AP World History The French Revolution Period 4

AP World History: The French Revolution Period 4

I The Old Regime (Ancien Regime) A) Old Regime – socio-political system which existed in most of Europe during the 18 th century B) At this time many European countries were ruled by absolutism – the monarch had absolute control over the government C) In France, people were divided into three estates

II Causes of the French Revolution A) France’s economy was declining 1. Peasant farmers of France bore the burden of taxation 2. The price of bread was skyrocketing. The average 18 th century worker spent half his daily wage on bread. When the grain crops failed in 1788 and 1789, the price of bread shot up to 88 % of his wages! Many blamed the ruling class. 3. King Louis XVI lavished money on himself and residences like Versailles. Queen Marie Antoinette was seen as a wasteful spender. [Thus the rumor of her saying “Let them eat cake”, which historians think she never actually said] 4. The government funds were also depleted due to aiding the American Revolution. B) Enlightenment philosophes questioned the divine right of monarchs. C) Influence of the American Revolution!

The French Monarchy Marie Antoinette was not French, but was born an Austrian princess! Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1755, Marie Antoinette was the 15 th and last child of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the powerful Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa. She was only 14 years old when she married the future French King Louis XVI.

Causes of the French Revolution Continued… C) In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne proposed a universal land tax from which the privileged classes would no longer be exempt. To try and prevent the nobles from revolting, the king summoned the Estates-General (“les états généraux”); an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle class–for the first time since 1614. The meeting was scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from each locality would compile lists of grievances to present to the king. The Third Estate now represented 98% of the people but could still be outvoted by the other two bodies. In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation and the abolishment of the noble veto–in other words, they wanted voting by head and not by status. However, the nobles did not want to give up the privileges they enjoyed under the traditional system.

Causes of the French Revolution Continued… D) By the time the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the issue over the power of the 3 rd Estate’s vote was still not solved. On June 17, the 3 rd Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of the National Assembly. Immediately Louis XVI locked the National Assembly out of the Estates-General meeting. 3 days later, the National Assembly met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. On June 23, 1789, Louis XVI relented. He ordered the 3 estates to meet together as the National Assembly and vote, by population, on a constitution for France.

The Tennis Court Oath “The National Assembly, considering that it has been summoned to establish the constitution of the kingdom, to effect the regeneration of the public order, and to maintain the true principles of monarchy; that nothing can prevent it from continuing its deliberations in whatever place it may be forced to establish itself; and, finally, that wheresoever its members are assembled, there is the National Assembly… Decrees that all members of this Assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established and consolidated upon firm foundations; and that, the said oath taken, all members and each one of them individually shall ratify this steadfast resolution by signature. ” Bronze Relief, 1883

III The Storming of the Bastille and the Great Fear A) On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet at Versailles, Parisians panicked as rumors of an impending military coup began to circulate. B) On July 14 rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution. C) Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and nobles. Known as the Great Fear, the revolts hastened the growing exodus of nobles from the country and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789.

The Storming the Bastille The Bastille was originally constructed in 1370 to protect the walled city of Paris from English attack. It was first used as a state prison in the 17 th century, and its cells were reserved for upper-class felons and political troublemakers. Most prisoners there were imprisoned without a trial under direct orders of the king. Bernard-Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille, feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries and so requested reinforcements, and transferred 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille from the Paris Arsenal. Launay brought his men into the Bastille and raised its two drawbridges. On July 13, revolutionaries with muskets began firing at soldiers standing guard on the Bastille’s towers and then took cover in the Bastille’s courtyard when Launay’s men fired back. That evening, mobs stormed the Paris Arsenal and another armory and acquired thousands of muskets. At dawn on July 14, a great crowd armed with muskets and swords.

