Download The world in the period before the French

The world in the period before the French Revolution
In the 250 years before the Revolutions of the late 1700’s Europe had expanded and grown in wealth and
technological power. From the time Columbus returned from his voyage to what became know as the “New World”
in 1492, the countries of Western Europe expanded out of Europe to both trade with and settle (colonise) the new
world and many parts of Asia and Africa. Population pressures and new technologies drove the expansion and the
wealth brought back from these colonies and trading ports was used to develop new ways of doing things and
applying scientific ideas to production (Industrial Revolution). At the same time a new class of merchants and
craftsmen/ industrialists grew in numbers and wealth (middle class or bourgeoisie). This group was open to new
ideas from science and philosophy and over time they wanted more say in the way they were governed growing
more and more dissatisfied with the old social divisions that concentrated political power in the hands of the nobility
and the church.
New Technology: A Key to Power
Technological improvements during the fifteenth century gave the Western Europeans an advantage Deep-draft,
round-hulled ships were able to sail in the Atlantic’s waters. Improved metalwork techniques allowed the vessels to
carry armaments far superior to the weapons aboard ships of other societies. The compass and better mapmaking
improved navigational skills.
The initiative for Atlantic exploration came from Portugal. Prince Henry the Navigator directed explorations
motivated by Christian missionary zeal, the excitement of discovery, and a thirst for wealth. From 1434, Portuguese
vessels, searching for a route to India, traveled ever farther southward along the African coast. In 1488, they passed
the Cape of Good Hope. Vasco da Gama reached India in 1497. Many voyages followed. One, blown off course,
reached Brazil. By 1514, the Portuguese had reached Indonesia and China. In 1542, they arrived in Japan and began
Catholic missionary activity. Fortresses were established in African and Asian ports.
The Spanish quickly followed the Portuguese example. Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, mistakenly called
their inhabitants Indians. Spain gained papal approval for its claims over most of Latin America except Brazil that
went to Portugal. Sixteenth century expeditions brought the Spanish as far north as the southwestern United States.
Ferdinand Magellan began a Spanish voyage in 1519 that circumnavigated the globe. As a result, Spain claimed the
Philippines.
In the sixteenth century, the exploratory initiative moved north to Britain, Holland, and France. They had improved
oceanic vessel design, while Portugal and Spain were busy digesting their colonial gains. The British naval victory
over Spain in 1588 left general ocean dominance to northern nations. The French first crossed the Atlantic in 1534
and soon established settlements in Canada. The British reached North America in 1497, beginning colonization of
its east coast during the seventeenth century. The Dutch also had holdings in the Americas. They won control of
Indonesia from the Portuguese by the early seventeenth century, and in the middle of the century established a
relay settlement on the southern tip of Africa. French, Dutch, and British traders received government-awarded
monopolies over trade and companies such as the East India Company gained great profits and acted like
independent political entities in the colonies and trading ports. At home these wealthy merchants wanted more say
in how the government and society operated.
Europe’s new maritime activity had three major consequences for world history: the creation of a new international
pool for exchanges of food, diseases, and manufactured products; the forming of a more inclusive world economy;
and the opening of some parts of the world to Western colonization. The economic and technological changes were
also associated with social and cultural changes both in the countries that were the “colonizers” but also in the
countries that were “colonized”. This is seen first in the New World where indigenous peoples were displaces by
European settlers and later in already existing civilisations in Asia and Africa.
The spread of exploration, trade and colonisation facilitated the spread of disease. Native Americans, Australians
and Polynesians, lacking natural immunities to smallpox and measles, died in huge numbers. In the Americas,
Europeans forged new populations form their own peoples and through the importation of African slaves. New
World crops spread rapidly. American corn and the potato became important in Europe; corn and the sweet potato
similarly changed life in China and Africa. Major population increases resulted. The use of tobacco, sugar, and
coffee slowly became widespread in Europe. European and Asian animals passed to the New World.
