chapter 20-the french revolution
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The French Revolution
Reform and Political Crisis
1789: The French Revolution
The Reconstruction of France
The Second Revolution
Most monarchs still claimed to hold their authority
directly from God
Each estate (order of citizens) had its particular
rights, privileges, and obligations
A financial or political crisis that could normally be
managed by the monarchy threatened to snowball in
this new environment
The French Revolution constituted the pivotal event
of European history in the late eighteenth century
The Revolution transformed the nature of sovereignty and
law in France
The French Revolution’s innovations defined the foundations of a liberal
society and polity
Reform and Political Crisis
Strong monarchs with reputations for being
“enlightened”reigned in Prussia, Austria, Spain, and
even Russia
In Britain energetic movements for political
reform ran into determined opposition
Britain’s 13 colonies in North America
were driven to rebellion and a revolutionary war for
independence
Enlightened Absolutism in Central and Eastern
Europe
Many believed that the Enlightened ruler was the
future of kingdoms
Frederick II of Prussia symbolized the enlightened phase of absolutism with his
comment that the ruler is the “first servant of the
state”
Any notion that Enlightenment thinking
caused monarchs to abandon these efforts is
misleading
Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96—Russia) played this game to its limit—an
experiment in representative government
Formation of a Legislative
Commission to present grievances,
propose reforms, and then debate the
proposals
Little came of the commission except
some good publicity
Conceptions of Enlightened Rule in Germany
Eighteenth-century German writers depicted the state as a machine and the ruler as its mainspring
Monarchs, who were expected to dedicate
themselves to the welfare of their subjects in return
for their subjects’ obedience
Joseph II and the Limits of Absolutism
From the Habsburg Empire, Joseph proved to be the most
innovative of the century’s major rulers as well as one of
its most autocratic personalities
Implemented several reforms long advocated by
Enlightenment thinkers: freedom of expression,
religious toleration, state control of Church, legal reform
Agrarian Reform
Agrarian reform was generally the weak side of
enlightened absolutism
Joseph set out to eradicate serfdom and to convert Habsburg peasants into
free individuals in command of their persons
and of the land they cultivated
He sought to limit the financial
obligations of peasant tenants to their lords and to
the state
He provoked fierce opposition among
the landowning nobles
Upheavals in the British Empire
George III tried to control through patronage and
influence
The Whig aristocrats saw this operation as a
threat to their own traditional power
“Wilkes and Liberty”
John Wilkes, a member of Parliament and a journalist,
became the center of this rising conflict
The government arrested him for seditious libel on a
general warrant
He fled to France
He eventually elected to the House of Commons
Rebellion in America
George III and his prime minister attempted to force
the colonies to pay the costs, past and present, of their
own defense through increased taxes and
imposing a centralized authority
America resisted, fundamentally different from
European movements
They appealed to traditional rights supposedly enjoyed
by all British subjects
propelled by the concepts of “popular sovereignty” and
“natural rights” advanced by John Locke
The American Declaration of Independence, penned by
Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin
The American Revolution created
the first state governments in the
modern era in which the exercise of power was grounded on the
participation and consent of male
citizens—not a royal sovereign
1789: The French Revolution
The rebellion in America inspired the discontent in
France
Its ultimate slogan—”Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity”, an expression of social and civic ideals that became the foundations of
modern Western civilization
It swept away seigneurialism, tax
privileges, guild monopolies, and an end to slave trade
Fraternity expressed that all citizens,
regardless of social class, or region, shared
a common fate in society and that the nation’s well-being could override the
interests of individual citizens
Origins of the Revolution
Those who made the Revolution believed they
were rising against despotic government, in
which citizens had no voice, and against
inequality
King Louis XVI (r. 1774-1792) and his queen,
Marie Antoinette
The Cultural Climate
Intellectual ferment preceded political revolt
—many of the new thinkers argued against
Monarchy
Many writers portrayed the French aristocracy as
decadent and the monarchy as a
ridiculous despotism
Class Conflict
Many believe the transition from the
aristocratic feudalism of the Middle Ages to the era of middle-class
capitalism
The middle classes led the Revolution in order to change the political and social systems in
their own interests
Others have argued that the leaders of the
Revolution in 1789 were lawyers, administrators, and liberal nobles, and
rarely merchants or industrialists
Regardless, the gap between the nobility and the middle classes was nothing compared with the gap of both from the
working class
Fiscal Crisis and Political DeadlockThe Failure of Reform
Jacques Turgot, a controller-general of finances under
Louis XVI, hoped to encourage a policy of
nonintervention (laissez-faire)
Allow individuals maximum freedom to
pursue their own economic interests
He sought to replace the obligation of peasants to work on the royal roads with a small new tax on
all landholders
Vested interests viewed Turgot as a dangerous
innovator
Turgot was removed, as was the last chance for
significant reform
Deficit Financing
The King turned to Jacques Necker, a
banker from Geneva who had a reputation for financial wizardry
Better public relations
Due to excessive borrowing, taxes were raised—an unpopular
