Download Civil Constitution of the Clergy

The French Revolution
The Moderate Phase
McKay 703-706, Palmer 9.42
Moderate Phase
Estates
What
is
General
Louis
XVI
Called
forced to
do when
the
Assembly
of
Notables
refuse to
pay taxes?
1789
What
-National
happens
Assembly
when
the
formed
1st & 2nd
-Tennis
Estate
Court
attempt
to
Oath
dominate
the
Estates
General?
What
happens
Bastille
on
July
Stormed
14,
1789?
Night of
August 4th
Ends
Feudalism
Constitution of
1791 creates
Constitutional
Monarchy
September
Massacres
-Year 1 of
Republic
Begins
Flight to
Varennes
March on
Versailles
1790
1791
1792
Radical Begins
1793
Civil
Constitution
of the Clergy
Great
Fear
Declaration
of the Right
of Man and
Citizen
Declaration
of Pillnitz
Louis XVI
executed
Bastille (July 14, 1789)
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Parisians alarmed at the concentration
of troops at Versailles
Sought weapons and ammo
Bastille
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Medieval Castle
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prison (for the rich)
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reputation of a torture chamber
and symbolized tyranny
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Imprisoned by lettres de cachet
– French Star Chamber
JULY 14, 1789
Crowd attacks and kills several officials
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Army holds back
Louis XVI
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“Is it a revolt?”. “No Sir, it is a
revolution.”
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Recognizes NA
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Commands nobles and clergy to join
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Significance: The people of Paris
(Sans Culottes) save the National
Assembly
The Great Fear (July-Aug 1789)
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Def: Peasant revolt across France
caused by grain shortage, fear of
bandits, hatred of feudalism
Peasants feared another bad harvest
Meeting of Estates General & drawing
of Cahiers de doléances created rising
expectations
Fear among peasants that brigands &
outlaws were coming
– Many unemployed vagrants
(strangers) appeared in villages
peasants began to arm themselves,
form “Town watch groups”
Rang church bells when strangers were
spotted
Later began to attack manors, reclaim
grain, tithes
Revolt finally ended with the “Night of
August Fourth”
Compare and contrast
the Great Fear to the
Swabian Rebellion/
Pugachev Uprising.
Looting & Destruction of Manorial
House
Night of August 4, 1789
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Problem – meeting demands of
peasants and not depriving landed
aristocracy of income
Solution – “Night of August 4”
Liberal nobility surrender vestiges of
feudalism and serfdom
– declared flatly that feudalism is
abolished
– Seigniorial dues wiped out
Receive “compensation” for eminent
property loss
– payments to buy off nobility
• few are made
• abolished by radical phase of
the revolution
Thus, the National Assembly ended
the “Old Regime”
medallion celebrating the Night of August 4
Declaration of the Rights of Man (8/27/1789)
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Broad statement of principles of the French Revolution
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Universal, natural rights, human rights
Men are free and equal (Rousseau)
Natural rights of liberty, property, and security and resistance
to oppression (Locke)
Freedom of thought and religion (Voltaire)
Due process of law
All citizens are eligible for office (if qualified)
Law
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must be equitable
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originates from the general will (Rousseau)
But recognizes differences in talent, wealth
Upholds the sanctity of property!!
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A bourgeoisie Lockean value
The nation is sovereign (Rousseau)
Taxes are made by common consent
Powers of government should be separated (Montesquieu)
“man” refers to all human beings, even women
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revolutionaries gave right to vote only to men
consider politics, gov. war masculine business
saw “feminine” corruptions of the Old Regime
Marquis de Lafayette
-Main author
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Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly,
believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole
cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to
set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man,
…Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and
under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the
citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be
founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and
resistance to oppression.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate
personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. …
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious
views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by
law.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof
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Radical Elements emerge
• Five or six hundred heads would
have guaranteed your freedom
and happiness but a false
humanity has restrained your
arms and stopped your blows. If
you don’t strike now, millions of
your brothers will die, your
enemies will triumph and your
blood will flood the streets.
They'll slit your throats without
mercy and disembowel your
wives. And their bloody hands
will rip out your children’s entrails
to erase your love of liberty
forever.
– Jean Paul Marat, The Friend of the
People
March to Versailles (October 4, 1789)
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Marat
– Radical “Grubstreet” writer, politician
– The Friend of the People
• Ultra radical newspaper
– Spreads rumor of King’s disrespect for Tricolor
Women
– Customarily managed family resources
– Parisian women worked as wage earners within putting out
system
• Nobles fled country after Bastille
• Demand for luxuries plummeted
7 thousand women and revolutionary militants with Paris
national guard marched to Versailles
– angered by the price of bread and thought king was
undermining the Assembly
– Interrupted National Assembly
• Demanded bread
– demanded an audience with the king
broke into the palace
Slaughtered Royal Guardsmen
“The Baker, the Baker’s Wife, and the Baker’s Son.”