Europeans , because of their superior military might, dominated international trade, but they did not displace all
rivals. Asian shipping continued in Chinese and Japanese coastal waters, Muslim traders predominated along the
East African coast, and Turks were active in the Eastern Mediterranean. Little inland territory was conquered in
Africa or Asia; the Europeans sought secure harbors and built fortifications to protect their commerce and serve as
contact places for inland traders. These trading cities were gained through negotiation or war depending on the
strength of the local rulers.
By the seventeenth century a new world economy, dominated by Europeans, had formed. Spain and Portugal briefly
held leadership, but their economies and banking systems could not meet the new demands. England, France, and
Holland, the core nations, established more durable economic dominance. They expanded manufacturing
operations to meet new market conditions. Beyond Europe, areas became dependent participants in the world
economy as producers and suppliers of low-cost raw materials; in return they received European manufactured
items. Africa entered the world network mainly as a slave supplier. The Europeans controlled commercial and
shipping services. Some areas such as China, Japan and Mughul India were uninterested in international trading
involvement and were strong enough to limit European involvement in their land for a long time, although by the
1800's military action by the European powers led to greater influence and in the case of Mughal India complete
colonisation.
The Americas: Loosely Controlled Colonies
Spain quickly colonized West Indian islands; in 1509 settlement began on the mainland in Panama. Military
expeditions conquered the Aztecs and Incas. The early colonies were formed by small bands of adventurers loosely
controlled by European administrations. The settlers ruthlessly sought gold and silver. As agricultural settlements
were established, Spanish and Portuguese officials created more formal administration. Missionary activity was
strong and added another layer of administration.
Northern Europeans began colonial activity during the early seventeenth century. The French settled in Canada and
explored the Mississippi River basin. The Dutch and English occupied coastal Atlantic territories. All three nations
colonized West Indian islands and built slave-based economies.
North American colonial patterns differed from those in Latin America and the Caribbean. Religious refugees came
to British territories. Land grants were used to attract settlers.
The French in Canada planned the establishment of manorial estates under the control of great lords controlled by
the state. French peasants emigrated in small numbers but increased settlement through a high birth rate. The
Catholic Church held a strong position. France in 1763 through the Treaty of Paris surrendered Canada and the
Mississippi basin to the British. The French inhabitants remained unhappy with British rule, but many American
loyalists arrived after the 1776 revolution.
The North American colonies had less value to their rulers than did Asian or West Indian possessions. The value of
the exports and imports of their small populations was insignificant. Continuing settler arrival occurred as Indian
populations declined through disease and warfare, Indians and Europeans did not form new cultural groups as they
did in Latin America; Indians instead moved westward where they developed a culture based on the imported
European horse. North American colonial societies developed following European patterns. British colonies formed
assemblies based on broad male participation. The colonists also avidly consumed Enlightenment political ideas.
Trade and manufacturing developed widely, and a strong merchant class appeared. The colonists retained vigorous
cultural ties with Europe; an unusual percentage of the settlers were literate. The importation of African slaves and
slavery separated the North America experience from European patterns. Western habits had been transplanted
into a new setting. When British colonists revolted against their rulers, they did so under Western-inspired political
and economic ideology. Once successful, they were the first to implement some of the principal concepts of that
ideology.
Colonial development affected Western Europe economically and diplomatically. Colonial rivalries added to the
persisting hostilities between nations. The Seven Years’ War( 1756 – 63) was fought between many of the European
powers over control of Silesia, but it was also fought to establish control over colonial areas and trade between
Great Britain and France. The main points of contention were the struggle for control of North America and India.
The colonies brought new wealth to Europe, profiting merchants and manufacturers. New products changed
lifestyles: once-costly sugar became available to ordinary people. Changes in the economy also led to demands for
changes in politics and government, eventually leading to democracy, and to changes in the rigid social order of the
Medieval period.
This combination of economic, intellectual, and social changes started a wave of revolutions in the late 1700s that
continued into the first half of the 19th century. The started in North America and France, and spread into other
parts of Europe and to Latin America.
