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?
Special Thanks to Ms. Stewart
The French Revolution
The French Revolution and the beginning
of a new United States of America both
happened in 1789
Liberty Leading the People
The French Monarchy:
1775 - 1793
King Louis XVI
Queen Marie Antoinette
Europe on the Eve of Revolution
Key Terms
Revolution – 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 Revolution
Ideas of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution
The Salon
Causes of the Revolution
The 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 Revolution
BREAD!
•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
80
70
60
50
1787
1788
40
30
20
10
0
% of Income Spent on Bread
Causes of the Revolution
CLASS 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!)
1 Vote
1 Vote
Clergy
1st Estate
1 Vote
Everyone Else
3rd Estate
Nobility
2nd Estate
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
291 members
Clergy
1st Estate
270 members
Everyone Else
3rd Estate
578 members
Nobility
2nd Estate
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 Revolution
The Tricolor Flag
The WHITE of the Bourbons
The RED & BLUE of Paris.
Liberté,
égalité,
fraternité
Or
Death
Phrygian cap
with cockade
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 Versailles
October 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 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 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 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-reportguillotine#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 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 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 Convention
1792-1795
Girondins
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
Clash
Mountain
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
The 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 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 12member Committee of Public Safety, led first by
Danton and then by Maximilien Robespierre
Foreign 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
Nationalism
• 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 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 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)
American, French, and Haitian Revolutions
Similarities
The 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.
Differences
The 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.
Timeline
of
Events
1774- Louis XV died leaving an even
1791-The Constitution of 1791 was
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 EstatesGeneral 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.
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.