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Radical Revolution and Reaction Guide to Reading Section Preview Content Vocabulary Reading Objectives Radical groups controlled the revolution, which many people in France and abroad opposed. faction, elector, coup d’état 1. Identify the reasons why a European coalition fought together against France. 2. Explain why the Reign of Terror occurred. • Some European countries opposed the revolution and threatened to invade France to keep the king in power. (p. 220) • While the Committee of Public Safety was in power, thousands who opposed the government were executed. (p. 221) • The revolutionary government raised a huge army that successfully defended France against invasion. (p. 223) • The Constitution of 1795 set up a new government, but it was not able to inspire trust or solve the government’s economic problems. (p. 224) Preview of Events ✦1792 1792 National Convention splits into factions Academic Vocabulary domestic, external People and Events to Identify Georges Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, Jacobins, Committee of Public Safety, Maximilien Robespierre, Reign of Terror, the Directory Reading Strategy Summarizing Information As you read the section, use a table like the one below to list the actions of the National Convention. Places to Locate Lyon, Nantes, Austrian Netherlands ✦1793 Actions taken by the National Convention 1. 2. 3. 4. ✦1794 1793 King Louis XVI is executed 1794 Reign of Terror ends ✦1795 1795 New constitution is created California Standards in This Section Reading this section will help you master these California History–Social Science standards. 10.2.4: Explain how the ideology of the French Revolution led France to develop from constitutional monarchy to democratic despotism to the Napoleonic empire. CHAPTER 3 The French Revolution and Napoleon 219 The Move to Radicalism Some European nations opposed the revolution and threatened to invade France to keep the king in power. Reading Connection What issues today might be used to justify sending American troops into another country? Read to find out what drove some European nations to consider invading France in 1793. The Paris Commune had forced the Legislative Assembly to call a National Convention. Before the Convention met, the Paris Commune dominated the political scene. Led by the newly appointed minister of justice, Georges Danton, the sans-culottes sought revenge on those who had aided the king and resisted the popular will. Soon the life of the king himself was at risk. The execution of King Louis XVI in 1793 pushed the French Revolution into a new radical stage. Henry de Firmont reported on this dramatic event of January 21, 1793: The path leading to the scaffold was extremely “ rough and difficult to pass; the King was obliged to lean on my arm, and from the slowness with which he proceeded, I feared for a moment that his courage might fail; but what was my astonishment, when arrived at the last step, he suddenly let go of my arm, and I saw him cross with a firm foot the breadth of the whole scaffold; and in a loud voice, I heard him pronounce distinctly these words: ‘I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who had occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France. ” The buildup to the king’s execution began about the time elections were called for a new National Convention. Thousands were arrested and then massacred. New leaders of the people emerged, including Jean-Paul Marat, who published a radical journal called Friend of the People. In September 1792, the newly elected National Convention began meeting. It had been called to draft a new constitution, but it also served as the ruling body of France. The Convention was dominated by lawyers, professionals, and property owners. 220 CHAPTER 3 AKG London/Jerome da Cunha/AKG London The French Revolution and Napoleon Two-thirds of its deputies were under the age of 45, but most had gotten some political experience as a result of the revolution. Almost all distrusted the king. It was therefore no surprise that the National Convention’s first major step on September 21 was to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic, the French Republic. The convention soon King Louis XVI split into factions, or dissenting groups, however, over the fate of the king. The two main factions were the Girondins (juh•RAHN•duhns) and the Mountain. Both belonged to the Jacobins (JA•kuh•buhns), a network of national political clubs. The Girondins tended to represent areas outside Paris and favored keeping the king alive. The Mountain represented the interests of radicals in Paris. They felt the king needed to be executed to ensure he was not a rallying point for opponents of the republic. In early 1793, the Mountain convinced the Convention to condemn Louis XVI to death. On January 21, he was beheaded on the guillotine. This machine was favored because it killed quickly and, the revolutionaries felt, humanely. The king’s execution created new enemies for the revolution, both at home and abroad. A new crisis was at hand. Disputes between the Girondins and the Mountain were only one reason France went through a domestic crisis in 1792 and 1793. In Paris, the Commune was constantly pressuring the National Convention to adopt more radical measures. In the country at large, there was serious resistance to the Convention in western France and in several important