The French Revolution
Revolution – the word “revolution” refers to extreme changes in society, this includes changes in the ways a
particular community of people organises its economic and political activities, distributes its wealth, and makes
major decisions that affect the way of life of the people. (H.R. Cowie, Revolutions in the Modern World)
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Ironically, the first revolution inspired by the new political thought that originated in England began in the North
American colonies and was directed at England. It began when American colonists resisted Britain's attempt to
impose new taxes and trade controls on the colonies after the French and Indian Wars ended in 1763. Many also
resented Britain's attempts to control the movement west. "Taxation without representation" turned British political
theory on its ear, but it became a major theme as the rebellion spread from Massachusetts throughout the rest of
the colonies. Colonial leaders set up a new government and issued the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The
British sent forces to put the rebellion down, but the fighting continued for several years until the newly created
United States eventually won. The United States Constitution that followed was based on enlightenment principles,
with three branches of government that check and balance one another. Although initially only a few had the right
to vote and slavery was not abolished, the government became a model for revolutions to come. No established
nobility existed in the United States, so when independence was achieved, the new nation had no old social and
political structure to throw off.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Between 1789 and 1802 France was wracked by a revolution which radically changed the government,
administration, military and culture of the nation as well as plunging Europe into a series of wars. France went from
a largely 'feudal' state under an absolutist monarch, through the French Revolution to a republic which executed the
king and then to an empire under Napoleon Bonaparte.
Key People:
King Louis XVI: King of France when the revolution began in 1789, he was executed in 1792.
Marie Antoinette: Queen of France when the revolution began in 1789, she was executed in 1793.
Jean-Paul Marat: Popular journalist who advocated extreme measures against traitors and hoarders. He was
assassinated in 1793.
Maximilien Robespierre: Lawyer who went from advocating an end to the death penalty to the architect of the
Terror. He was executed in 1794.
Napoleon Bonaparte: French general whose rise to power brought the revolution to an end.
Causes of the French Revolution
Although historians still disagree on the exact causes of the Revolution, the following reasons are generally
accepted. Many problems converged to create the conditions that led to the Revolution
(1) the increasingly prosperous elite of wealthy commoners—merchants, manufacturers, and professionals, often
called the bourgeoisie—produced by the 18th century’s economic growth resented its exclusion from political power
and positions of honour;
(2) the peasants were acutely aware of their situation and were less and less willing to support the anachronistic and
burdensome feudal system;
(3) the philosophes, who advocated social and political reform, had been read more widely in France than anywhere
else;
(4) French participation in the American Revolution and other wars had driven the government to the brink of
bankruptcy;
(5) crop failures in much of the country in 1788, coming on top of a long period of economic difficulties, made the
population particularly restless.
(6) the King was not a good leader, was not in touch with what was happening in the country and was not able to
compromise sufficiently; he often changed his mind and was under the influence of aristocrats and churchmen who
did not want to lose any of their privileges.
The Revolution in France was a civil war, a rising against the Ancien Regime, or the old kingdom that had risen over
centuries. The king, of course, had absolute power, but the nobility and clergy had many privileges that no one else
had. Social classes were divided into three estates: first was the clergy, second the nobility, and the Third Estate was
everyone else. On the eve of the Revolution in 1789, about 97% of the population of France was thrown into the
Third Estate, although they held only about 5% of the land. They also paid 100% of the taxes.
Part of the problem was that the growing class of the bourgeoisie had no political privileges. They read
Enlightenment philosophes, they saw what happened in the American Revolution, and they resented paying all the
taxes. Many saw the old political and social structure as out of date and the nobles as silly and vain, undeserving of
the privileges they had.