The Storming the Bastille Continued… Launay promised he would not open fire on the crowd and showed them that his cannons were not loaded. Instead of calming the crowd, news of the unloaded cannons emboldened a group of men to climb over the outer wall of the courtyard and lower a drawbridge. 300 revolutionaries rushed in. When the mob outside began trying to lower the second drawbridge, Launay ordered his men to open fire. 100 rioters were killed or wounded. Around 3 p. m. , a company of deserters from the French army arrived. The soldiers, hidden by smoke from fires set by the mob, dragged five cannons into the courtyard and aimed them at the Bastille. Launay raised a white flag of surrender over the fortress. Launay and his men were taken into custody, the gunpowder and cannons were seized, and the 7 prisoners of the Bastille were freed. The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the ancien regime and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible momentum.

Bastille Day, Paris

IV Drafting a Constitution A) On August 4, the National Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. B) Drafting a formal constitution was a challenge as the members of the National Constituent Assembly had to deal with questions such as 1. Who would be responsible for electing delegates? 2. Would the clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church or the French government? 3. How much authority would the king, his public image further weakened after a failed attempt to flee in June 1791, retain?

Primary Source: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789 The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties… Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:

Drafting a Constitution Continued… C) Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. D) This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre (1758 -1794), Camille Desmoulins (17601794) and Georges Danton (1759 -1794), who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government and the trial of Louis XVI.

Declaration of the Rights of Man Continued… Articles: 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. 2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. 3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents. 7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense. 8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense. .

Declaration of the Rights of Man Continued… 9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law. 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. 12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted. 13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means. 14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes. 15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration. 16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all. 17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified

V The Reign of Terror A) In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances. B) Back in France, a group of radicals led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. C) When the Jacobins sent gangs into the prisons to try to butcher 1400 victims, the Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. The Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic. On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755 -1793) suffered the same fate nine months later.

The Jacobins Maximilien de Robespierre Camille Desmoulins “To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty. ” Robespierre Georges Danton

The Girondins Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a leader of the Girondins. “It is better to make our enemy's country theater of war than our own. ”

The Reign of Terror Continued… D) In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity. They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror, a 10 -month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794.

The Guillotine During the Reign of Terror of the mid-1790 s, thousands of “enemies of the French revolution” met their end by the guillotine’s blade. Some members of the public initially complained that the machine was too quick and clinical, but before long the process had evolved into high entertainment. Spectators could buy souvenirs, read a program listing the names of the victims, or even grab a quick bite to eat at a nearby restaurant called “Cabaret de la Guillotine. ” Public beheadings continued in France until 1939. It was finally abolished in France in 1981, a year after Ms. Glass was born! Studies on rats have since found that brain activity may continue for around four seconds after decapitation.

VI The Rise of Napoleon A) On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France’s first bicameral legislature. Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory appointed by parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime but were silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 -1821). B) The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, and political corruption. By the late 1790 s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority. On November 9, 1799, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France’s “first consul. ” The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era.

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, 1791 üWritten by journalist Olympe de Gouges üArgued that women are equal citizens and should benefit from governmental reforms just as men did üWomen did gain some rights during the French Revolution, but these were designed for purposes other than liberating women. - Women could inherit property, but only because doing so weakened feudalism and reduced wealth among the upper classes. - Divorce became easier, but only to weaken the Church’s control over