cities. A crisis in foreign affairs was looming, too. When Louis XVI was executed, the crowned heads of Europe were outraged. Austria and Prussia were already threatening to invade in the summer of 1792. Now, with the king’s execution, an informal coalition of Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Dutch Republic took up arms against France. The French armies began to fall back. By late spring of 1793, the coalition was poised to invade. It seemed possible that the revolutionaries would be destroyed, and the old regime reestablished. The moment was decisive. In order to meet the domestic and foreign crises, the National Convention gave broad powers to a special committee of 12, the Committee of Public Safety. It was dominated at first by Georges Danton, then by Maximilien Robespierre. Reading Check Examining What were the differences between the Girondins and the Mountain? The Reign of Terror While the Committee of Public Safety was in power, thousands who opposed the government were executed. Reading Connection Can you think of a modern-day government that has executed its critics? Read to learn how the threat of execution affected French people in the 1790s. For roughly a year during 1793 and 1794, the Committee of Public Safety was in control of the government. It acted to defend France from external and domestic threats. To meet these threats, it adopted policies that created what came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Revolutionary courts were set up and almost 40,000 people were killed. Of those, 16,000 people, including Marie Antoinette and Olympe de Gouges, died by the guillotine. Most executions occurred in towns and cities that had openly rebelled against the National Convention. Crushing Rebellion Revolutionary armies were set up to bring rebellious cities back under the control of the National Convention. The Committee of Public Safety decided to make an example of Lyon. Some 1,880 citizens of that city were executed. When guillotining proved too slow, grapeshot (a cluster of small iron balls) was used to shoot the condemned into open graves. A German observer wrote: Whole ranges of houses, always the most hand“ some, burnt. The churches, convents, and all the dwellings of the former patricians were in ruins. When I came to the guillotine, the blood of those who had been executed a few hours beforehand was still running in the street. . . . I said to a group of sans-culottes that it would be decent to clear away all this human blood. Why should it be cleared? one of them said to me. It’s the blood of aristocrats and rebels. The dogs should lick it up. ” Jean-Paul Marat Maximilien Robespierre 1743–1793 French revolutionary 1758–1794 French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was a popular Robespierre was one of the most revolutionary leader in Paris at the beginning of the radical stage of the French Revolution. Born in Switzerland, he practiced medicine in London before returning to France in 1777. Marat was an intense man, always in a hurry: “I allot only two of the twenty-four hours to sleep. I have not had fifteen minutes play in over three years.” He often worked in the bathtub because the water soothed the pain of a severe skin disorder. In his journal, Friend of the People, Marat expressed his ideas, which were radical for his time. He called for mob violence and the right of the poor to take by force whatever they needed from the rich. He helped make the Jacobins more radical, especially by condemning the Girondins. This also led to his death: Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, stabbed him to death in his bathtub. important French revolutionary leaders. He received a law degree and later became a member of the National Convention, where he preached democracy and advocated suffrage (the right to vote) for all adult males. He lived simply and was known to be extremely honest. In fact, he was often known as “The Incorruptible.” A believer in Rousseau’s social contract idea, Robespierre thought that anyone opposed to being governed by the general will, as he interpreted it, should be executed. One observer said of Robespierre, “That man will go far; he believes all that he says.” Robespierre himself said, “How can one reproach a man who has truth on his side?” His eagerness and passion in pursuing the Reign of Terror, however, frightened many people. Eventually, he was arrested and guillotined. CHAPTER 3 The French Revolution and Napoleon 221 (l)Giraudon/Art Resource, NY, (r)Mary Evans Picture Library In the west of France, too, revolutionary armies were brutal in defeating rebels. The commander of the revolutionary army ordered that no mercy be given: “The road is strewn with corpses. Women, priests, monks, children, all have been put to death. I have spared nobody.” Perhaps the most notorious violence occurred in Nantes, where victims were executed by being sunk in barges in the Loire River. People from all classes were killed during the Terror. Clergy and nobles made up about 15 percent of the victims, while the rest were from the bourgeoisie and peasant classes. The Committee of Public Safety held that all this bloodletting was only temporary. Once the war and domestic crisis were over, the true “Republic of Virtue” would follow, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen would be fully realized. The Republic of Virtue The Committee of Public Safety took other steps to shape a new