European History (200)

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The French Revolution

• The French Revolution
• Marie Antoinette
• French Revolution 101 (Breif History, summarized to almost a page)
• Marie Antoinette and "Let them eat cake"
• French Revolution (Detailed History but still comprehensive)
• French Revolution (much Detailed)
• Time line of the French Revolution (brief)

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The French Revolution

Beginning in 1789, the Revolution affected every aspect of France and much of Europe.

Marie Antoinette @
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French Revolution 101 (Breif History, summarized to almost a page)
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Marie Antoinette and "Let them eat cake"
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French Revolution (Detailed History but still comprehensive)
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French Revolution (much Detailed)
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Timeline of the French Revolution (brief)
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Antoinette, Marie

An Austrian princess who married the King of France and died on the Guillotine, Marie

Antoinette's whorish, greedy and air-headed reputation is based on a seam of vicious propaganda and the popular memory of a phrase she didn't actually say. While recent books have portrayed Marie in a better light, the old slurs still linger.

French Revolution 101

Summary: Between 1789 and 1802 France was wracked by a revolution which radically changed the government, administration, military and culture of the nation as well as plunging Europe into a series of wars. France went from a largely feudal state under an absolutist monarch to a republic which executed the king and then to an empire under Napoleon Bonaparte.

When was the French Revolution?: Although historians are agreed that the French Revolution started in 1789 they are divided on the end date. A few histories stop in 1795 with the creation of the Directory, some stop in 1799 with the creation of the Consulate, while many more stop in 1802 when Napoleon Bonaparte became Consul for Life or 1804 when he became Emperor. A rare few continue to the restoration of the monarchy in 1814. This site prefers 1802.

The French Revolution in Brief: A medium term financial crisis, caused partly by French involvement in the American War of Independence, led to the French crown first calling an Assembly of Notables and then, in 1789, a meeting called the Estates General in order to impose new tax laws. The Estates General was composed of three ‘Estates’: the clergy, the nobility and the rest of France. This 'third estate', informed by long term doubts over the constitution of France and the development of a new social order of bourgeoisie, declared itself a National Assembly and decreed the suspension of tax, taking French sovereignty into its own hands.

After a power struggle which saw the National Assembly take the Tennis Court Oath not to disband, the king gave in and the Assembly began reforming France, scrapping the old system and drawing up a new constitution with a legislative assembly. This continued the reforms, but it created divisions in France by legislating against the church and declaring war on nations which supported the French king. In 1792 a second revolution took place, as Jacobins and sansculottes forced the Assembly to replace itself with a National Convention which abolished the monarchy, declared France a republic and in 1793 executed the king.

As the Revolutionary Wars went against France, as regions angry at attacks on the church and conscription rebelled and as the revolution became increasingly radicalised the National Convention created a Committee of Public Safety to run France in 1793. This instituted an era of bloody measures called The Terror, when over 16,000 people were guillotined. In 1794

the revolution again changed, this time turning against the Terror and its architect Robespierre. The Terrorists were removed in a coup and a new constitution drawn up which created, in 1795, a new legislative system run by a Directory of five men.

This remained in power thanks to rigging elections and purging the assemblies before being

replaced, thanks to the army and a general called Napoleon Bonaparte, by a new constitution in 1799 which created three consuls to rule France. Bonaparte was the first consul and, while the reform of France continued, Bonaparte managed to bring the revolutionary wars to a close and have himself declared consul for life. In 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of France; the revolution was over, the empire had begun.

Consequences of the French Revolution: There is universal agreement that the political and administrative face of France was wholly altered: a republic based around elected – mainly bourgeois - deputies replaced a monarchy supported by nobles while the many and varied feudal systems were replaced by new, usually elected institutions which were applied universally across France. Culture was also affected, at least in the short term, with the revolution permeating every creative endeavour. However, there is still debate over whether the revolution permanently changed the social structures of France or whether they were only altered in the short term.

Europe was also changed. The revolutionaries of 1792 began a war which extended through the Imperial period and forced nations to marshal their resources to a greater extent than ever before. Some areas, like Belgium and Switzerland, became client states of France with reforms similar to those of the revolution. National identities also began coalescing like never before. The many and fast developing ideologies of the revolution were also spread across Europe, helped by French being the continental elite’s dominant language.

Key People: - King Louis XVI: King of France when the revolution began in 1789, he was executed in 1792.

- Emmanuel Sieyès: Deputy who helped radicalise the third estate and instigated the coup which brought the consuls to power.

- Jean-Paul Marat: Popular journalist who advocated extreme measures against traitors and hoarders. Assassinated in 1793.

- Maximilien Robespierre: Lawyer who went from advocating an end to the death penalty to the architect of the Terror. Executed in 1794.

- Napoleon Bonaparte: French general whose rise to power brought the revolution to an end.


Marie's "Let them eat cake"

The Myth

Upon being informed that the citizens of France had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette , Queen-consort of Louis XVI of France, exclaimed "let them eat cake", or "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche".

The Truth

She almost certainly didn't utter the words; critics of the Queen claimed she had in order to make her look insensitive and undermine her position.

The History of the Phrase

There has been some discussion about how "brioche" doesn't translate exactly to cake, but was a different foodstuff (quite what is also disputed), and how Marie has simply been misinterpreted, but the truth is most historians don’t believe Marie uttered the phrase at all.

One reason for this is because variations of the phrase had been in use for decades before she is said to have uttered it, supposed examples of precisely the callousness and detachment of the aristocracy to the needs of the peasants that people claimed Marie had shown by supposedly uttering it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions a variation in his autobiographical 'Confessions', where he relates the story of how he, on trying to find food, remembered the words of a great princess who, upon hearing that the country peasants had no bread, coldly said "let them eat cake/pastry". He was writing in 1766-7, before Marie came to France. Furthermore, in a 1791 memoir Louis XVIII claims that Marie-Thérèse of Austria, wife of Louis XIV, used a variation of the phrase ("let them eat pastry") a hundred years before.

While historians are also unsure if Marie- Thérèse really did say it – Antonio Fraser, a biographer of Marie Antoinette, believes she did - both examples illustrate how the phrase was in use around the time and could have been easily attributed to Marie Antoinette. There was certainly a huge industry devoted to attacking and slandering the Queen, making all sorts of even pornographic attacks on her to sully her reputation. The 'cake' claim was simply one assault among many, albeit the one which has survived most clearly throughout history. The true origin of the phrase is unknown.

French Revolt. History (Detailed but still Comprehensive)

* Pre-Revolutionary France: France's history of piecemeal territorial expansion produced a jigsaw of different laws, rights and boundaries which some felt were ripe for reform. Society was also divided - by tradition - into three 'estates': the clergy, the nobility and everyone else.

* The Crisis of the 1780s and the Causes of the French Revolution: While historians still debate the precise long term causes of the revolution, all are in agreement that a financial crisis in the 1780s provided the short term trigger for revolution.

* The Estates General and the Revolution of 1789: The French Revolution began when the 'third estate' deputies of the Estates General declared themselves a Legislative Assembly and verbally seized sovereignty from the King while the citizens of Paris rebelled against royal control and stormed the Bastille in search of arms.

* Recreating France 1789 – 91: Having seized control of France, the deputies of the Legislative Assembly began reforming the nation, scrapping rights and privileges and drawing up a new constitution.

* The Republican Revolution 1792: In 1792 a second revolution took place, as Jacobins and sansculottes forced the Assembly to replace itself with a National Convention which abolished the monarchy, declared France a republic and in 1793 executed the king.

* Purges and Revolt 1793: In 1793 tensions in the revolution finally exploded, especially in rural areas where conscription and laws against priests caused open and armed rebellion against the domination of the revolution by Parisians.

* The Terror 1793 – 94: Faced with crises on all fronts, the Committee of Public Safety embarked on a bloody policy of terror, executing their enemies – real and imagined – with no real trials in an attempt to save the revolution. Over 16,000 were executed and over 10,000 died in prison.

* Thermidor 1794 - 95: In 1794 Robespierre and the other 'terrorists' were overthrown, leading to a backlash against his supporters and the laws they had en-acted. A new constitution was drawn up.

* The Directory, the Consulate and the End of Revolution 1795 - 1802: From 1795 to 1802 coups and military power played an increasing role in the rule of France, until an ambitious and highly successful young General called Napoleon Bonaparte seized power and had himself elected Consul for Life in 1802.

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French Revolution (much Detailed)

1. Pre-Revolutionary France

The Country

Pre-revolutionary France was not created as a whole but was instead a jigsaw of lands which had been haphazardly aggregated over the preceding centuries, the different laws and institutions of each new addition often kept intact. The latest addition was Corsica, coming into the French crown's possession in 1766. By 1789 France comprised an estimated 28 million people and was divided into provinces of vastly varying size, from the huge Brittany to the tiny Foix. Geography varied greatly from mountainous regions to rolling plains. The nation was also divided into 36 'generalities' for administrative purposes and these again varied in size and shape to both each other and the provinces. There were further subdivisions for each level of the church.

