The French Revolution and
Napoleon (1789 – 1815)
The French Revolution Begins
The French Revolution Begins
 Background to the Revolution

France’s Three Estates
 Estates
 First Estate – Clergy
• Divided:
Higher clergy
Parish priests
Second Estate – Nobles



• Played a crucial role in France
Held leading positions
Wealth (Nobles and Clergy)
Taille
Third Estate – Everyone else
• Peasants




• Middle class or Bourgeoisie



Unhappy
Nobles by appointment
Louis XVI
• Urban craftspeople, shopkeepers, and workers
The French Revolution Begins
 Financial Crisis
Collapse
 Had
of the French budget
been growing for 50 years:
 Bad
harvests
Slowdown in manufacturing
 Kings
 Americans
 Louis XVI
 Estates-General
 1614
The French Revolution Begins

From Estates-General to National Assembly
 Louis XVI
 Versailles
 First two Estates
 Third Estate
• Constitutional government
 Problems from the start:
 Voting
• The king
 June 17, 1789
• National assembly and a constitution
The French Revolution Begins
 Three
days later the Deputies of the 3rd Estate
 Tennis
Court Oath
 Louis XVI
 July 14, 1789
• Parisians
• Bastille
• French Guard
• Louis XVI
• Paris
 Revolts will begin to break out all over France
 The Great Fear
• Peasant
The French Revolution Begins
 End of the Old Regime
Declaration of the Rights of Man
 The National Assembly
 August 14, 1789
 August 26, 1789
 Declaration of the Rights of Man

and Citizen
 Enlightenment
•
•
•
•
•
ideals:
All men were free and
equal before the law
Appointment to public office
Exempt from taxation
Freedom of speech and press
Should these rights include women?
The French Revolution Begins
 Olympe de Gouges
“The Declaration of the Rights of Women and the
Female Citizen”
 The King Concedes
 October 5, 1789
 Parisian women
 National Assemblies decrees
 The king
 October 6, 1789
 the king and his family will
return to Paris
 Prisoners in Paris

The French Revolution Begins
 Church Reform
 New
Revolutionary Government
 Sell off church lands
 Under the control of the state
 Civil Constitution of the Clergy
 Catholics were anti-revolution
 New Constitution and New Fears
 Constitution
of 1791
 Limited Monarchy
 Legislative Body
• “Active Citizens”
• “Passive citizens”
 Local governments
The French Revolution Begins
1791
Louis
XVI
June 1791
The king and
his family
• Varennes
October 1791
Louis XVI
The French Revolution Begins

War with Austria
European leaders
 Austria and Prussia
 Legislative Assembly


Rise of the Paris Commune
Spring of 1792
 August 1792
 Paris radicals
 Commune
 Members of the Paris Commune
 King
 Legislative Assembly
 National Convention
 Universal Male Suffrage
 San-culottes

Radical Revolution and Reaction
Radical Revolution and Reaction

The Move to Radicalism

Louis XVI
 Unrest
 August 1792
 The Minister of Justice Georges Danton
 National Convention
 September Massacres
 Jean-Paul Marat
•
•
•
•
•

Friend of the People
Jacobin condemned the Girondins
Drinker of Blood
Charlotte Corday, a Girondin
Jacques- Louis David “The Death of Marat”
The First Republic
 September 1792
• National Convention

Newly elected National Convention
• Ruling body of France
• September 21, 1792 - The French Republic
Radical Revolution and Reaction

The Fate of the King
 Political clubs
• Girondins
• The Mountain
 Jacobins Club
• Louis XVI
• January 1793
• Guillotine

Crisis and Response
 Disputes
 The Paris Commune
 Riots
 Coalition of forces
• Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Dutch Republic

Committee of Public Safety
• George Danton and Maximilian Robespierre
Radical Revolution and Reaction

The Reign of Terror
 Crushing Rebellion
 1793- 1794 – Committee on Public Safety
• Reign of Terror
• Maximilian Robespierre
 Revolutionary
Courts
• Guillotine
 Marie Antoinette
 Olympe de Gouges
 Revolutionary Armies
• Grapeshot
• Nantes
Radical Revolution and Reaction
 “Show them no mercy”