prospect for many
Calonne and the Assembly of Notables
The new controller-general, Charles Calonne,
convinced the king to convene an Assembly of
Notables of 150 “notable” men
The assembly refused to endorse the proposed
reforms
The assembly denounced the king
and his lavish spending and
insisted on auditing the monarchy’s
finances
The aristocracy’s determined
opposition was putting an end to
absolutism in France
From the Estates General to the National
Assembly
The calling of the Estates General, a body
representing the clergy, nobility, and third-estate,
in 1789
Great excitement emerged and many “patriots”
swelled the movement against corruption and
spending
The Critique of Privilege
Nobles would still hold vastly disproportionate powers if the Estates General voted by order
The nobility, they claimed, monopolized all the lucrative
positions in society while doing little for its productive
workers
The enemy was no longer simply absolutism but
privilege as well
Cashiers and Elections
The king had invited all citizens to meet their local parishes to elect
delegates to draft “grievance
petitions” (cahiers)
The bulk of the complaints had to do
local problems and high taxes—NOT natural
rights
Deadlock and Revolution
The Third Estate formed a “National Assembly”
The king sought to lockout the Third Estate
To curb complaints, he promised equality in
taxation, and civil liberties
The king was eventually forced to recognize the
National Assembly—the
delegation began a nonviolent, “legal”
revolution
They claimed to be the sovereign
power in France
The Convergence of Revolutions
The winter and spring of 1788-1789 had brought
severe economic difficulties—crop failures and grain
shortage caused a doubling of the price of flour
Many feared an “aristocratic plot” against
the National Assembly and the Third-Estate
The Fall of the Bastille
The king set 20 thousands royal troops into the Paris
region
The movement prepared to resist and sieged the
Bastille, an old fortress once used as the as a prison and
stored gunpowder
The first major battle—the revolution turned violent
Peasants Revolts
These events did not pacify the anxious and hungry people of the
countryside
Seigneurial dues and church tithes weighed
heavily on many peasants
Suspicions were rampant that nobles were hoarding
grain
Peasants sacked houses of the nobles and burned
seigneurial records
“the Great Fear”
These prompted armed mobilizations in
hundreds of villages, and set off new attacks on
manor houses
Many declared the “abolition of feudalism”
The Reconstruction of France
The National Assembly set out not simply to enact reforms but to
reconstruct French institutions on entirely new principles
No aspect of France’s social or political system was immune to scrutiny, not even slavery in the
colonies
In 1792 war broke out, which led directly to the fall of the monarchy
and to a new, violent turn in the Revolution
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The Declaration was the death certificate of the old regime and
a rallying point for the future
The Declaration enumerated *natural rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of
religious conscience
The new regime would be based on the principles of
reason rather than tradition
The New Constitution
Representative Government
From 1789 to 1791, the National Assembly acted as a Constituent Assembly to produce a constitution for
France
In 1790 nobles lost their titles and became
indistinguishable from other citizens
Under the French Constitution of 1791, every adult male of
settled domicile who satisfied minimal
taxpaying requirements gained the right to vote
In the same frame of mind the Assembly excluded all women
from voting
Women in the Revolution
A brief but spirited drive for women’s suffrage advanced through pamphlets, petitions, and deputation to the Assembly
—Declaration of the Rights of Women
The majority of deputies believed women to be too emotional
Race and Slavery
Public opinion scorned Jews as an alien race
not entitled to citizenship
The Assembly rejected that argument and extended civil and political equality to
Jews
Planters argued that they could not maintain slavery
since it is based on race
Slave rebellions erupted, blacks turned violently on
their white masters and proclaimed the independence
of the colony—Haiti
In 1794 the French revolutionary government
abolished slavery in all French colonies
Unifying the NationThe Assembly divided the
nation’s territory into eighty-three departments of
roughly equal size
The new administrative map also created the boundaries
for a new judicial system
Criminal defendants for the first time gained the right to
counsel
Economic Individualism
Besides dismantling internal tariffs and chartered trading
monopolies, it abolished merchants’ and artisans’ guilds and proclaimed the
right of every citizen to enter any trade and
conduct it freely
The Revolution and the Church
Under revolutionary ideology, the French
Catholic Church could no longer exist as an
independent corporation
It made the state responsible for the
upkeep of the Church
Religious Schism
The Assembly intended to rid the Church of inequities that enriched the aristocratic
prelates of the old regime
*Civil Constitution of the Clergy reduced the number
of bishops from 130 to 83 and all bishops must make
an oath of loyalty to the constitution
Some refused, remaining loyal to the Pope and the church’s
independence
A schism tore through French Catholicism
The oath crisis polarized the nation
Counterrevolution, Radicalism, and War
The King’s Flight
Emigres formed an army that threatened to overthrow the
new regime at the first opportunity
The Assembly reaffirmed the king’s place in the new regime, but Louis’ treasonous flight to Varennes ensured that radical
agitation would continue
The Fall of the Monarchy
France went to war with a coalition of Austria, Prussia,
and the emigres
Rebellion continued. Louis XVI published a Manifesto
supporting the invaders
The Assembly declared Louis XVI’s reign suspended
Half the members fled Paris—ending its legitimacy
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