French Revolution

• 18th Century, Clergy and nobility did not pay taxes like the common people.
• French Revolution occurred and stood for liberty, equality, and fraternity.
• end to the age old absolute monarchy, feudal laws and social inequality.

Causes of Revolution

Political Causes (France in Eighteenth Century)

• French Revolution was called ancien regime.
• Louis XVI, a young king of the Bourbon dynasty, married to Mary Antoinette, the princess of Austria. Marie Antoinette interfered too much into the administration.
• Thoroughly ignorant of the sufferings of the French people, She always favoured and protected the interests of the French nobles, not allow the financial reforms.
• Society has clergy, nobility and others.

Social Causes

• Divisions or estates:
• Clergy (the priestly class),
• Higher clergy owned one fifth of the lands in France and enjoyed several privileges. Lower clergy were denied all these privileges.
• Nobility (the landed and aristocratic class), and
• Nobles had no political power but remained loyal to the king.
• Common People (Majority Population)- the rest, the commoners, formed the unprivileged class - Traders, lawyers, owners of industries, government servants, peasants.
• Only the third estate bore the brunt of taxation.
• Government taxed the third estate or poor (Lower clergy, Common People) and not the rich (Higher clergy, nobility)
• Important taxes were tithe, a tax exclusively collected by the church on the laity, Taille, a tax paid by the peasants, gabelle salt tax, and tax on tobacco.
• Peasants could not fight feudal regulations on their own, looking for outside help and leadership & head of each family pay capitation tax.
• Rising bourgeoisie wanted their political power to match their economic status. Want to have voice in government.
• Bourgeoisie comprised the educated middle class. Writers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, judges, and civil servants formed this class.
• On 14 July 1789, Paris mob, hungry due to a lack of food from poor harvests, led to stormed the Bastille fortress (a prison).

Conditions of Peasantry

• Peasants were serfs, work certain days in the week for their lords without any remuneration.
• They not marry or dispose of their lands without the lord’s permission.
• Right to levy fees even for ovens to bake bread, and a toll on sheep and cattle.
• Eighty percent of his earnings to various tax collectors.
• Compelled to render feudal services to the lords.

Economic Causes (Financial Bankruptcy)

• Bankruptcy of French treasury was the starting point of the French Revolution
• Constant war with neighbouring British Empire, too costly for the exchequer.
• Government had to pay high interests on the loan.
• king tried to mobilize national income by selling important offices of the government.
• Appointed financial experts Turgot and Jacques Necker as Director-General of Finances.
• Later, Calonne was appointed to look into the financial crisis. Not able to do anything but to levy fresh taxes.
• More taxes on the common people, nobles and higher clergy hesitated to come forward and save the state by voluntarily giving up their claims to exemption from taxes. Matters were further exemption from taxes.

Role of Intellectuals (French Philosophers)

• Public intellectuals (philosophes in the French language) inspired by the Enlightenment ideal of applying reason to all spheres of knowledge played a key role in preparing the soil for the outbreak of the French Revolution.
• Montesquieu (1689–1755), The Spirit of Laws, argued division of power among the legislative, executive and judiciary & also oppose power in single hand.
• Voltaire (1694–1778), in his The Age of Louis XIV oppose religious superstitions of the French & criticised the French administration under monarchs.
• Rousseau (1712–1778), in his Social Contract, argued that the relationship between the rulers and ruled should be bound by a contract.
• His book "Social Contract", considered the Bible of the French Revolution.
• 'Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains'
• English philosopher, John Locke, in ‘Two Treatises of Government’, opposed the divine right and absolute monarchy.
• The French intellectuals gave the motto “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”

Impact of the American War of Independence

• independence of the thirteen American colonies boost the French People.
• French captain Lafayette return from America after helping the colonies to secure their independence.

The Beginning of French Revolution

• Meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789,  first two estate sent 300 representative each, but 600 delegates of the third estate, According to the norm each estate had one vote.
• 17 th June 1789, the third Estate declared itself as the National Assembly.