kind of French society. Robespierre called this the Republic of Virtue— a democratic republic composed of good citizens. As outward signs of support for the republic, the titles “citizen” and “citizeness” were to replace “mister” and “madame.” Women wore long dresses inspired by the clothing of the ancient Roman Republic. Good citizens would be formed by good education. A law aimed at primary education for all was passed but not widely implemented. Another law abolished slavery in French colonies. Because people were alarmed about high inflation, the committee tried to control the prices of essential goods like food, fuel, and clothing. The controls did not work well, however, because the government had no way to enforce them. During this radical stage of the revolution, women remained very active. They observed sessions of the National Convention and were not shy about making their demands known. In 1793, two women founded the Society for Revolutionary Republican Women in Paris. Most members were working-class women who asserted that they were ready to defend the republic. Men usually felt, however, that women should not be participating in politics or volunteering to fight. “ Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee . . . taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. . . . . As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact. . . . . When Can Society Rightfully Break the Social Contract? In a famous debate, two Englishmen, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, answered this question very differently. Burke, horrified by revolutionary violence, emphasized that people should be very cautious before breaking with tradition. Paine, a fervent supporter of the American Revolution, argued for great freedom in establishing a new government. 222 ” —Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution (1789) CHAPTER 3 The French Revolution and Napoleon The Convention also pushed a policy of deChristianization. Its members believed that the Catholic Church encouraged superstition, rather than the use of reason. The word saint was removed from street names, churches were pillaged and closed by revolutionary armies, and priests were encouraged to marry. In Paris, the cathedral of Notre Dame was designated a “temple of reason.” In November 1793, a public ceremony dedicated to the worship of reason was held in the former cathedral. Patriotic maidens in white dresses paraded before a temple of reason where the high altar had once stood. Another example of de-Christianization was the adoption of a new calendar. Years would no longer be numbered from the birth of Christ but from September 22, 1792—the first day of the French Republic. The calendar contained 12 months. Each month consisted of three 10-day weeks, with the tenth day of each week a day of rest. This eliminated Sundays and Sunday worship services, as well as church holidays. Even the months were given new names. The new names often referred to agriculture or the climate. Vendémiaire, which was roughly the month of October, meant “vintage time.” “ Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. ” —Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1792) 1. Based on these excerpts, how would Burke identify the people who make a social contract for a government? How would Paine do so? 2. With which of these arguments do you think most Americans would agree? Why do you think so? Robespierre came to realize, however, that most French people would not accept these efforts at deChristianization. France was still overwhelmingly Catholic. Reading Check Analyzing How did the Committee of Public Safety identify enemies of the state? A Nation in Arms The revolutionary government raised a huge army that successfully defended France against invasion. Reading Connection How would you feel if every young man in your town or city had to join the army? Read to find out French reaction to a national draft in 1793. As foreign troops gathered on its borders, the revolution seemed to be in danger. To save the republic, the Committee of Public Safety issued a decree for universal mobilization on August 23, 1793: Young men will fight, young men are called to “ conquer. Married men will forge arms, transport military baggage and guns and will prepare food supplies. Women, who at long last are to take their rightful place in the revolution and follow their true destiny, will forget their futile tasks: their delicate hands will work at making clothes for soldiers; they will make tents and they will extend their tender care to shelters where the defenders of the Patrie [homeland] will receive the help that their wounds require. Children will make lint of old cloth. It is for them that we are fighting: children, those beings destined to gather all the fruits of the revolution, will raise their pure hands toward the skies. And old men, performing their missions again, as of yore, will be guided to the public squares of the cities where they will kindle the courage of young warriors and preach the doctrines of hate for kings and the unity of the Republic. ” In less than a year, the French revolutionary government had raised a huge army—by September 1794, it was over a million. It was the largest army that had ever been seen in Europe, and it pushed the allied invaders back across the Rhine. It even conquered the Austrian Netherlands. The French revolutionary army was very important in creating modern