Download Enlightenment and French Revolution

Divisions Develop



1791: National Assembly creates a new constitution
◦ Creates a limited constitutional monarchy
 Strips king of most authority
 Creates a Legislative Assembly
 King Louis XVI agrees (no choice!)
Old problems still exist
◦ Food shortages
◦ Government debt
◦ Poverty
Factions split revolutionaries
◦ Radicals/Left: get rid of king,
redo government
◦ Moderates/Center: wanted some
changes in government
◦ Conservatives/Right: wanted to keep
a limited monarchy with few changes in government
1
Divisions Develop…


Émigrés (the rich who fled France during the
revolution) took actions to try to undo the
revolution to get back their land
Sans-culottes (the lower-class in Paris) wanted
even more radical change
◦ They had no power in the assembly (but that didn’t
stop them!)

Movie poster for A Tale of Two Cities, based on
the novel by Charles Dickens about the French
Revolution and an émigré

Two illustrations of sans-culottes
2

War and Execution
Austria and Prussia fear revolution will spread.
◦ They pressure France to restore monarchy.
◦ 1792: France responds by declaring war.
Prussian commander warns that he will destroy
Paris if royal family is harmed.
 August 10, 1792: Parisians furious at threat.

◦ They storm the Tuileries (place where the royals were
under arrest).
 Mobs massacre royal guard, takes royal family
prisoners

Storming of the Tuileries
Palace, Paris
3
War and Execution…
 Rumor: King’s supporters in Paris prisons are
going to break out and retake Paris
◦ Mobs raid prisons, and murder over 1,000 nobles
 = September Massacres

Radicals force

New government
◦ Legislative Assembly to set aside the 1791 Constitution
◦ Creation of a new government, National Convention
◦ Abolishes monarchy
◦ Declares France a
republic
◦ Adult males given
right to vote

Illustration by Armand Fouquier
of the September Massacres
4
War and Execution…

National Convention, led by radical Jacobians put
Louis XVI on trial and sentence him to death
◦ January 21, 1793: Louis beheaded by guillotine.

War with Prussia continues.
◦ Prussia and Austria are joined by
 England
 Holland
 Spain
◦ National Convention
takes extreme step of
ordering a draft of men
and women

Illustration of the
execution of Louis
XVI
5
Reign of Terror


Many groups in France fighting for power
◦ Peasants loyal to Catholic Church and/or king
◦ Clergy resisting government control
◦ Rival leaders in different regions of France
1793: Maximilien Robespierre gains power
◦ Vowed to build a “republic of virtue” by erasing
France’s past.
 Changed calendar
◦ Eliminated Sundays
 Closed churches

Reign of Terror = Robespierre = leader of
Committee of Public Safety and virtual dictator
◦ Goal = protect revolution from its enemies
 Bogus arrests, trials
 Lots of torture and death
◦ Many “enemies of the revolution” = personal
enemies of Robespierre because of their
challenges to his power
 Top: Robespierre
◦ Apprx. 40,000 killed
 Bottom: Poster for movie
◦ 85% = peasants or middle class, those
version of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, a story of
who were supposed to benefit from the
intrigues and love during
revolution
the Reign of Terror
6
End of Terror

1794: Fearing for own safety, members of
National Convention turn on Robespierre
◦ Demand his arrest and execution
 Reign of Terror ends on July 28, 1794
with Robespierre’s execution
◦ Public opinion shifts
 Tired of terror
 Tired of inflation for necessities
◦ 1795: National Convention creates third
government since 1789
 Gives more power to upper middle class
 Creates two-house legislature (like U.S.
Congress)
 Created Directory = five men acting as
executive body (like U.S. president)

Directory gives command of France’s armies
to Napoleon Bonaparte


Top: Illustration of the execution of Robespierre
Bottom: Painting of Napoleon Bonaparte
7
Review

Ideas are powerful!
◦ The scientific revolution shattered long-held views
about the universe.
 Enlightenment questioned society and government:
◦ Locke (contract between government and governed)
◦ Montesquieu (checks and balances)
◦ Rousseau (individual freedom and civilization corrupts)
◦ Voltaire (freedom of thought and expression)
◦ Their radical beliefs in the natural rights of man
inspired the American and French Revolutions.
Scientific
revolution
New thinking
encouraged
New thinking leads to revolutions
in America and France
8