Laws varied too. There were thirteen sovereign courts of appeal whose jurisdiction unevenly covered the whole country: the Paris court covered a third of France, the Pav court just its own tiny province. Further confusion arose with the absence of any universal law beyond that of royal decrees. Instead the precise codes and rules varied across France, with the Paris region mainly using customary law and the south a written code. Lawyers who specialised in handling the many different layers flourished. Each region also had its own weights and measures, tax, customs and laws. These divisions and differences were continued at the level of every town and village.

Rural and Urban

France was still essentially a feudal nation, with lords due a range of ancient and modern rights from their peasants who comprised about 80% of the population. The majority of these still lived in rural contexts and France was a predominantly agricultural nation, even though this agriculture was low in productivity, wasteful and using out of date methods. An attempt to introduce modern techniques from Britain had not succeeded. Inheritance laws, whereby estates were divided up between all the heirs, had left France divided into many

tiny farms; even the large estates were small when compared to other European nations. The only major region of large-scale farming was around Paris, where the always hungry capital city provided a convenient market. Harvests were critical but fluctuating, causing famine, high prices and riots.

The remaining twenty per cent of France lived in urban areas, although there were only eight cities with a population in excess of 50,000 people. These were home to guilds, workshops and industry, with workers often travelling from rural areas to urban ones in search of seasonal – or permanent – work. Death rates were high. Ports with access to overseas trade flourished, but this capital didn't penetrate far into the rest of France.

Society

France was governed by a king who ruled thanks to the grace of God; in 1789 this was Louis XVI, crowned on June 11th 1775. Ten thousand people worked in his main palace at Versailles, and 5% of his income was spent supporting it. The rest of French society considered itself divided into three groups: the estates.

The First Estate were the clergy, who numbered around 130,000 people, owned a tenth of the land and were due tithes of one tenth of everyone's income, although the practical applications varied hugely. They were immune from tax and frequently drawn from noble families. They were all part of the Catholic Church, the only official religion in France.

Despite strong pockets of Protestantism, over 97% of the French population considered themselves Catholic.

The Second Estate were the nobility, numbering around 120,000 people. These were formed in part from people born into noble families, but certain highly sought after government offices also conferred noble status. Nobles were privileged, didn't work, had special courts and tax exemptions, owned the leading positions in court and society – almost all of Louis XIVs ministers were noble – and were even allowed a different, quicker, method of execution.

Although some were enormously rich many were no better off than the lowest of the French middle classes, with a strong lineage and little else besides feudal dues.

The remainder of France, over 99%, formed the Third Estate. The majority were peasants who lived in near poverty, but around two million were the middle classes: the bourgeoisie.

These had doubled in number between the years of Louis XIV and XVI and owned around a quarter of French land. The common development of a bourgeoisie family was for one to make a fortune in business or trade and then plough that money into land and education for their children, who joined professions, abandoned the 'old' business and lived their lives comfortable, but not excessive existences, passing their offices down to their own children. One notable revolutionary, Robespierre, was a fifth generation lawyer. One key aspect of bourgeois existence was venal offices, positions of power and wealth within the royal administration which could be purchased and inherited: the entire legal system was comprised of purchasable offices. Demand for these was high and the costs rose ever higher.

France and Europe

By the late 1780s France was one of the world's 'great nations'. A military reputation which had suffered during the Seven Years War had been partly salvaged thanks to France's critical contribution in defeating Britain during the American War of Independence and their diplomacy was highly regarded, having avoided war in Europe during the same conflict. However, it was with culture that France dominated.

With the exception of England, the upper classes across Europe copied French architecture, furniture, fashion and more while the main language of royal courts and the educated was French. Journals and pamphlets produced in France were disseminated across Europe, allowing the elites of other nations to read and quickly understand the literature of the French revolution. A backlash against this French domination had already begun, with groups of writers arguing that national languages and cultures should be pursued instead, but this would only bring changes in the next century.

2. The Crisis of the 1780s and the Causes of the French Revolution

The French Revolution resulted from two state crises which emerged during the 1750s – 80s, one constitutional and one financial, with the latter providing a 'tipping point' in 1788/9, when desperate action by government ministers backfired and unleashed a revolution against the 'Old Regime'. In addition to these there was the growth of the bourgeoisie, a social order whose new wealth, power and opinions undermined the older feudal social system of France. The bourgeoisie were, in general, highly critical of the pre-revolutionary regime and acted to change it, although the exact role they played is still hotly debated among historians.

Maupeou, the Parlements and Constitutional Doubts

From the 1750s it became increasingly clear to many Frenchmen that the constitution of France, based around an absolutist style of monarchy, was no longer working. This was partly due to failures in government, be they the squabbling instability of the king's ministers or embarrassing defeats in wars, partly due to new enlightenment thinking, which increasingly undermined despotic monarchs, and partly due to the bourgeoisie seeking a voice in the administration. The ideas of 'public opinion', 'nation' and 'citizen' emerged and grew, along with a sense that the state's authority had to be defined and legitimized in a new, broader, framework which took more notice of the people, instead of simply reflecting the monarch's whims. People increasingly mentioned the Estates General, a three chambered assembly which hadn't met since the seventeenth century, as a possible solution.

The idea of a government – and king – operating with a series of constitutional checks and balances had grown to be vitally important in France, and it was the 13 parlements which were considered – or at least considered themselves - the vital check on the king. However, in 1771 the parlement of Paris refused to co-operate with the nation's Chancellor, Maupeou, and he responded by exiling the parlement, remodelling the system, abolishing the connected venal offices and creating a replacement disposed towards his wishes. The provincial parlements responded angrily and met with the same fate.

Despite a campaign designed to win over the public, Maupeou never gained national support for his changes and they were cancelled three years later when the new king, Louis XVI, responded to angry complaints by reversing all the changes. Unfortunately the damage had been done: the parlements had been clearly shown as weak and subject to the king's wishes, not the invulnerable moderating element they wished to be. But what, thinkers in France asked, would act as a check on the king? The Estates General was a favourite answer.

The Financial Crisis and the Assembly of Notables

The financial crisis which left the door open for revolution began during the American War of Independence, when France spent over a billion livres, the equivalent of the state's entire income for a year. Almost all the money had been obtained from loans. The problems were initially managed by Jacques Necker, a French Protestant banker and the only non-noble in the government. His cunning publicity and accounting - his public balance sheet, the Compte rendu au roi, made the accounts look healthy - masked the scale of the problem from the French public, but by the chancellorship of Calonne the state was looking for new ways to tax and meet their loan payments. Calonne came up with a package of changes which, had they been accepted, would have been the most sweeping reforms in the French crown's history.

They included abolishing lots of taxes and replacing them with a land tax to be paid by everyone, including the previously exempt nobles. He wanted a show of national consensus for his reforms and, rejecting the Estates General as too unpredictable, called a hand picked Assembly of Notables which first met at Versailles on February 22nd 1787. Less than ten were not noble and no similar assembly had been called since 1626.

Calonne had seriously miscalculated and, far from weakly accepting the proposed changes, the 144 members of the Assembly refused to sanction them. Many were against paying new tax, many had reasons to dislike Calonne and many genuinely believed the reason they gave for refusing: no new tax should be imposed without the king first consulting the nation and, as they were unelected, they couldn't speak for the nation. Discussions proved fruitless and eventually Calonne was replaced with Brienne, who tried again before dismissing the Assembly in May.

Brienne then tried to pass his own version of Calonne's changes through the parlement of Paris, but they refused, again citing the Estates General as the only body which could accept new taxes. Brienne exiled them to Troyes before working on a compromise, proposing that the Estates General would meet in 1797; he even began a consultation to work out how it should be formed and run. But for all the good will earnt more was lost as the king and his government began forcing laws through using the arbitrary practice of lit de justice. The king is even recorded as responding to complaints by saying "it's legal because I wish it" (Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2002, p. 80), further fuelling worries over the constitution.

The growing financial crises reached its climax in 1788 as the disrupted state machinery, caught between changes of system, couldn't bring in the required sums, a situation exacerbated as bad weather ruined the harvest. The treasury was empty and no-one was willing to accept more loans or changes. Brienne tried to create support by bringing the date of the Estates General forward to 1789, but it didn't work and the treasury had to suspend all payments. France was bankrupt. One of Brienne's last actions before resigning was persuading King Louis XVI to recall Necker, whose return was greeted with jubilation by the general public. He recalled the Paris parlement and made it clear he was just tiding the nation over until the Estates General met.

3. The Estates General and the Revolution of 1789

The Calling of the Estates General

In late 1788 Necker announced that the meeting of the Estates General would be brought forward to January 1st 1789 (in reality, it didn't meet until May 5th of that year).

However, this edict neither defined the form the Estates General would take nor set out how it would be chosen. Afraid that the crown would take advantage of this to 'fix' the Estates General and transform it into a servile body, the Parlement of Paris, in approving the edict, explicitly stated that the Estates General should take its form from the last time it was called: 1614. This meant the estates would meet in equal numbers, but separate chambers.

Voting would be done separately, with each having a third of the vote.