nationalism. In earlier times, wars were more the business of ruling dynasties who fought rivals with relatively small armies of paid professionals. This army was created by a people’s government. Its wars were people’s wars. CHAPTER 3 The French Revolution and Napoleon 223 Reign of Terror execution list Model of a guillotine History During the Reign of Terror, thousands of people, including aristocrats and the queen of France, were killed by the guillotine. Why did the revolutionaries decide to use the guillotine to execute people? End of the Terror By mid-1794, most of France’s enemies had been defeated. There was less need for the tight control of the Reign of Terror, but still it continued. The powerful Robespierre was obsessed with ridding France of every enemy and all corruption. Only then could the Republic of Virtue follow. Now many deputies in the Convention decided to act against Robespierre: if they did not, he might execute them next. The deputies won enough votes to condemn Robespierre, and he himself went to the guillotine on July 28, 1794. After the death of Robespierre, revolutionary fervor cooled. Gradually the Jacobins lost power and moderate leaders took control. The Reign of Terror came to a halt. Reading Check Evaluating How did the French revolutionary army help to create modern nationalism? 224 CHAPTER 3 The French Revolution and Napoleon (l)Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS, (c)Stock Montage, (r)Giraudon/Art Resource, NY Marie Antoinette goes to her execution. The Directory The Constitution of 1795 set up a new government, but it was not able to inspire trust or solve the government’s economic problems. Reading Connection What kind of government did Americans set up after the Revolutionary War? Read to learn about the French government set up after the Reign of Terror. With the terror over, the National Convention moved in a more conservative direction. First, it restricted the power of the Committee of Public Safety. Next, churches were allowed to reopen. Finally, a brand-new constitution was created. To keep any one political group from gaining control, the Constitution of 1795 set up a legislative branch of two houses. A lower house, known as the Council of 500, drafted laws. An upper house of 250, the Council of Elders, accepted or rejected proposed laws. The method for election shows that the new government was much more conservative than the government of Robespierre. Members of both houses were chosen by electors, or qualified voters. Only those who owned or rented property worth a certain amount could be electors—only 30,000 people in the whole nation qualified. Under the new constitution, the executive was a committee of five termed the Directory. The upper house chose the Directors from a list presented by the lower house. The Directory, which lasted from 1795 to 1799, became known mainly for corruption. Government officials and legislators often made fortunes through government contracts or by loaning the government money at very high interest rates. The Directory faced massive challenges. First, like earlier governments, it had political enemies. Some people wanted to bring back the monarchy, while others plotted to create a more radical regime like Robespierre’s. Second, economic problems continued with no solution in sight. Finally, France was still conducting an expensive war against foreign enemies. To stay in power, the Directory began to rely on the military, but one military leader turned on the government. In 1799, General Napoleon Bonaparte toppled the Directory in a coup d’état (KOO DAY• TAH), a sudden overthrow of the government. Reading Check Describing Describe the government that replaced the National Convention. Checking for Understanding 1. Vocabulary Define: faction, domestic, external, elector, coup d’état. 2. People and Events Identify: Georges Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, Jacobins, Committee of Public Safety, Maximilien Robespierre, Reign of Terror, the Directory. 3. Places Locate: Lyon, Nantes, Austrian Netherlands. Reviewing Big Ideas 4. Explain both the similarities and the differences between the Girondins and the Mountain. 5. History through Art The Eighteenth of Brumaire by François Bouchot This painting depicts Napoleon’s coup d’état, November 10, 1799. What factors helped Napoleon (shown center) overthrow the Directory? HISTORY For help with the concepts in this section of Glencoe World History—Modern Times, go to wh.mt.glencoe.com and click on Study Central. Critical Thinking Understanding Chronology Did the French Republic live up to the revolution’s ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity? Write a paragraph to support your opinion. CA CS 1 6. Contrasting Information Use a table like the one below to contrast government policy during and after Robespierre. During Study Central After CHAPTER 3 Analyzing Visuals 7. Examine the painting shown on page 224. Explain whether or not you think this is a realistic depiction of Marie Antoinette before her execution, or whether the artist is promoting a particular version of events. 8. Expository Writing Propaganda is the spreading of information to help or hurt a cause. How does the decree of universal mobilization quoted on page 223 fit the definition of propaganda? Support your argument in an essay. CA 10WA2.3 The French Revolution and Napoleon 225 Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, NY