 National Convention
 September Massacres
 Girondins
 The Mountain
 The Plains
 The First Coalition, Second Coalition,
Third Coalition, and Fourth Coalition (aka
Quadruple Alliance)
 Sans-culottes
 Committee on Public Safety
 Socialism
 Bread of equality
 The Reign of Terror
 Total War
 The Thermidorian Reaction
 The Directory
 The Guillotine
 First consul
 Plebiscite
 Civil Code of 1804
 Concordat of 1801
 ‘family monarchy’
 Battle of Trafalgar
 Napoleon’s ‘Grand Empire’
 Napoleon’s ‘Continental System’
 The Battle of Austerlitz
 German Confederation of the Rhine
 Guerrilla warfare
 Elba and St. Helena
 Louis XVIII’s Constitutional Charter
 The Hundred Days
 Battle of Waterloo
Questions
Enlightenment Liberalism in Politics
 Know that the revolutions at the end of the 18th c were concerned with liberty and equality.
Also, know how the interpretation of these words was different from their modern meaning (for
example, equality was not meant to include women).
 What are the ancient roots of Western liberalism and how and when did it crystallize into
what the text calls Classical Liberalism?
 What important link did Locke and Montesquieu help to make in western thinking? What
revolution inspired Locke? What did Montesquieu mean by ‘intermediary groups’ and what role
did he see for these groups (this last question is related to checks and balances)?
 How did various classes (nobles, bourgeoisie aka the public, and the common people aka the
mob) view the ideas of liberal philosophers like Locke and Montesquieu?
The American Revolution
 In what ways does the text support and in what ways does it discredit the assertion that the
American Revolution was a real ‘radical revolution’?
 How did the British victory in the Seven Years War set the stage for the American
Revolution?
 Why did the Stamp Acts seem fair and righteous to the British?
 Why were the American colonists so opposed to the Stamp Act? Your answer to this question
is basically the same as the answer to the question, “What freedoms had American colonists
become accustomed to in the New World?”
 Who won in the struggle over the Stamp Act?
 Did American independence from Britain result in higher or lower taxes for the average
American? Why is this interesting/ironic?
 How does the fact that the colonial structure of agriculture was based around independent
farmers and that England’s system was based around tenant farmers help to explain the friction
between the cultural and legal beliefs of the two groups? This is not explicitly stated in the
text… you might have to just use your giant mind on this one.
 How and why did Britain give a tea monopoly to the British East India Company, why did
this anger the colonists, and how did the colonists respond?
 How are the Coercive Acts linked to the Boston Tea Party and the first Continental Congress?
 Know that the American Revolutionaries (patriots) wanted basically the English
Constitutional model, but run by them at home and with a democratic leaning (increased
suffrage with a Republican slant)
 Who aligned themselves with the American colonists against Britain? Why did they care?
 What did America get in the Treaty of Paris, 1783? In what way was there acceptance of this
treaty a blow to their French allies?
 Why did American leaders feel a need to increase Federal powers at the Constitutional
Convention of 1787?
 Why were Anti-Federalists worried about the Constitutional Convention of 1787? How did
the Federalists calm their fears?
 What are the intellectual antecedents/forerunners of the ideas found in the American
Constitution?
 The American Constitution sets out the clearest example of the meaning of equality and
liberty in Classical Liberalism. What does it say about each?
The French Revolution
 In what ways did the American Revolution inspire Europeans?
 Where did French government revenue go in the years leading up to the French Revolution?
 Why were higher taxes the only solution available for the French monarchy? Why was even
this option fraught with disaster?
 Know the basic make-up, possessions, relative size, and rights of each of the three estates,
including the three main components of the 3rd estate.
 Know the basic earlier interpretation of the long term causes of the French Revolution, the
view that is gaining ground among modern scholars, where the two theories diverge and where
they dovetail (agree)
 What stood in the way of Louis XVI’s attempts to levy new taxes on all property? How does
he try to solve this problem before calling the Estates General? Why did he fail? What was his
point in eventually calling the Estates General?
 What type of representatives did each of the three estates elect to the Estates General? (In
other words, were the clergy elected generally poor and liberal or rich and liberal or rich and
conservative, urban or rural?, etc.) What does this show about the general mood in France at the
time?
 What were the basic similarities among the grievances/petitions written up by each estate in
preparation for the Estates General? Despite this general agreement, what obstacle remained to
the three estates working well together?
 How did Louis XVI’s government deal with the deadlock over voting procedures in the
Estates General?
 Why did the 3rd Estate declare itself a ‘National Assembly’, how did it end up on a tennis
court, and what oath did its members make there?
 How did Louis XVI deal with the Tennis Court Oath in contradictory ways?
 Know the depths of and causes for the extreme poverty of France in 1789. Know that the
poverty led to radical thought among the mob.
 What was the Bastille originally built for and what was its use in 1789? Why and how did
peasant mobs take control of it? Why would it be such a potent symbol at the time and ever
since? (this last question is not specifically answered in the text)
 What were the basic peasant goals during the Great Fear and what level of success did they
have? Know that the peasant gains of August 4th 1789 were a radical gain for the common
French peasants and represented a permanent end to manorial rights in France.
 What did the Declaration of the Rights of Man call for? What body issued this document?
Why was it much harder to create a Constitution based on the principles in the Declaration of
the Rights of Man than it was to create the Declaration itself?
 In what large sense was the Women’s March on Versailles similar to the Storming of the
Bastille? What spurred the march? How was the Queen’s neck saved when the peasants arrived
in Versailles? What do the women do with the royal family? Know that the Storming of the
Bastille and the Women’s March served to break royalist power and allowed the National
Assembly breathing space in which to work.
