French Revolution

The French Revolution, which began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, was a watershed moment in contemporary European history. French citizens demolished and redesigned their country's political landscape during this time, uprooting centuries-old institutions like absolute monarchy and the feudal system. The upheaval was sparked by widespread discontent with the French monarchy and King Louis XVI's poor economic policies. The French Revolution shaped modern nations by demonstrating the power of the people's will to the rest of the world.

Estates-General, also called States General in France of the pre-Revolution monarchy, the representative assembly of the three “estates,” or orders of the realm: the clergy (First Estate) and nobility (Second Estate)—which were privileged minorities—and the Third Estate, which represented the majority of the people.

 

In the late eighteenth century, social conditions in France were extremely unequal and exploitative. The first two Estates, the clergy and the nobility, were the most privileged classes in French society. They were not required to pay any state taxes. The Third Estate, which included peasants and workers, constituted the majority of the population. They were subjected to high taxes and lacked political and social rights. As a result, they were very dissatisfied.

 

The state coffers were empty as a result of Louis XVI's numerous wars. The situation was complicated further by France's involvement in the American War of Independence and a flawed taxation system. While the wealthy were exempt from paying taxes, the Third Estate grew increasingly burdened with them.

 

Louis XVI, the Bourbon king of France, was an autocratic and weak-willed monarch who lived in obscene luxury. This caused widespread dissatisfaction among the masses, who were living in extreme poverty and hunger at the time.

 

The 18th century was marked by a conscious rejection of the "DIVINE RIGHTS THEORY" by French thinkers. Philosophers such as Rousseau rejected the absolute monarchy paradigm and promoted the doctrine of man's equality and people's sovereignty. They were instrumental in exposing the flaws in the old political system, i.e. the old regime, as well as articulating popular discontent.

 

Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Louis XVI's controller general, proposed a financial reform package in the fall of 1786 that included a universal land tax from which the privileged classes would no longer be exempt. For the first time since 1614, the king summoned the Estates-General, an assembly representing France's clergy, nobility, and middle class, to rally support for these measures and quell a growing aristocratic revolt.

 

• Since 1614, France's population had changed dramatically. The non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now represented 98 percent of the population, but the other two bodies could still outvote them.

• In the weeks leading up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began rallying support for equal representation and the repeal of the noble veto—in other words, they wanted voting by head rather than by status.

• While all of the orders shared a desire for fiscal and judicial reform as well as a more representative form of government, the nobles were especially averse to giving up the privileges they had under the old system.

 

• When the Estates-General met at Versailles, the heated debate over the voting process had devolved into hostility between the three orders, overshadowing the meeting's original purpose and the authority of the man who had convened it.

• With procedural talks stalled, the Third Estate met alone on June 17 and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform was achieved.

• Within a week, the majority of the clerical deputies had joined them, as had 47 liberal nobles, and on June 27, Louis XVI reluctantly absorbed all three orders into the new assembly.

 

• Fear and violence gripped the capital on June 12, as the National Assembly continued to meet at Versailles.

• Despite being ecstatic about the recent loss of royal power, Parisians became alarmed when rumours of a military coup began to circulate.

• On July 14, rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to seize gunpowder and weapons; many consider this to be the start of the French Revolution, which is now commemorated in France as a national holiday.

• The countryside was quickly swept by a wave of revolutionary fervour and widespread hysteria. Peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords, and the seigniorial elite in a revolt against years of exploitation.

 

• In late August, the Assembly passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a statement of democratic principles based on Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophical and political ideas.

• The Assembly pledged to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equality, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty, and representative government.

• The National Constituent Assembly faced a greater challenge in drafting a formal constitution because it also had to act as a legislature during difficult economic times.

• France's first written constitution, adopted on September 3, 1791, echoed the Assembly's more moderate voices, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king had royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers.

• Influential radicals such as Maximilien de Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, and Georges Danton, who began rallying public support for a more republican form of government and the trial of Louis XVI, were not pleased with this compromise.

 

• In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, believing that French émigrés were forming counterrevolutionary alliances there; the Legislative Assembly also hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals throughout Europe through warfare.

• Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the political crisis took a radical turn on August 10, 1792, when a group of insurgents led by extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king.

• The Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries.

• On January 21, 1793, it executed King Louis XVI, who had been sentenced to death for high treason and crimes against the state; his wife Marie-Antoinette was executed nine months later.

 

• Following the king's execution, the French Revolution entered its most violent and turbulent phase, with wars with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention.

• In June 1793, the Jacobins took control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and implemented a series of radical measures, including a new calendar and the abolition of Christianity.

• They also launched the bloody Reign of Terror (la Terreur), a 10-month period during which thousands of suspected revolutionaries were guillotined.

• Many of the assassinations were carried out on orders from Robespierre, who ruled the draconian Committee of Public Safety from 1794 until his own execution on July 28.

 

• On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, which was mostly made up of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, passed a new constitution that established France's first bicameral legislature.

• A five-member Directory, appointed by parliament, would have executive power. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime, but the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte, quickly silenced them.

• The Directory's four years in power were marred by financial crises, public unrest, inefficiency, and, most importantly, political corruption.

• By the late 1790s, the directors had delegated much of their power to the field generals, relying almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority.

• On November 9, 1799, as the people's dissatisfaction with their government grew, Bonaparte staged a coup d'état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France's "first consul."

• It was the end of the French Revolution and the start of the Napoleonic era, during which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.

 

• Despite its flaws, the French Revolution is regarded as a watershed moment in modern history, heralding the rise of new ideas rooted in liberalism, enlightenment, and democracy.

• These ideals were carried throughout Europe by French armies fighting many wars to ensure the Republic's survival.

• It sparked a wave of revolutionary fervour among the people of Europe, inspiring them to rise up against their own monarchs. Although most were violently suppressed, the revolutions continued into the early nineteenth century, resulting in the overthrow of many absolute monarchies across Europe.

• The French Revolution ended feudalism and paved the way for future advancements in broadly defined individual liberties.