The Republic of Virtue
 Maximilian Robespierre
• Titles changed
• Women
• Good citizens
• Law abolishing slavery
• Control inflation
 Women
• 1793 - Revolutionary Republican Women
 De-Christianization
• Adopted a new calendar
 September 22, 1792
 12 months
 Months were given new names
• Example: Vendemiarie – September
• Huge impact on religion
Radical Revolution and Reaction

A Nation in Arms



Rise of the Revolutionary Army
 1794
 People’s Army
End of the Terror
 Summer of 1794 - Robespierre
 June 1794 – Law of 22 Prairial
 July 28, 1794
The Directory



National Convention
 Committee on Public Safety
 Churches
 New constitution
The constitution of 1795
Bicameral legislature
 Lower House – Council of 500
 Upper House – Council of Elders
 Electors – qualified voters
 Committee of 5 – called the Directory
• The Directory – 1795 – 1799

1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte toppled the Directory in a Coup d’état
The Age of Napoleon
The Age of Napoleon

The Rise of Napoleon
Early Life
 A child of the revolution
 Born 1769 in Corsica
 Commissioned as a lieutenant in the French Army
 Military Successes
 1792 - Captain
 1794 - Brigadier General
 1796 - French armies in Italy
 Speed, surprise, and decisive action
 Northern Italy
 1797
 Invasion of Britain
 Egypt
 British Navy

The Age of Napoleon
Consul and Emperor
 1799 – Coup d’état
 The Consulate
 First Counsel
 1802 – Consul for Life
 1804 – Emperor
Napoleon’s Domestic Policies
 Peace with the Church
 Gains of the revolution
 Catholic Church
 A man of the enlightenment
 1801 – agreement with the Pope
 Codification of Laws
 Over 300 different legal systems
 Napoleon will make one legal system:
 Seven Law codes were created
 Civil Code – Napoleonic Code – 1804
• The principles that the revolutionaries
• Women and children
• “Less equal to men”
 Property
 Court
 Divorce proceedings


The Age of Napoleon
A New Bureaucracy
 Strong centralized administration
 Bureaucracy of capable officials
 Middle Class
 Aristocracy based on meritorious service
 New nobles
 Preserver of the Revolution?
 All citizens were equal before the law and the opening of government careers
 On the other hand:
• Liberty
• Anne-Louise-Germaine de Stael
Napoleon’s Empire
 Building the Empire
 European Coalition – Russia, Great Britain, and Austria
 1803 - Britain
 Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Prussia
 Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau from 1805 to 1807
 From 1807 to 1812 Napoleon will be the master of Europe
 Empire was composed of three parts:
• The French Empire
• Dependent States
• Allied States


The Age of Napoleon
 Spreading the Principles of the Revolution
Legal equality, religious toleration, and economic freedom
 Equality – of opportunity and before the law
 Britain’s Resistance
 Sea power
 1805 –Trafalgar
 Continental system
 Weakening the British economically
 Will fail
 1810
 Nationalism
 The sense of unique identity of a people based on language, religion, and
national symbols
 The Germanies, Spain, Poland, and Italy arousing new ideas of
nationalism in two ways:
 United in their hatred of the invaders
 The power and strength of national feeling

The Age of Napoleon

The Fall of Napoleon
 Disaster in Russia
 1812 – Russia
 Continental system
 June 1812 – the Grand Army
 “Scorched Earth Policy”
 Battle of Borodino
 Moscow
 “the Great Retreat”
 March of 1814
 Napoleon
 Island of Elba
 Louis XVIII
 The Final Defeat
 Napoleon - escape from Elba
 Louis XVIII
 “ Soldiers of the 5th regiment, I am your emperor…. If there is a man among you (who) would
kill his emperor, here I am!”
 “ Vive, l’Empereur”
 March 20, 1815
 Russia, Great Britain, Austria, and Prussia
 At Waterloo – Belgium – June 18, 1815 - Duke of Wellington
 St. Helena
 1821