Bizarrely, no one who had would called for the Estates General over the past years appears to have previously realised what soon became obvious: the 95% of the nation who comprised the third estate could be easily outvoted by a combination of the clergy and nobles, or 5% of the population. Recent events had set a very different voting precedent, as a provincial assembly which had been called in 1778 and 1787 had doubled the numbers of the third estate and another called in Dauphin had not only doubled the third estate but allowed for voting by head (one vote per member, not estate).

A clamour soon arose demanding the doubling of third estate numbers and voting by head and the crown received over eight hundred different petitions, mainly from the bourgeois who had woken up to their potentially vital role in future government. Necker responded by recalling the Assembly of Notables to advise himself and the king on the various problems. It sat from November 6th until December 17th and protected the noble's interests by voting against doubling the third estate or voting by head. This was followed by the Estate General being postponed by a few months. The uproar only grew.

On December 27th, in a document entitled 'Result of the King's Council of State' – the result of discussion between Necker and the King - and contrary to the advice of the nobles the crown announced that the third estate was indeed to be doubled. However, there was no decision on voting practices, which was left to the Estates General itself to decide.

The Third Estate Politicizes.

The debate over the size and voting rights of the third estate brought the Estates General to the forefront of conversation and thought, with writers and thinkers publishing a wide range of views. The most famous was Sieyès' 'What is the Third Estate', which argued that there shouldn’t be any privileged groups in society and that the third estate should set themselves up as a national assembly immediately after meeting, with no input from the other estates. It was hugely influential.

Terms like 'national' and 'patriotism' began to be used ever more frequently and became associated with the third estate. More importantly, this outburst of political thought caused a group of leaders to emerge from the third estate, organising meetings, writing pamphlets and generally politicising the third estate across the nation. Chief among these were the bourgeois lawyers, educated men with an interest in the many laws involved.

Choosing the Estates

To choose the Estates France was divided up into 234 constituencies, often using the old system of bailliages and senechausse jurisdictions as a base. Each had an electoral assembly for the nobles and clergy while the third estate was voted on by every male taxpayer over twenty five ears of age. Each sent two delegates for the first and second estates and four for the third. In addition, every estate in every constituency was required to draw up a list of grievances, the cahiers de doleances. Every level of French society was this involved in voting and vocalising their many grievances against the state, drawing in people across the nation. Expectations were high.

The election results provided the elites of France with many surprises. Over three quarters of the first estate, the clergy, were parish priests rather than the previously dominant orders like bishops, less than half of which made it. Their cahiers called for higher stipends and access to the highest positions in the church. The second estate was no different, and the many courtiers and high ranking nobles who assumed they’d be automatically returned lost out to lower level, much poorer, men. Their cahiers reflect a very divided group, with only 40% calling for voting by order and some even calling for voting by head. The third estate, in contrast, proved to be a relatively united group, two thirds of which were bourgeois lawyers.

From Estates General to National Assembly

The Estates General opened on May 5th. There was no guidance from the king or Necker on the key question of how the Estates General would vote; solving this was supposed to be the first decision they took. However, that had to wait until the very first task was finished: each estate had to verify the electoral returns of their respective order.

The nobles did this immediately, but the third estate refused, believing that separate verification would inevitable lead to separate voting. The clergy passed a vote which would have allowed them to verify, but they delayed to seek a compromise with the third estate.

Discussions between all three took place over the following weeks, but time passed and patience began to run out. People in the third estate began to talk about declaring themselves a national assembly and taking the law into their own hands. Critically for the history of the revolution, and while the first and second estates met behind closed doors, the third estate meeting had always been open to the public. The third estate deputies thus knew they could count on tremendous public support for the idea of acting unilaterally as even those who didn't attend the meetings could read all about what happened in the many journals which reported it.

On June 10th, with patience running out, Sieyès proposed that a final appeal should be sent to the nobles and clergy asking for a common verification. If there wasn’t one then the third estate, now increasingly calling itself the Commons, would carry on without them. The motion passed, the other orders remained silent and the third estate resolved to carry on regardless. The revolution had begun.

On June 13th three parish priests from the first estate joined the third, and sixteen more followed in the next few days, the first breakdown between the old divisions. On June 17th Sieyès proposed and had passed a motion for the third estate to now call itself a National Assembly. In the heat of the moment another motion was proposed and passed, declaring all taxes illegal, but allowing them to continue until a new system was invented to replace them. In one quick motion the National Assembly had gone from simply challenging the first and second estates to challenging the king and his sovereignty by making themselves responsible for the laws on tax. Having been sidelined with grief over the death of his son the King now began to stir and the regions around Paris were reinforced with troops. On June 19th, six days after the first defections, the entire first estate voted to join the

National Assembly.

June 20th brought another milestone, as the National Assembly arrived to find the doors of their meeting place locked and soldiers guarding it, with notes of a Royal Session to occur on the 22nd. This action even outraged opponents of the National Assembly, members of which feared their dissolution was imminent. In the face of this, the National Assembly moved to a nearby tennis court where, surrounded by crowds, they took the famous 'Tennis Court Oath', swearing not to disperse until their business was done. On the 22nd the Royal Session was delayed, but three noblemen joined the clergy in abandoning their own estate.

The Royal Session, when it was held, wasn't the blatant attempt to crush the National Assembly which many had feared, but instead saw the king present an imaginative series of reforms which would have been considered far reaching a month before. However, the king still used veiled threats and referred to the three different estates, stressing they should obey him. The members of the National Assembly refused to leave the session hall unless it was at bayonet point and proceeded to retake the oath. In this decisive moment, a battle of wills between king and assembly, Louis XVI meekly agreed they could stay in the room. In addition Necker resigned. He was persuaded to resume his position shortly afterward, but the news spread and pandemonium broke out. More nobles left their estate and joined the assembly.

With the first and second estates now clearly wavering and the support of the army in doubt, the king ordered the first and second estates to join the National assembly. This triggered public displays of joy and the members of the National Assembly now felt they could settle down and write a new constitution for the nation; more had already happened than many dared to imagine. The crown and public opinion would soon change these expectations.

The Storming of the Bastille and the end of Royal Power.

The excited crowds, fuelled by weeks of debate and angered by rapidly rising grain prices did more than just celebrate: on June 30th a mob of 4000 rescued mutinous soldiers from their prison. Similar displays of popular opinion were matched by the crown bringing ever more troops into the area. National Assembly appeals to stop reinforcing were refused.

Indeed, on July 11th Necker was sacked and more martial men brought in to run the government. Public uproar followed. On the streets of Paris there was a sense that another battle of wills between the crown and people had begun.

When a crowd demonstrating in the Tuileries gardens were attacked by cavalry ordered to clear the area the longstanding predictions of military action seemed to be coming true. The population of Paris began to arm itself in response and retaliated by attacking toll gates.

The next morning the crowds went after arms but found stacks of stored grain too; looting began in earnest. On July 14th they attacked the military hospital of the Invalides and found cannon. This ever growing success led the crowd to the Bastille, the great-prison fortress and dominant symbol of the old regime. At first the Bastille refused to surrender and people were killed in fighting, but rebel soldiers arrived with the cannon from the Invalides and forced the Bastille to submit. The great fortress was stormed and looted, the man in charge lynched.

The storming of the Bastille demonstrated to the king that he couldn’t rely on his soldiers, some of whom had already defected. He had no way of enforcing royal power and conceded, ordering the units around Paris to withdraw. Royal power was at an end and sovereignty had passed to the National Assembly. Crucially for the future of the Revolution, the people of Paris now saw themselves as the saviours and defenders of the national Assembly. They were the guardians of the revolution.

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4. Recreating France 1789 - 91

Faced with the collapse of his power, the King recalled Necker, confirmed Bailly in a new position called the major of Paris and acknowledged Lafayette as the commander of a new citizen’s militia called the National Guard. However, try as they might, the Guard were unable to stop savage displays of mob violence such as the lynching of those accused of blocking the revolution. Nobles began to leave France for friendlier surroundings. Meanwhile the National Assembly, now often styling itself as the 'Constituent Assembly' began to redraw France, forming thirty-one separate committees to tackle all areas of public life.

The Great Fear

In the provinces the collapse of royal power triggered the formation of local militias – which usually went in search of hoarded grain - and revolutionary committees. However, the weeks of debate about what was happening in Versailles had already had far reaching effects on the rural population, with many refusing to pay tithes and taxes. As violence against hoarders and feudal overlords grew a series of mass panics swept rural France, with people afraid of noble led or funded brigands out to exact revenge. This was the 'Great Fear', and in response to it some of the rural population decided to get their counter-attack in first, pre-emptively assaulting the symbols of the feudal system, in particular feudal records which were burnt.

The Session of August 4th 1789 and the end of Privilege.

Partly in response to the great fear and an attempt to calm the countryside, partly in response to the request of the cahiers and partly as sections of the Assembly, seeing their rights stripped away, determined to take others with them, an extraordinary session of the Assembly was held on August 4th 1789. It began with one motion to remove certain feudal rights, but by the end the whole of feudalism and all privileges had been removed, including tithes and venal offices. Now every office would be open to the most talented, not the wealthiest. So many motions were passed cancelling centuries old rights that it took six months to formulate all the decisions into a working decree.

