The Revolution in Politics,
1775–1815
I. Background to Revolution
A. Legal Orders and Social Reality
1. The Three Estates
2. Traditional View of the Revolution
3. Revisionist Positions
4. The Root of Revolution
B. The Crisis of Political Legitimacy
1. Challenges to Absolutist Rule
2. Problem of Taxation
3. Desacralization
I. Background to Revolution
C. The American Revolution and Its Impact
1. Origins in Taxation
2. French Support
3. Political Impact
D. Financial Crisis
1. Soaring Debt
2. Tax Increases
3. The Estates General
II. Politics and the People, 1789–1791
A. The Formation of the National Assembly
1. Delegates for Change
2. Demands for Change
3. Deadlock over Voting Procedures
4. The King’s Response
B. The Storming of the Bastille
1. Economic Hardship
2. The Popular Uprising
II. Politics and the People, 1789–1791
C. Peasant Revolt and the Rights of Man
1. Peasant Insurrections
2. Reforms
3. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
D. Parisian Women March on Versailles
1. The Background
2. The March
II. Politics and the People, 1789–1791
E. A Constitutional Monarchy and Its Challenges
1. Reforms by the National Assembly
2. No Suffrage for Women
3. Political Reforms
4. Religious Reforms
F. Revolutionary Aspirations in Saint-Domingue
1. Social Tensions
2. Code Noir (1685)
3. Impact of the French Revolution
4. Violence
III. World War and Republican France, 1791–1799
A. Foreign Reactions to the Revolution
1. Jubilation
2. Mistrust
a. Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
b. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
3. The Threat of Foreign Intervention
B. The Outbreak of War
1. Jacobin Club
2. Foreign Invasion
3. Revolution
III. World War and Republican France,
1791–1799
C. The Second Revolution
1. Radicalization
2. Girondists and the Mountain
3. French Invasions
4. Counter-Revolutionary Efforts
5. The Triumph of the Mountain
III. World War and Republican France,
1791–1799
D. Total War and the Terror
1. Planned Economy
2. Reign of Terror (1793–1794)
3. Nationalism
III. World War and Republican France,
1791–1799
E. Revolution in Saint-Domingue
1. Action from Below
2. Foreign Intervention
3. Abolition of Slavery
III. World War and Republican France,
1791–1799
F. The Thermidorian Reaction and the Directory
1. Increased Terror
2. Thermidorian Reaction
3. The Directory
IV. The Napoleonic Era, 1799–1815
A. Napoleon’s Rule of France
1. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
2. Seizure of Power
3. Domestic Policy
B. Napoleon’s Expansion in Europe
1. Foreign Policy Successes
a. Treaty of Luneville (1801)
b. Treaty of Amiens (1802)
2. Efforts at Expansion
3. Further Expansion
IV. The Napoleonic Era, 1799–1815
C. The War of Haitian Independence
1. Civil War
2. Napoleon’s Intervention
3. The Birth of Haiti
D. The Grand Empire and Its End
1. The Grand Empire
2. Impact
3. Invasion of Russia
4. Abdication and Final Defeat