Making of the Modern World The French Revolution

Making of the Modern World The French Revolution

The French Revolution - Ça ira! • Ça ira! (Edith Piaf) – Ça ira, ça ira! Les aristocrates à la lanterne! – Song dates from the Revolution itself.

The French Revolution It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities The French Revolution is a movement of God. It is a pure gift to progress. - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Enduring Reference Point for Social and Political Change ‘It will be like the French Revolution… It will take years. ’ • Hatim Tallima of the Revolutionary Socialists in Cairo, 2013 (Arab Spring)

The French Revolution: Modern? What is modernity? Loaded term? Eurocentricism by another name? Was the period beginning with Enlightenment fundamentally different?

Watershed of modernity Overturned Divine-right, absolutist monarchy Privilege (as opposed to civil equality) Aristocracy Guilds, corporations The Church’s wealth and moral preeminence

An explosion of –ism’s (some in ‘proto’ form) – Liberalism – Republicanism – Socialism – Conservatism – Free-market capitalism – Feminism – Nationalism – Imperialism (an ideologically driven form of it) – Liberal authoritarianism (contradiction in terms? ) – Totalitarianism (from Rousseau to Robespierre to Stalin? ) – Secular universalism

Edmund Burke (sacred tradition) vs Thomas Paine (democratic change) Kings will be tyrants by policy when subjects are rebels by principle. – Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) The circumstances of the world are continually changing and the opinions of man also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. – Paine, Rights of Man (1791)

Historical debates Origins – Circumstances (financial, political) – Class – Enlightenment Philosophy – Public Opinion Course – Why did it into the Terror? – Why did republicanism give way to Bonapartism? Legacies – Did the French Revolution bequeath freedom, equality and fraternity or pathological forms of politics?

Origins: circumstances Financial breakdown – France helped finance the American War for Independence from Britain (1770 s-1780 s) – More than half of annual tax revenues used up to pay interest on the debt (1786) – No central bank; regime borrowed at high interest rates – Refusal of elites to pay more taxes Political impasse – Parlements (who represent ‘the nation’) vs. Monarchy Bad harvests, high bread prices (1788 -1789)

Class Interpretation (prevalent in mid-20 th century) Three Estates – Clergy (those who pray) – Nobles (those who fight) – Third Estate (those who work) Bourgeoisie (Third Estate): had wealth and productive power but no political power

abbé Sieyès What is the Third Estate? (1789) What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been recognised to be until now? Nothing. What does it aspire to be? Something.

Origins: Enlightenment Ideas? Voltaire and other philosophes? Desacralisation of throne and altar Critical reason/science trumps ethics & morality Montesquieu Checks and balances Rousseau ‘General Will’ and popular sovereignty Virtue Utopian principles lead to authoritarianism

Origins: Public Opinion From pious subjects to critical citizens A more literate and critical public Content of print and conversations: – – Critical of monarchy (debauched, arbitrary, corrupt) Critical of noble privileges Critical of church authorities Irreverence for sacred power: throne and altar Thinking for oneself, skeptical of authority – People, bombarded with print (some of it produced by politically interested sources like the monarchy) learn to be skeptical of all authority

Course of Revolution • Liberal Phase – 1789 -1792 (constitutional monarchy) • Radical Phase – 1792 -1794 (republic) – Year II, the Terror (1793 -94) • Thermidor/Directory – 1794 -1799 (republic, but increasingly authoritarian) • Consulate, Empire – 1799 -1814 (Napoleon)

Meeting of the Estates General May 1789 • Failure in 1787 to persuade a hand-picked Assembly of Notables to agree to more taxes • Parlement (sovereign judicial courts) also refuses to agree to more taxes • Only remaining solution: A meeting of the Estates General – First time since 1614 (absolutism had no use for representative bodies) – Called for May 1789 – Freedom of the press… citizens are politicised…

1789 – La Révolution June 17 Third Estate seizes power Asserts control over debt and taxes

June 20 – Tennis Court Oath (indoor, see below) New National Assembly takes an oath to refuse to disband until Constitution is completed June 27 – Louis XVI concedes and recognises NA but plots military repression

1789 July 14 – The Storming of the Bastille – Parisians, in search of arms to protect themselves from monarchy’s repression, attack this fortress and prison on the edge of Paris for arms; few prisoners being held there at the time. Governor fires on crowds, who storm the prison and put his head on a pike. August 4 – Abolition of Privilege (end of the Old Regime, since privilege was at the very heart of it) August 26 – Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen October 5 -6 – Women’s Bread March to Versailles – Brings King, Queen and National Assembly to Paris, where they were more vulnerable to popular pressures

Storming of the Bastille, July 14 Was torn down, stone by stone

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen note resemblance to Ten Commandments: a modern, secular religion?

1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy – State seizes church lands (10 -12% of all land), which will be auctioned off (to pay for the national debt) – Closure of monasteries and convents (seen as un-useful institutions in an age of Enlightenment utility) – Requires religious clerics to swear an oath to uphold the new Constitution Left/Right splits in National Assembly – Arch-Royalists sit on right; Progressives (Jacobins and their allies) on the left Spread of Jacobin clubs throughout France – Who were Jacobins? • Initially a group of legislators who met to strategize • Eventually, became a nationwide network of clubs in favour of a constitution, rights and legal equality • Often pressured local officials to carry out new laws

1791 • June: Flight of the King to Varennes – Intended to return with counterrevolutionary troops to put down the Revolution (Marie-Antoinette’s brother, Joseph, was emperor of the Habsburg Empire) – Louis XVI was recognized at border by a postman, sent back to Paris • July: Massacre on the Champs de Mars Radicals call for a Republic – Lafayette fire on them • Constitutional monarchists vs. Republicans