The session of August 4th succeeded in one of its aims, calming the nerves of the countryside, although attacks continued on lords stubbornly holding onto their old regime rights in the face of the revolution. But the session had gone far beyond anything mentioned in the cahiers, changing the structure of France to a greater extent than anything before and removing the entire structure of government and law.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man

Work soon began on writing a new constitution for France, and most wanted to begin it with a declaration of rights similar to that used in the United States of America. On August 26th 1789 the Declaration of the Right of Man and the Citizen was passed. It soon became the founding document of the revolution, stating that the law was an expression of general will, not the whim of kings, that sovereignty rested with the nation, not with monarchs and that all citizens were equal. It remains one of histories most famous documents.

The October Days

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the August decrees set off an argument about whether the king, still nominally in charge of France, had the right to approve or veto legislation. The Assembly went against public opinion and passed a motion giving him those choices, which didn't go down well with a capital already using violence in the face of more grain shortages. Indeed, the king at first refused to pass the declaration and decrees, but on October 5th and 6th a mob of 7000 people, mostly women, marched from Paris to Versailles, forced the king to acknowledge the reforms and them forced him to travel to Paris from Versailles. The National Assembly moved with him, taking up residence in Paris. Once again the people of Paris acted - and saw themselves - as the saviours of the revolution with violence as their tool. More and more nobles fled the country.

Divisions Appear: Religious Schism

During the drafting of the constitution two events occurred which began to divide the previous revolutionary consensus. The first was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 17th 1790. By introducing a system of election for all church officials, even bishops, and reworking the boundaries of parishes the National Assembly openly challenged and ignored papal power. The Pope responded by calling the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man unchristian, while many priests began to ignore the new rules. The Assembly received many complaints and petitions.

After much debate the National Assembly decided, on December 26th 1790, to order all in the church to take an oath of loyalty to the new constitution. This is often seen by historians as a major turning point, forcing people to decide for the first time whether they were for or against the revolution. Around half of the entire French clergy refused to take the oath, particularly in the south, and these became labelled 'refractories'. Debate occurred everywhere, causing the first signs of counter-revolution as people rebelled in favour of the old religious network. In contrast there were regions where refractories were openly prosecuted.

Groups Form

The French Revolution didn't have political parties in the way we do now, for instance the common American groups of Democrat and Republican, but during the 1790s groups with shared ideas began to form and argue with each other. This commonly occurred as people met in clubs to discuss, debate and petition the Assembly. One such, arguably the most famous, were the Jacobins, people named after the old Jacobin convent were they first met. In addition to clubs newspapers flourished, with reader numbers trebling.

Divisions Appear: The Flight of the King

On June 20 1791 the King tried to flee France, leaving behind a letter damning the revolution. He was caught at Varennes the next day and brought back to Paris, which he would never again leave. This is arguably the second great turning point in the Revolution, for the king had condemned it and all that had been done in the public's name. One question was raised above all else: how could he stay in charge of the France he had attacked and tried to flee? A series of mob attacks on royal symbols followed.

The National Assembly, confused and unsure of how to act, declared that the king had been kidnapped, but news of his attempted flight spread across France, raising the spectre of Austrian armies coming to help him. Memberships of political clubs rose as people flocked to discuss what should be done, especially among the Jacobins who argued for his deposition.

When a revolt broke out in Paris, petitioning against the king, the National Guard was called in; they crushed the revolt in the 'Massacre of the Champ de Mars'. In contrast, a group called the Feuillants argued for another try at building a constitution around the king.

The Constitution of 1791 and a New France

On September 1791 the new constitution was ready and put to the king; he accepted on the 13th. In two years the Constituent Assembly had wholly changed the structure of life in France, going further than the cahiers had ever suggested and wiping away the ancient regime. However, the constitution, especially its reforms of religious life, had created fault lines down which the people of France could split, meaning millions now had doubts over a revolution which had begin with immense popularity.

* The king was renamed 'King of the French'. He could not propose laws and had a veto which only blocked legislation for a maximum of three years. He could appoint ministers, but the legislature could remove them.

* Royal income was decided by a vote in the legislature.

* The legislature was one single assembly of 745 members which lasted for two years at a time.

* Each seat was voted for by active citizens, a new class which was established in a decree of October 1789. These were men over 25 who paid tax equivalent to three days labour, approximately 4.3 million people. However, these just elected a second group of citizens, who paid the equivalent of ten days labour in tax, roughly 45,000 people. These then met in a further assembly to elect the legislative deputies, but only men who owned land and paid 54 days worth of tax could be selecyed. Even at the time this looked at odds with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and caused controversy.

* All venal offices were gone; instead all public offices were to be elected, even parish priests.

* The old legal system was swept away and replaced by a new system based around elected Justices of the Peace.

* All the old administrative divisions of France were removed and replaced by 83 roughly equal departments which were subdivided into districts and communes, all run by elected councils. Government was now dependant upon thousands of elected officials.

* Cities were divided into sections, each with their own assembly. Paris had 48.

* Jews and Protestants were given the same rights as Catholics and allowed to stand for election, although the motion allowing Jews was only narrowly passed.

* Tithes, vestry frees and pluralism were banned; instead the clergy were to be paid a salary from the national coffers.

* All local militias were brought under the umbrella of the National Guard. A national uniform was introduced and only active citizens were allowed to join.

* On June 19th 1890 nobility and all associated titles and awards were banned.

* Most old taxes were abolished, to be replaced with a new land tax, as well as taxes on movable items and profits. There were to be no exceptions. While the old taxes were supposed to be collected as the new system was put in place, many refused to pay.

* Church lands were nationalised, mainly as a way to help pay off the huge debts which the revolutionary government had both inherited from the old regime and run up itself (compensation payments to the holders of venal offices alone ran to 800 million livres).

Much was sold off, mainly to the bourgeoisie.

* Assignats, which quickly became a source of paper money, were issued based on the church lands.
* Monasteries and convents were abolished.


5. The Republican Revolution 1792

The Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly first sat on October 1st 1791. With the clerics and nobles of the National Assembly almost all gone the new legislature was dominated by bourgeois lawyers who had risen to local political prominence during the early days of the revolution. The Assembly faced two immediate problems. The first was the widespread refusal of the refractory priests to conform: around half had refused to take the oath, a figure which in the Vendee area of France rose to nine in every ten.

The second were the actions of the émigrés, the nobles who had fled France and were agitating for action against the new order by Europe’s monarchs. There was widespread concern in France that the émigrés would return at the head of foreign armies, a fear only enforced by the Declaration of Pullnitz on August 24th 1791 by Austria and Prussia. This stated that the fate of the King of France was a matter of shared interest among European monarchs.

The king wasn't initially a problem; he had begun integrating back into the new regime after his flight. This was largely due to the members of the Feuillant club who hoped to build a stable France around the monarch and worked with him on speeches and decisions. The Feuillants were initially successful, their numbers swelling far more than the rival Jacobins as the Assembly’s new delegates arrived in Paris. However, the Feuillants held their meetings behind closed doors, in sharp contrast to the republican leaning Jacobins who welcomed the public in. Reputations could be made and lost in public debate and the ambitious orators of the era joined the Jacobins. After a while Feuillant numbers declined.

The 'honeymoon' period between the king and Legislative Assembly didn’t last long. After debate began in the Jacobin club the Assembly passed a decree against the émigrés, stating that all Frenchmen abroad were suspected of plotting against the nation and that they should return by January 1st 1792 or be tried for capital crimes. In addition all their revenues were seized. However, on November 11th 1791 the king refused to pass the decree. He had the right to do this, using the veto he’d been given under the terms of the new constitution and he issued a statement drafted by Feuillants arguing for persuasion instead of threats to the émigrés. This only deepened suspicions that the king secretly supported the émigrés and Austrian 'intervention'.

Further problems arose over a decree aimed at the refractories. On November 29th it was ruled that all non-jurors had to take a new civic oath. Those who refused were to be denied the pension they'd been given after refusing the previous oath, creating a class of 'double refractories'. The King vetoed this on December 19th.

The Path to War

The king rescued some of the goodwill he had lost over émigrés and refractories when he passed a call to threaten the electors of Trier and Mainz with war if they didn't expel the émigrés from their lands. The king liked the idea of war because it might cause successful Austrian armies to march in and rescue him, while the Assembly wanted war to crush the émigrés and their power bases. Indeed, large sections of French society were in favour of war. Many hoped to break the unpopular alliance with Austria and ‘teach them a lesson’, others wanted a war to deter foreign interference in French affairs. Military leaders hoped it would bring new life to an army decimated by the many absences in its officer corps caused by them fleeing abroad; some hoped a military dictatorship might follow. Some Assembly members wanted a war so they could identify and punish traitors, in particular counter revolutionaries and refractories. Hopes were high that war would unite France.