What became the “French Revolution” began when King Louis XVI was forced to call together the Estates-General, or
the old parliamentary structure, together on 5 May 1789, for the first time in 160 years. He did so only because the
country was in financial crisis brought on by too many wars and an extravagant court life at Versailles Palace and he
needed to raise new taxes to save the country from bankruptcy. In the Estates-General there were 600 elected
deputies for the Third Estate, 300 for the nobility, and 300 for the clergy. They were immediately divided over a
fundamental issue: should they vote by head, giving the advantage to the Third Estate, or by Estate, in which case
the two privileged orders of the realm might outvote the third? On June 17 the bitter struggle over this legal issue
finally drove the deputies of the Third Estate to declare themselves the National Assembly, many poorer parish
clergy joined this group. When royal officials locked the deputies out of their regular meeting hall on June 20, they
occupied the king’s indoor tennis court and swore an oath not to disperse until they had given France a new
constitution. The king grudgingly gave in and urged the nobles and the remaining clergy to join the Assembly, which
took the official title of National Constituent Assembly on July 9. However, at the same time, the King began
gathering troops to dissolve it.
All this legal argument was occurring at a time of increasing food shortages that mainly affected the poor. There
were rumours of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate, and the
gathering of troops around Paris provoked riots in the capital. On July 14, 1789, the Parisian crowd seized the
Bastille, a symbol of royal tyranny. Again the king had to yield to the demands of the Third Estate.
In the provinces, news of the events in Paris led the peasants to rise against their lords. The National Constituent
Assembly hoped to check the peasants when on August 4, 1789, it decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and of
the tithe. Then on August 26 it introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming
liberty, equality, the inviolability of property, and the right to resist oppression, and set about writing a new
Constitution for France. The decrees of August 4 and the Declaration were such innovations that the king refused to
sanction them. The Parisians rose again and on October 5 marched to Versailles. The next day they brought the royal
family back to Paris.
The new regime
The National Constituent Assembly completed the abolition of feudalism, established civil equality among men (at
least in metropolitan France, since slavery was retained in the colonies), and made more than half the adult male
population eligible to vote, although only a small minority met the requirement for becoming a deputy. The decision
to nationalize the lands of the Roman Catholic Church in France to pay off the public debt led to a widespread
redistribution of property. The bourgeoisie and the peasant landowners were undoubtedly the chief beneficiaries,
but some farm workers also were able to buy land.
The National Constituent Assembly, reorganised the way France was governed setting up a system based on the
division of France into départements, districts, cantons, and communes administered by elected assemblies. The
principles underlying the administration of justice were also radically changed, and the system was adapted to the
new administrative divisions.
The National Constituent Assembly tried to create a monarchical regime in which the legislative and executive
powers were shared between the king and an assembly, a constitutional monarchy. This might have worked if the
king had really wanted to govern with the new authorities, but Louis XVI resisted this change. In June 1791, he tried
to flee the country, but he was stopped at Varennes and brought back to Paris.
The years after the revolution began were turbulent ones. In other European principalities people and governments
were either encouraged or worried by what was happening in France. French who did not agree with the changes
(counterrevolutionaries) —nobles, ecclesiastics, and some bourgeois—abandoned the struggle in France and
emigrated. As “émigrés,” many formed armed groups close to the northeastern frontier of France and sought help
from the rulers of Europe. By early 1792 both radicals, eager to spread the principles of the Revolution, and the
king, hopeful that war would either strengthen his authority or allow foreign armies to rescue him, supported an
aggressive policy. France declared war against Austria on April 20, 1792. Initially, France did not do well and the
Royal Family and many nobles were imprisoned as enemy troops marched towards Paris. But the Revolution had
awakened French nationalism and volunteers poured into the new army which eventually stops the Prussians on
September 20, 1792, at Valmy. The next day the new assembly abolishes the monarchy and establishes the republic.
For the next 6 months , the revolutionaries got the better of the enemy, and surrounding areas are occupied by
French armies. Meanwhile, the National Convention is divided over organising a bourgeois republic in France and the
more radical groups led by Robespierre who want to give the lower classes a greater share in political and economic
power. Louis XVI was judged by the Convention, condemned to death for treason, and executed on January 21,
1793; the queen, Marie-Antoinette, was guillotined nine months later.
