Old Regime:
- King needed funds for his palaces and lifestyle
- High food prices
- Borrowed money- almost went completely into debt
- The peasants felt an unfounded “Great Fear,” that landlords were attempting to block reform by hiring thugs to burn the harvest
- Divided into the Three Estates
- Clergy
- The Nobility—most wealthy
- Everyone who was not a member of the first two estates—all of Frances poorest
- Bad economy- downturns in manufacturing and trade, incomes shrinking
- Too much money spent on army and weapons
- New ideas coming from the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution
- People wanted:
- •Guarantees of personal liberty, freedom of the press and speech, and freedom from arbitrary arrest
- •The poor wanted to be treated equal
- •Ordinary people should be free to elect their own leaders that they wanted
- •Third Estate society thought that the tax laws were unfair, People wanted the King to stop taking in so much wealth for his own good
First Stages of Revolution
- An internal revolt against entrenched feudal, clerical, and monarchical privilege
- First mobs of people rising against authority
- Framers refused to pay taxes and their dues, therefore city men grew hungry
- In 1789 the first protests started dividing the country
- Wanted to have more freedom and liberty, tried to take the chance to kill, revolt
- People had suspicions about the Third Estate’s new rules
- Government could not suppress the revolts
Rule Of Moderates
- King moved to Versailles
- Authorized the National Assembly to represent the people and create a new constitution that included… Freedom of Religion, Thought, Petition and Process
- More revolts•Women’s Revolt in Paris, Calling war on Austria
Accesion of Extremist
- Revolt of the Poor
- First mobs of people rising against authority, the harvest is poor and high prices, farmers refused to pay taxes and their dues, therefore city men grew hungry
- -Started violent resistance against the government along with murders of the governor of Bastille, mayor of Paris and many soldiers- the breaking point of conflict, triggering war
- The people of France created a Coup’ detat against the government and seized and destroyed important papers about dues and taxes
- Because of the “Great Fear” peasants attacked nobility and clergy and managers
- The New Assembly made the “Declaration of the rights of Man and the Citizen”
- October 5, 1789 “March of the Women” was led by housewives and market women protesting the high price of bread
The National Assembly constructed a constitution for the monarchy and introduced uniform government across the country
Reigns of Terror and Virtue
International War, the “Second” Revolution, and the terror, 1791-99
- -Louis XVI and his queen attempted to flee France but they were apprehended and then held as prisoners in the royal palace. In response the aristocrats moved to the neighboring countries.
- The French Assembly met under the new constitution and expanded the the revolution against the French government.
- Mobs were attempting to kill the king and beginning the Second French Revolution.
- Then National Assembly disbanded and called for a new national convention.
- The leaders were Jacobins, members of a nationwide network of political clubs named for a former convent in Paris where they had first met.
- July 1794 French armies were winning wars against other European powers.
- The following year the Convention had a stage 3 election of a representative government.
- The elections were threatened so the Convention called upon General Napoleon Banaparte to protect the process.
- In 1802 his position was upgraded to Consul for life and then in 1804 he was emperor.
- Then France lost the right of free elections causing itself to become a despotism.
Thermidore
- Napoleon Bonaparte consolidated and even expanded many of the innovations of the revolution. The Code of Napoleon or Civil Code was issued in 1805 and it was to maintain class equality. It was made so that all people should have access to professional advancement according to their ability rather than birth right. (546 paragraph 1)
- He reached a concordat or agreement with the pope. When he invaded places like Rome he tore down the ghetto walls that for centuries segregated Jews. Napoleon gave the pope back the power to appoint clergy.Appointed family as Kings of conquered lands but he remained supreme ruler. (546 paragraph 2)
- Napoleon wanted to spread his principles by force of arms. By 1810 he had conquered everthing in Europe except Britian, Portugual, and th Ottoman-held Balkans. Everywhere he went he supported religious toleration, equal rights, codified law, free trade, and efficient and systematic administration, including statistical accounting, registartion of document, and the use of the metric system.
- FLAWS IN NAPOLEON'S POLICIES THAT LED TO DOWNFALL
- 1. Attempted to conquer Britain, their naval power, and the land forces of Britain’s allies (especially Russia), but they proved to be too strong (defeated at sea by Lord Nelson at Battle of Trafalgar in 1805)
- 2. When Russian Emperor supported Britain, Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 (400,000 troops died from battle, starvation, and exposure to the bitter winter. Another 100,000 troops were captured)
- 3. Napoleon’s conquered nations began to experience stirrings of nationalism and desire to self-rule
- 4. In 1813, French backed all the way to its borders
- 5. In 1814 Napoleon abdicates, and Louis XVII assumes throne of France