Tennis Court Oath

• Demand by the third estate was not accepted.
• Assembled at the tennis court on 20 June 1789 - ‘tennis court oath'
• Representatives of the third estate were busy with the formation of the national assembly.
• On 23 rd June 1789, a special session of States General was held, king declared the acts of the Third Estate as illegal.
• He ordered the three Estates to sit together. Thus the formation of National Assembly was completed.
• Limit the power of the monarch and introduce a new constitution, led by noble Mirabeau & clergy, Abbé Sieyès.

The Storming of the Bastille

• Common people were suffering due to the high price of essential commodities, even as the rich merchants started hoarding the grains. The agitated started hoarding the grains, agitated women started storming into the market area.
• Peasants rose against the nobles.
• King ordered the army to move into the streets of Paris, Angered by people stormed the Bastille, Released the prisoners on 14 July 1789.
• 14 July - French National Day in France.

National Assembly

• Fall of Bastille emboldened to abolish feudalism & serfdom  in the country, principle of equality was established, Class distinctions were abolished.
• King accepted the formation of a national assembly, Church was asked to forego its privileges and abolish the tithe.
• In 1791, National Assembly drafted, Powers of the king were limited. indirectly elected by a group of electors (Male only age above 25, & Paid tax).
• new constitution drafted by the Constituent Assembly provided for a limited monarchy to France.
• New central and local courts were established. Judge were elected.
• Drastic action was also taken against the church, Nationalization of church properties.
• After drafting the new constitution, the National Assembly dissolved itself in 1791

Constitution Making

• 26 August 1789, Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted constitution with Preamble and 17 articles.
• Subordinated the monarchy to the rule of law.
• No person shall be accused, arrested or imprisoned except in those cases established by the law (Clause 7)
• Taxation could only be raised by common consent (Clause 14).
• ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights’ (Clause 1).
• Women played a significant role in the French revolution, marched on Versailles supported by 20,000 armed men.
• Many women were politically active, Olympe de Gouges dissatisfied with the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as it excluded women.
• She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, arguing for equality for women.

War against Austria and Prussia

• King agreed to the constitutional on one hand & secretly appealing for help from Austria and Prussia.
• Neighbouring kingdoms feared that rise of common people might bring to an end the rule of monarchs and so they sent their troops to monarchs to contain the revolution.
• King Leopold of Austria issued the famous Declaration of Pilnitz against the revolutionaries on 27th August 1791.
• king was suspended and elections were ordered for a National Convention to prepare another new constitution for the country.
• National Assembly declared war against Austria and Prussia. People from various parts of France united to fight the foreign forces by singing Marseillaise song.
• La Marseillaise - national anthem of France.
• French army defeated the Austrian army at Valmy.

Formation of Clubs

• Common people continued to suffer even after the formation of the National Assembly.
• Dissatisfied people started forming political clubs to discuss the problems they faced. One such club which problems they faced.
• Jacobin Club in Paris - Members small scale business people, artisans, servants and wage labourers & Leader Maximilian Robespierre, radical democrat.
• Club against the trousers with knee breeches usually worn by the noble class.
• Another lawyer Danton dominated the Cordelier Club,
• Lafayette, official French adviser in the American War of Independence.

Girondins and Jacobins

• Lafayette’s constitutional monarchy dominated the political scene for two years, join counter-revolutionary armies.
• Repression could not stop rising popular upsurge.
• Within the Jacobin Club a group called the Girondins, also known as the Brissotins (group of eloquent young men and stood for establishing a republican form of government. Madame Roland prominent Member. After one of their leaders, Brissot), were less radical than Robespierre and Danton. believed that a war against the foreign powers would help.
• Robespierre, however, argued that war would open the door to counter-revolution, But he could not stop the Girondins.

National Convention

• Plan of Girondins turned out, killed the guards and took the king as prisoner.
• New election conducted to elect a leader for the country, every one above the age of 21 got the right to vote, without any distinction in wealth, and status.

