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Radical Revolution
and Reaction
Guide to Reading
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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
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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