From the spring of 1793, there are new French defeats after Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain form a coalition to
defeat the new republic. These reverses strengthened the extremists, who seized power and kept it until July 27
1794. The leader Robespierre now has the power and adopts a radical economic and social policy, which included
government control of prices, taxes on the rich, national assistance to the poor and to the disabled, free education
and the confiscation and sale of the property of émigrés. These exceptional measures provoked violent reactions in
many of the provinces but opposition was broken by the Reign of Terror from September 5, 1793–July 27, 1794,
which entailed the arrest of at least 300,000 suspects, 17,000 of whom were sentenced to death and executed while
more died in prisons or were killed without any form of trial. At the same time, the revolutionary government raised
an army of more than one million men. With able leaders such as Napoleon Bonaparte, the huge French army turns
back the invaders and crushes the royalists inside France. France again expands until the final surrender of Austria in
1797.
As the danger recedes due to the success of the Revolutionary Army, Robespierre is overthrown in the National
Convention July 27, 1794, and executed the following day. Soon after his fall many of the changes to social law were
abolished and efforts toward economic equality were abandoned. The National Convention began to debate a new
constitution but in the face of continuing war the new structures lack stability and struggles between revolutionaries
and counterrevolutionaries and well as disputes within the revolutionary groups result in changes of government by
coups d’état.
The majority of the Directors of the “bourgeois republic” are keen to spread the Revolution over Europe and
Napoleon has considerable success. Napoleon’s in Egypt, against the British, encouraged the formation of a Second
Coalition of powers alarmed by the progress of the Revolution. This coalition of Austria, Russia, Turkey, and Great
Britain won great successes during the spring and summer of 1799 and drove back the French armies to the
frontiers. Bonaparte returned to France to exploit his own great prestige and the disrepute into which the military
reverses had brought the government. His coup d’état , on 9 November 1799, overthrew the Directory and
substituted the consulate, which set up three consuls to rule France. Bonaparte was the first consul and, while the
reform of France continued, Bonaparte managed to bring the revolutionary wars to a close and have himself
declared consul for life. In 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of France; the revolution was over, the empire had
begun. Although Bonaparte proclaimed the end of the Revolution, he himself was to spread it in new forms
throughout Europe.
Consequences of the French Revolution:
There is universal agreement that the political and administrative face of France was wholly altered: a republic based
around elected – mainly bourgeois - deputies replaced a monarchy supported by nobles while the local systems,
controlled by nobles or the church, were replaced by new, usually elected institutions which were put in place
across France. Culture was also affected, at least in the short term, with the revolution permeating every creative
endeavour. However, there is still debate over whether the revolution permanently changed the social structures of
France or whether they were only altered in the short term.
Europe was also changed. The revolutionaries of 1792 began a war which extended through the Imperial period and
forced nations to marshal their resources to a greater extent than ever before. This required more centralised
organisation of armies and the support structures for those armies. This was the beginning of the end for the many
small states that made up the Germanies and modern Italy. National identities rather than local identities became
more important. Some areas, like Belgium and Switzerland, became client states of France with reforms similar to
those of the revolution. The many and fast developing ideologies of the revolution were also spread across Europe,
helped by French being the continental elite’s dominant language. The French Revolution has often been called the
start of the modern world, and while this is an exaggeration – many of the supposed ‘revolutionary’ developments
had precursors – it was an epochal event that permanently changed the European mindset. Patriotism, devotion to
the state instead of the monarch, mass warfare, all became solidified in the modern mind.
After years of disarray, the government was taken over by Napoleon Bonaparte as he claimed French glory in battle.
He set up a new absolute Government with himself as Emperor. This was largely accepted as stability was what
people wanted after so much turmoil. Democracy did not come easily in France.
CONSERVATIVE REACTION TO REVOLUTION
Napoleon Bonaparte, of minor nobility from the island of Corsica, rose through the ranks of the French military
during a time of chaos. He seized the French Government at a time when no one else could control it. He promised
stability and conquest, and by 1812 the French Empire dominated Europe to the borders of Russia. His invasion of
Russia was unsuccessful, done in by cold winters, long supply lines, and Tsar Alexander burn and retreat method that
left French armies without food. Finally, an alliance of European countries led by Britain defeated Napoleon in 1815
at Waterloo in modern day Belgium. Although Napoleon was defeated and exiled, other countries were horrified by
what had happened in France: a revolution, the beheading of a king, a terrorizing egalitarian government, and finally
a demagogue who attacked all of Europe. To conservative Europe, France was a problem that had to be contained
before their ideas and actions spread to the rest of the continent.
