The French Revolution
• Review
– Louis XIV – The
“Sun King”
– The Enlightenment
• How the French Government Worked
– The Estates General
• First Estate
– Catholic Clergy
– Accounted for 1% of population
• Second Estate
– Nobles
– Accounted for 1% of population.
• Third Estate (98% of population)
– Bourgeoisie
– Urban Workers (Sans-culottes)
– Peasants
King Louis XVI (1774-1793) and Marie
Antoinette
Problems faced by the royal family
• King Louis XVI was good natured and generous
but very indecisive
• Marie Antoinette was 14 when she married
Louis XVI
– Charming & lighthearted, she was very unpopular
because of her expensive tastes
• Government was in debt, Louis had borrowed
heavily to help finance the American colonists in
their war against Britain
• Nobles refused to pay taxes unless the king
called a meeting of the Estates-General which
had not met for 200 years
• May 1st, 1789
– Louis XVI calls a meeting of the Estates
General
• Why?
• Does it work?
The Third Estate demands a new voting system
but the First and Second Estate won’t agree.
One vote
for each
estate
Abby Sieyes, a leading clergyman, suggests that
the Third Estate change its name to the National
Assembly which will pass new laws and reforms in
the name of the French people
June 17, 1789
• June 17th, 1789
– Third Estate changes name to National
Assembly
• Why?
• What do they do?
– King Louis XVI’s reaction?
Locked out of their meeting hall, they meet at an indoor
tennis court and vow to give France a constitution
The Tennis Court Oath
June 20, 1789
• Louis XVI makes peace with the Third Estate by
yielding to their demands
• He orders the other Estates to join the Third
Estate in a National Assembly
• Concerned that he can not trust his troops he
called in his Swiss troops for support
• Parisians riot over bread prices
• Parisians grow alarmed over the presence of the
Swiss troops thinking the troops are there to
harm them
• Parisians take matters into their own hands
• July 14th, 1789
– BASTILLE DAY in France
– “The Storming of the Bastille”
• Why?
Parisians raided the Invalides (a military
hospital) and obtained 30,000 muskets on
the morning of July 14, 1789
The Bastille
Storming of the Bastille
Summer 1789 – Rumors of plots against peasants
cause them to attack manor houses and destroy
feudal records during the Great Fear
Heads on pikes during the Great Fear
Triumph of the Parisian Army and the People –
guardsmen display the heads of troops who
confronted the marchers
• August 4th, 1789
– National Assembly
adopts a new
slogan.
• “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity”
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen is adopted by the National
Assembly
Aug. 27, 1789
Parisian Women rioting over bread prices march to
Versailles demanding the royal family move to Paris
October 1789
The mob broke
into the palace
and ransacked the
queen’s apartments
Arrival of the royal family in Paris
March 1791
•The New Constitution is
finished.
•The King reluctantly
approved the
Constitution
and the Declaration of
the Rights of Man.
Sans-culottes dance around the
liberty tree
June 1791 - The royal family attempts to
flee to Austria
The return from Varennes (where they
were captured)
Louis’ reputation is irreparably damaged
National Assembly gives power to the
Legislative Assembly - September 1791
• 1791 - Legislative Assembly becomes
divided.
– Conservatives
– Radicals
– Moderates
• 1792 War with Austria
– Results of war?
Radical Revolution Begins
(Defense of National Security)
1792
• April 20 – Declaration of War on Austria
• July 25 – Brunswick Manifesto - Prussian
commander threatens to destroy Paris if
revolutionaries harm the royal family
King wears the revolutionary
cap in an attempt to calm the
Revolutionaries
Radical mobs continue to
threaten the royal family
Attack on the Tulileries Palace
August 10, 1792
King is arrested for encouraging foreign troops
Marie Antoinette protects her husband
and children as Louis is being arrested
Royal family is imprisoned, August 10, 1792
Legislative Assembly
September 21, 1792
• Set aside the Constitution of 1791 ending
the limited Constitutional Monarchy
• Declared the King deposed.
• Elections are called for a National
Convention to write a new constitution.
Meeting of the National
Convention
National Convention
Radical
Jacobins
George Danton
M. Robespierre
Moderate
No definite views
came to favor
The Jacobins
Conservative
August 1792 - Danton and Marat set the
revolution on a violent path with the help
of the Paris mob
Jacobin Club
• The Jacobin club is a RADICAL political
club
• It’s members gave violent speeches
• They demanded the King be removed and
a republic set up.
George Danton
• Leader of the Paris
Commune – devoted
to the rights of the
poor
Jean Paul Marat
• Radical leader of the
Jacobin Club
• Edited a radical
newspaper
• His fiery editorials
called for “five or six
hundred heads to be
cut off to rid France of
the enemies of the
revolution
Louis is tried and found guilty of
treason
The national razor
Execution of Louis XVI
January 21, 1793
1793-1794
Robespierre’s Reign of Terror
Maximilien
Robespierre
The most powerful man
on the Committee of
Public Safety
He was a merciless fanatic
He was the Terror
Get rid of all traces of
France’s monarchy and
nobility
Committee of Public Safety
Formed during the Summer of 1793
• Established by the Jacobins
• Sought out enemies from within France
– Decided who should be judged as an enemy of the
Republic
• Oversaw France’s defense
– Well trained citizen army
– All citizens were expected to help the war effort by
serving in hospitals, collecting clothing, etc
– Unified the nation
Marie Antoinette’s Trial
The Revolution devours
it’s own children
• Fellow revolutionaries such as Danton
who challenged Robespierre’s leadership
were executed in 1794
• Their crime – being less radical then
Robespierre
During the terror at
least 3,000 people
were executed in Paris.
Historians believe as
many as 40,000 were
killed all together.
Robespierre is arrested
No one on the Committee is safe until
Robespierre is removed from power
Robespierre lays on a table in the office
of the Committee of Public Safety
Death of Robespierre – the
Terror Ends
July 28, 1794
The Directory - 1795
• Moderate leaders of the National
Convention drafted a new constitution
• Power was placed firmly in the hands of
the upper bourgeoisie
• It called for a two house legislature and an
executive body of five men known as
directors
• They named Napoleon Bonaparte, a
young general as commander of France’s
army
November 9th, 1799 - Napoleon
stages a coup d'état and the
Directory comes to an end