1789-1815
In the 1600s and 1700s, French
kings still ruled by “divine right”
with absolute power.

And they lived more luxuriously
than perhaps anyone, anywhere
in the history of the world.

• Louis XIV,
King of France
• 1643-1715
Palace of Versailles
Hall of Mirrors
Society was divided into 3
social classes called ESTATES:
1st
2nd
3rd

Clergy
Nobles
Commoners
The first 2 estates had special
privileges that that 3rd did not.
• The problem
was that the
3rd Estate
made up
98.5% of the
population.
Commoners crushed by
the Clergy and Nobility
In the 1600s, French commoners
looked on while the Brits executed
Charles I and chased off James II.

In the 1700s, they watched the
Americans break away from
England under King George III.

By the late-1780s, France was in deep
financial trouble.
 At the same time, a terrible harvest
created bread shortages.
 King Louis XVI
was unsure about
how to deal with the
crisis.

Louis XVI decided to call a
meeting of the Estates-General.

Similar to Parliament, but with 3
houses, one for the reps of each
estate.

Each estate got one vote, as a
result, the king always won!


E-G met at Versailles in 1789.
3rd Estate demanded some rule
changes be made.

They wanted each rep to get
one vote instead of each house.

Commoners would then have
the advantage, 610-589.

Louis XVI locked the 3rd Estate
reps out of their meeting hall.

The Commoners took over one
of his tennis courts and declared
themselves “National Assembly.”

They then took the “Tennis
Court Oath.”

The Tennis Court Meeting
Louis XVI paid lip service to the
National Assembly.

In the meantime, he called for
30,000 troops to surround Paris.

The people in Paris feared the
king was planning to crush the
revolution.

The commoners decided to
strike a blow against the “Old
Regime.”

On July 14, 1789, they stormed
the Bastille.

This was their “declaration of
independence” from absolute
monarchy.

Storming the Bastille
Bastille commander’s head
on a pike

Research on your own:
1) The Great Fear.
2) The Declaration of the
Rights of Man.
3) The March on Versailles.
4) The Constitution of 1791.
• Louis XVI
(Bourbon family)
• King of France
• 1774-1792
“Let
‘em eat
cake”
• Marie
Antoinette
• Queen of
France
• Her family
rules Austria.
Louis & Marie were married
when he was 15 and she was 14.

Marie’s brother, Joseph II was
the Holy Roman Emperor.

Fans of the “Old Regime”
hoped Joseph II would attack
France.

With war threatening, French
society was split into three main
groups:

Radicals
Moderates
Reactionarie
s
Left
Center
Right

Radicals:
- Demand drastic, rapid change.
- Want to completely tear down
“Old Regime.”
- Favor a REPUBLIC.

Moderates:
- Want gradual change.
- Want to fix the “Old Regime”
not destroy it.
- Favor a LIMITED MONARCHY.

Reactionaries:
- Dislike change.
- Want to go back to the way
things used to be.
- Favor a return to ABSOLUTE
MONARCHY.
1n 1791, the Legislative Assembly
was dominated by radicals and
moderates.


The radicals wanted war.
Louis XVI and the reactionaries
wanted war, too.


In June 1791, Louis and Marie
attempted to flee from Paris.
They were stopped, brought
back to Paris and imprisoned.

The radicals thought this meant
Austria was going to attack.

In April 1792, the radicals
convinced the Legislative
Assembly to declare war on
Austria.

Prussia quickly jumped in on
Austria’s side.


New elections in France brought
more radicals into the Assembly.
In Sept. 1792 the Assembly
voted to abolish the monarchy.

This was the beginning of the
French Republic.

The radicals changed the name
of the assembly to the National
Convention.

In Jan. 1793, they tried Louis XVI
as an enemy of the Revolution.

He was convicted and
sentenced to death by guillotine.

The Execution of Louis XVI
The execution of Louis XVI
brought Great Britain, Spain &
the Netherlands into the war.