As the nation readied itself for war the electors of Mainz and Trier caved in and expelled the émigrés. For the Jacobins and their most vocal pro-war members, in particular Brissot – who described an alliance of old regime monarchs ready to crush the revolution – this wasn’t enough. So many had decided that war was the right way forward that the king was heavily petitioned to threaten war with Austria unless they publicly declared peace with France. The king, still hoping for a war which would aid him, agreed and on April 20th 1792 Louis XVI announced that France was at war with Austria. He promised a defensive war, not one of conquest or domination, but of free peoples against aggressive enemies. Europe wide conflict followed.

The Sansculottes

The Revolutionary War would radicalise the revolution, but for the first few weeks France and the Legislative Assembly seemed united. It was during this period that the Guillotine, the greatest physical symbol of the revolution, was first used. However the war swiftly began to go wrong and initial defeats led everyone to blame everyone else. Paranoid and reactionary laws were passed, such as on May 18th when all foreigners in Paris were put under surveillance. No one was allowed to leave the city without written permission. The king also began vetoing more legislation and sacking ministers who criticised him, including Brissot and a group called the Girondins.

These events further inflamed the sectional assemblies of Paris who were already frantic over food shortages. On June 20th between ten and twenty thousand armed protestors marched to the Tuileries in protest, declaring that they were 'sans culottes', ordinary patriots without noble clothing. They marched right into the kings chambers and filed past him for two hours making demands. The king refused them all.

The Fall of the King

While the march of the sansculottes failed in the short term, there power had been obvious and Paris sections began working together to form a Republican revolt, some making a petition for the king's immediate deposition. Alarmed courtiers began openly carrying arms; both sides were readying themselves for a further confrontation. In addition, National Guardsman from across the nation were now arriving to take part in a parade on the Champ de Mars. Many were drafted in to support the Jacobins, the sectional assembly and their republican ideas. There was talk across Paris of storming the king’s rooms and declaring a republic.

On July 28th news reached Paris that the Duke of Brunswick had issued a statement threatening Paris with 'forever memorable vengeance' if the King was harmed, an act which caused the Legislative Assembly to arm all of Paris' citizens, not just the 'active' ones who formed the National Guard. They also agreed to discuss the issue of deposing the king on June 9th. In reality the Assembly was losing control of Paris and the movement, which Brissot and his fellows had hoped would force the king to reinstate them, had developed a massive momentum for removing the king entirely.

When the 9th came the central committee of the Paris sections seized power, declaring itself an insurrectionary commune and ordering all the National Guard to march to the Tuileries.

They did. There they arrived to find that the king had fled to the Legislative Assembly, but they also found the palace guard, around 2000 National Guardsman and 900 Swiss guards. The National Guardsman immediately switched and joined their fellows on the commune’s side, but the Swiss opened fire, were attacked and massacred. The royal palace thus fell and with it the last vestiges of royal power. Crowds across Paris attacked royal symbols.

The Legislative Assembly responded by declaring the monarchy suspended until a National Convention (which would replace the legislative assembly) had met to decide the future, restoring the ministers and making a sectional politician called Danton Minister of Justice.

Power Struggle and the September Massacres

In practice the Insurrectionary Commune had taken power from the Legislative Assembly and they now followed a threefold agenda: revenge on those who has aided the king, action against refractory priests and action against Lafayette who they blamed for the Champs de Mars massacre and suspected of seeking power; he fled to Prussia. Suspicions, arrests and paranoia were rampant. On August 1st a tribunal was set up to try those suspected of political crimes and it was soon sending people to the guillotine but the commune grew frustrated with the perceived lack of speed.

Danton ordered a search of all Parisian dwellings for hidden weapons and suspects leading to 3000 more arrests. The Assembly passed a decree giving all those who had not taken an oath a fortnight to leave France or face deportation, while sansculottes began arresting clergymen.

Meanwhile the Assembly tried to nullify the commune by calling new sectional elections, but this outraged the sections’ supporters and the commune refused to disband. Marat, a bloodthirsty writer whose solution to most problems was massacre, now rose to prominence as his works struck a cord.

On September 2nd news reached the capital that the last major fortress before Paris had fallen to the Prussians. The response was at first spontaneous attacks on prisoners whom people were afraid would be freed from prison and leave a counter-revolution at the head of Prussian armies. This developed over the afternoon as the commune took control to organise a massacre of half the prisoners in Paris via hastily convened ad hoc courts. Political and common criminals alike died, perhaps over 1500.

The National Convention

The National Convention was called on August 10th 1792 and was to be elected by universal manhood suffrage. It was to have 749 deputies and elections were held on August 27th and, crucially for the result, September 2nd. Only one in four of the electorate actually voted and less than half of the Legislative Assembly were returned. Brissot and the Girondins were voted in, as were Danton, Marat and Robespierre and members of the Paris commune. Like its predecessors the Convention was dominated by bourgeois lawyers, many of which were anti-king and pro-republic. There were fewer nobles and clergy than ever before.

The Abolition and Execution of the King

On September 21st 1792 the Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic; when the country later introduced the revolutionary calendar, this was day 1. This soon led to a debate about what to do with the king. Many Girondins wanted to keep him as a prisoner, perhaps to be used as a bargaining tool in the wars, although many Jacobins suspected the Girondins of wanting the option to restore the monarchy. Another group, at whose core was the commune and Parisian deputies and who became known as the Montagnards, wanted him executed. Indeed, they argued that a trial was unnecessary as the king had already been tried by the French people.

A motion by Petion was passed to try the king before the Convention itself, and the former King Louis XVI was indicted in December 1st, with the trial beginning on December 26th.

There was only ever going to be one verdict and on January 15th 1793 693 out of 749 deputies voted him guilty. Any other result would have brought the sansculottes out again. An appeal took place, gaining 310 votes against execution but 380 votes for and Louis was executed by guillotine on January 21st 1793. The old regime was wholly and irreversibly ended, while France's enemies across Europe became more firmly set on their course.



Continued...

[Surmount]

6. Purges and Revolt 1793

The Convention Divided

The National Convention, sat as it was in Paris, was still very much at the whim of the Paris Commune and the Parisian sanculottes, who had already demonstrated the power they could wield if organised effectively. The National Convention itself had originally been an idea of the Paris Commune and the first few months were dominated by argument between the Montagnards, the Parisian faction in the Convention, and the Girondins, who largely came from the provinces.

These sat to the left and right of the Convention and everyone in the middle, not affiliated with either faction, became known as the Plain. The Girondins railed against the perpetrators of the September massacres and believed the Montagnards wanted to use the people of Paris to gain further powers, while some Montagnards, in particular Marat, openly called for a dictator to lead France. There were suspicions he meant Robespierre. Soon every issue in the Convention was coloured by their clashes.

As the wars began to turn once again against France groups in Paris began to agitate for the creation of a tribunal to try traitors, and by traitors they meant Girondins. One was created by the Convention, who in the same session agreed to send deputies on mission to all departments to 'explain' and organise emergencies measures for war. This was followed by attacks on Girondin printers and an attempt at a full scale uprising aimed at persuading the Convention to arrest general, ministers and deputies of dubious reputation and again they meant largely Girondins. While the commune and National Convention refused to take part in the purge and it failed, it created both a precedent and a clear method for cleansing the Convention.

The Provinces Rebel

On February 24th the Convention ordered a levy of 300,000 men to help with the wars. This was to be raised through volunteers primarily and conscription if needed. Recruitment went well in the southeast, east and near Paris, near the armies of France's enemies, but it caused violent resistance in several areas, especially the Vendée.

Here locals were angered by their men going away to fight for a war they hadn’t supported on the command of a revolutionary government with which they were increasingly growing at odds, especially when it came to refractory priests and the bourgeois buying church land. They were also angry that the bourgeois office holders were exempt because of those offices and that the National Guard, all bourgeois, didn’t have to go as they formed the local defences. Resentment which had built up over the years exploded.

Other areas rose, but these were at first initially put down. In the Vendée however, peasant mobs stormed towns, resisted armies and began to organise. By March 13th there were 10,000, many involved in a guerrilla war. The king became a rallying point, royal symbols were adopted and rebels soon proudly proclaimed themselves as catholic and royalist. As the rebels took town after town their numbers swelled to perhaps 45,000. An entire region inside France was now at war.

Marseilles was the first city to rebel. Local Jacobins had formed their own Revolutionary Tribunal, pushed through forced loans, disarmament and generally alienated the majority. When a Montagnard deputy arrived and supported the local Jacobins sections of Marseille copied the Paris example, formed a commune and expelled the Jacobins. Lyons followed, as did other citied. Unlike the mainly peasant rebels of the Vendée, these cities had their Montagnard leaders overthrow by a mixture of bourgeois and urbanites, rebelling against the dictatorial and radical elements now ruling the revolution in Paris.