– IE. The Royal Family forced to return to Paris
Jean-Paul
Marat
Constitution of 1791
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France becomes a Constitutional Monarchy
One house system called the Legislative assembly
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elected representatives
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Has all lawmaking power (& power to wage war)
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King has only a suspension veto
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Abolish all privilege
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Women
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May seek divorce
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Inherit property
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Seek child support
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Not allowed to vote or hold political office
– Rousseauian attitude toward women
» Raise children
» Corrupting influence on Old Regime
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Replaced provinces with 83 departments based
on old bishoprics
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Metric system adopted (Satan)
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Monopolies, guilds, unions prohibited (Smith)
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Religious toleration (Voltaire)
Citizenship
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Only Active Citizens could Vote
What is an Active Citizen?
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Males over 25 who could pay a
tax (had property)
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only 50% qualified as “active
citizens”
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voted indirectly for electors who
were wealthy land owners
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electors chose delegates to
National Assembly and
departments
Passive
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landless
illiterate- worker
Given Civil rights
but no right to vote (no political
rights)
King
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lost power of army and couldn’t sit
in Assembly
This cartoon mocks the distinction
between active and passive citizens.
Many revolutionaries hated this
difference, essentially dividing those
with property from those without. The
propertied (active) were the only ones
who could participate in the political
process.
Assignats (Nov. 1789)
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Huge Public debt owed to
the bourgeois
Maurice de Talleyrand
suggested making Church
property, state property
National Assembly paid
debt by taking over Church
lands
Issued assignats
– Paper currency backed
by sale of Church lands
Favored middle class, the
wealthy
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
• National Assembly Secularized
and Nationalized Catholic
Church
• Parish priests and bishops
were elected
• Protestants, Jews and
agnostics could vote
– No papal letter was
accepted to affirm the
appointment
– not carry out Pope order
unless approved by gov
– Reduce number of dioceses
from 130 to 83 (one for
each dept.)
– Prohibited religious orders,
religious vows and
dissolved the monasteries
– Church is now a
department of the
government
In this caricature, after the decree of 16 February
1790, monks and nuns enjoy their new freedom
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
• Bishops want a say in the
Civil Constitution
– Assembly refused and
stupidly went to the
Pope Pius VI for his
blessing
• instead the Pope
denounced the entire
revolution
• National (Constituent)
Assembly demands an
oath of loyalty from all
French clergy
• 66% refused to accept
Oath
• Greatest mistake of the
Moderate Phase
– Linchpin of the
counterrevolution
– Made the Revolution
seem “Godless”
This anti-clerical (Civil Constitution) cartoon, the (State
Run) Church is represented as "Holy Infamy." Gobel, the
Archbishop of Paris, is depicted (center) with the long nose
of those who tell lies. … Satan, carrying the civic oath in a
coffin.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
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Created two churches in France
Constitutional clergy
• Official and taking
directives from the
National Assembly
Refractory clergy
– Secret Church
– Took orders from Rome
– more serious Catholics
belonged to this
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More sympatric to King
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peasants prefer the
refractory church
– working class prefer the
refractory church
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desire proper marriages
and baptisms
Map of France showing the percentage of priests who
had sworn allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the
Clergy, in 1791.
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The Disappointed
San Culottes
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Radical & violent urban working class artisans
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Despised breeches (culottes) of nobility
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Anti-rich
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Not anti-private property
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Equality (favored direct democracy)
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Favorite weapon (Pike)
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Influenced the Jacobins
Jacobins
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Society of Friends of the Constitution –
Jacobins
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Extremely revolutionary politicians
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Named after club that met in old Jacobin
monastery where they met (discuss politics)
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A middle class, bourgeois club
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Many elected to new National Assembly in
Constitution of 1791
Paris filled with radicals
Émigrés
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Conservatives nobles become disillusioned by
mob violence leave the country (20 thousand)
Sans Culottes
Flight to Varennes
• Loius attempted to flee France
in 1791
• Planned to join with émigré
noblemen, create royalist army
& retake France
• Recognized by postmaster (his
face on a coin or assignat) and
arrested by National Guard in
the town of Varennes (in
Lorraine)
• King had left a written message
in which he trashed the
Revolution
– Assembly increasingly under
control of Jacobins
– Extreme revolutionaries
• Bond between King and people
irreparably damaged
• Moderates now discredited