1791 • September: Constitution promulgated • Free-market society – Abolition of guilds, corporations and all government regulation bodies – Within a year, radical sans-culottes emerge

Tensions rise 1792 Religious Counterrevolutionary propaganda proliferates Resistance to clerical oath and anger about new constitutional priests imposed on parishes Social and economic Disruptions in the world of labour; Popular discontent in political clubs and city sections Political King is essentially a prisoner in Paris, plotting in hopes of a foreign invasion to put down revolution Revolutionaries divided radicals vs. moderates (Jacobins / Girondins)

1792 April: War declared against Austria. Soon, France is at war with most of its neighbours, who fear the spread of revolution. August 10: The monarchy falls in violent insurrection September 2 -7: Prison massacres of priests and nobles in Paris by radical ‘sans-culotte’ forces September 21: First Republic declared – Constitutional vacuum until June 1793 – Operating in a state of exception… all executive decisions easily denounced as arbitrary… no constitutional guidelines. . – Sharp tensions between a free-market and regulated economy – Pressure for political justice

1793 • January: Louis XVI is guillotined • March: counterrevolutionary revolts in Vendée • Terror gears up – Creation of the Committee of Public Safety (executive) – Committee of General Security (police committee) – Revolutionary Tribunals (send ‘enemies’ of the revolution to the guillotine) • June: Jacobins in Convention, pushed by sans-culottes in Paris, purge the Girondin deputies from National Convention • Summer: Federalist Revolts against Paris and sansculotte movement (provinces resent purge)

1793 • Sans-culotte initiatives – Re-regulate markets (The Law of the Maximum) • Levée en masse (universal draft) – Largest army in European history – Army of citizens fighting for their rights

1794 • Slavery in French colonies abolished (Feb) • Terror escalates (spring) – Dantonistes (want to end the Terror) – Hébertistes (who want to push it further) – Government liquidates both • High Terror (June/July): thousands executed in Paris • 27 July (9 Thermidor): Robespierre and other members of the Committee of Public Safety are arrested and guillotined

1795 -1799 Liberal Authoritarianism The Directory – Executive-heavy Republic, with 5 directors – Conservative: Rights and Duties in new Constitution – Free-markets; radical insurrections quashed violently – Difficult to pursue a middle path between radicalism and royalism – See-saw politics: radicals vs royalists – Elections annulled to maintain centre ground – Revolution exported; the republican generals gain in reputation and power

Rise of Napoleon Neo-Jacobins begin organizing Royalists stirring up trouble What is needed? A king loyal to the principles of the Revolution: Napoleon Coup of the 18 Brumaire (Nov 9, 1799)

1800 -1815 Consulate and First Empire Napoleon creates strong centralized state Strong police and tax authorities Conquers much of Europe Overturns old regimes Fleeces conquered countries but imposes new ideology and administrative structures… creating new political and administrative structures that will help bring about the rise of ‘nation states’ across the 19 th century

French Empire

Key terms and concepts • Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) • Jacobinism (at first free-markets; later market regulation, centralising state; fiercely secular, touch of social justice) • Sans-culottes (for economic regulations and redistribution; punishment of nation’s ‘enemies’; military defense) • Vendée (civil war, religion very central) • Levée en masse – universal draft, largest army in Europe almost overnight (1793 ---) • Terror in the name of political principles

A new culture • Time, weights and measure - rationality – Metric system created – more rational than inches, feet, etc. – Revolutionary Calendar based on nature. 10 day weeks • Brumaire (Nov-Dec): ‘brume’ means fog • Ventôse (March-Apr): ‘vent’ means wind • Revolutionary Festivals – Festival of the Supreme Being (June 1794) • Deism • Notre Dame cathedral converted into the Temple of Reason • Some public schools and museums founded • Cult of the Nation – Pantheon: where France’s ‘great’ heroes were buried • Voltaire, Rousseau, radical murdered journalist Marat, etc.

Revolutionary Calendar

Sample of a ‘meter’ for public use during Revolution

A Temple of Reason (secular conversion of church, 1794) Inscription: The French people recognise the Supreme Being and the immortality of the spirit

Festival of the Supreme Being June 1793

Guillotine Execution of Louis XVI (Jan 21, 1793)

Impact • Revolutionary Europe (19 th and 20 th Centuries) – Notably in 1848 – Russian Revolution in 1917 • Nationalism, rise of nation states (19 th/20 th centuries) • Democratic revolutions across the world (20 th century) • Literature and Philosophy – Fires imaginations for more than two centuries

Confused? Brief overview here, or: • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=w. Xs. Zbkt 0 yqo

Supplemental Slide The following slide with details about the Terror was not in the lecture.

The Terror in perspective • Struck at ‘suspects’ of the new regime. • Deaths from revolutionary strife – 17, 000 executions by revolutionary tribunals – 15, 000 -17, 000 die in prison • Deaths in civil and foreign wars (1792 -1815) – roughly 4 million across Europe – 250, 000 to 400, 000 in the civil war of the Vendée – Most deaths occur during Napoleon’s wars

Key Interpretations • Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790) – Founder of modern conservatism – Need for tradition and religion; enemy of the Enlightenment • Alexis de Tocqueville (The Old Regime and the French Revolution, 1857) – Revolution resulted from big, bad centralising Old Regime state and utopian Enlightenment ideology. – 1688 and American Revolution were good revolutions about liberty – French Revolution was about equality, which led to tragedy • Marx/Jaurès (mid 19 th and 20 th) – Revolution about class struggle – Bourgeoisie allied with and manipulated working class to oust aristocracy