French Revolution

1788 - 1794
Overview of the Causes
 The Three Estates!
The Clergy
• 1% of population with 10% of land
• They had wealth; land, privileges
• 100,000 strong
The Nobility
• 2-5% of population with 20% of the
land
• They also had great wealth and taxed
the peasants
• 400,000 strong
The Commoners
• 95-97% of population
• Few rich members (artisans/
peasantry)
 Subdivisions of the Third Estate
The Bourgeoisie
•  8% of population with 20% of the land
•  2.3 million people
•  Had slaves
•  Most important political group in the third estate but still had
no say in the running of the country
The Urban Poor of Paris
•  Artisans, factory workers, journeymen
•  Literate
The Peasants
•  40% of the land
•  Vast majority of the population that was constantly growing
•  Paid most of the taxes
Financial Difficulties!
 Age of Enlightenment: !
An Age in which Scientific and Philosophical Thought Spread

Liberalism
• Human rights/Natural rights
• The sovereignty of people
• Equal rights for all under the
law
Philosophes
• Main advocates of this
intellectual movement
• Voltaire, Locke,
Rosseau, etc…
 King Louis XVI
•  King XVI and queen Marie-Antoinette had no idea what
problems their country was facing
•  The King suppressed the national assembly’s idea to create
a new constitution
•  Put his family before the country
•  Spent government’s money carelessly
 Estates General
•  The French legislative body: Nobility,
Clergy and Commoners
•  Important in the 14th and 15th centuries;
was not used from 1614 - 1788
•  Part of the ancien régime - old rule
•  In May 1789, called upon by King Louis
to to deal with the financial crisis
•  By June the Third Estate declares itself the
National Assembly
•  They decided they would be the voice of
the people and speak out against the
monarchy
Tennis Court Oath
•  King wants a royal session to assert his
power and set up a program that
everyone all three estates agree with
•  The National Assembly was supposed to
have a meeting on June 20
•  Saw this as an act of monarchy on the
behalf of King Louis XVI
•  Went to local indoor tennis court and
deputies took an oath saying they would
not disband until a new constitution and
public regeneration were established.
 Storming of the Bastille!
July 14, 1789
•  Initial reason was to get ammunition
–  The seven inmates, none of them
political prisoners, were freed.
–  The governor, Launay, and was
dragged through Paris to the City Hall
and killed
•  The Bastille only had 110 men to fight
and there were 300 people in the mob
•  July 14 is French Independence Day
•  The attack is considered the beginning
of the French Revolution
Declaration of the Rights of Man!
•  Passed by the National Assembly on
August 26, 1789
•  Written as a frame work for modern
democracy
•  Summary of the ideals of the Revolution
–  Justified the destruction of a government
based upon monarchy and privilege
–  The establishment of a new regime based
upon the rights of individuals, liberty, and
political equality plausible
•  Many ideas for the Declaration were from
the Age of Enlightenment
•  Adopted by the United Nations as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
•  Church had owned 6% of the national
lands
•  Louis XVI decided to revoke the
Churches Lands and give them to the
people
•  By doing this, the people would be
happier.
•  The State announced that the Church
would answer to the state, and the state
would dictate what they would do.
Constitution of 1791!
•  Originally drafted in 1789
•  Was thought that it would heal the corrupted
political system
•  Finished in September of 1791
•  Prefaced by the Declaration of the Rights of
Man, voted in on August 26th of 1789.
•  The major details
–  establishing a limited monarchy
–  enforcing the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and the Citizen
–  abolishing the provinces (states) and
hereditary titles
–  dividing the country into departments!
Convention!
1792-1795
•  First action was to abolish the
monarchy and establish an assembly.
•  After the Battle at Tuileries and the
arrest of King Louis XVI, they called
their first meeting Sept. 20th 1792
•  War time government, its actions were
more around protecting the Republic
from threats, rather than establishing
peace [postponed new constitution]
•  They did establish social and political
turmoil that led to changes in system.
•  The Jacobin Club and the Girondists
were main parties.
•  Different departments or committees,
much like our modern legislative
assembly except they had the executive
power.
 Sans-Culottes! Storming of the Tuileries!
•  Named this because they didn't wear upper August 10, 1792!
class breeches or culottes
•  Insurgents, largely Jacobins, stormed
•  Common / working people people of Paris
the Tuileries
•  Their desires were simple
–  Survival was a right of all people •  In the raid they took King Louis XVI
–  Inequality of any kind was to be
and his family prisoners
abolished •  In December of 1792, the Convention
–  The aristocracy and the monarchy were put Louis XVI on trial
to be eliminated •  January 21, 1793 King Louis XVI was
–  Property was to be shared in communal executed on the guillotine
groups
•  The Jacobins worked with the sans-culottes
•  The convention became under the control of
the Jacobins and the sans-culottes, and turned
its attention to abolishing of the monarchy.
 The Guillotine
•  Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotine
proposed a more human way to
execute people.
•  Used as early as 1307 in Ireland
•  Fail-safe, as compared to
hanging
•  Death from decapitation, once
blade fell on neck, cut off head.
•  Unveiled in 1792, in Paris
Maximilian Robespierre!
1758-1794
•  Trained as a lawyer, gained reputation for
writing eloquent political essays.
•  His ideas were mainly shaped by
Rousseau, “Republic of Virtue”
•  1787- elected into Estates General
•  He spoke for the Third Estate
•  He was later elected the leader of the
Jacobin party and the Committee for
Public Safety.
•  Somewhat vain, he was not easily liked.
•  Didn’t experience the conditions he was
speaking for, “out of touch”
•  Narrow-minded polices caused the “Reign
of Terror”
•  1793- vouched for freedom of religion,
saw no religion leading to anarchy-
degradation of government.
 Committee of Public Safety!
1793-1794
•  Set up to replace the General Defense
Committee on April 6th
•  9 members, Danton and then
Robespierre were the leaders
•  In a year, gave the country stability to
organize its forces (levee en masse)
•  Killed thousands of people because
of narrow-minded views
•  Responsible for protection of the
Republic
•  Paranoid of outside attack and
internal upheaval of establishment.
Led to “Reign of Terror”
 Reign of Terror !
September 1793- July 1794
•  Claimed around 2,500 victims in Paris,
more outside of that
•  Effort to clear the nation of its enemies
and traitors
•  “Between people and their enemies there
can be nothing in common but the sword”
•  Mass trials and convictions for crimes
against the state
•  “Cult of Reason” Voltaire, Rousseau
“saints” [de-Christianization”]
•  Criticism of the Committee for its
paranoia. Danton stated it was time to
stop chopping off heads and time for
peace and rebuilding the country.
•  Danton executed April 6th 1794
Execution of Robespierre !
End of the Reign of Terror!
•  Robespierre had brushes of death, with death threats and near
assassinations, in his mind threats still existed
•  June 1794, the definition of a public enemy widened , so that
almost anyone could be a threat
•  “Great Terror” 49 day period, 1,400 people killed in Paris
alone.
•  Threat was really gone, day after day terror was instilled,
Committee tired of it, no longer a cohesive group, starting to
turn on each other
•  Questioning Robespierre’s actions, many people started to
hate him
•  July 26th- denounced accusations towards him
•  July 27th- Robespierre arrived at the Convention and was
arrested, he was executed the next day
Now that the last major revolutionary has come to his death . . .!