War with 5 countries forced the
National Convention to institute a
draft.

Opposition to the war and the
draft threatened to bring down
the republic.

The National Convention
created the Committee of Public
Safety to root out opponents of
the revolution.

• Maximilien
Robespierre
• Leader of the
Committee of
Public Safety
• Do the ends
justify the
means?
Robespierre felt that saving the
Revolution was more important
than protecting individual rights.

Opponents of the National
Convention were quickly taken
to the guillotine.

From July 1793-July 1794,
≈ 40,000 people were executed.

80% of those killed were
members of the 3rd Estate.

Finally the Committee of Public
Safety turned on Robespierre
and he, too, was guillotined.

Constitution of 1795 ended the
“radical” phase of the Revolution.

Council of
Ancients
Republic
Directory
Courts
Executive
Judicial
CouncilSeparation
of
of Powers
500
Legislative
In Oct. 1795, a mob of Royalists
threatened to overthrow the
Directory in Paris.

The Directors called on a young
general, Napoleon Bonaparte, to
defend them.

Napoleon used cannon fire to
disperse the reactionary mob.

For this he was hailed as a “hero
of the Revolution” and given
command of an army in Italy.

• Napoleon
Bonaparte
• Born: 1769
on Corsica.
• Sent to military
school at age 9.
In 1796-97, Napoleon won great
victories against Austria & Prussia
and increased his fame.

In 1799, Napoleon decided it was
time to take control of the
government of France.

Napoleon used his fame and the
support of his army to pull off a
coup d’etat.

He created a new 3-man ruling
body, The Consulate.

Napoleon named himself First
Consul with a 10-year term.

In 1802, Napoleon ordered a
plebiscite.

Q: Should Napoleon be named
First Consul for Life?
Yes
3,568,885
99.8%
No
8,374
0.2%
Assassination attempts and talk
of returning to a monarchy led
Napoleon to take a new title.

On Dec. 1, 1804 he crowned
himself:
Napoleon I,
Emperor of the French

Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I
By 1804, Napoleon’s army had
successfully conquered virtually
all of Europe.

In 1805, Napoleon planned to
invade his most hated enemy,
Great Britain.

But at the Battle of Trafalgar,
British Admiral Horatio Nelson
destroyed the French fleet.

Without a navy Napoleon could
not invade Great Britain.

Admiral
Nelson
Trafalgar Square, London
After Trafalgar, Napoleon decided
to hurt the British by cutting off
their trade.

He set up the Continental System,
which said that no country in
Europe could trade with the British.

Czar Alexander I of Russia
refused to obey Napoleon’s trade
embargo of Great Britain.

Napoleon invaded Russia in
June, 1812 with an army of over
half a million troops.

Unable to stop the invasion, the
Russians retreated and burned
everything in their wake.

This “scorched earth” policy
denied Napoleon’s troops food
and shelter.

The Burning of Moscow, 1812
After finding Moscow in flames,
Napoleon decided to retreat before
winter set in.

The retreat was a disaster as
French troops starved, froze and
got mauled by attacking Russian
cavalry called Cossacks.

Napoleon lost over 400,000 troops
in Russia.

With G.B., Russia, Prussia and
Austria now allied against him,
Napoleon abdicated his throne.

In 1814, he went into exile on the
small island of Elba.

Louis XVIII, the brother of Louis
XVI, was installed as French king.

After less than a year on Elba,
Napoleon made a comeback.

He returned to France, chased off
Louis XVIII and gathered together
a new army.

In June 1815, he was defeated by
Great Britain and Prussia at
Waterloo, in present day Belgium.

Following this final defeat, the
British exiled Napoleon for good to
St. Helena off the coast of Africa.

Napoleon lived out his days
under British guard, dying in 1821
at age 51.

The French Revolution story
ends with Louis XVIII back in
charge of a limited monarchy.

Arc de Triomphe, Paris