French Revolution: Phase 1

1789-1792

1789: Financial State of Monarchy

• Seven Years’ War: France defeated and monarchy in debt

• Aristocracy refused to pay new taxes

• Necker declared possibility of a surplus if aristocrats’ pensions were cut and American war hadn’t been funded

Necker, explaining deficits 1774-1788 to Louis XVI

1789 Economic Downturn

• Necker’s successors, Calonne and Brienne, both suggested land tax, rejected by the nobles

• French peasantry could own land, and were by some definitions the freest in Europe

• Deep economic downturn from 1787: crop failures, food shortages and rising prices The Three Estates

The Estates General• Paris Parlement and nobles

demanded the king call the Estates General

• Three Estates: Clergy(1st), Nobility (2nd), Commoners (3rd: wealthy lawyers, businessmen, et al)

• Vote by head, or by Estate? Louis XVI doubled size of Third Estate to counter nobles

• Third Estate broke away to become the National Assembly, and invited clergy & nobles

• Tennis Court Oath: not to disband until France had a constitution

Awakening of the Third Estate

Bastille and Reaction• King asked nobles and

clergy to join newly named National Constituent Assembly

• Fall of the Bastille: urban uprising reacting to fear that Louis XVI might crush uprising

• “Great Fear:” rural uprising: burning chateaux, destruction of feudal records, refusal to pay dues, seizure of food supplies and land

• Nobility on Constituent Assembly surrendered their feudal rights

Fall of the Bastille

Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen

• 26 Aug 1789: Enlightenment declaration of principles

• 17 Articles, defining freedom and central political philosophy

• “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon common utility.”

• “The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”

• Did not end slavery or give rights to women

• 7,000 Parisian women force Louis to move to Tuileries palace in Paris so as to watch and control Louis’s movements

• 1791: Olympe de Gouges wrote “Declaration of Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen,” pointing out the inequality of the treatment of women

• “This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society”.

Initial Reconstruction of France

• Constitution of 1791: constitutional monarchy with unicameral legislature and monarchical veto

• “Active” and “passive” citizens defined by amount of taxes paid transferred political power from landed nobility to citizenry of moderate wealth

• France divided into departments

Allegory of the Constitution of 1791

Reconstruction Continued

• Liberalized economy: workers’ organizations prohibited

• Confiscation and sale of church lands

• “Civil Constitution of the Clergy:” clergy to be elected as branch of government

• Austria, Prussia issued Declaration of Pillnitz: would intervene to preserve monarchy

National Assembly