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, 1791 Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. The flame of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains. Having become free, he has become unjust to his companion. Oh, women! When will you cease to be blind? What advantage have you received from the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain. In the centuries of corruption you ruled only over the weakness of men. The reclamation of your patrimony, based on the wise decrees of naturewhat have you to dread from such a fine undertaking? The bon mot of the legislator of the marriage of Cana? Do you fear that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long ensnared by political practices now out of date, will only say again to you: women, what is there in common between you and us? Everything, you will have to answer. If they persist in their weakness in putting this non sequitur in contradiction to their principles, courageously oppose the force of reason to the empty pretentions of superiority; unite yourselves beneath the standards of philosophy; deploy all the energy of your character, and you will soon see these haughty men, not groveling at your feet as servile adorers, but proud to share with you the treasures of the Supreme Being. Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to. . Marriage is the tomb of trust and love. The married woman can with impunity give bastards to her husband, and also give them the wealth which does not belong to them. The woman who is unmarried has only one feeble right; ancient and inhuman laws refuse to her for her children the right to the name and the wealth of their father; no new laws have been made in this matter. If it is considered a paradox and an impossibility on my part to try to give my sex an honorable and just consistency, I leave it to men to attain glory for dealing with this matter; but while we wait, the way can be prepared through national education, the restoration of morals, and conjugal conventions… We, _____ and ______, moved by our own will, unite ourselves for the duration of our lives, and for the duration of our mutual inclinations, under the following conditions: We intend and wish to make our wealth communal, meanwhile reserving to ourselves the right to divide it in favor of our children and of those toward whom

Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, 1791 we might have a particular inclination, mutually recognizing that our property belongs directly to our children, from whatever bed they come, and that all of them without distinction have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers who have acknowledged them, and we are charged to subscribe to the law which punishes the renunciation of one's own blood. We likewise obligate ourselves, in case of separation, to divide our wealth and to set aside in advance the portion the law indicates for our children, and in the event of a perfect union, the one who dies will divest himself of half his property in his children's favor, and if one dies childless, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the dying person has disposed of half the common property in favor of one whom he judged deserving. That is approximately the formula for the marriage act I propose for execution. Upon reading this strange document, I see rising up against me the hypocrites, the prudes, the clergy, and the whole infernal sequence. But how it [my proposal] offers to the wise the moral means of achieving the perfection of a happy government!. . . Moreover, I would like a law which would assist widows and young girls deceived by the false promises of a man to whom they were attached; I would like, I say, this law to force an inconstant man to hold to his obligations or at least [to pay] an indemnity equal to his wealth. Again, I would like this law to be rigorous against women, at least those who have the effrontery to have re. Course to a law which they themselves had violated by their misconduct, if proof of that were given. At the same time, as I showed in Le Bonheur primitit de l'homme, in 1788, that prostitutes should be placed in designated quarters. It is not prostitutes who contribute the most to the depravity of morals, it is the women of' society. In regenerating the latter, the former are changed. This link of fraternal union will first bring disorder, but in consequence it will produce at the end a perfect harmony. I offer a foolproof way to elevate the soul of women; it is to join them to all the activities of man; if man persists in finding this way impractical, let him share his fortune with woman, not at his caprice, but by the wisdom of laws. Prejudice falls, morals are purified, and nature regains all her rights. Add to this the marriage of priests and the strengthening of the king on his throne, and the French government cannot fail.

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David The three most memorable Jacobins were Georges Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, and Jean-Paul Marat. Because of a debilitating illness, Marat was eventually forced to work from home. He was assassinated (in the tub while taking a medicinal bath) by Charlotte Corday, a Girondist sympathizer, in July, 1793.

HW Questions 1. Fill in the appropriate boxes for your Period 4 Chart. 2. What were the short and long term causes of the French Revolution? 3. Describe the key events of the French Revolution including the Tennis Court Oath and the storming of the Bastille. 4. What human rights were expressed in the Rights of Man and the Rights of Woman? 5. What were the causes and consequences of the Reign of Terror? Could it have been avoided? 6. What led to the rise of Napoleon? 7. Compare and contrast the French and American Revolutions. Which do you think was more successful? More justified? Explain. Secondary Sources: www. history. com

Key Vocabulary 1 st Estate 2 nd Estate 3 rd Estate Ancien Regime Bastille Camille Desmoulins Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Declaration of the Rights of Women Estates-General French Revolution Georges Danton Girondins Great Fear Guillotine Jacobins Jacques-Pierre Brissot King Louis XVI Maximilien de Robespierre Napoleon Bonaparte National Assembly National Constituent Assembly Olympe de Gouges Queen Marie Antoinette Reign of Terror Tennis Court Oath The Directory