September Massacres

• People believed that political prisoners in the jails were planning to join a plot of the counter revolutionaries.
• 2 September 1792, at Abbaye prison in Paris, it continued in the next four days in other prisons of the city about 1,200 prisoners were killed - horrors of revolution.
• Girondins blamed their more radical enemies, especially Marat, Danton and Robespierre.
• Followed by the “September Massacres”. The Revolutionary government at Paris led by Danton massacred 1500 suspected supporters of the French king.

Work of the National Convention

• On 20 September 1792 the revolutionary army halted the invading forces at Valmy.
• The next day the new Convention abolished monarchy and declared France a republic.
• King Louis XVI brought before People’s tribunal and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793.
• Demands from the Parisians to control prices & to take action against hoarders and speculators.
• Instead of initiating steps to meet the just demands of the Parisian masses, used the army to attack the agitating masses.
• Disillusioned peasants in the Vendee region joined a monarchist rising, Finally moderates and royalists (29 May 1793) seized control of Lyons.
• Moderates did not agree with the Jacobians, who formed the majority in the Convention.
• Jacobians set up Revolutionary Tribunal to deal with the moderates.
• Riots broke out in many places like Lyons, Marseilles and other cities.

Rule of Jacobins

• Jacobians suspended the constitution and created the Committee of Public Safety with full powers to deal with the situation.
• Robespierre did not want to lose the gains made in the previous four years and hence commenced his dictatorial rule, Jacobins sent Girondin leaders to the guillotine, a beheading machine. Danton was beheaded.
• Jacobin-dominated Convention decreed the abolition of slavery in all French Lands, imposed a maximum ceiling on wage, Food item rationed, Price fixed by government for farm produces, use of Sir and Madam was replaced by the use of the words male citizen and female citizen, churches were converted into army barracks.
• Angered over the radicalisation own party members turned against Robespierre.

End of Revolution (The Directory)

• Allies overthrown Robespierre, hated the revolution began to take over the streets of Paris, attacking anyone who tried to defend the revolutionary ideal.
• Revolutionary Tribunal was suspended, Functions of Committee of Public Safety were restricted & Jacobian Club was closed.
• Rising in April and May 1795, Crushed by forces loyal to the new political group called Thermidorian.
• Emigres began to return to the country and boast that the monarchy would be restored soon.
• Emigres  - Persons who leave their own country in order to settle in another for political reasons.
• October 1795 the royalists staged a rising of their own in Paris.
• Army led by a rising officer and one-time Jacobin named Napoleon Bonaparte came to their assistance.
• Thermidorians agreed to concentrate (Executive) power in the hands of a Directory of five men.
• legislative power was entrusted to two houses called the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of the Ancients.

Napoleon Rise

• Napoleon Bonapartee, started a coup, task of defending the Convention against the Parisian mob.
• dispersed the mob and saved the Convention and began his brilliant career.
• On October 26, 1795 the convention declared itself dissolved and the Directory took charge of the French government.
• The Revolution rejected tyranny, divine right, conservatism, and feudal vestiges associated with bourbon rule in France. At the same time it failed to establish a permanent Republic in France.
• The French Revolution, after a violent turn led to the emergence of a great dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.
• In 1804 Napoleon made the Pope crown him as the Emperor of France.
• French Revolution came to be called émigrés.

Impact of French Revolution

• Deep impact, not only in France but also all over Europe.
• Revolution rejected tyranny, divine right, conservatism, and feudal vestiges.
• Inspired anti-colonial intellectuals and movements across the world in the nineteenth and across the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Reduced social inequality.
• Republican form of government.
• Feudal system was abolished.
• Church lost it supremacy.
• Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens brought to light the importance of personal and collective rights.
• Three organs - legislative, executive, judiciary - kept a check and balance on each other.
• All over Europe, the French Revolution gave the hope to the people to end the despotic rule and establish an egalitarian society.