Causes of the French Revolution

Inept Ruler? King Louis XVI

Financial Crisis
 50% of revenue went to pay off debts
 Series of bad harvests 1787 & 1788
 Need for tax reform

Estates General
 First Estate:
 Catholic clergy
 Second Estate:
 Nobles
 Third Estate:
 Serfs, peasants, urban workers

By Abbe Sieyes, a clergyman who became a revolutionary, 1789
 “What is the Third Estate? All. But an ‘all’ that is fettered (chained) and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? It would be all; but free and flourishing. Nothing will go well without the Third Estate; everything would go considerably better without the other two.”

Discussion Questions
What were the similarities between the long-term causes of the
American and French Revolutions?
Differences?

Calling of the Estates-General
May 5, 1789

The National Assembly
Liberty,
Equality,
Fraternity
June 20, 1789

Storming of the Bastille
French citizens fearing King Louis XVI would use violence to put down the revolution stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789

Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen
 Passed August 26, 1789
 Not a Constitution

Women’s March
Storming of Versailles
October 1, 1789

The Constitution of 1791
• Limited monarchy and representative assembly
• Consent of the governed
• Church under state control

Radicals Take Control
Arrest of Louis XVI
August 10, 1792

Execution of Louis XVI
January 21, 1793

Radical Reforms of the Jacobins
“National Convention”
 All men can vote
 Abolished slavery
 Universal military conscription
 Spirit of nationalism
 Set price controls & seized crops from farmers

Reign of Terror
 Led by Maximilien
Robespierre
 16,000+ died under the guillotine
“The first maxim of our politics ought to be to lead the people by means of reason and the enemies of the people by terror.”

British View of Reign of Terror

Perspective of the counterrevolutionaries:
"The Radical's Arms", it depicts the infamous guillotine . "No God! No
Religion! No King! No
Constitution!" is written in the republican banner.

End of the Terror
July 28, 1794

Discussion Question
How were the actions of
American radicals and French radicals similar? How were they different?

Napoleon Bonaparte
 The Directory:
 Failed to solve economic problems of France
 Napoleon staged a coup d’etat in 1799
 Becomes emperor in
1804

Domestic Policies of Napoleon
 Greater internal stability and protection of property
 Freedom of Religion
 Denied rights of women
 Restricted speech and expression

Napoleon’s Empire
Left: Napoleon’s Empire by 1912
Above: Napoleon’s Retreat from
Russia

Napoleon on Elba
This should NOT be a prison

Battle of Waterloo

Discussion Question
At what point in time were the French closest to achieving their original goals of the revolution?

Legacy of the French Revolution
 Global Independence movements
 Haitian Revolution
 Latin American independence
• Triggered by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain
 Egypt broke away from Ottoman Empire
 Slave Trade and Slavery
 England abolished slave trade in 1807; slavery in 1833
 Brazil —Last to abolish slavery (1888)
 Abolition of serfdom
 Except in Russia

Legacy of the French Revolution
 Women’s Rights
 Played major role in the revolutions
• Sewing uniforms, nurses, running businesses, some even fought
 Lost many rights after revolution
• Napoleon
 Feminist Movements
• Mary Wollstonecraft
 Spread of nationalism in Europe
 German and Italian unification
 Greek independence