HST 122 -- The French Revolution: Context and Causes

I. Introduction: Overview and Significance
Documents
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (Aug 1789)
- Olympe de Gouge, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791)
- La Marseillaise (April 1792)
 
Key Terms
- Liberalism - freedom, equality, natural rights, political rights
- Nationalism - sense of community; loyalty to one's nation
- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
   
Images
- The Third Estate Repressed
- Marie-Antoinette
- The Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789)
- Storming the Bastille (14 July 1789)		 - Napoleon
- Napoleon's Conquests
- 19th-century Timeline		 
II. Phase 1: Struggle with the Old Order (up to August 1789)
  - Four crises caused the French Revolution: 
    A. Financial Crisis
        1. Louis XV (1715-74)
                a. Seven Years' War (1756-63) against England [MAP] 
                b. France lost the war; financial disaster
                    - France borrowed money to pay for the war and was supposed to repay it with 
                        land it would win in the war
        2. Louis XVI (1774-92)
                a. got involved in the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) against England
                b. kept borrowing money; huge debt keeps growing
        3. needs new source of taxation; the peasants won't cut it and the king knows this
            - money has to come from the church and nobility, but they are exempt  
    B. Constitutional Crisis
        1. nobles don't want to be taxed
        2. they have the upper hand, but the king desperately needs their money
        3. nobles agreed to taxation if the king called the Estates-General
                a. an assembly that represented the three estates: the nobility,
                        the clergy and the masses (the third estate)
                b. hadn't been called since 1614
                - govt had become very centralized under Louis XIV
                        - he never sought the advice of his people   
                        - also, the intendants bypassed the nobles
                - but the nobles WANTED a say in govt
    C. Ideological Crisis
        1. voting procedure in the Estates-General
                a. had been one vote for each estate
                b. nobility controlled the clergy, thus they controlled 2 votes
                c. this disturbed the masses (who outnumbered the other
                        two estates 23 million to a few 100K)
        2. Third Estate demanded increase from 300 to 600 members and vote by head
        3. king agreed to increase to 600 members
        4. left it up to the Estates-General to decide about voting
        5. the Third Estate broke with the Estates-General
                - b/c the other 2 estates would not give them vote by head
                - some members of the other 2 estates sympathized with them and rallied them to break
        6. Abbé Sieyes, "What is the Third Estate?"
        7. the king locked them out = revolution officially begins here (in name only)
        8. they went to a nearby indoor tennis court and agreed to stay together to write a constitution
    D. Socio-Economic Crisis (at the same time as the other stuff is going on)
        1. extremely bad harvests in 1788-89
        2. high bread prices; starvation becoming common
        3. peasants begin breaking into noble houses
                a. searching for food
                b. but also tore up documents that kept them in servitude
    E. the Revolution steamrolls
        1. rioting spreads to cities
        2. Louis refused to accept the National Assembly
        3. he began concentrating troops in Paris and at Versailles
        4. Parisians fear this; storm the Bastille on July 14th to get weapons to fight
        5. they then formed a citizen militia called the National Guard
        6. similar revolts in other cities
        7. peasants keep breaking into noble houses 
        8. August 4th: National Assembly meeting (men only)
                a. nobles begin giving up their feudal rights
                b. law passed that outlawed all feudal obligations

III. Phase 2: the Moderate Phase (August 1789 - September 1792)
   A. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
   B. The Constitution
            - limited monarchy with 3 branches of government
   C. Break with the Church
        1. dissolved most monasteries and convents
        2. Civil Constitution of the Clergy

IV. Precursors of the Radical Phase
   A. War
   B. Economic crisis
   C. Radicals took control of Paris (Paris Commune)
        1. Jacobins (Mountain Faction, Girondins)
        2. Mountain Faction and Sans-Culottes took over Paris
            a. captured the king
            b. forced a new election of the Legislative Assembly,
                    now called the National Convention

V. Phase 3: The Radical Phase (September 1792 - summer 1794)
   A. monarchy abolished on 21 Sept 1792
        1. France becomes a republic on 22 Sept 1792
        2. Louis XVI is brought to trial for treason
        3. he is executed by guillotine in January 1793
   B. the Reign of Terror
        1. disorder everywhere: war, political divisions
        2. Convention gives political control to a 12-man committee
                - the Committee of Public Safety
        3. the committee was controlled by
                Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) [IMAGE]
        4. Robespierre decides to get rid of all opposed to the new
                French Republic
        5. the guillotine [IMAGE]; probably over 50,000 executed
        6. civil war raged throughout much of France during the Terror
                - probably around 250,000 were killed
        7. Robepierre was too indiscriminate in his executions
        8. he should not have attacked those who brought him
                to power
        9. summer 1794: Robespierre arrested and executed
                by guillotine
        10. the army of the French Republic was very successful
                during this period
                - the Committee raised a huge army to fight the European allies
                who threatened to attack France
        11. de-Christianization of France

VI. Phase 4: the Directory
   A. new moderate government by committee
   B. relative peace
   C. tried to steer a path between those who wanted a return
        to monarchy and those who wanted a more radical solution
   D. used the army to maintain its power
   E. but the army turned on the Directory in a coup d'etat in 1799
   F. during the coup, a dynamic soldier named Napoleon seized power