The Committee of Public Safety

As 1793 progressed the Montagnards pushed more and more of their proposals through the convention, many emergency measures dealing with the wars. This included the creation of a new committee to provide quicker and more effective legislative control. The old system, a series of ministers each backed up by a committee was considered too unwieldy. On January 25th 1793 a twenty-five man Committee of Public Safety was created, although when it first met on April 7th it had been cut down to nine men, each having to renew their appointment each month. Danton was a member, but Robespierre turned down an invitation. The Committee aimed "to implement the laws and controls necessary to strike 'Terror' into the hearts of counter-revolutionaries." (Peter McPhee, The French Revolution, Oxford, 2002, p. 117-8)

The Purging of the Girondins

The Montagnards did not have things all their own way. The Girondins managed to get Marat impeached and tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal, although he was found not guilty, and a mob of 8000 Parisian demonstrators forced the introduction of a maximum price for grain. In addition power began to swing back to the Girondins as Montagnards deputies left the Convention to travel across France and implement war laws. This, coupled with Girondin threats to move the Convention away from Paris and bring in provincial armies to counter the sanculottes finally convinced the Montagnards that the Girondins had to be purged.

A first attempt failed, partly over divisions about whether to dissolve the whole commune or just arrest a series of deputies which had been named by the sections over previous weeks and partly because not enough of a crowd gathered. A second attempt was made on June 2nd and this time the sansculottes came out in force, persuading the National Convention to escalate a commune petition for arrest up to the Committee of Public Safety. No deputy was able to flee thanks to thousands of National Guardsman and protestors around the Convention and thirty deputies were arrested, including the Girondins. The Montagnards now dominated the Convention.

The purge was followed by the Committee of Public Safety making a concerted attempt to undermine the commune, which included the drafting of a new constitution, largely by Robespierre. There was again a one chamber legislature elected by manhood suffrage, and this would elect an executive council. It also included a long statement of rights, including the right to resist oppression by insurrection.

The Federalist Revolt

Following the purge of the Girondins Bordeaux, home to many of them, rose in revolt. This was not counter-revolutionary like in the Vendée, but mainly against the radical path the revolution was now taking, similar to the rebellion in Marseille and Lyons, towns which had begun raising armies to defend themselves. Other cities and sections across France soon followed, with local communes and committees of public safety taking power from Jacobin and Montagnard leaders. There was even talk that the Convention had been abandoned by the Paris Commune. As with the Vendée, however, the revolts were informed by strong local traditions.

However, the rebellions were still very divided and one major problem which hamstring them came directly from their local outlook: the armies were reluctant to march on Paris to set the Convention free of the sansculottes, they wanted to stay in the local area. The army of Marseille never passed beyond Avignon. In Paris these revolts were seen as one large uprising, the Federalist revolt, and it was to be dealt with harshly.

The Constitution is Suspended

The constitution was passed in a national vote and a motion was proposed in the Convention to close itself down and adopt the constitution. However, on June 13th Marat had been assassinated by Charlotte Corday, who had come down from rebellious Caen. It had now occurred to the Montagnards and the Committee of Public Safety that harsher action was needed to defeat the many crises facing France and on July 26th Robespierre accepted a nomination to the Committee. He blocked the introduction of the constitution, feeling that it guaranteed rights which were not conducive to winning the wars and crushing the revolts which faced France. The constitution would remain suspended and the Committee of Public Safety would stay in charge. Laws were passed making hoarding an offence punishable by death.

7. The Terror 1793 - 94
France in Turmoil

In July 1793 the revolution was at its lowest ebb. Enemy forces were advancing over French soil, British ships hovered near French ports hoping to link up with rebels, the Vendée was a large region of open rebellion and there were many Federalist revolts. Parisians were worried that Charlotte Corday, assassin of Marat, was only one of thousands of provincial rebels operating in the capital. Meanwhile power struggles had begun in many Paris sections between sansculottes and their enemies.

It got worse before it got better. While many of the Federalist revolts were collapsing under both local pressures - food shortages, fear of reprisals, reluctant to march far – and the actions of Convention Deputies sent on mission, on August 27th 1793 Toulon accepted an offer of protection from a British fleet which had been sailing off shore, declaring themselves in favour of the infant Louis VII and welcoming the British to port.

The Terror Begins

While the Committee of Public Safety wasn't an executive government – on August 1st 1793 the Convention refused a motion calling for it to become the provisional government – it was the closest France had and, over the next year, it marshalled the nation's resources to meet and defeat the many crises. It also presided over the bloodiest period of the revolution: The Terror.

Marat may have been killed, but people were still forwarding his ideas, chiefly that only the extreme use of the guillotine against traitors, suspects and counter revolutionaries would solver the country's problems; they felt terror was needed. The Convention deputies were increasingly heeding these calls. There were complaints about a 'spirit of moderation' in the Convention and another series of price increases were quickly blamed on 'endormers', or 'dozer' (as in sleeping) deputies.

On September 4th 1793 a demonstration for more wages and bread was quickly turned to the advantage of those calling for terror, and they returned on the 5th to march to the Convention. Chaumette, backed by thousands of sansculottes, declared that the Convention should tackle the shortages by a strict implementation of the laws.

The Convention agreed, and in addition voted to finally organise the revolutionary armies people had agitated for over previous months to march against the hoarders and unpatriotic members of the countryside, although they turned down Chaumette’s request for the armies to be accompanied by guillotines on wheel for even swifter justice. In addition Danton argued that arms production should be increased until every patriot had a musket, and that the Revolutionary Tribunal should be divided so as to make it quicker. The sansculottes had once again forced their wishes onto and through the Convention; terror was now in force.

Execution

Over the following weeks radical action was taken. On September 17th a Law of Suspects was introduced allowing for the arrest of anyone whose conduct suggested they were supporters of tyranny or federalism, a law which could be easily twisted to affect just about everyone in the nation. There were also laws against nobles who had been anything less than zealous in their support for the revolution. A maximum was set for a wide range of food and goods and the Revolutionary Armies formed and set out to search for traitors and crush revolt. Even speech was affected, with 'citizen' becoming the popular way of referring to others; not using citizen was a cause for suspicion.

Indeed, the laws passed during the Terror went beyond simply tackling the various crises. The Bocquier Law of December 19th 1793 provided a system of compulsory and free state education for all children aged 6 – 13, albeit with a curriculum stressing patriotism. Homeless children also became a state responsibility, and people born out of wedlock were given full inheritance rights. A universal system of metric weights and measurements was introduced on August 1 1793, while an attempt to end poverty was made by using ‘suspects’ property to aid the poor.

However, it is the executions for which the Terror is so infamous, and these began with the execution of a faction called the enrages, who were soon followed by the former queen, Marie Antoinette, on October 17th and many of the Girondins on October 31st. Around 16,000 people (not including deaths in the Vendée, see below) went to the guillotine in the next nine months as the Terror lived up to its name, and around the same again also died as a result, usually in prison.

In Lyons, which surrendered at the end of 1793, the Committee of Public Safety decided to set an example and there were so many to be guillotined that on December 4th-8th 1793 people were executed en masse by cannon fire. Whole areas of the town were destroyed and 1880 killed. In Toulon, which was recaptured on December 17th thanks to one Captain Bonaparte and his artillery, 800 were shot and nearly 300 guillotined. Marseilles and Bordeaux, which also capitulated, escaped relatively lightly with only hundreds executed.

The Repression of the Vendée

The Committee of Public Safety's counter-offensive took the terror deep into the heart of the Vendée. Government forces also began winning battles, forcing a retreat which killed around 10,000 and 'the whites' began to melt away. However, the final defeat of the Vendée's army at Savenay was not the end, because a repression followed which ravaged the area, burnt swathes of land and slaughtered around a quarter of a million rebels. In Nantes the deputy on mission, Carrier, ordered the 'guilty' to be tied up on barges which were then sunk in the river. These were the noyades and they killed at least 1800 people.

The Nature of the Terror

Carrier's actions were typical of autumn 1793, when deputies on mission took the initiative in spreading the Terror using revolutionary armies, which may have grown to 40,000 strong. These were normally recruited from the local area they were to operate in, and were usually comprised of artisans from the cities. Their local knowledge was essential in seeking out hoarders and traitors, usually from the countryside.

Around half a million people may have been imprisoned across France, and 10,000 may have died in prison without trial. There were also lynchings. However, this early phase of the terror was not, as legend recalls, aimed at nobles, who made up only 9% of the victims; clergy were 7%. Most executions occurred in Federalist areas after the army had regained control and some loyal areas escaped largely unscathed.

Dechristianization

During the Terror deputies on mission began attacking the symbols of Catholicism: smashing images, vandalising buildings and burning vestments. On October 7th, in Rheims, the sacred oil of Clovis which was used to anoint French kings was smashed. When a revolutionary calendar was introduced, making a break with the Christian calendar by starting on September 22nd 1792 (this new calendar had twelve thirty day months with three ten day weeks) the deputies increased their dechristianization, especially in regions where rebellion had been put down. The Paris Commune made dechristianization an official policy and attacks began in Paris on religious symbols: Saint was even removed from street names.

The Committee of Public Safety grew concerned about the counter-productive effects, especially Robespierre who believed that faith was vital to order. He spoke out and even got the Convention to restate their commitment to religious freedom, but it was too late. Dechristianization flourished across the nation, churches closed and 20,000 priests were pressured into renouncing their position.



Continued...

