
At what point did the French Revolution
become irreversible?
Married age 15
Crowned age 19
Introverted
Uninterested in
government
• Isolated & Clueless
•
•
•
•
Louis XVI
•Princess of Austria
•Married at age 14
•Lavish in dress
“Madame Deficit”
•Scandals
Marie Antoinette
 Estates
General-
◦ First Estate-Roman Catholic clergy
(1% pop.)
◦ Second Estate-Nobility (1% of pop.)
◦ Third Estate-Bourgeoisie, Artisans,
Peasants (98% of pop)
 Bourgeoisie-Middle class people
(Doctors, Lawyers, Merchants)
Clergy 10% of land
Nobles
Owned 33% of land
Bourgeoisie & Artisans
Peasants
Owned 40% of land

Long Term
◦ Corrupt &
inconsistent
leadership
◦ Resentment of 3rd
Estate towards
privileges of 1st & 2nd
◦ Enlightenment
Philosophy
Government Debt
 Poor harvest &
rising cost of
bread
 Louis XVI rejected
financial reforms
 Formation of
National Assembly
 Storming of the
Bastille

80
70
60
50
1787
1788
40
30
20
10
0
% of Income Spent on Bread
Financial Problems in 1789
•
Urban Commoner’s
Budget:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Food
80%
Rent
25%
Tithe
10%
Taxes
35%
Clothing 20%
TOTAL 170%
•
King’s Budget:
–
–
–
–
–
Interest
50%
Army
25%
Versailles 25%
Coronation 10%
Loans
25%
– Admin.
25%
– TOTAL
160%
French Budget, 1774
Where is the tax money?
Convening the Estates General
May, 1789
Last time it was called into session was 1614!
“The Third Estate Awakens”
• 3rd Estate proclaimed themselves the
“National Assembly” of France.



June 17, 1789
Third Estates created new governing body
Tennis Court Oath– Will not leave till they
have Written Constitution
Storming the Bastille, July 14, 1789
• Rumor>king was planning military coup
against National Assembly.
• 18 died.
• 73 wounded.
• 7 guards
killed.
• It held 7
prisoners

•
Slogan of French
Revolution:
“Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity”-Rousseau
Written by Marquis
de Lafayette


Fighting for bread
Forced King to return to Paris and deal with
the people


National Assembly confiscates and sells off
church lands to pay for government debt
Civil Constitution of the Clergy>Weakens
power of Catholic Church
•
The Royal Family Attempts
to Flee
June, 1791
•
Helped by the Swedish Count Hans Axel von Fusen
[Marie Antoinette’s lover].
•
Headed toward the Luxembourg border.
•
The King wasrecognized atVarennes, near the
border & arrested
 Declaration
of Pillnitz -Austria
and Prussia willing to aide French
royal family
◦ Austrian Emperor Joseph II is
Queen’s brother
 French
Austria

response: Declared war on
Other European countries feared France’s
fate and that their ideas might spread
The Great Fear: Peasant
Revolt
Rumors : feudal aristocracy were sending hired
brigands to attack peasants and pillage their land.
The Path
of the
“Great
Fear”
 Aug
1792
◦ Paris mobs attack
and kill nobles and
priests whom they
accused of political
crimes
◦ Radicals take over
National Assembly
 Call for new
constitution
 National
Convention (Sept. 1792)
◦ Wrote first democratic constitutions
◦ Monarchy abolished
◦ Extend vote to all males with or without
property
◦ Metric system
◦ New calendar
 Constitutional
monarchy
 Factions within the Assembly
◦ Royalist --nobles wanted to restore
monarchy
◦ Sans – Culottes (“those without knee
breeches”) common people who wanted to have
influence within the government (Radicals/mobs)
The Sans-Culottes:
The Parisian Working Class
Small shopkeepers.
Tradesmen.
Artisans.
The Sans-Culottes
Depicted as Savages by a British
Cartoonist.
 Jacobins
vs. Girondists
◦ Girondists – moderates,
felt Revolution went too
far
 Middle class
◦ Jacobins – radical
 “Mountains” – most radical
Jacobins
 Calls for the execution of
the King
Maximilien Robespierre




Jacobin
Lawyer
Most Controversial figure of the French
Revolution
National Convention: Head of Committee of
Public Safety
Georges Danton
◦ Jacobin
◦ New Republics:
Minister of Justice
◦ National Convention:
President of the
Committee of Public
Safety
Jean-Paul Marat
◦ Jacobin
◦ National Convention
member
◦ “Friend of the People”
–public paper
◦ Hated by Girondists
The Reign of Terror
Terror is nothing
other than justice,
prompt, severe,
inflexible. -Robespierre
Let terror be the
order of the day!
Committee for Public
Safety
 Revolutionary
Tribunals.
 300,000 arrested.
 16,000 – 50,000
executed.
The Storming of the Tuilieres:
August
9-10, 1792
Triggered by the publication of August 3
Brunswick Manifesto, which confirmed popular
suspicions concerning king’s treason.
Louis XVI
as a Pig
c For Jacobins,
king was traitor.
c Girondists felt Revolution had gone
far enough and didn’t want to
execute the king [maybe exile him].


Jan. 1793 King Louis XVI was beheaded
Tried before the National Convention and
convicted of conspiring against the liberty of
the nation
The Death of “Citizen” Louis
Capet
Matter for
reflection
for the crowned
jugglers.
So impure blood
doesn’t soil our land!
Marie Antoinette as a Serpent
The “Widow Capet”
Marie Antoinette excuted
in October, 1793
Marie Antoinette
on the Way to the Guillotine


France vs. Austria,
Prussia, Great Britain,
Holland, Spain (1793)
National Convention
instituted draft
◦ 18-25 army
◦ First draft on European
continent
◦ 1796 French armies
commanded by young
Napoleon Bonaparte
“The Death of
Marat”
by Jacques
Louis David,
1793
The
Assassination
of Marat
by Charlotte
Corday, 1793
The Assassination of
Marat
by Charlotte
Corday
Paul Jacques
Aimee
Baudry, 19c
[A Romantic
View]
Different Social Classes
Executed
8%
7%
28%
25%
31%
The “Monster” Guillotine
The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939!
War of Resistance to the Revolution:
The Vendee Revolt, 1793
Vendee Revolt, 1793
Drowning the Traitors!
Vendee
Symbol:
For God &
the King!
The Arrest of Robespierre
Revolution Consumes
Its Own Children!
Danton
Robespierre
End of Reign of Terror!
Rise of Napoleon
 Congress of
Vienna tries to
put Europe back
the way it was.




Paris, 1848: To the Barricades!

Spread of
Enlightenment
Ideas
Reign of Terror
caused fear of all
Revolutions
Revolutions in
Europe and Latin
America
Growth of
Nationalism