 What liberal reforms did the National Assembly author between 1789 (Storming of the
Bastille) and June 1791 (the completion of the first French Constitution)?
 What was the National Assembly’s basic policy towards women during this same time
period? How did it intellectually support this position?
 During this same two year period, what was the interaction between the National Assembly
and the Catholic Church in France? How did this serve to deepen class tensions?
 What were the basic liberal and conservatives critiques of the first two years of the French
Revolution (up to the 1791 Constitution) as represented by Wollestonecraft and Burke? How
did the French Rev. spur modern feminism?
 What was the initial political reaction of non-French Europeans to the French Revolution and
why did this reaction quickly change?
 What is the link between the failed flight of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and the
Declaration of Pillnitz? Why was the Declaration of Pillnitz so carefully worded? Why and how
did this careful wording fail in the end? Who issued the Declaration of Pillnitz?
 Why had the National Assembly allowed itself to be completely replaced by the Legislative
Assembly? How did this change the nature of the French Revolution?
 Who declared war first, France or Austria/Prussia? What was the basic result of the first battle
in northern France (near present day Belgium)? What role did Poland have in this early battle?
 In what direction did the outbreak of war push the French people? What song exemplifies the
answer to this previous question?
 Who stormed the Tuileries Palace and why? How did the Legislative Assembly react when
the king sought refuge in its chambers?
 What spurred the September Massacres? Who was killed? What class led these massacres?
 What rational reforms did the National Convention push to make France a rational, secular
society?
 Understand the division that existed in the National Convention and which of the two basic
groups was the more radical.
 How did the National Convention deal with Louis XVI?
 In what ways did French Revolutionary armies truly liberate the rest of Europe when they
conquered them and in what ways did they anger the people they had ‘liberated’?
 By the end of 1793, which countries were a part of the fight against France? (the First
Coalition)
 Why did the Girondins and the Mountain originally reject the aid of the sans-culottes? Which
eventually decided to harness their power and how did they do so? What was the result?
 Know that the creation of the Committee on Public Safety initially lead to provincial French
uprisings against the Revolution and the near destruction of the revolutionaries in Paris. Know
how Robespierre end this threat? (this last question has a long and complicated 3 pronged
answer- think price controls, the Reign of Terror, and the harnessing of nationalism and
patriotism for total war) How did Robespierre beat back the First Coalition? (the answer here is
the exact same as the answer to the previous question). In what ways are the seeds of socialism
to be found in the French Revolution under Robespierre’s Committee on Public Safety? For that
matter, what is socialism?
 How did Robespierre build the largest army in history up to that point? What is total war and
why did it give France an unbelievable military advantage?
 How did Robespierre’s Reign of Terror change (but continue) after it was clear that the
Revolution was out of moral danger?
 Who retook control of the French Revolution in the Thermidorian Reaction? Why did this
change occur? What is Thermidor? What was the outward evidence of the returning control of
the middle class?
 What was the result of the uprising of the mob against the new post-Thermidorian Reaction
gov’t (known as the Directory)? How would this permanently alter the role of the mob in the
French Revolution? What rights did rural French women manage to salvage out of this
humiliating defeat of the poor?
 What was the foreign policy of the Directory and what was its motivation for this foreign
policy? How did the voting classes of France demonstrate their displeasure with the Directory’s
lack of morality and how did the Directory safeguard its power? Who eventually toppled the
Directory?
 Where was Napoleon born? How did he come to power?
 Why were many members of the gov. willing to help Napoleon overthrow the Directory? How
did Napoleon consolidate his power once he’d overthrown it?
 How did Napoleon bring order to France? Understanding the Civil Code of 1804, the Bank of
France, and the Concordat of 1801 are key here…
 What liberal advances from the Revolution did Napoleon safeguard and which did he reject?
 What compromise did Napoleon work out with the Catholic Church? Where did Napoleon
stand with regards to feminism?
 What transpired between Napoleon and the Second Coalition soon after he took power? How
did the Battle of Trafalgar keep European hegemony out of Napoleon’s hands? Despite
Napoleon’s obvious military dominance, why did other European powers eventually feel it
necessary to fight Napoleon in the Third Coalition and the Fourth Coalitions?
 What was the eventual outcome of Napoleon’s fighting with the Third Coalition (as detailed
in the Treaty of Tilset)?
 What were the three basic parts of Napoleon’s Grand Empire? Who did Napoleon place on the
thrones of his European domains outside of France and why does this make sense?
 What were the positive and negative impacts of French rule on European people? Did
Europeans conquered by Napoleon feel, on balance, grateful or resentful? What role did French
economic policy play in your answer to the previous question? Know that Spain’s reaction to
Napoleonic rule (and their fighting style known as guerrilla warfare) helps to answer this
question.
 What sparked Napoleon’s invasion of Russia? Why was this invasion such a disaster for
Napoleon, why is the Battle of Borodin important, what happened in Moscow, and what factors
made the retreat from Russia such a disaster? How did Europeans take advantage of this
disaster?
 Who replaced Napoleon on the French throne? What was this individual like and what
promises did he make to safeguard the basic advances of the French Revolution? What inspired
Napoleon to return (the Hundred Days)? How did the French react to his return and how did this
reaction change the way the Quadruple Alliance treated the French after Waterloo? How did
Napoleon spend the rest of his post-Waterloo life?
 Can you think of any reason (not stated in the text) why the members of the Quadruple
Alliance were hesitant to execute Napoleon?
 Know the basic chronology of governments in the French Revolution- Absolute monarchy in
crisis; estates general, national assembly, legislative assembly, national convention, republic
with reign of terror, Thermidorian Reaction with Directory, Napoleon as emperor, Louis XVIII
as constitutional monarch, the Hundred Days, Louis XVIII as constitutional monarch