[Surmount]

The Law of 14 Frimaire

On December 4th 1793 a law was passed, taking as its name the date in the Revolutionary Calendar: 14 Frimaire. This law was designed to give the Committee of Public Safety even more control over the whole of France by providing a structured 'chain of authority' under the revolutionary government and to keep everything highly centralised. The Committee was now the supreme executive and no body further down the chain was supposed to alter the decrees in any way, including the deputies on mission who began to be sidelined as local district and commune bodies took over the job of applying the law. All unofficial bodies were shut down, including provincial revolutionary armies. Even the departmental organisation was bypassed for everything bar tax and public works.

In effect, the law of 14 Frimaire aimed to institute a uniform administration with no resistance, the opposite of that to the constitution of 1791. It marked the end of the first phase of the terror, a 'chaotic' regime, and an end to the campaigning of the revolutionary armies who first came under central control and were then closed on March 27th 1794. Meanwhile factional infighting in Paris saw more groups go to the guillotine and sansculotte power began to wane, partly as a result of exhaustion, partly because of the success of their measures (there was little left to agitate for) and partly as a purging of the Paris Commune took hold.

The Republic of Virtue

By the spring and summer of 1794 Robespierre, who had argued against dechristianization, had tried to save Marie Antoinette from the guillotine and who had vacillated over the future began to form a vision of how the republic should be run. He wanted a 'cleansing' of the country and committee and he outlined his idea for a republic of virtue while denouncing those he deemed non virtuous, many of whom, including Danton, went to the Guillotine. So began a new phase in the Terror, where people could be executed for what they might do, not had done, or simply because they failed to meet Robespierre's new moral standard.

The Republic of Virtue was characterised by power being concentrated at the Centre, around Robespierre. This included the closing of all provincial courts for conspiracy and counter-revolutionary charges, which were to be held at the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris instead. Parisian jails soon filled with suspects and the process was speeded up to cope, partly by scrapping witnesses and defence. Furthermore, the only punishment it could give out was death. As with the Law of Suspects, almost anyone could be found guilty for anything under these new criteria.

Executions, which had tailed off, now rose sharply again. 1515 people were executed in Paris in June and July 1794, 38% of which were nobles, 28% clergy and 50% bourgeoisie. The Terror was now almost class based rather than against counter-revolutionaries. In addition the Paris Commune was altered to become docile to the Committee of Public Safety and proscribed wage levels were introduced. These were unpopular, but the Paris sections were now too centralised to oppose it.

Dechristianization was reversed as Robespierre, still convinced that faith was important, introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being on May 7th 1794. This was a series of republican themed celebrations to be held on the rest days of the new calendar, a new civic religion.

8. Thermidor 1794 - 95

The Fall of Robespierre

By the middle of 1794 people were beginning to turn against Robespierre, more convinced than ever that he had designs on a dictatorship. Indeed, he seemed to be the heart and mouth of the Committee of Public Safety, which was beginning to fragment between pro and anti Robespierre factions. Alarm grew over the laws of Prairial 22nd, which extended the definition of what was illegal to include simply 'impairing purity' and the anti-Robespierre forces in the Convention began to coalesce. People were also growing tired of the Terror, longing for safety.

Robespierre even appears to have been aware of the forces growing against him, and on July 26th 1794 he appeared before the National Convention and gave a speech which blamed and threatened members from just about every committee in Paris and argued that they must be purged and the impurities crushed. To Robespierre's enemies this was a turning point, a realisation that they had to act first or be killed. Fortunately for them Robespierre had overestimated the strength of his support and on July 27th a motion was passed in the Convention to arrest him and his supporters. It passed. A call went out to the Paris Commune to save him, but a combination of factors had weakened it – the Terror had broken its power, the call was too sudden for people to react and members were alienated by Robespierre's wage maximums – and it failed. On July 30th 1794 Robespierre was executed; 80 others followed him in the next 24 hours.

The White Terror

There followed in 1795 a year of revenge and reprisals against the agents of the terror, the terrorists, including ‘Muscadin’ mobs attacking anything pro-Jacobin, including plays and newspaper. Across the nation the combination of a harsh, hungry winter and the relative freedom of the post-terror era led to a confused and chaotic movement, the ‘White Terror’, a campaign of revenge against those who had taken part in the terror. This didn’t use the guillotine but relied on lynch mobs and there were massacres of terrorist suspects who had been taken into prison.

The End of Terror and the Fall of the Jacobins

The fall of Robespierre was followed by a swift change in the style of government. A motion was passed forcing a quarter of all committee members to retire each month and stopping them from being immediately re-elected, preventing one person from dominating a position for too long. The law of Prairial 1st was removed and a motion was even proposed to close the Revolutionary Tribunal, although it failed to pass.

Furthermore many powers were taken away from the Committee of Public Safety and given back to different committees. Suspects began to be released, with 3500 given liberty before the end of August. The maximum was abolished and new deputies on mission were sent out to oversee the end of the terror in the provinces. Many of the Jacobin reforms, including those on the poor and education, were also swept away. The Terror thus came to a close in time for the second anniversary of the Republic, which was celebrated with relief.

Physical clashes soon arose between groups of well dressed anti-sansculottes called the Gilded Youth and previous supporters of the terror, while verbal clashes began between the ‘Thermidorian’ deputies (those who had ousted Robespierre) and Jacobins, who now became associated with the Terror and dictatorship. Indeed, popular support turned against the Jacobins and on November 12th 1794 the Convention ordered the Jacobin club shut. Former terrorists now faced imprisonment – Carrier, the butcher of Nantes, was investigated and executed - while surviving Girondins were reinstated as members of the Convention. Federalists and émigrés were allowed to return.

The Cult of the Supreme Being ended and churches were allowed to reopen. However, the convention formally separated church and state and consequently 'cults' had to pay for themselves. While some saw this as more dechristianisation, it was widely recognised as a step back to religious freedom. This was done partly to appease the Vendee, which was heavily bloodied but still angry and insurgent; the Convention now tried to stop the rebellion by offering amnesties for anyone handing in arms and giving into to demands, such as no conscription laws and the return of land.

This period also saw one of the last attempts by Parisians to influence the Convention. It started when bread supplies fell low in March 1795 and royalists emerged from their long silence to proclaim the republic a failure. Others began to talk of the Terror's controlled economy, and a new uprising was planned demanding bread and the constitution of 1793. There were attempts to march on the convention, but there wasn't the same level of organisations which had allowed the sansculottes to dictate the revolution in 1792 and 93. Even so, on April 1st 1795 10,000 people marched on the convention but this time they were cleared by the National Guard.

1 Prairial and the End of Parisian Power

As 1795 continued the hunger in Paris got worse and the remnants of the sanculottes again agitated for a new uprising which was planned for May 21th: 1 Prairial. A crowd gathered, marched on the convention and murdered a deputy was called Feraud who was trying to get inside. The mob then got into the convention, where they made many demands including, as before, bread and the constitution of 1793, but also the release of prisoners and a new Paris Commune. The surviving Montagnard deputies, 'the Crest', decided to come out in support of the crowd.

The National Guard arrived and threw the mob out of the Convention. Two large armed groups now stood across from each other, but neither opened fire and, when the National Convention agreed to accept a petition from the marchers, the mob accepted and dispersed. The Convention promptly ignored all the votes passed while the mob was active and arrested the Crest, who were condemned to death. The Convention then ordered the National Guard to surround the three sections which had supported the mob and work their way through the populace, removing all arms. They also demanded Feraud's killers, who where handed over and executed. The sansculottes were finished as a popular force.

By now it had agreed that the Constitution of 1793, linked to Robespierre and mobs, would have to be totally reworked. Some, who had hoped for a return to monarchy, had their hopes dashed as the child Louis XII died and the adult next in line proclaimed himself Louis XVIII, but stated he wanted a return to the three orders and the Estates General. This was not acceptable; a new constitution would have to be drawn up.

9. The Directory, the Consulate and the End of Revolution 1795 - 1802


The Constitution of Year III

With the Terror over, the French Revolutionary wars once again going in France's favour and the stranglehold of the Parisians on the revolution broken, the National Convention began to devise a new constitution. Chief in their aims was the need for stability. The resulting constitution was approved on April 22nd and was once again begun with a declaration of rights, but this time a list of duties was also added.

All male taxpayers over 21 were 'citizens' who could vote, but in practice the deputies were chosen by assemblies in which only citizens who owned or rented property and who paid a set sum of tax each year could sit. The nation would thus be governed by those who had a stake in it. This created an electorate of roughly a million, of which 30,000 could sit in the resulting assemblies. Elections would take place yearly, returning a third of the required deputies each time.

The legislature was bicameral, being comprised of two councils. The 'lower' Council of Five Hundred proposed all legislation but did not vote, while the 'upper' Council of Elders, which was composed of married or widowed men over forty, could only pass or reject legislation, not propose it. Executive power lay with five Directors, which were chosen by the Elders from a list provided by the 500. One retired each year by lot, and none could be chosen from the Councils. The aim here was a series of checks and balances on power. However, the Convention also decided that two-thirds of the first set of council deputies had to be members of the National Convention.