The allies that had defeated Napoleon met at Vienna in 1815 to reach a peace settlement that would make further
revolutions impossible. The Congress of Vienna was controlled by the representatives of three nations: Britain,
Austria, and Russia. Each country wanted something different. The British wanted to destroy the French war
machine, Russia wanted to establish an alliance based on Christianity, and Austria wanted a return to absolutism.
They reached an agreement based on restoring the balance of power in Europe, or the principle that no one country
should ever dominate the others. Rather, the power should be balanced among all the major countries. France
actually came out rather well in the proceedings, due in large part to the talents of their representative, Tallyrand.
However, the Congress restricted France with these major decisions:
Monarchies - including the monarchy in France - were restored in countries that Napoleon had conquered
France was "ringed" with strong countries by its borders to keep its military in check.
The Concert of Europe was formed, an organization of European states meant to maintain the balance of power.
THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION AND NEW POLITICAL IDEAS
No matter how the Congress of Vienna tried to stem the tide of revolution, it did not work in the long run. France
was to wobble back and forth between monarchy and republican government for thirty more years, and then was
ruled by Napoleon III (Bonaparte's nephew) until 1871, when finally a parliamentary government emerged. And
other countries in Europe, as well as colonies in Latin America, had heard "the shot heard round the world," and the
true impact of the revolutionary political ideas began to be felt.
Louisiana Purchase
On April 30, 1803 the nation of France sold 828,000 square miles (2,144,510 square km) of land west of the
Mississippi River to the young United States of America in a treaty commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase.
President Thomas Jefferson, in one of his greatest achievements, more than doubled the size of the United States at
a time when the young nation's population growth was beginning to quicken.
The Louisiana Purchase was an incredible deal for the United States, the final cost totaling less than five cents per
acre at $15 million (about $283 million in today's dollars). France's land was mainly unexplored wilderness, and so
the fertile soils and other valuable natural resources we know are present today might not have been factored in the
relatively low cost at the time.
The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. Official
boundaries were not determined, except that the eastern border ran from the source of the Mississippi River north
to the 31 degrees north.
Present states that were included in part or whole of the Louisiana Purchase were: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas,
Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and
Wyoming.
Historical Context of the Louisiana Purchase
As the Mississippi River became the chief trading channel for goods shipped among the states it bordered, the
American government became greatly interested in purchasing New Orleans, an important port city and mouth of
the river. Beginning in 1801, and with little luck at first, Thomas Jefferson sent envoys to France to negotiate the
small purchase they had in mind.
France controlled the vast stretches of land west of the Mississippi, known as Louisiana, from 1699 until 1762, the
year it gave the land to its Spanish ally. The great French general Napoleon Bonaparte took back the land in 1800 and
had every intention of asserting his presence in the region. Unfortunately for him, there were several reasons why
selling the land was all but necessary:
 A prominent French commander recently lost a fierce battle in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) that took
up much needed resources and cut off the connection to the ports of North America’s southern coast.
 French officials in the United States reported to Napoleon on the country's quickly increasing population.
This highlighted the difficulty France might have in holding back the western frontier of American pioneers.
 France did not have a strong enough navy to maintain control of lands so far away from home, separated by
the Atlantic ocean.
 Napoleon wanted to consolidate his resources so that he could focus on conquering England. Believing he
lacked the troops and materials to wage an effective war, the French general wished to sell France's land to
raise funds.
And so, Napoleon rejected America's proposal to purchase New Orleans, choosing instead to offer the entirety of
France's North American possessions as the Louisiana Purchase. Led by U.S. Secretary of State James Madison,
American negotiators took advantage of the deal and signed on the President's behalf. Back in the United States the
treaty was approved in Congress by a vote of twenty-four to seven.