French Revolution &
Napoleon
I.
Causes of the French
Revolution
I. Causes of the French Revolution
A. Political
1. Absolutism
2. Corruption
3. Censorship
4. Lettres de Cachet
Louis XVI
Marie Antoinette
5. Increasingly unpopular government
The Affair of the Necklace
Diamond Necklace
commissioned by
Louis XV for his
mistress Mdme.du Barry
Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois
Comtesse de Lamotte
Cardinal de Rohan
I. Causes of the French Revolution
A. Political
B. Social
*Rigid Social Class Structure
1. 1st Estate
2. 2nd Estate
3. 3rd Estate
The Three Estates
I. Causes of the French Revolution
A. Political
B. Social
C. Economic
1. Taxes ↑
a. Taille
b. Gabelle
c. Corvee
d. Tithe
2. Crippling Debt
Corvee
I. Causes of the French Revolution
A. Political
B. Social
C. Economic
D. Intellectual
1. Enlightenment Ideas
Rousseau
Voltaire
2. Influence of the American Revolution
II. The French Revolution
A. Estates General
● Mirabeau, Abbe Sieyes Mirabeau
What the people want:
1) Genuine representatives
in the Estates General
Abbe Sieyes
2) Representatives equal
to the other two orders
taken together
3) Votes taken by head,
not by orders
What is the Third Estate?
“What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it
been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What
does it desire? To be something.”
II. The French Revolution
A. Estates General
● Mirabeau, Abbe Sieyes Mirabeau Abbe Sieyes
1. Convened at Versailles (May 5, 1789)
2. 3rd Estate → National Assembly
(June 17, 1789)
3. Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789)
II. The French Revolution
A. Estates General
B. Moderate Beginnings
The Bastille
1. Storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789)
2. Great Fear (July – August 1789)
3. Declaration of the Rights of Man
(Aug. 27,1789)
●Lafayette
Lafayette
II. The French Revolution
B. Moderate Beginnings (cont.)
4. March to Versailles (Oct. 5, 1789)
5. Civil Constitution of the Clergy
(July, 1790)
6. Flight to Varennes (June, 1791)
II. The French Revolution
B. Moderate Beginnings (cont.)
7. Declaration of Pillnitz (August, 1791)
Leopold II
Frederick William II
8. Constitution of 1791 (Sept. 3, 1791)
9. France declares war on Austria
(April, 1792)
II. The French Revolution
C. Growing Radicalism
●Danton, Marat, Robespierre
Georges Danton
(1759-1794)
Jean-Paul Marat
(1743-1793)
Maximilien
Robespierre
(1758-1794)
The Assassination of Marat
July 13, 1793
The Death of Marat (1793)
Jacques-Louis David
Charlotte Corday after the
Murder of Marat (1861)
Paul Jacques Aime Baudry
II. The French Revolution
C. Growing Radicalism
●Danton, Marat, Robespierre
1. War effort goes badly
2. Republican movement
● Girondists v. Mountain
3. September Massacres
(September, 1792)
● San-culottes
San-culottes
II. The French Revolution
4. Execution of Louis XVI (January,1793)
5. Committee of Public Safety
(April -June, 1793)
Death of Louis XVI
6. Reign of Terror (July, 1793-July, 1794)
7. Armies of France victorious
(Spring, 1794)
8. Execution of Robespierre (July, 1794)
Robespierre
II. The French Revolution
D. Thermidorean Reaction (1794-1799)
1. Constitution of 1795 (3rd)
a. Directory
b. 2-house legislature
2. Discontent
a. War continues
b. Corruption
c. Economic hardship
d. Revival of royalist feeling
II. The French Revolution
D. Thermidorean Reaction (1794-1799)
1. Constitution of 1795 (3rd)
2. Discontent
3. Rise of Napoleon
a. Tool of the Directory (1795)
b. Coup d’ etat (1799)
●Consulate
Napoleon as a
young officer
III. The Age of Napoleon
A. Consolidation of Power
●Plebiscite
1. 1st Consul (1799)
First Consul Napoleon
2. Consul for Life (1802)
3. Emperor (1804)
Emperor Napoleon
III. The Age of Napoleon
B. Domestic reforms
1. Concordat of 1801
2. Code of Napoleon →
a. Equality under the law
b. Abolished serfdom
c. Religious toleration
3. Merit system for civil service
4. Efficient tax system
5. Furtherance of Public Education
III. The Age of Napoleon
C. At war
● Expansionist policies
1. Grand Empire
Napoleon’s Empire
a. Holland, Spain, German states
(excluding Austria & Prussia),
Warsaw, Swiss republic, Italy
b. Trafalgar (1805)
c. Austerlitz (1805)
III. The Age of Napoleon
C. At war
Guerrilla warfare
● Expansionist policies
in Spain
1. Grand Empire
2. Downfall-Continental System (1806)
a. Peninsular War-Spain (1808-1814)
b. Invasion of Russia (1812)
●Scorched-earth policy
c. War of Liberation (1813)
1) Leipzig
Napoleon’s Retreat
from Russia
●Battle of the Nations
2) Exile - Elba
III. The Age of Napoleon
C. At war
● Expansionist policies
1. Grand Empire
2. Downfall
Duke of Wellington
3. The Hundred Days (1815)
a. Waterloo
b. Exile – St. Helena
Field Marshal Blucher
Napoleon musing
at St. Helena
IV. The Age of Metternich
● Contempt for revolutionary ideals
A. Congress of Vienna (1815)→
1. Leaders
a. Metternich (Austria)
b. Castlereagh/Wellington (Britain)
c. Frederick William III (Prussia)
d. Alexander I (Russia)
Prince Klemens
e. Talleyrand (France)
von Metternich
IV. The Age of Metternich
● Contempt for revolutionary ideals
A. Congress of Vienna (1815)
1. Leaders
2. Settlements
a. Principle of legitimacy
b. Principle of compensation
IV. The Age of Metternich
● Contempt for revolutionary ideals
A. Congress of Vienna (1815)
B. Quadruple Alliance
●Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain
1. Support Vienna settlements
2. Suppress revolutions
IV. The Age of Metternich
● Contempt for revolutionary ideals
A. Congress of Vienna (1815)
B. Quadruple Alliance
C. Revolutions of 1848
●France, Austria, Germany, Italy
Berlin, March 1848