The Vendémiaire Uprising

The two-thirds law disappointed many, further fuelling a public displeasure at the Convention which had been growing as food once again became scarce. Only one section in Paris was in favour of the law and this led to the planning of an insurrection. The Convention responded by summoning troops to Paris, which further inflamed support for the insurrection as people feared that the constitution would be forced onto them by the army.

On October 4th 1795 seven sections declared themselves insurrectionary and ordered their units of National Guard to gather ready for action, and on the 5th over 20,000 insurgents marched on the Convention. They were stopped by 6000 troops guarding vital bridges; they had been placed their by a deputy called Barras and a General called Napoleon Bonaparte. A stand off developed but violence soon ensued and the insurgents, who had been very effectively disarmed in the preceding months, were forced to retreat with hundreds killed. This failure marked the last time Parisians attempted to take charge, a turning point in the Revolution.

Royalists and Jacobins

The Councils soon took their seats and the first five Directors were Barras, who had helped save the constitution, Carnot, a military organiser who had once been on the Committee of Public Safety, Reubell, Letourneur and La Revelliére-Lépeaux. Over the next few years the Directors maintained a policy of vacillating between Jacobin and Royalist sides to try and negate both. When Jacobins were in the ascendant the Directors closed their clubs and rounded up terrorists and when the royalists were rising their newspapers were curbed, Jacobins papers funded and sansculottes released to cause trouble. The Jacobins still tried to force their ideas through by planning uprisings, while the monarchists looked to the elections to gain power. For their part, the new government grew increasingly dependant on the army to maintain itself.

Meanwhile sectional assemblies were abolished, to be replaced with a new, centrally controlled body. The sectionally controlled National Guard also went, replaced with a new and centrally controlled Parisian Guard. During this period a journalist called Babeuf began calling for the abolition of private property, common ownership and the equal distribution of goods; this is believed to the first instance of full communism being advocated.

The Fructidor Coup

The first elections to take place under the new regime occurred in year V of the revolutionary calendar. The people of France voted against the former Convention deputies (few were re-elected), against the Jacobins, (almost none were returned) and against the Directory, returning new men with no experience instead of those the Directors favoured. 182 of the deputies were now royalist. Meanwhile Letourneur left the Directory and Barthélemy took his place.

The results worried both the Directors and the nation’s generals, both concerned that the royalists were growing greatly in power. On the night of September 3-4th the ‘Triumvirs’, as Barras, Reubell and La Revelliére-Lépeaux were increasingly known, ordered troops to seize Parisian strong points and surround the council rooms. They arrested Carnot, Barthélemy and 53 council deputies, plus other prominent royalists. Propaganda was sent out stating that there had been a royalist plot. The Fructidor Coup against the monarchists was this swift and bloodless. Two new Directors were appointed, but the council positions were left vacant.

The Directory

From this point on the 'Second Directory' rigged and annulled elections to keep their power, which they now began to use. They signed the peace of Campo Formio with Austria, leaving France at war with just Britain, against whom an invasion was planned before Napoleon Bonaparte led a force to invade Egypt and threaten British interests in Suez and India. Tax and debts were revamped, with a 'two-thirds' bankruptcy and the reintroduction of indirect taxes on, among other things, tobacco and windows. Laws against émigrés returned, as did refractory laws, with refusals being deported.

The elections of 1797 were rigged at every level to minimise royalist gains and support the Directory. Only 47 out of 96 departmental results were not altered by a scrutinizing process. This was the coup of Floréal and it tightened the Director's grip over the councils. However, they were to weaken their support when their actions, and the behaviour of France in international politics, led to a renewal of war and the return of conscription.

The Coup of Prairial

By the start of 1799, with war, conscription and action against refractory priests dividing the nation, confidence in the Directory was bring about the much desired peace and stability was gone. Now Sieyès, who had turned down the chance to be one of the original Directors, replaced Reubell, convinced he could effect change. Once again it became obvious the Directory would rig the elections, but their grip on the councils was waning and on June 6th the Five Hundred summoned the Directory and subjected them to an attack over its poor was record. Sieyès was new and without blame, but the other Directors didn't know how to respond.

The Five Hundred declared a permanent session until the Directory replied; they also declared that one Director, Treilhard, had risen to the post illegally and ousted him. Gohier replaced Treilhard and immediately sided with Sieyès, as Barras, always the opportunist, also did. This was followed by the Coup of Prairial where the Five Hundred, continuing their attack on the Directory, forced the remaining two Directors out. The councils had, for the first time, purged the Directory, not the other way round, pushing three out of their jobs.

The Coup of Brumaire and the End of the Directory

The Coup of Prairial had been masterfully orchestrated by Sieyès, who was now able to dominate the Directory, concentrating power almost wholly in his hands. However he was not satisfied and when a Jacobin resurgence had been put down and confidence in the military once again grew he decided to take advantage and force a change in the government by use of military power. His first choice of general, the tame Jourdan, had recently died. His second, the Director Moreau, wasn't keen. His third, Napoleon Bonaparte, arrived back in Paris on October 16th.

Bonaparte was greeted with crowds celebrating his success: he was their undefeated and triumphant general and he met with Sieyès soon after. Neither liked the other, but they agreed on an alliance to force constitutional change. On November 9th Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother and president of the Five Hundred, managed to have the meeting placed of the councils switched from Paris to the old royal palace at Saint-Cloud, under the pretext of freeing the councils from the – now absent – influence of Parisians. Napoleon was put in charge of the troops.

The next stage occurred when the entire Directory, motivated by Sieyès, resigned, aiming to force the councils to create a provisional government. Things didn’t goquite as planned and the next day, Brumaire 18th, Napoleon’s demand to the council for constitutional change was greeted frostily; there were even calls to outlaw him. At one stage he was scratched, and the wound bled. Lucien announced to the troops outside that a Jacobin had tried to assassinate his brother, and they followed orders to clear the meeting halls of the council. Later that day a quorum was reassembled to vote, and now things did go as planned: the legislature was suspended for six weeks while a committee of deputies revised the constitution. The provisional government was to be three consuls: Ducos, Sieyés and Bonaparte. The era of the Directory was over.

The Consulate

The new constitution was hurriedly written under the eye of Napoleon. Citizens would now vote for a tenth of themselves to form a communal list, which in turn selected a tenth to form a departmental list. A further tenth was then chosen for a national list. From these a new institution, a senate whose powers were not defined, would choose the deputies. The legislature remained bicameral, with a lower hundred member Tribunate which discussed legislation and an upper three hundred member Legislative Body which could only vote. Draft laws now came from the government via a council of state, a throw back to the old monarchical system.

Sieyés had originally wanted a system with two consuls, one for internal and external matters, selected by a lifetime ‘Grand Elector’ with no other powers; he had wanted Bonaparte in this role. However Napoleon disagreed and the constitution reflected his wishes: three consuls, with the first having most authority. He was to be first consul. The constitution was finished on December 15th and voted in late December 1799 to early January 1800. It passed.

Napoleon Bonaparte's Rise to Power and the End of Revolution Bonaparte now turned his attention to the wars, beginning a campaign which ended with the defeat of the alliance ranged against him. The Treaty of Lunéville was signed in France’s favour with Austria while Napoleon began creating satellite kingdoms. Even Britain came to the negotiating table for peace. Bonaparte thus brought the French Revolutionary wars to a close with triumph for France. While this peace was not to last for long, by then the Revolution was over.

Having at first sent out conciliatory signals to royalists he then declared his refusal to invite the king back, purged Jacobins survivors and then began rebuilding the republic. He created a Bank of France to manage state debt and produced a balanced budget in 1802. Law and order were reinforced by the creations of special prefects in each department, the use of the army and special courts which cut into the crime epidemic in France. He also began the creation of a uniform series of laws, the Civil Code which although not finished until 1804 were around in a draft format in 1801. Having finished the wars which had divided so much of France he also ended the schism with the Catholic Church by re-establishing the Church of France and signing a concordat with the Pope.

In 1802 Bonaparte purged – bloodlessly - the Tribunate and other bodies after they and the senate and its president – Sieyès – had begun to criticise him and refuse to pass laws. Public support for him was now overwhelming and with his position secure he made more reforms, including making himself consul for life. Within two years he would crown himself Emperor of France. The Revolution was over and empire would soon begin.

French Revolution Timeline

1. Pre-1789
A series of social and political tensions build within France, before being unleashed by a financial crisis in the 1780s.

2. 1789 – 91
The Estates General is called, but instead of bowing to the king it takes radical action, declaring itself a Legislative Assembly and seizing sovereignty. It starts tearing down the old regime and creating a new France.

3. 1792
A second revolution occurs, as Jacobins and sansculottes force the creation of a French Republic. The Legislative Assembly is replaced by the new National Convention.

4. 1793 – 4
With foreign enemies attacking from outside France and violent opposition occurring within, the ruling Committee of Public Safety put into practice government by terror. Their rule is short but bloody.

5. 1795 – 1799
The Directory is created and put in charge of France, as the nation’s fortunes wax and wane.

6. 1800 – 1802

A young General called Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power, ending the Revolution and consolidating some of its reforms.




Continued......