Conditions in France 1789
• France spends more than it received in income,
taking out loans with England to pay for failing
wars
• By 1788 France spent half of its annual budget
on paying the interest on the ever-increasing
national debt
• Peasants were beset by poor harvests, the price
of bread soared, and famine spread
• Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lived extravagant
lives at Versailles with no notice of their
country’s problems
• France raises taxes; This fell on the commoners.
Clergy and Nobility were tax exempt
The Meeting of the Estates General
Desperate to solve the financial crisis,
King Louis XVI called for the Estates
General to meet. This medieval
representative body, which had not been
convened since 1614, divided France into
three orders, or estates: the clergy,
nobility, and commoners.
The Tennis Court Oath
• Members of the Third Estate wanted to meet with the
other two Estates as one body with one person one vote.
The king refused
• The Third Estate adopted the name of National
Assembly and met in a large indoor tennis court and
swore an oath to never disband until they had a
constitution for France
• The National Assembly Voted on a Constitutional
Monarchy.
The National Assembly and Its
Constitution
•
Louis XVI caved on the “one man,
one vote” issue
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•
The Third Estate and a few others
join to declare themselves a National
Constituent Assembly
June 20, 1789- resolve not to
disperse until they have a
constitution
Confrontations occur
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Storming of the Bastille (July 1789)
The mob playing a role in political
events
August 4, 1789- nobles voluntarily
renounce their legal privileges
Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen
Constitution of the Clergy
By 1791, the new constitution is
completed
•
•
Provided for power to be shared
by the king and Parliament
National election for Legislative
Assembly
The Storming of the Bastille
• By 1789 ¼ of the people of Paris were unemployed.
• Rumors spread that the king’s army was going to sack
Paris, angry Parisians seized arms for defense.
• They stormed the Bastille in order to take gunpowder.
The Bastille was a symbol of royal power.
• July 14, 1789 is still celebrated in France today.
• As news spread across France about the Storming of the
Bastille. Commoners rose up against the lords.
The March on Versailles
• October 5, 1789, 7,000 desperate women marched the
12 miles to Paris to Versailles to demand bread.
• The women invaded the palace and killed several
guards.
• The king promised to give them bread and to come back
to Paris with his family.
• The heads of two nobles, stuck on pikes, led the way,
followed by the unarmed royal guard.
• The king and his family would never return to Versailles
The Execution of King Louis XVI
• On June 21, 1791, the royal family attempted to flee
France, but was caught a few miles from the border and
returned to Paris.
• In November 1792 the king was placed on trial by the
National Convention.
• He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death
by the guillotine The Queen was beheaded in October
1793.
The Reign of Terror
• The Revolution then turns violent. Led by Maximilien Robespierre
called for drastic measures to save France from enemies of the
nation.
• The National Convention established 1792 as Year One of the
Republic
• Robespierre sets up a revolutionary court, The Committee of Public
Safety, responsible only to him, which tried people for crimes
against the revolution.
• In two years, 40,000 people were killed by the guillotine.
Maximilien
Robespierre
• After September 1792, France
is no longer a monarchy but a
republic
– Executive power exercised by
the Committee of Public
Safety with Robespierre as its
leader
– Under him, Christianity
overthrown
• Patriotism measured by
devotion to reason rather
than to God and king
• Names of days and months
changed and the year 1792
became the year one
• Eliminated even his
coworkers for being lukewarm
supporters of the Revolution,
thousands of innocents
guillotined
• Robespierre was mutinied
against in July 1794, and
guillotined, bringing an end to
the Reign of Terror
Reaction
• Jacobins had also started an
army during the Revolution
and were on the offensive from
1794 onward against Prussia,
Austria, Britain, and Holland
• Machine of terror dismantled
after Robespierre
• Thermidorean Reaction
– Middle class and wealthy
come back to power
– A new executive formed called
the Directory, made up of five
conservative minded directors
– Economic condition of the
poor goes down, and ongoing
war causes severe inflation
• Widespread discontent
The Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte
• After five years of disastrous rule by a five-man
executive called the Directory, Napoleon ruled France as
dictator and emperor of France for 15 years 1799 to
1814.
• Napoleon repressed some of the freedoms of the
revolution, but made many moderate reforms. He
abolished feudal privileges and securied the advances of
the middle class and the peasantry.
• Napoleon’s reformed France’s legal system and
launched a series of wars against continental Europe
The Reign of Napoleon
• Napoleon gains
popularity as his military
campaigns go well
– Spain, Portugal, Italian
peninsula, Austria,
Prussia, Holland all
conquered
• Napoleon is defeated by
the British and then leads
a disastrous campaign
against Russia
• Napoleon is exiled and
France is devastated