The Revolution Ends !

and sets the stage for Napoleon!
 Bibliography
Andress, David. Links on the French Revolution. 11 Jan. 2006. 14 May 2007 <http://userweb.port.ac.uk/
~andressd/frlinks.htm#Intro>.

Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990.

Otfinoski, Steven. Triumph and Terror: the French Revolution. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1993.

"Revolution." Freedom or Death: a Provocative Exploration of the French Revolution. 14 May 2007
<http://library.thinkquest.org/C006257/revolution/default.shtml>.

"Timeline." Freedom or Death: a Provocative Exploration of the French Revolution. 14 May 2007 <http://
library.thinkquest.org/C006257/timeline/default.shtml>.
 Picture Sources
Picture 1: Liberty. Eugene Delacroix - http://www.chess-theory.com/images1/00807_eugene_delacroix.jpg
Picture 2: Causes for the French Revolution - http://www.strategictransitions.com/images/frenchrevo1.gif
Picture 3: King Louis XVI - http://www.axonais.com/saintquentin/musee_lecuyer/graphs/louisXV.jpg
Picture 4: Tennis Court Oath - http://www.loyno.edu/~seduffy/tennis_court_oath.jpg
Picture 5: Fall of Bastille - http://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/history_wing/assets/room1/fall_of_the_bastille.jpg
Picture 6: Declaration of the Rights of Man - http://www.tocqueville.culture.fr/images/portraits/droits_homme_2.jpg
Picture 7: The Guillotine - http://www.accsoft.com.au/~ross777/Tolstoy/gifs_pics/guillotine.gif
Picture 8: Convention - http://ser.stanford.edu/Media/Images/CalendrierNationalThumbnail.jpg
Picture 9: Maximilien Robespierre - http://www.ladyreading.net/labille-guiard/big/robespierre.jpg
Picture 10: committee of public safety:http://www.antiquesatoz.com/stephenherold/graphics/public-safety.jpg
Picture 11: Depiction of Violence in the Revolution -
http://www.historytoday.com/digimaker/pictures/Bloody_aftermath_of_the_French_Revolution_Wz9KCXon.jpg
Picture 12: Robespierre's Execution - http://www.geocities.com/rwkenyon/robespierre.jpg
Picture 13: Napoleon - http://web.bilkent.edu.tr/Online/www.english.upenn.edu/jlynch/Frank/Gifs/napoleon.gif
Timeline and Pictures: http://library.thinkquest.org/C006257/timeline/default.shtml